Why Is Liking Wine a Character Flaw on TV?
Villains always blink their eyes; must they order fine Burgundy at dinner too?
Posted: Aug 9, 2012 12:45pm ET
If
there's one thing I learned from a very short-lived side career as an art
director on television shows, it's this: No prop is accidental. Unlike, say, my
desk at work, where random things that get sent to me tend to sit until I do
something about them, every single element in a television show has been chosen and placed on set because someone thought it would make sense in whichever world
the characters live.
Which
means when I watch TV and see a wine bottle, I have to wonder, what is that
doing there? And what is it supposed to mean? Too often, wine (or wine
appreciation) gets used as a shorthand cue for an "evil" character or some other moral deficiency and a wine
bottle on screen signifies there's about to be some evil-doing ahead—equivalent
to a James Bond villain having a foreign accent and laughing maniacally. But
that's too bad, because I know plenty of non-evil wine drinkers, and I'd like to think that
enjoying wine doesn't have to be a character flaw.
With that in mind, I graded some of this season's
televisions shows on how positive their portrayal of wine drinking was on a
scale from 1 (wine = bad) to 5 (wine = good). Is it really possible the Bachelor had the most positive view of wine on TV? What did you see that's not on this list? I know there are a few more episodes out there—something from Cougar Town with Courtney Cox perhaps, or that episode of Up All Night in which the couple buys a van after drinking four bottles of wine. Tell us about them in the comments.
Episode
6 of ABC's Revenge
When
handed the wine list at a tony Hamptons restaurant, talented Mr.
Ripley-character and manipulative pyschopath Tyler Barrol orders a $400 Montrachet or something equally pricey. Heroine Emily Thorne
shows him up on some appellation trivia, and Tyler confesses he only ordered it
because it was the most expensive wine on the menu.
Grade:
2
This
is tricky to rate because the wine list becomes the battlefield between good
(true connoisseur Emily) and evil (pretender Tyler), and Emily ends up
"winning" while Tyler comes off as seriously smarmy. But still. It's no
accident this showdown takes place over wine and not, say, at a bookstore or
coffee shop. Lesson: Wine can be misused to fraudulently inflate status.
Episode 8 of Girls
A skeezy venture capitalist invites uptight gallery
assistant Marni and boho-babysitter Jessa back to his apartment for a
"beautiful bottle of red." Venture capitalist proceeds to have a massive
freak-out when wine is spilled on his $10,000 rug.
Grade:
2
Good
wine, the province of shallow dudes.
Episode 7 of Girls
When
Jessa accidentally invites her lecherous boss to a warehouse party in
hipster-mecca Bushwick and then rejects him, the deflated dad confesses that
they would never work together because he's "the kind of guy who would worry
about which bottle of wine to bring to a party like this."
Grade:
2
Wine
is for old people. Too bad, 'cause I bet any one of the 20-somethings at that
party would drink wine if someone brought it. Since they're probably sommeliers
and servers at Brooklyn's locavore restaurants, they may even know more about
it than he does.
Every
episode of Bones ever
While
we applaud the writers on Bones for showing that Dr. Temperance Brennan likes to
enjoy a glass of wine after a hard day of murder solving, we do wonder why she
always drinks bourbon or beer when she's out with her partner and professional
tough guy FBI agent Seeley Booth.
Grade:
3
While
not depicted as bad, it's clear that wine is for ladies only. You want
to hang with some crime-solving tough guys? Don't be drinking wine when you do.
The
Bachelor
While
wine is usually a signifier of capital R romantic times on the Bachelor/Bachelorette series, season 16 of
the long-running reality dating show starred California winemaker Ben Flajnik
as the love-seeking hero. Which meant lots of wine, all the time! Episode 10 in
particular stands out, as Flajnik took his suitoresses to Sonoma, his homeland,
for some wine-inspired times. The Girl & the Fig restaurant? Check. The
Fairmont Sonoma Mission Inn & Spa? Check. Making out? Check.
Grade:
4
A
point docked for the forced fantasy-date seduction aspect, but this is not
unlike how regular folks drink wine—at restaurants! Plus, romance!
I appreciate that the reality show got the highest rating; while life *sometimes* imitates art, it seems that the reality show offers the truest sense of how people actually drink and enjoy wine. Three cheers for that!