Californication and the American dream (or at least my dream)

“What do you want to be when you grow up?”

From what I remember, kids are asked this question a lot (with the answer now appearing to be a unanimous “Hannah Montana”). For adults, or those posing as adults like myself, the question’s still there, but it’s changed, ever so slightly, to, “What did you want to be before you grew up?” Who’s asking? Well, mainly advertisers and, of course, Hollywood, but that’s nothing new. Our dreams have been packaged and resold to us for years.  

Which brings me to my latest impulse purchase, Showtime’s Californication (TMN in Canada), starring either Agent Mulder or Scully…I’m not sure which.  Anyway, it’s Golden Globe winner David Duchovny, and for the past few days I’ve been living vicariously through him. 

So, what does he play? A doctor, lawyer, rock star, pro athlete?

Nah, he just gets laid a lot.

And that’s why I like him. Male sex addicts are always my favourite characters. Nip/Tuck’s Dr. Julian McMahon, Jason Patric in Your Friends and Neighbors, Raptors GM Bryan Colangelo, the list goes on and on. They have all succeeded where I’ve failed; namely, getting random hot babes in the sack. Regardless of whether you are married or unsmooth, like me, if you’re thinking to yourself, “I also don’t have nearly enough sex with random hot babes,” then Duchovny’s Hank Moody is the TV friend for you.

Hank’s a great novelist with writer’s block. He’s also separated from his daughter’s mother (the only woman he can ever truly love), who is about to get married to a douche. Hey, I think I’ve seen this romantic comedy before.

Despite the fact that the whole show is one big Rita MacNeil-sized cliché, it’s quite enjoyable. While Lucy Liu’s Cashmere Mafia and Brooke Shields’s Lipstick Jungle both failed miserably in their attempts to become the next Sex and the City, Californication has succeeded. 

And unlike Entourage, the original Sex and the City for guys, Californication is equally fun for the ladies. You see, Hank Moody is everything women want; he’s successful, funny, charming and great in bed. Combine that with a nice head of hair, and I think I’ve about covered it.

In fact, Hank does everything but take out the trash. Not only does he always say the coolest thing possible (rather than thinking of it while walking away and telling his friends he said it — yeah, I’m talking to you), Hank walks the walk as well, carrying his underage daughter out of parties, selflessly playing wingman for his bald agent and even punching out a guy who called his lady friend the “Jane Fonda” word. (Ahh, coming to the rescue of a damsel in distress, perhaps the number one male fantasy that doesn’t involve Scarlett Johansson or the other Boleyn girl.)

After watching a couple of episodes, I had to check IMDB to make sure Duchovny didn’t write this show himself. (He didn’t, but he is an executive producer.)

Creator:  “Hey Dave, wanna be in my new show?”
Duchovny: “What’s the character?”
Creator: “Well, you play the guy every man wants to be and every woman wants to fuck, you interested?”
Duchovny: “Isn’t Tom Brady already playing that part?”

Honestly, if this show goes on for a couple more seasons, Tea Leoni better start looking for a new husband.

Season Two is scheduled to start this summer, but if you ask me (and you didn’t), the show’s longtime forecast looks bleak. The first season gets progressively worse as it goes along (at least Entourage gave us a few good years before sucking) and ends predictably.

That’s not to say Californication isn’t worth watching. The dialogue is consistently funny and Duchovny hasn’t been this good since he had a gay crush on Larry Sanders. So, fire up those DVD players (or better yet, get all the episodes for free on TMN), make a snack and cuddle up on the sofa with your significant other.

That’s what I did, cheering Hank through each and every conquest, living through the man I wanted to be before I grew up. And my longtime girlfriend did the same, imagining a life for herself in which she dated the man she wanted to date before she grew up.

You’d think this would be incredibly disappointing for the both of us, but hey, at least we share each other’s dreams.
 

© 2008 Steve Dominey; licensee (Cult)ure Magazine.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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