Californication, a Showtime series with a name that makes an unfortunate allusion to a crappy Red Hot Chili Peppers song, had its meteoric debut in the Summer of 2007. This half-hour often dramatic and sometimes hilarious comedy is a foray into the life of a whiskey swilling, philandering author named Hank Moody who has a canny ability to get himself into sexually-natured jams.
In some ways Hank, played by David Duchovney, is a modern day Henry Miller with better funding and more highly developed pectoral muscles. Unlike the perpetually broke Mr. Miller, Hank Moody has money left-over from a deal with an individual he affectionately terms the 'caramel-coated devil,' screenplay writer Todd Carr (played by Chris Williams), who turned his edgy novel God Hates Us All into a nausea-inducing rom-com called A Crazy Little Thing Called Love. Moody has as much sex as the 20th Century author claims to have gotten, but of course, unlike in the 1920's, some of the ladies have breast implants (one even discusses the trimming back of her labia, much to Moody's horror). In the first ep of Californication, I counted five separate pairs of breasts, over half of which were silicon-based.
Like Miller (despite the feminist criticism which has been levied against him throughout the past century), Hank Moody loves women. He is not merely a misogynist ass-grabber who can't see past the next lay, but a hardcore romantic who wants to regain the depth and intimacy of a former relationship which he mangled with all of the expertise and ferocity with which he pens his novels. In fact, the life which he has carved for himself out of Jamison and the skinny, surgically enhanced bodies of the entire female population of LA leaves him creatively impotent. As lover Meredeth (Amy Price-Francis) points out, Hank 'drinks too much, writes too little and the only exercise he gets is in the bedroom'.
The criticism this show most often receives is that it indulges in 'writer stereotypes,' which is true to some extent. Hank is a self-loathing, love-lorn, promiscuous alcoholic. However, rather than being a shallowly rendered character, Hank is multi-dimensional. This comes forth most in Hank's self awareness. He does not delude himself, as many writers (this one included) have been known to do that his self-destructive lifestyle is good for business. The fact that he hasn't written anything in the five years since his devastating break-up with his muse/baby-mama Karen (Natascha McElhone) underscores the emptiness of his bachelorhood. Not only is he bored of meaningless sexual encounters, but he is disenchanted with what living in LA does to women. "LA is destroying it's female population," he says in the beginning of one of his blog entries for "Hell-A," the trendy web-zine for which he finds himself, much to his own disdain, blogging.
The characters in Californication are well-developed and the banter extremely well written. Even Hank's off-the cuff comments have the believable eloquence of a quality novelist. Yes he can be holier-than-thou, but I don't know many writers who don't on some level place themselves above the crass, mediocrity of ordinary people. We can be self-important jerks at the best of times, but like the best of us, Hank is able to laugh at himself.
Comments