Why I hate Boston Public (and keep watching it anyway)

Multicultural Education, Spring 2003 by Warren, John T

These transgressions are only used to frame the show as "risky" or "transgressive" without ever really doing anything-those moments become selling points for more viewers, more money, while never really deconstructing anything. The transgressions become transgressions just for the sake of crossing some line, some social norm.

But to transgress does not make you radical. What makes you radical is transgressing in the service of changing social norms, not creating the illusion of subversion.

Boston Public as seduction

(why I can't stop watching)

My graduate class got scheduled for Monday nights. At first, I'm cool with it. After all, I have a VCR and I can tape it, right? The first several weeks go by and we successfully get the episodes of Boston Public on tape. I watch them late, but nevertheless get to see them. One Monday, a new episode is missed and I am destined to wait until reruns. I try to find others who might have recorded it, but there is no one-no one who has it.

I feel a loss-it is as if I have lost something valuable, something that can eventually be replaced through reruns, but will not be the same-it will be different, less than, not the original. I feel a loss. The next week can't get here soon enough-- I crave my next installment. As I watch, I find myself putting together the missing piece, the episode I lost. I try to recover. Like an addict who is yearning for a fix that satisfies the void, I revel in the moment. It won't be enough, but perhaps it can help the cravings until next time.

My desire for Boston Public is, in many ways, nonsensical. That is, when I finish each episode I always-always-say, "I hate Boston Public." Sometimes I add, "I'm not watching this stupid show anymore." Yet when the next new episode comes on, there I am in front of the television, my need being satisfied again, but still disappointment persists.

I'm not exactly sure what to do about this desire-not sure how to respond. It is like watching Jerry Springer or Celebrity Boxing-Tonya Harding vs Paula Jones-- a draw to these wrecks that I can't control. As a moth drawn to fire, a gaze to an accident, my desire for this show is strong, uncontrollable, unable to be stopped.

Why do I watch? Is it to gain access to the world of teaching high school? I teach college in the Midwest-this is Boston, this is high school, this is, in a sense, an exotic retelling of a shared experience of high school. It is an experience that creates resonance (struggles with sexual identity, struggles with popularity, the secret conversations between administrators and teachers which we, the students, were denied access). Perhaps this viewing is about reimagining that experience, to retell it at a different point in our lives-if only I had been strong enough to do that, to try that, to be that person. Maybe I watch to find narratives of that tenuous time in my own life with the hope that in this televised educational sphere, my life could change.

Or, do I watch to exercise my critical voice-see the academic condemning this show. It is easy-it is so easy to pick this show apart, to critique its representations. Maybe I'm drawn to it for the sole purpose of being able to say I hate it, to be the critical voice of the popular. It is possible that part of my pleasure in this show is to be able to talk about it with others, sharing in the latest escapades over the office coffee potto be the one who says horrible things about the show. Is my pleasure about being both included in that conversation, all while never being one ofthem-one ofthose people who actually likes the show?