ABC "Works It" to Make it As Offensive As Possible

Benjamin Koldyke no doubt wishing desperately he was back on Big Love

Speaking not just as a member of the transgender community, but as a thinking person, Work It, the new comedy from ABC, is shockingly offensive. Not the sort of shocking offensive that can be really funny if done properly, but rather the sort of offensive that you will be familiar with if you have a racist or homophobic older relative. The kind where they honestly don’t seem to have any idea that what they are saying is truly awful, and you end up embarrassed for them because they don’t seem to know any better.

The basic starting premise of Work It is that a car salesperson named Lee Standish (the way too good for this Benjamin Koldyke) is out of work and has been for long enough that his unemployment checks are running out. He literally starts out the show walking into a kitchen that’s larger than the entire first floor of my parents’ house and says that the place of business he just interviewed at went out of business right in the middle of the interview. I must have missed something, because the laugh track thought that was utterly hilarious. Funny, I was thinking that if that company was so optimistic that they were interviewing people and then suddenly went out of business, somebody must have done something illegal.

Turns out he and two of his best buddies – whom he apparently goes out drinking with just about every evening, despite being so desperately out of work – are all unemployed. Brian (John Caparulo) is living with his ex-wife and her new husband, and Angel (Amaury Nolasco) is thinking about getting a job at a fast food joint. That idea is heavily protested, Lee saying that at least they have their pride. Brian starts into a crazy conspiracy theory that the women are stealing all of the jobs because someday they want to turn all the men into sex slaves. But for cuddling and listening, not sex proper. The way he says it, I got the feeling the man would rather be walking over broken bottles stacked on top of hot coals than cuddle or listen, which might, just maybe, have something to do with why his ex-wife is his ex.

The next scene is Lee getting out of a doctor’s appointment and making some tired joke about prostate exams, because that is the height of modern humor. He overhears a blonde pharmaceutical salesperson (Kate Reinders) chatting with a nurse, and she mentions that they have some positions open. Of course, since he did sales before, he taps her shoulder and asks about those positions, but she says that they’re just looking for girls. Which is weird, but whatever. The whole premise of the show is that he must masquerading as a woman, and you have to work it in somehow, despite how many regulations that only hiring women would break. Then she says that the reason why they’re only looking for girls is because the doctors want to sleep with them. Then the laugh track came back.

Even looking past how horrible that remark is about women and how that assumes that women only get ahead in the workplace by using their bodies, and thus equating all women with prostitutes, this also assumes that the only reason your doctor buys pharmaceuticals from a particular company is because he wants to sleep with their representatives. That’s right, according to Work It, your doctor cares more for sleeping around with salespeople than he does his patients’ health! Not to mention the unspoken assumption that all doctors are either straight men or lesbian women, if the pharmaceutical company is pimping their representatives out like that.

At this point I assumed I had fallen asleep in front of the television and was dreaming about watching a seventies sitcom like Three's Company. When I realized I hadn’t been sleeping, I assumed ABC must have decided that since no one at all had raised a fuss about this show before it aired – that is to say, more comments on ABC’s page for the show were talking about how offensive they expected it to be than were saying they were looking forward to it – they must have just skipped testing the episode before it aired. After all, there’s no way any television network would allow something so blatantly disrespectful and sexist to get past their censors.

Since Lee’s health insurance has lapsed, he has a $900 doctor’s bill he has to pay, and he heads into his and his wife’s bedroom to try to figure out how to pay it. He goes so far as taking his wife’s earrings out of her jewelry box, presumably to go hock them (what a prince), before he sees his head reflected in a mirror above a dress and gets an idea. A stupid, offensive, horrible idea.

The next thing we see of Lee, he’s wearing makeup and a wig and a skirt and interviewing for a job as a pharmaceutical salesperson. Basically the only thing that impressed me about the whole show was that Lee was actually very good at the interview. He showed that he did his homework and impressed the woman interviewing him. Unfortunately one of the next most sexist things in the whole show came out of her mouth, next, when she said that “most women who interview here think that clinical trials are something Lindsay Lohan goes to.”

Yeesh, talk about representing your gender.

Once Lee is hired, we are introduced to his new coworkers. They all but swarm him when he finds his desk, and only one of their names is repeated enough to really stick with the viewer, but they are so one dimensional that you just need to remember their primary characteristics and you won’t mix them up – Blonde, Bitch, and Single Mom. Okay, fine. Blonde is really Kelly, the salesperson from the doctor’s office, Bitch is Grace (Rebecca Mader), and Single Mom is Kristin (Kirstin Eggers). Grace starts off by making snide remarks about Lee’s appearance, and establishes herself off the bat as the lead seller in the office. Kelly is actually sort of observant, noticing that Lee is not wearing a wedding ring, but also that he has a tan line where it was, so she assumes he was divorced recently. Oddly enough, she notices that but fails to notice the fact that Lee’s Adam’s Apple is very prominent.

Lee must have started work right at noon, because the very next scene is the four of them eating lunch. I’m not certain that human beings can survive on as little food as the three women were eating, and not one of them had a beverage of any sort. After accusing and confused stares from the ladies – I suppose they have never seen proper food before – Lee threw out his foot long sub and had a bit of lettuce from it instead. Then we see him take a little trip to the taco place, where his friend Angel is working. Lee orders and almost leaves, stopping to reveal himself to Angel and offer to try to get him in at the pharmaceutical company, if Angel will be willing to dress as a woman, too.