Those Who Can't
“It’s not bad writing, but it does nothing new or interesting to warrant the backwards-looking slog.”
Title: Those Who Can’t
Episodes Reviewed: Season 1, Episodes 1-2
Creators: Adam Cayton-Holland 👨🏼 🇺🇸, Andrew Orvedahl 👨🏼 🇺🇸, and Ben Roy 👨🏼 🇺🇸
Directors: Bobcat Goldthwaith 👨🏼 🇺🇸, Peter Lauer 👨🏼 🇺🇸, various
Reviewed by Li 👩🏻 🇺🇸
Technical: 3/5
Not un-funny, but Those Who Can’t feels like a less original Workaholics. Just another comedy banking on the misanthropy and bad behavior of boys.
Gender: 1/5
Does it pass the Bechdel Test? NOPE
This is a show for boys, by boys, featuring boys. Yes, Abbey is one of the main characters, but based on how much air time she actually gets her true role is token.
* In S01E02, the shares of gender speaking time was 11% Female vs 89% Male (2:08mins vs 17:18mins). Yikes.
Race: 1/5
This show is white AF and the only glimpses of POC characters are when they’re throwaway, one-liner jokes.
LGBTQ: N/A
No representation in either of the two episodes reviewed. Since this is a very small dataset, this category will not go towards the final score.
Mediaversity Grade: F 1.67/5
Granted I only watched two episodes, but that was only because this show is aggressively white and straight male-centric. It’s not bad writing, but it does nothing new or interesting to warrant the backwards-looking slog.
Like Those Who Can't? Try these other male-centric titles.
Atlanta
Hell or High Water (2016)
Moonlight (2016)