Not Everyone’s Laughing: Weeds Season 2, Episode 1

TV, like all media, acts as a forum for the discussion, interpretation, creation, and reinforcement of the cultural, political, and social norms and ideologies that permeate every aspect of our society. From negotiating gender roles and expectancies to creating and reinforcing racial stereotypes, the content that we see on TV can play a major role in how the members of a society create and understand their relationships with each other.

Many scholars argue that in order to properly analyze the content of a media text, we must first consider those that are responsible for the production of that piece of media. For example, when we look to make meaning of African-American representation in mass media we must consider how much creative input African Americans actually had in the creation of that projects content. Would Amos and Andy have been written differently if there had been a black director or producer signed on to the show? Did the Cosby Show escape criticism regarding its African American media representations simply because the show’s content was largely controlled by Bill Cosby, an African American.

Finally, we can not simply look to the production and content of a media text, but we must also pay close attention to the audience that these texts are aimed at entertaining as well as those that are successfully reached.

Weeds is bold in its negations of race, class, and gender related issues by firmly reinforcing painfully familiar stereotypes related to both race and class, while determinedly challenging hegemonic discourse in relation to female gender and sexuality.

Though this episode of Weeds presents its viewers with a lot to unpack regarding its the negotiation of racial roles and stereotypes, if one thing is for sure, it does not make any effort to disguise the racial stereotypes that are in play. Instead, the show uses humor to draw attention to the conceptions about certain races that much of white middle class society shares. An important question to ask however is, does Weeds use humor to combat these played out cookie cutter prejudices about race or do its jokes simply reinforce them. For one, although the show takes place in Southern California, a place highly populated with culturally rich Hispanic communities, the only Latino presence in this episode is that of housekeepers. In addition, when Nancy gets upset that her housekeeper Lupita wont clean the dishes, she threatens to find a new housekeeper, as if housekeepers are disposable utensils...like paper towels.

The representations of African Americans on Weeds proves to be no more complex, showing an adherence to tired racial stereotype that have damaged the African American community for decades. The Black representation on the show thus far is made up of Conrad, a pot growing mastermind who was shot in the leg by his mother as a child, Helia, Conrad’s strong and stern Aunt who heads her own pot dealing operation, and Helia’s daughter, an unmarried, pregnant, teenager who also has her hands tied up in the drug game. It is no coincidence that the White, upper-middle class Nancy has to look to Conrad and Helia for lessons in dealing drugs. The show communicates a reality that because Conrad and Helia are black, they have some implicit knowledge about how to sell drugs. If Nancy is to succeed in her drug dealings, she is to do as Conrad and Helia advise, for they are all knowing and potentially dangerous, while Nancy is to be understood as harmless and naive. In the same, Helia’s unwed, pregnant daughter is not presented as some sort of conflict for any of the characters involved, but instead the audience is to understand her situation as one so obvious and typical of the black community that no mediation or intervention of any type need be mentioned.

The problem with the way in which Weeds goes about dealing with racial representations in its content has as much to do with its content as it does with its production and consumption. Despite the high visibility of both black and Latin characters on the show, such a presence is entirely lacking on the production side of things. With no black or Latin voice behind the shows production, the show’s creator Jengi Kohan is left to impose her white, upper class, and largely hegemonic gaze within her episodes.

Yet another thing that we must consider is who, as an audience, is consuming this programming. Though being on the premium cable network Showtime is the primary reason that Weeds is permitted to produce much of the darker, racier content that has lead to its popularity, it is this very fact that generates very narrow boundaries for its potential viewership. Premium cable television is a luxury good in its truest sense of the word, and as a result, its primary consumers tend to be White, middle to upper middle class members of society.

The conflict here is that while Weeds attempts to create humor and entertainment through its employment of such run of the mill stereotypes, it fails to ask an audience that may not have regular interactions with minority communities to question, object, or even contemplate the damaging content that it imparts.