The question of whether or not some artifact of the
twentieth century still “matters” has become a trendy question among
pop-culture writers. The annoying implication is that the writer’s judgment
holds some sort of weight, and if it is decided that, say, The Beatles get the
thumbs down, they no longer “matter”—whatever that means. Instead of asking
questions, Rosanne Welch’s new book Why
The Monkees Matter: Teenagers, Television, and American Pop Culture makes
an emphatic statement, and unlike a lot of these other “does this matter?”
pieces, there is a special point behind her statement since The Monkees spent
so much of their fifty-year career having critics tell them they most certainly
do not matter.
As Welch points out, that attitude really began to change in
the wake of Davy Jones’s death in 2012, as critical consensus started moving
toward the judgment that The Monkees were actually really great. The point of Why The Monkees Matter is to articulate
that judgment, and she does so by focusing exclusively on their TV show, which
she notes was artistically, narratively, and politically progressive.
Welch organizes her book as a series of stand-alone topical
essays. She deals with the state of the teenager on American TV prior to The
Monkees arrival; how The Monkees contemporized depictions of young people by
voicing anti-war, anti-consumerist philosophies (some scripted, some not); the
radical inventiveness of the series’ design and writing (The Monkees was that
rare sixties show that went out of its way to hire young writers); its
pop-cultural legacy; etc.
Welch also deals with how women and non-American ethnicities
were handled on the show. This is where The Monkees didn’t always live up to
its Aquarian ideals, though the author cuts the series a lot of slack regarding
its treatment of women. Yes, we do see an unusual number of female characters
in respectable positions on the show—judges, royalty, PH.D. students, rock
musicians—but some of Welch’s arguments that the series was generally feminist
are weak. She contends that Davy’s weekly girlfriends weren’t sex objects
because they never actually spend the night at The Monkees’ pad. Well, how many
women on sixties sitcoms spent the night at a man’s pad? Zero? She suggests
that Micky values intelligence more than sexuality because he describes Brenda
from “99 ½ Pound Weakling” as “brilliant and intelligent” when this is clearly
a joke on her stoned inarticulateness. While Welch notes the demotion of the
all-female band The Westminster Abbeys to go-go dancers at the end of “Some
Like It Lukewarm”, she unconvincingly suggests that other elements in the
episode balance out the sexist way the writers chose to end it.
Welch is less forgiving when analyzing how non-American
ethnicities are handled on “The Monkees”, focusing on how Asians, Italians,
Gypsies, and Russians are stereotyped on the series. She misses a great
opportunity to discuss the character of Thursday in “Monkees Marooned”, who
very effectively sends up the “black native” stereotype with his eloquence,
intelligence, ability to take control of situations, and hipness.
Aside from the weaknesses in these two chapters, Why The Monkees Matter is not only a
fine piece of cultural analysis overall but also an atypically readable and fun
one. It’s filled with historical tidbits about the series’ filming and writing
and Mike, Micky, Davy, and Peter, so even if you need no convincing that The
Monkees matter, you may still find much to interest you on its pages.
