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09/23/2005 Archived Entry: "Starved"

Starved
I like the weird. There's a scene in Ed Wood in which Wood hosts a party for a film that's been completed. He invites every 1950s freak/outcast he can think of (and consequently his girlfriend yells "enough" and leaves him). That's my kind of party. A book like Mark Dery's The Pyrotechnic Insanitarium places such oddness in the middle of American culture; a comic strip like Achewood transfers our cultural oddities to an underground world of stuffed animal cats. No matter. Point taken. Burroughs was my kind of weird: nice suit, crisp hat. Midwestern origins. Harvard educated. Junkie.
So as some folks get to talking about TV shows they like, I have to give a shout out to FX's latest, Starved, a dramedy about people with eating disorders.
This show is odd. Almost every episode begins with these folks getting yelled at by their drill-sergeantesque group therapy counselor (YOU DISGUST ME YOU OUGHT TO BE SHOT) and ends with them vomiting or stuffing their faces in a disgusting binge.
I like it.
Its other FX cousin It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia is also odd, but its oddness is more of a Scrubs oddness: witty dialogue, eccentric characters, bizarre plots. Starved is a comedy about people with mental disorders!
Sorry. But I like that. As the popular film once said: "That's Entertainment."
Shhhh. The Howard Stern show is almost over. Got to get back to it. . . .