Next Tuesday evening, NBC's little-watched but much-loved sitcom Parks and Recreation will air its final episode. And yeah, I get it. Seven season is way more than any of us had any right to hope for back in those dark, early years when it seemed like only three dozen people were watching. It's time to say goodbye. But the show's end still makes me sad. Sadder than I've felt at any other TV show's end. That's because Parks and Recreation is one of the few pieces of pop culture than I can say has really, truly, demonstrably changed my life.
In the final minutes before Conan O'Brien ended his brief stint as the Tonight Show host on January 22, 2010, the comedian gave one final monologue that, if history is fair, should be remembered as one of television's greatest moments. The whole speech is a marvel typical of Conan's warm, off-beat sensibilities, but its crux comes at the very end, when he speaks the following words: "Please do not be cynical. I hate cynicism. For the record, it's my least favorite quality, and it doesn't lead anywhere."
Parks and Recreation debuted more than nine months prior to Conan's last Tonight Show, but it may as well have been in direct conversation with that moment. By most accounts, Parks's first season is a mess, a sitcom stuck between meandering characterization and pale imitation of its older NBC sibling, The Office. But by January of 2010, the fledgling series was midway through its second season and on much firmer footing, having in the intervening ten-ish episodes figured out exactly what kind of show it was and remains today, up to its penultimate episodes. And that is a show that, like Conan (but unlike so many of its so-called "quality TV" peers), hates cynicism.
Take, for example, a moment the occurs in "Galentine's Day," a season-two episode that aired just a few weeks after Conan's NBC farewell. April, the Parks Department's resident millennial, pessimist, and hipster, attends a seniors' Valentine's Day dance with some of her also pessimist, also too-cool friends. The music is cheesy, the geriatrics are doddering, and her friends have a great time cracking jokes about not just the senior citizens but also Andy, April's crush who loves Dave Matthews Band. One suspects that a young Jim Halpert would have been right at home among April's pals. But April will have nothing of it, and she shouts, "Why does everything we do have to be cloaked in like fifteen layers of irony?" It might as well be a thesis statement for the show as a whole.
I know that there's a difference between cynicism and irony, but in the landscape of great TV comedy of the past twenty-ish years, the two come from remarkably similar places, whether its Seinfeld's cool remove from the solipsism of its characters' behavior or, more relevant to Parks, the acidic mockery often present within the mockumentary sitcoms that cropped up in the first few years of the new millennium. The Office is humanist at heart, showing tremendous sympathy for its characters in its most unguarded moments, but in practice, its comedy often hinges on giving the viewer a sharp feeling of superiority over most of its cast—man, isn't Dwight crazy? Man, isn't Andy preppy? At its most schadenfreude-inducing, The Office is funny not because what the characters are doing is funny but because they are inherently pathetic. Its comedy relies on a certain cynicism about humanity; we expect people to be flawed, so its funny when people are even more flawed than we initially imagined. That's what April rages against; that's what Parks and Recreation despises. There is very little superiority invoked by Parks and Rec. For all its jokes, for all its political satire, for all its warmth, Parks's most astounding artistic feat may just be that it manages to make liking people funny.
This is a show that's relentlessly optimistic, and I'm not just talking about how it believes that change is possible, or how it posits that small-town (and occasionally mid-sized city, depending on the narrative needs of the episode) Pawnee, Indiana, could somehow become not just the hub for a thriving tech startup but also the freaking National Parks headquarters. No, I'm talking about how it's optimistic about people. It really, truly believes that staunch libertarian Ron and political progressive Leslie can be best friends. It believes that Neutral-Milk-Hotel-loving April could hook up with Dave-Matthews-goof Andy and form a loving, stable marriage.
I'm not really saying anything new; TV critics have been discussing the miracle of Parks's sincerity and optimism for years. But for me, personally, watching this show as I transitioned from a late-teen to an early-twentysomething, those beliefs made more of an impact on me than all the biting, cynical wit of the most prestigious TV comedies combined. As a teenager, I had found a refuge in cynicism, in distancing myself from people because of the flaws that I expected in them. By the time college rolled around, it had become a default mode, something to fall back on whenever something bad happened. "Well, what did you expect? Things suck." It was the smart, cool thing to think. I mean, I wasn't quite at April-levels of cynicism, but the core was there. And Parks and Recreation's gently stubborn insistence that such thinking isn't the smartest or the coolest blew my mind.
Oftentimes, things do suck. I get that; I'm not that naive. The type of ironic/cynical comedy I discussed above has its merits; I like The Office, and I love Seinfeld, Arrested Development, and a whole slew of other shows that embrace a similarly cynical comedic philosophy (and anyway, this comedy of cynicism isn't the only thing these shows have to offer). But as far as revolutionary, as far as life-changing, I can't say any of those shows helped change my worldview. But Parks and Recreation did. The message that appreciating and connecting with people is often just as (if not more) important as acknowledging the suckage profoundly shook up the way I saw the world. Conan got to me first, but Parks wasn't far behind.
I don't want to overstate this; most catalysts in life don't work dramatically. Parks and Recreation impacted me in the way change normally happens—a nudge, a hair's breadth in a new direction. In true Parks and Rec fashion, it didn't work alone either, but in tandem with a variety of other factors in my life, some even more influential—changing theology, falling in love. But the fact remains that at least some part of me now, even if it is a small part, is different for having watched the show.
So thanks for that, Parks and Recreation.
Until next time.
