Abstract
This chapter focuses on the character of Maggie Amato (Debi Mazar) in TV Land’s comedy-drama Younger (2015–2021), whose protagonist is Liza Miller (Sutton Foster), a recently divorced mother who pretends to be a 20-something millennial in order to land a job at a major publishing house. The chapter offers a close analysis of Liza’s best friend, Maggie, and the tension between her sexual identity as a queer woman and her cultural identity as an Italian American. Through the four categories of Bakhtin’s “Carnival and the Carnivalesque” (familiar and free interaction, eccentricity, mésalliances, and profanation), the author provides a close look at how the intersection of Maggie’s identities as Italian American/Artist/Lesbian allows her to indoctrinate Liza into the carnivalesque world of life as a millennial in Manhattan and enacts a series of reversals that defy normative perspectives of female sexuality, spirituality, and success.
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Notes
- 1.
Younger, Pilot, written and directed by Darren Star, aired February 24, 2015, on TV Land, https://www.hulu.com/watch/d4bb84e6-dc69-4a7f-bfb0-308ea01ea47c.
- 2.
Mikhail Bakhtin, Rabelais and his World, trans. Hélène Iswolsky (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1984), 10.
- 3.
Mikhail Bakhtin, Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics, ed. and trans. Caryl Emerson (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1984), 123.
- 4.
See James Kleinmann, “TV Review: Younger Season 7,” The Queer Review, April 13, 2021, https://thequeerreview.com/2021/04/13/tv-review-younger-season-7/, and Tracy E. Gilchrist, “Sutton Foster, Younger Stars on Queer Rep and Its One True Love Story,” Advocate, May 3, 2021, https://www.advocate.com/television/2021/5/01/sutton-foster-younger-stars-queer-rep-its-one-true-love-story. For both Kleinmann, who applauds the show for delivering “some of TV’s best LGBTQ+ characters in recent years,” and Gilchrist, who credits Younger with breaking “new ground for a mainstream show,” the show is unique not only in its representation of characters (Maggie, Lauren, Redmond) whose queerness is highlighted without becoming superficial or essential to every aspect of their characterization, but also in its employment of queer actors like Molly Bernard and Nico Tortorella, who Kleinmann notes “opened up meaningful conversations in the media around queerness, gender identity, and polyamory, often expanding people’s understanding of those labels.”
- 5.
Gilchrist, “Younger Stars on Queer Rep.”
- 6.
Nico Tortorella, “An It Gets Betters Message,” It Gets Better Project, December 2018, https://itgetsbetter.org/blog/initiatives/an-it-gets-better-message-from-nico-tortorella/
- 7.
Nico Tortorella, Space Between: Explorations of Love, Sex, and Fluidity (New York: Crown, 2019), 221.
- 8.
Nico Tortorella, host, “E32: A Human I Love Named Janeane,” The Love Bomb (podcast), August 1, 2017, accessed May 1, 2021, https://the-love-bomb-with-nico-tortorella.simplecast.com/episodes/e32-a-human-i-love-named-janeane-jVoDcW1n. Although Garofalo’s character on Younger is a lesbian, neither actor plays an Italian American character on the show and viewers see nothing of Tortorella’s Italian American identity if not for the prominent tattoo of their brother’s name, Rocco, on their left shoulder amid the various makeup tattoos that belong to the Tortorella’s character on the show, who owns a Williamsburg tattoo studio, Inkburg.
- 9.
See Anthony Julian Tamburri, To Hyphenate or Not to Hyphenate: The Italian/American Writer: An Other American (Montreal: Guernica Editions, 1991), 47, and Ben Lawton, “What is ItalianAmerican Cinema?” Voices in Italian Americana 6, no. 1 (1995): 27. Italianamerican is also the title of Martin Scorsese’s 1974 documentary about his Italian roots.
- 10.
“Couch Surfing: Debi Mazar,” PeopleTv, May 22, 2020, accessed August 30, 2021. https://peopletv.com/video/couch-surfing-debi-mazar/.
- 11.
As noted on her TV Land profile, Mazar and her husband received a James Beard Foundation Award for their show, which relaunched as “Extra Virgin Americana” in 2016, while their Extra Virgin cookbook became a New York Times best seller. https://www.tvland.com/shows/younger. Accessed May 6, 2021.
- 12.
Anthony Julian Tamburri, Italian/American Short Films and Music Videos: A Semiotic Reading (West Lafayette: Purdue University Press, 2002), 69.
- 13.
Tamburri, Italian/American Short Films, 56.
- 14.
Ava Parsemain has criticized queer representation in television shows of the late 1990s, such as Ellen and Will & Grace, noting that “chic lesbians and normal gays were an improvement over earlier stereotypes such as dykes and sissies, but they perpetuated a new stereotype: the rich, educated, white homosexual.” Ava Parsemain, The Pedagogy of Queer TV (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019), 26.
- 15.
Younger, “Big Little Liza,” season 5, episode 5, directed by Miriam Shor, written by Ashley Skidmore, aired July 10, 2018, on TV Land, https://www.tvland.com/episodes/cgejyi/younger-big-little-liza-season-5-ep-5.
- 16.
Lindsay Denninger, “‘Age Queer’ Is Not A Thing and ‘Younger’ Should Have Known Better,” Bustle.com, July 10, 2018, https://www.bustle.com/p/youngers-use-of-queer-language-really-missed-the-mark-fans-deserve-better-9693934. While recognizing the reality of ageism, Denniger bristles at the comparison of “the struggles of a middle aged white woman trying to find a job in the New York City publishing world […] to the discrimination that the LGBTQ community faces.” Younger creator, Darren Star, despite enjoying a prominent role in the Hollywood queer community and being known for his inclusion of gay characters in hit shows of the 1990s, such as Melrose Place and Sex and the City, has received flak for insensitive or inaccurate representations of LGBTQ+ characters in the past. A recent Vanity Fair article about the upcoming Sex and the City reboot poses the question of how the show could “get gay people so wrong” and how could “openly gay writers—primarily creator Darren Star and executive producer Michael Patrick King—sorely misrepresent a group they’re a part of?” Cassie Da Costa, “When Sex and the City Returns, Will It Finally Get Queer People Right?” Vanity Fair, January 13, 2021, https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2021/01/when-sex-and-the-city-returns-will-it-finally-get-queer-people-right.
- 17.
More than a decade ago, a Salon.com article had earmarked Stanford and Anthony as “tragically asexual helpmates whose main role has always been to provide relationship advice to the show’s straight female characters.” Thomas Rogers, “Why Sex and the City is bad for the gays,” Salon.com, May 28, 2010. https://www.salon.com/2010/05/28/sex_and_the_city_bad_for_gays/.
- 18.
Parsemain cites the example of the original Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, in which “the Fab Five were experts in shopping, fashion, gastronomy, beauty and interior design who trained heterosexual men in proper consumption” (27).
- 19.
Bakhtin, Rabelais and his World, 11.
- 20.
Bakhtin, Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics, 123.
- 21.
Bakhtin, 123.
- 22.
Younger, “IRL,” season 1, episode 3, written by Dottie Zicklin and Eric Zicklin, directed by Darren Star, aired April 7, 2015, on TV Land, https://www.hulu.com/watch/352870be-29dc-47d9-8d9e-2bc499e460c2.
- 23.
Younger, season 4, episode 8, “The Gelato and the Pube,” directed by Peter Lauer, written by Dottie Dartland Zicklin and Eric Zicklin, aired August 16, 2017 on TV Land, https://www.hulu.com/watch/11ba02b7-8414-4a48-a352-1a4d7528c3b5.
- 24.
Alan Gravano and Ryan Calabretta-Sajder, eds., “Introduction,” Italian Americans on Screen: Challenging the Past, Re-Theorizing the Future (United States: Lexington Books, 2021), 4.
- 25.
Younger, “A Titanic Problem,” season 5, episode 2, directed by Steven Tsuchida, written by Dottie Dartland Zicklin and Eric Zicklin, aired June 12, 2018 on TV Land, https://www.hulu.com/watch/e905cbe2-15f3-4ed2-acde-3026a8ad0ef6.
- 26.
Anthony Julian Tamburri, A Semiotic of Ethnicity: In (Re)Cognition of the Italian/American Writer (SUNY Press, 1998), 131.
- 27.
Younger, season 6, episode 4, “An Inside Glob,” directed by Miriam Shor, written by Alison Brown, aired July 10, 2019 on TV Land, https://www.hulu.com/watch/5c2f2812-0e64-4a47-8951-d70f6cf04b6a.
