Fan Forum - View Single Post - Aliens in America Thread #6

Nogodsnomasters · 03-06-2008, 02:51 PM

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I agree. I've always felt Scott/Gary was the weakest part of Aliens In America.

I didn't understand some of Scott's comments in the article Copperboom posted yesterday. Justin is a social pariah, which Gary's supposedly baffled about, but that's not how it plays on screen. Gary is as big a social misfit as Justin, and seems clueless and disconnected when it comes to his family. It would've made more sense if Gary had been a pillar of the community, involved in social programs, youth sports, and whatnot - a popular ex-high school jock, prom king and so forth.

I know I won't miss slobby Gary shoveling food in, and eating with his mouth open. A total waste of SP's talents.

I strongly disagree. First, I think Aliens is a pretty good show. It's no Gilmore Girls of course, but it's a better than average comedy. I don't think it's great because it suffers, I think, from a bit of schizophrenia; it tries to be too many things at once (biting satire, sweet, irreverent, bawdy, conventional, edgy, preachy, etc.) sometimes within the same episode. They pulled it off more often than not, in my opinion, but the lack of focus had an overall weakening effect. The show flirts with edgy Election style satire but ends up pulling its punches.

Scott the weakest link? I don't see it that at all, although I haven't agreed with every aspect of his portrayal of Gary (I thought some of his expression were a bit over the top), I enjoyed most of his scenes immensely.

I think what Scott and the interviewer said about Gary made a lot of sense. It was funnier to have Gary be an ex popular high school jock. His character to me represents a man whose life sadly peaked in high school. The show portrayed him as a record holding highschool rusher and part of the homecoming court. Does that translate into success as an adult? No way. That's intentional. The interviewer nailed it:

IGN TV: Something that interested me about how Aliens has progressed is that Gary is sort of inhabiting that American Beauty decline of the middle class man – but here it's how aware his son is aware of it. Even if it's only in narration, we hear your son chronicling how sad you are. It's great it's so funny, because otherwise it might just be sad.

Gary is supposed to be a parody of the clueless ex-jock. He can't relate to his son simply because he's not athletic. We see Gary as equally lame as his son, but in his world he's not. That's the point. The show is trying to poke fun provincial attitudes of Anytown, USA.

I think it was daring of Scott to play someone so opposite of Luke, and although I miss Luke, I have enjoyed watching him play a loser. I don't think Scott playing sloppy, always-eating Gary was a waste of his talent. His talent is acting, and Gary was 180 degrees from anything Scott had ever done before.

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I know I won't miss slobby Gary shoveling food in, and eating with his mouth open.
Scenes like that always make me cringe.

I think that was the intent of the constant eating.

Hats off to you, Scott: Luke, Gary, Peter Strahm--all in one year. Bravo.