Why are Shows Like I Love LA Still Being Made?

American Fiction by Dorothea Taylor

Like many things in life, or mine specifically, the first question anyone should ask when doing anything or experiencing something, or for that matter before they take a step out of the bed and decide to live for that day, is to ask why. It’s the very foundation and fundamental question to us as people and as society. It is the hive mind that spawns the dissenters, the sycophants, and the entirety of the congregation. And today the question asked was, why is a show like I Love LA still being made? Granted, I have not seen a single episode of the show, nor will I ever watch it, since I know deep inside of me, as much as I feel I should to discuss it, I have no need or want to see it. And in that same instance, fair or unfair, right or wrong, this discussion, question, and subsequent realization was still conjured by the show, which undermines me and gives a point to the show at the onset. Still, in no fairness, why are shows like I Love LA still being made? Adults, Girls, Happy Endings, New Girl which is very enjoyable, and much more are all similar shows of a young cast of mostly white, a couple minorities, trying to figure out life in the world through shenanigans and hijinks in one form or another. The less interesting line of question as to why shows like this are made is the understandable route of white lives, white creators, in a white world. Which is a true and important line, but not the one that will be taken today and is the less interesting one, at least in the case of this “why?”

As rumination continues, why is a show like I Love LA still being made, rebuttals come to mind and the usual naming of shows such as Mo, Reservation Dogs, Ramy, Insecure, Atlanta, and many others, are all great shows that have stuck with me in different ways and disprove the initial thought of a lack of diversity, at least on paper and at first glance, but again stopping myself, that is not the line we are following today. So why are shows like I Love LA still being made? It brings me to much more interesting and nuanced stories of people through the country or world going through the same experience in a different context. A young woman in the heart of Wyoming torn between leaving the home that she loves and going into a broader world that is calling for her, begging at the altar before the cardinals to be seen; a group of Black friends in Spokane, Washington, who are trying to find their place amongst most people who hardly resemble them and in most cases don’t want them, but it is their home as equally as it is all others; a close-knit apartment building in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina left with nothing in a city mourning and confused with their place in the world as it falls around them; and a city dying, gasping for breath as palms of self-righteous fury and anguish grasp its throat, pleading for life and relenting to calm purgatory. The list can go on, and it does, but that leaves the question to be asked again, why are shows like I Love LA still being made? So many stories, so many people, so much pain and confusion, love and laughter, just to focus on another group of friends in a major American city living a hardly confusing, hardly difficult life that is not worth a quarter of the word count and the amount of thought that it has been given. Once more why are shows like I Love LA still being made, still being produced, still being funded, and spit out to the satiated, gluttonous horde that we simplify as the masses, I begin to realize that’s why shows like I Love LA are still being made.

There is someone out there, if luck exists you are reading this now, who is going through life struggling or enjoying it fully, old and lived to the greatest extent or filled with regrets that can only devour the single seconds they are holding on to, and every week waits for I Love LA to go across their screens as they watch the new episode. With anticipation or hate, love or confusion, they watch and love the episode, critique it, or never think about it again, and that is the realization that is the answer, that is why shows like I Love LA are still being made. It’s because there is someone out there who loves Rachel Sennott ever since they saw her alongside Ayo Edebiri in Bottoms or in Shiva Baby. There is a person who loves Adults and Girls and sees this as a continuation of a form of television that they love, or there is a person who just turned on the first episode because they saw it across their HBO while scrolling and fell in love at first sight. All these experiences are authentic and there are many more, so that is why shows like “I Love LA” are still being made and why they should continue to be made. I will always champion diversity and more shows telling different stories and narratives of all paths through life, but similarly shows like I Love LA deserve that same existence, and if they didn’t, I wouldn’t love storytelling, film, and television nearly as much.

The thing that scares me the most is homogeneity. A disgusting word offering a form of solace and faux peace hidden behind its inherent malice and strife, a word that in its own seething way is the best interpretation above Dante’s imagined gateway. What good is a world where everyone loves the same thing? What good is a world where everyone agrees on how great a movie or television show is? What good does the world get from loving things that always make the most sense, that always have coherent structure, that depict something in its truest form? What does the world get from that? The world is done no good if everyone’s favorite demonstration of cinematography is Citizen Kane or Dr. Strangelove. Society will never improve if Romeo and Juliet is unanimously the greatest love story ever told and King Lear and Macbeth are perfect and well loved. The world knows nothing of diversity and a greater understanding of storytelling and the vastness of voice from others different from yourself if Parasite is the greatest foreign film ever made or even the best South Korean film. A world where everyone agrees, where it all makes sense, is a world that I detest to its core, that I refuse; it’s the very thing my soul relents. It’s a sadder world, and thankfully one that we don’t live in, at least yet.