- 28.
Bakhtin, Rabelais and his World, 279.
- 29.
Bakhtin, Rabelais and his World, 112.
- 30.
Bakhtin, 112.
- 31.
Younger, season 3, episode 4, “A Night at the Opera,” directed by Tricia Brock, written by Grant Sloss, aired October 19, 2016 on TV Land, https://www.hulu.com/watch/f1d0c6a4-99a9-4258-8d18-334ef4096060.
- 32.
Younger, season 5, episode 9, “Honk if You’re Horny,” directed by Todd Biermann, written by Alison Brown, aired August 7, 2018 on TV Land, https://www.hulu.com/watch/4f298c46-868f-4d6e-a1cb-f9c456bac373.
- 33.
Younger, season 5, episode 4, “The Talented Mr. Ridley,” directed by Peter Lauer, written by Grant Sloss, aired on June 26, 2018 on TV Land, https://www.hulu.com/watch/b93302b0-f2e3-4e4e-afa9-cbaa788d680c.
- 34.
Younger, “Flush with Love,” season 6, episode 2, directed by Steven Tsuchida, written by Don Roos, aired June 19, 2019 on TV Land. https://www.hulu.com/watch/7462c5eb-52c2-4cf5-bd14-043a35c19ee5.
- 35.
Younger, season 5, episode 6, “Sex, Liza and Rock & Roll,” directed by Steven Tsuchida, written by Joe Murphy, aired July 17, 2018 on TV Land, https://www.hulu.com/watch/bd1f1886-890f-4eb1-86a6-398c75b7c35f.
- 36.
Younger, season 5, episode 10, “Girls on the Side,” directed by Todd Biermann, written by Joe Murphy, aired August 14, 2018 on TV Land, https://www.hulu.com/watch/ee1a26f2-5979-4370-8ce9-c085845db192.
- 37.
Younger, “Forever,” season 6, episode 12, directed by Peter Lauer, written by Don Roos, aired September 4, 2019, on TV Land, https://www.hulu.com/watch/ba04b8f7-f539-4c77-8934-a60bc24958d5.
- 38.
Renate Lachmann, “Bakhtin and Carnival: Culture as Counter-Culture,” Cultural Critique (Winter, 1988–1989): 147.
- 39.
Bakhtin, Rabelais, 335.
- 40.
Bakhtin, Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics, 123.
- 41.
Younger, “P is for Pancake,” season 3, episode 5, directed by Peter Lauer, written by Jessie Cantrell, aired October 26, 2016, on TV Land, https://www.hulu.com/watch/51100c0f-f341-4db1-952d-945154999a10.
- 42.
Younger, “P is for Pancake.” The term ‘Orthodyke’ has been embraced by several groups in the U.S. and abroad, and reception of Younger’s use of it was largely positive. Miryam Kabakov, executive director of Eshel, a national network whose mission is to provide support for Jewish LGBTQ+ families, Malkie’s appearance on the series helped to bring “this underground group to light.” See also Linda Buchwald, “An Orthodox Lesbian Character—and Other Reasons to Watch ‘Younger’,” Jewish Telegraphic Agency, November 25, 2016, https://www.jta.org/2016/11/25/culture/an-orthodox-lesbian-character-and-other-reasons-to-watch-younger.
- 43.
Younger, “Me, Myself, and O,” season 3, episode 6, directed by Peter Lauer, written by Lyle Friedman and Ashley Skidmore, aired November 2, 2016, on TV Land, https://www.hulu.com/watch/ce7df527-3e8d-447c-b8f0-0b057aed6411.
- 44.
Tamburri, A Semiotic of Ethnicity, 131.
- 45.
As described by the Jewish Women’s Archive (JWA), the mikveh, which is “derived from ancient notions of purity and impurity” and the “need for women to purify themselves after menstruation or childbirth,” has in recent times been both “rejected by some as patriarchal and oppressive” and also “reinvented by diverse groups of Jews to be more inclusive and to meet contemporary religious needs and desires” (https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/mikveh). The real-life Modern Mikveh Movement (MMM) has exponents in various parts of North America and Israel and is at the center of recent lectures given by Dr. Cara Rock-Singer at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. See for example, https://www.wpr.org/modern-mikveh-movement-and-alchemy-queer-immersions and https://sts.wisc.edu/event/rock-singer-lunch-seminar/. See also Allison Hoffman, “The New American Mikveh,” in Tablet, August 13, 2012, https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/belief/articles/the-new-american-mikveh, accessed May 17, 2021.
