Food fight: Good fun or gratuitous foolishness?
What did you think about the food fight between Nora and Holly in the “Grapes of Wrath” episode a couple of weeks ago? TV Guide gives it a thumbs-down in the current issue’s “Cheers & Jeers” section:
“Jeers to Brothers & Sisters for subjecting Sally Field and Patricia Wettig to a silly food-fight sequence. The ABC drama atypically stooped to soap-operatic stereotypes by having the award-winning actresses throw strawberry cake and lettuce at each other. To paraphrase Field, we didn’t like it. We really didn’t like it.”
Well, I really don’t like writers who have to keep falling back on that old Oscar speech to make a cheap joke. And I really don’t like the perception that once an actress has won an award, she has to do only stiff respectable work. The food fight was silly, sure, but I thought it worked as just a cathartic outburst of emotion between two women caught in an impossible rivalry. I thought it went on just long enough, and ended in the only way appropriate — laughter. And I thought it was entirely worth it for the way the guys kept creeping in and creeping out, mom-whipped.
Maybe it’s soapy, but there’s been plenty of suds about this show. One soap-opera situation after the other, really. What’s set the show apart, I think, is the wit and emotion it brings to those situations, and that held true here. And even if not, can’t we have a little fun? My favorite episodes have all had a silly side to them, and I think last Sunday’s episode, Favorite Son, suffered from a lack of that lightness.
What did you think about the food fight? Share in the comments.
Photo: ABC.com
Brothers and Sisters, ABC, Patricia Wettig, Sally Field, food fight
May 27th, 2007 at 11:52 pm
I’m literally three weeks behind on my B&S viewing but just saw the food fight and I thought it was perfectly appropriate and cathartic for everyone. After hating the first episode of this series, I only saw it intermittently until April. I’ve watched eps 18 through 21 and found it great improved. The show has a lovely interplay of great dialogue, emotion and depth, with a balance of humor and drama. That’s probably why it’s one of the few shows that didn’t see its ratings fall off in recent weeks and it bodes well for season two. In other words, along with “Lost,” probably merits a “most improved” badge from the fall.