In defense of this point, I see no better reason than to prove in my own way and through my own tastes why shows like I Love LA should continue to be made. When it comes to shows, Avatar: The Last Airbender is not just one of the greatest children’s shows ever made, but television series, period. How it handles loss, war, genocide, fate, purpose, identity, belonging, and so many other topics is worth a discussion by itself, and it does it all with the veneer of being a show for children that shows them what the world is and can be, all while showing them that it is cyclical. As much as there will always be an evil in the world, there will be a good, and it’s a balance we don’t choose, but it’s one we must uphold. Daredevil, the television series at least its three-season run, is close to as perfect a three-season run as it gets on television, and The Good Place is a show unlike any other in tone, setting, and function, and one of the better series that I have seen that handles religion and philosophy in such an interesting and provoking way. But currently these are opinions that most or a few people would agree with, so it’s best to cut deeper.

I love Marvel. Now, reading this in the current age, it seems trite, in honesty, since everyone nowadays loves Marvel movies and superheroes. It has become one of those fandoms that is considered cool in this day and age, which is a strange phenomenon, but aside from that discussion, I love Marvel movies with an incalculable tenderness and warmth. I have seen all of them and will continue to see all of them and watch all the shows, no matter what Martin Scorsese or anyone believes, because for me this is what I always wanted. As the son of a parent who loved comic books and a child who devoured anything relating to those heroes whenever I had the chance, and from any and all mediums, nothing could stop me from watching Spider-Man: The Animated Series (1994) when it came on, and any and all Spider-Man series since then, and I do mean since then. The same with X-Men (1992), Avengers, Iron Man, Hulk, and all of those shows and stories. Part of it is that it was cool, of course, or at least to a young me. Seeing Spider-Man swing around New York or hearing Ultron speak in the calmness of his insanity, those figures and characters mean so much to me. Even the bad movies and mediocre ones, I love and still enjoy. The third Sam Raimi Spider-Man film specifically is infamous in its horrendousness, but seeing those iconic images from the comics of Spider-Man tearing Venom in the church brought a smile to my face. Seeing my favorite supervillain, Venom, on film for the first time—how could I not love it? Venom is an entity cool by itself, but one of the things it has always meant to me and shown me is the virality, the enchanting nature of truth and identity, and how stripping it from oneself is an idea irrational and unthinkable, because how could you tear yourself away? Even the worst parts of you are you, even the newest ideas you have heard are you, and when that is gone, no matter how evil, how violent the trauma, how destructive the person in your life, how abusive the voices you hear, or how relentless the job you work, how could you take that off? How could you tear it away? Venom at a young age showed me we all have a bit of Eddie Brock and the symbiote in and around us, and to see that on a screen, how couldn’t I love it? But that’s for all those characters, and I can go on and on about films people hate, from The Marvels to Thor: Love and Thunder, but this is not the place. Most importantly, I watched most of these things with my dad. He was always there, and we shared this love together, from the cartoons to the comics to the movies—he was there. He could have been anywhere else doing anything, but he chose to be on the couch or in the theater with me watching those shows and movies, and if I ever wish to be half the father he is, I plan on paying that forward one day in full no matter the form it appears to me in. So yeah, I’m starting to see how shows like I Love LA can be made.

Living in my truth and making this point, the second absolvement that is to be made in this confessional is that Boogie Nights, out of all of PTA’s filmography, is honestly one of my least favorites. To me, this makes sense being a sophomore film and the precursor to Magnolia, his best in my opinion; it all ratchets up into setting him into becoming the director and writer he is today. It is a great film, yes. Do I enjoy it? Kind of. Is it my favorite? No. And do I ever feel the need to rewatch it? Never. Like many things in life, some things others are drawn to and love, you just can’t find it through all the explanations, and no matter how many times you watch it, nothing brings you to the same place that they are, and that’s what I love about it. It was the first film of his that I saw, and of course with the copious amounts of love he receives, expectations were high, and this could have affected the experience, but the movie was just fine to me. Great performances throughout and beautiful themes that he continues to carry even now in One Battle After Another, but as great as it is and as many people cherish and love it, I don’t feel any of it, and that’s the best part about it.

