![]() Over the years, the show has been mischaracterized as a working class comedy, which it never was. ![]() If anything, they make the show's centrism look disingenuous. It's not as if these concepts aren't normal family sitcom fare, but they're presented like harmless quips when they're not. What's concerning is Allen's choosing to top off his show's overall veneer of homespun sweetness with such direct shout-outs to white male resentment, expecting that somehow we are supposed to laugh it off. This is how its fans would describe it and will remember it. ![]() Remove Allen from the mix, and "Last Man Standing" would be a harmless, decent family show demonstrating the ways that folks can hold different points of view, even quarrel, but still demonstrate loving kindness toward one another. I want to make it abundantly clear that its conservative skew doesn't make it a terrible sitcom. There's room on TV for all types of viewpoints, and certainly liberal creatives outnumber conservatives in Hollywood. Mike is only talking about his truck, and Allen is talking about his show and in another interpretation the "taker" is 20th Television, now owned by Walt Disney, which also owns ABC, where "Last Man Standing" ran for six seasons. "Makers and takers" was one of former Republican congressman Paul Ryan's favorite phrases it's also white grievance terminology dating back to the pre-Civil War era. It rolls off the tongue so easily, this shorthand for the myth that tax-funded government assistance programs that help the needy also make them more indolent.īut shucks, maybe I'm seeing something that isn't really there. In this interpretation, car theft isn't some random misfortune suffered by a wealthy man, but a symptom, somehow, of the undeserving reaping the fruit of honest people's labor. "Last Man Standing" was never going to depart without circling back to its 2011 beginnings, but Allen's choice to sign off with these right-wing dog-whistles shows he's looking to infinity and beyond, and betting that this show's legacy will be to vindicate the version of reality he shares with his base. What kind of punks steal other people's stuff? Make something yourself!" And that's something that can't be stolen from me. "I loved every moment of that show, er, truck. Ten years of attention to detail, and then, poof, gone! It's an empty feeling," he – nominally, Mike – tells his followers.įrom there Allen erases the pretense of separation between himself and his character. Nevertheless, Mike's final entry in his confessional Outdoor Man vlog was anything but. "I've been thinking a lot about makers and takers, you know, because I had something very valuable taken from me: Somebody took my truck. Mike Baxter is conservative too, but Kevin Abbott, the final showrunner in a line of them spanning back to the show's creator Jack Burditt, has long insisted that he's a centrist. Allen is one of Hollywood's most unabashed Trump supporters. The welled-up tears in their eyes, especially Allen's, are real.Ĭonflating Allen's persona with that of Mike Baxter has been the show's selling point and, depending on who you are, its drawback. What we're really watching is the actors holding a wake for their departing show. One by one family and friends share tributes that grow increasingly warmer and heartfelt, and the viewer understands it's not about the truck, or the Baxters. Mike, played by Tim Allen, spent 10 years restoring that truck, and he loved it so much that the family organizes a wake in its honor. The final half hour of " Last Man Standing" finds the Baxter family mourning the theft of Mike Baxter's classic pickup.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |