AfterElton.com - Jon Robin Baitz: Not Your Usual TV Writer (page 3)

Jon Robin Baitz: Not Your Usual TV Writer (page 3)
by Drew Mackie, September 25, 2006

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Baitz also explained that he had to assign the role of the strong-minded conservative to Kitty both to further explore the theme of women and power, and because he refused to force that task on the show's sole gay character.

“I simply can't reconcile Log Cabin Republicanism with an evolved sense of one's own self,” he said, “You're attempting on some level not to change the party from within, [but] to make yourself loved by people who loathe and despise you and who reject you entirely. As a gay man, one with sensitivity, wit, power and politics… trying to lead an honest and complicated life, the last thing [Kevin would need] is to be a Republican, I think. I find it to be a tragic and incomprehensible compromise, particularly [for] those in the closet – and they are legion. And more so those who have simply joined forces with the power party.”

Baitz has strong words for the Republican party — among them, “debased, hijacked, taken over by religious hysterics, and corrupt power-mongers” — but he also said that Kitty would enjoy a unique relationship with Kevin in spite of the difference in the two characters' values. “Even though he's a little bit younger than [Kitty], he is funny, protective and they have a kind of intellectual parity together that's fun to watch,” he said. “[Kevin is] very much a sort of comic truth teller. His first position is to make fun of everybody, in a good way.”

Although many gay viewers may be especially interested in Kevin's development, Baitz has chosen to weight the script in favor of the show's three female stars.

“Rachel [Griffiths], Calista and Sally [Field] — they're the anchors of the show… I was very interested from the get-go in an evolving feminine perspective and matriarchy. Part of it had [to do with] my rage at white American business and politics,” Baitz said, noting that major themes in the show will include what it means to be a feminist and the fate of women who seek power in light of what he refers to as “the smugness of men.”

In the pilot (warning, pilot spoiler alert!), viewers see Flockhart coping with being a conservative, but also Sarah (Griffiths) working within the family business. Perhaps Field's character — Walker matriarch Nora — will undergo the greatest strife this season, as the premiere ended with the sudden death of her husband, William (Tom Skerritt). “It dovetails with my interest in the evolving power of women,” Baitz said of killing off the patriarch so quickly into the series. “I lost my father a few years ago, so I'm acutely conscious of what it means to fill a void,” he said. “In my life, it's made for compelling drama.”

It seems if anyone writing TV today should be able judge compelling drama, it would be Jon Robin Baitz. “It remains to be seen whether there's the audience that I think there is,” he said. “My hope is that there will be people who will see Sally, Calista, Rachel, Matthew [and the rest of the cast] and see something real in them, and not an artificial group of people on a sunny street… They take part in what I hope becomes a part of the dialogue about what it's like to be an American today.”

By incorporating politics into the show so realistically, Baitz is boldly and unapologetically taking the family drama into territory that a lot of writers would consider off-limits. “I'd rather die by my own sword than do something I don't believe in,” he said, and though many artists have made claims like this, something in the way Baitz says it makes you believe that he means it. If the characters he creates are as eloquent and determined as Baitz himself, then American viewers may very well support Brothers and Sisters and allow it to continue its dialogue on American life for many seasons to come.

Brothers and Sisters airs Sundays at 10 pm on ABC

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