Similarly, but in a different vein, is the film The Substance. My experience with seeing violent films I thought was surmounted by none; I have seen all kinds since I was a child, but The Substance—it tested me. Body horror has always had this nauseating effect on me in a way I can’t really understand or explain. Violence and death are a completely separate thing that goes down like water, but body horror feels closer to being force-fed sedimentary rock. Seeing The Thing and The Fly and other movies in the same realm gave me a false sense of readiness, but like a Boy Scout placed on Normandy, The Substance tested me. It tested me to a point in which I am not entirely sure how many films in the New French Extremity genre I will view afterward, but like Boogie Nights, that is why I love it. The brutality of The Substance and the horror is all used and presented for a purpose—a disturbing one, but a purpose nonetheless. The New French Extremity genre uses viciousness and shows the unrelenting potency of it in its realest, rawest, uncut nature. There is no thrill or excitement in it, only the true uncomfortable sight of the horror. It speaks to the abusive, rabid society and greater political world that surrounds us at times, and all of its blistering, repugnant fingers are displayed in its faux veneer of security. In the case of The Substance, it shows the nature of beauty, relevance, and vanity that our world holds and forces upon women, especially those we deem “old,” and particularly how men fit into that system of abuse. How talent and personhood of women are placed inside of such things that are ultimately inevitable, but we try to circumvent at all costs because of our own sad and twisted perception of ourselves and how the world shifts its view of our understood but repressed eventuality. The Substance may not be a beautiful film or a fun one, but entertainment as the function of art itself is a fallacy. Sadness, grief, death, murder, and all the malevolent and barbaric cycles we live in and sometimes perpetuate should and must be shown and experienced. Our entertainment is an afterthought; our exploration is required.

On the inverse, Tenet is one of Christopher Nolan’s best films. In honesty, I’ve only recently begun to understand some of the concepts the movie presents, and through all the scientific jargon the deprives a significant amount of beauty. The Protagonist, David Washington’s character, serves an interesting purpose in the film and as a theme for the movie, but even then I don’t believe it works entirely amongst the cast and leaves a void that isn’t filled even by Robert Pattinson’s Neil. That’s the beauty, though—a film that came out in 2020, of all years, that so many bounced off of, I am drawn to even still today. There is just something about it: the stakes, of course; the interesting plot and story that it ventures to tell, successfully and unsuccessfully; but in that same stroke it speaks to the movie itself—the messiness of life, the wandering roads and paths that lead to unforeseen outcomes, how we build bonds that last a lifetime with people who are eventually gone, and reality itself, linear in our view, but even now at this present moment I am writing in and putting words in sentences and structuring phrases in the past that are currently being read in the future. Through all of it, the incongruent nature, the small and large spats we have, the love and hatred we share, the connections are what hold this flat circle together, and what’s happened has happened.

Godzilla (1998) is my favorite Godzilla film. It was a film that I watched religiously as a kid on VHS and a film that for some reason has always stuck with me, and even now I enjoy it. The design of Godzilla is my favorite, and honestly I don’t know why. Most likely it’s because I loved dinosaurs as a kid and the T-Rex design just got me, or how it moves and interacts with the city of New York compared to all the other Godzilla films is so different and unique. As I watched it, the atmosphere and the feeling of the rain-soaked city streets were intoxicating as the lights illuminate the presence of each drop against the cars, umbrellas, and people. The constant feeling of survival and fight amongst the two parties—man and monster—the city in its own wake sleeps in scenic pearlescence, basked in the serenity of chaos; it holds no malice amongst those inside of it. The story itself is serviceable, and in my mind I don’t think it is better than Godzilla Minus One, but my heart and soul attach to it in a way that creates jealousy amongst the group. That’s the beauty of it, loving something—it is unexplainable. It’s a feeling you get and have to where you are alerted through your being that this is love, but there is no alert to the most important question of why? In this instance, Illumination surrounds me that like yin and yang, Helios and Selene, this is a balance to the greatest question amongst our population. It carries the world upon its shoulders, and if some are to fall, all goes with it, and in that same breath it holds nothing, a barren desert bereft of life and purpose, a malnourished man wandering between imagined oases. It might be because I watched it when I was young and felt the nostalgia, or because I love dinosaurs, or because I enjoy seeing Matthew Broderick and Jean Reno in films, but as I question the why, I realize in this moment it’s worthless, and I understand why shows like I Love LA are still being made.