- 46.
Younger, “Irish Goodbye,” season 4, episode 12,” directed by Todd Biermann, written by Don Roos and Joe Murphy, aired September 13, 2017, on TV Land, https://www.hulu.com/watch/7cef1005-699c-4fc7-a752-e722edb8a9b5.
- 47.
Hélène Cixous, “The Laugh of the Medusa,” trans. Keith Cohen, Paula, Signs 1, no. 4 (Summer, 1976): 876.
- 48.
Cixous, 878.
- 49.
Younger, “Hot Mitzvah,” directed by Tricia Brock, written by Dottie Dartland Zicklin and Eric Zicklin, aired June 2, 2015 on TV Land, https://www.hulu.com/watch/79e036d5-ea70-46de-8c3c-62ef9aace9fb.
- 50.
Younger, “Flush with Love,” cit.
- 51.
Younger, “The Unusual Suspect,” season 6, episode 3, directed by Brennan Shroff, written by Grant Sloss, aired June 26, 2019 on TV Land, https://www.hulu.com/watch/6b449752-9881-46c3-94da-5ae0b41bc834
- 52.
Younger, “Merger, She Wrote,” season 6, episode 6, directed by Peter Lauer, written by Ashley Skidmore, aired July 24, 2019, on TV Land, https://www.hulu.com/watch/bd1bf27a-c242-436d-82df-6f57f3672c3a.
- 53.
For a recent study on Michelangelo’s homosexuality, and Italy’s “queer canon” in general, see Gary Cestaro, Queer Italia: Same-Sex Desire in Italian Literature and Film (Palgrave Macmillan, 2004).
- 54.
Teresa De Lauretis, “Eccentric Subjects: Feminist Theory and Historical Consciousness Source,” Feminist Studies 16, no. 1 (Spring, 1990): 116.
- 55.
Younger, “The F Word,” season 7, episode 6, directed by Jennifer Arnold, written by Sarah Choi, aired April 29, 2021 on TV Land, https://www.hulu.com/watch/9f261ea7-b185-4bb1-a530-413e35ea77c5.
- 56.
Younger, “The Son Also Rises,” Season 7, Episode 7, directed by Jennifer Arnold, written by Joe Murphy, aired May 6, 2021 on TV Land, https://www.hulu.com/watch/8be5f714-4070-448a-aa90-40b8481ba188.
- 57.
Younger, “The Baroness,” season 7, episode 8, directed by Jennifer Arnold, written by Don Roos, aired May 13, 2021 on TV Land, https://www.hulu.com/watch/9c3421d1-cfc9-4fe9-b25e-8e59481ff697.
- 58.
In a now-famous paragraph of the essay, Crenshaw writes: “The concept of political intersectionality highlights the fact that women of color are situated within at least two subordinated groups that frequently pursue conflicting political agendas. The need to split one’s political energies between two sometimes opposing political agendas is a dimension of intersectional disempowerment that men of color and white women seldom confront. Indeed, their specific raced and gendered experiences, although intersectional, often define as well as confine the interests of the entire group.” Kimberle Crenshaw, “Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Color,” Stanford Law Review 43, no. 6 (July, 1991): 1251–52.
- 59.
For more on the incident at the University of Chicago, see Matthew Tharrett, “Trans Activist Demands Apology from University for Allowing Dan Savage to Say ‘Tranny,’ Making School ‘Unsafe,’” Queerty, June 5, 2014, https://www.queerty.com/trans-activist-demands-apology-from-university-for-allowing-dan-savage-to-say-tranny-making-school-unsafe-20140605, accessed May 15, 2021. On the debate over Halloween costumes that led to the resignation of two of Yale’s faculty members, see, for example, Conor Friedersdorf, “The New Intolerance of Student Activism,” The Atlantic, November 9, 2015, https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/11/the-new-intolerance-of-student-activism-at-yale/414810/, accessed May 15, 2021.
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Cabot, A.Z. (2023). “Time to Come Out, Girl!”: Queering Italian American Sexuality on TV Land’s Younger. In: Heim, J., Anatrone, S. (eds) Spaghetti Sissies Queering Italian American Media. Italian and Italian American Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-10197-7_14
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