Everybody Doesn't Like Raymond- Page 2

[Jon]

Posted: 9/19/05 at 11:49am

The reason Partricia Heaton looked so bitchy the whole night is that she is a Republican right wing fundamentalist and she was surrounded by Liberal Democrats criticizing Bush.

Her supermarket commercials are an embarassment. I'm sure she REALLY needed the money, consifering she was earning $700,000 an episode the last two years.

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 9/19/05 at 11:59am

Does that woman even HAVE another facial expression other than "scowl?"

Updated On: 9/19/05 at 11:59 AM

[Dre2387]

Posted: 9/19/05 at 12:13pm

yeah, i just don't like that show. it was never funny and thank god, it never will be.

[touchmeinthemorning]

Posted: 9/19/05 at 12:20pm

Do we just not like Ms. heaton because she's a feminist for life?

I don't find her particularly funny, either...but, that part can't be too funny (as she is contantly the "voice of sanity" that plays opposite Ray).

Let's not forget she has Bway credits, too...and her production company works on some stage stuff, too...so, she ain't all bad.

[robbiej]

Posted: 9/19/05 at 12:21pm

She could find the cure for cancer, AIDS and male pattern baldness and I'd still want to slap that look right off her face.

[Borstalboy]

Posted: 9/19/05 at 12:22pm

The EVERYBODY LOVES RAYMOND thing has always gone WAAAAAAY over my head. There's something weirdly depressing about that show...what is with America's TV taste??

[redhotinnyc2]

Posted: 9/19/05 at 12:38pm

What I don't like about this show is the same thing I disliked about Seinfield, and Will and Grace, among others - it's a show about basically awful people getting away with doing bad things to others (and not having to pay the price)- it's that whole highschool mentality that irks me. Raymond is a very lazy, unlikeable person and he constantly tries to pull the wool over people's eyes and get away with it - and this is funny why? NOT. I do like the actress who plays his mom (can't think of her name at the moment) and she does some things that definitely make me laugh occasionally, but on the whole, I wouldn't seek out this show to watch specifically. The only time I ever see one of these shows is when I'm channel surfing and there is absolutelly NOTHING else on, so I'll leave it on in the background for a few minutes - but eventually have to change the channel because they just get on my nerves.

[DayDreamer]

Posted: 9/19/05 at 12:40pm

I don't know, Robbie... if she found a cure for male pattern baldness I might start to like her.

[robbiej]

Posted: 9/19/05 at 12:42pm

DD,

If she found a cure for MPB, I certainly would give her a big hug...right after I slapped the sh*t out of her.

Posted: 9/19/05 at 12:48pm

"I certainly would give her a big hug...right after I slapped the sh*t out of her."

Dream date deja vu.

[cserannie]

Posted: 9/19/05 at 12:48pm

I don't like Raymond, because I don't think it is funny. I have watched aprox. 10 episodes and I didn't even smile on it, and the same goes with Will and Grace.

Where are the really good ones, like Cheers, Golden Girls, Married With Children or 3rd Rock...

[gymman]

Posted: 9/19/05 at 12:49pm

BorstalBoy--You are on to something; Raymond is really a rather depressing show about dysfunction, meanness, pettiness, and middle class values. I am guessing that's why the audience likes it--they see their own dysfunction as a mirror, and perhaps that makes them feel more "normal." I think the comparison with "Seinfeld" is apt--mean, selfish people being mean and selfish.

And the comparison by critics of Heaton to Audrey Meadows on "The Honeymooners"--gimme a break!

[Gothampc]

Posted: 9/19/05 at 12:51pm

"What I don't like about this show is the same thing I disliked about Seinfield, and Will and Grace, among others - it's a show about basically awful people getting away with doing bad things to others (and not having to pay the price)- it's that whole highschool mentality that irks me."

BUT, this is what sitcoms are about. Have you ever watched I Love Lucy? She behaves horribly. I always sat there waiting for the day when Ethel would haul off and belt Lucy.

[touchmeinthemorning]

Posted: 9/19/05 at 12:56pm

Yeah, i'd like my sitcom plot to be this:

Nun gives to poor children. Children are grateful. Grateful children grow up and become nuns and priests.

Sounds exciting, huh?

[DAME]

Posted: 9/19/05 at 12:58pm

I liked Raymond for Doris roberts. I never liked Patricia in it. And when I found out she is a hardcore republican I disliked her even more.

[Gothampc]

Posted: 9/19/05 at 12:59pm

"Nun gives to poor children. Children are grateful. Grateful children grow up and become nuns and priests."

Sally Field in The Flying Nun was so ahead of her time.

[gymman]

Posted: 9/19/05 at 12:59pm

No--but some of the best sitcoms were not about hateful and self-hating characters--where's the real meanness in Lucy, or Golden Girls, or Mary Tyler Moore, or Dick Van Dyke? Raymond is a mean spirited show about petty selfish people--and not a funny satire, such as Married...with Children.
Updated On: 9/19/05 at 12:59 PM

[Kringas]

Posted: 9/19/05 at 1:04pm

Patricia Heaton is simply unpleasant. Shrewish. Hateful

I couldn't agree more. While I don't think she's anything to write home about as an actress to begin with, that role she played was just thankless. I mean, how many plots can you feature that revolve around the wife withholding sex from her husband? Wait. Nine years at 22 or so episodes a season ...

[TabooPhan1]

Posted: 9/19/05 at 1:44pm

"Where are the really good ones, like Cheers, Golden Girls, Married With Children or 3rd Rock..."

I'm sorry, but anyone who appreciates Married With Children has lost all of my respect. And to say that Golden Girls is better than Will and Grace is blasphemy. May God (Cher) have mercy on your soul.

And just to clarify, Jack is not stereotyping the "typical" gay male. On many occasions Sean Hayes has said that he doesn't play jack as a gay man, he plays him as a teenage girl. This is simply his characterization, and I think it's just funny. Anyone who's offended by it is reading WAY too far into it...

I do agree that W&G has gone down hill since Leo came, but I think there is still potential for more stories. I still enjoy it.

[gymman]

Posted: 9/19/05 at 1:58pm

Married...with Children is a hysterical subversion of middle class family life in America; Will & Grace hasn't been funny--or watchable--in 5 years.

A grown gay man as a teenage girl--gosh, glad there's no stereotyping--duh.

[smartpenguin78]

Posted: 9/19/05 at 1:59pm

Is equating a grown man with a "teenage girl" not reinforcing a negative stereotype?
It really doesn't take lots of "reading into it" to then conclude the character is offensive. I think that Jack has been funny, but his character never seems to grow or learn, and his "gayness" is used as a comedic devise in the same way has Karen's drug abuse, then reinforcing the idea the "acting like that" is an affliction.
The show does also show positive gay characters, and Jack has his moments, but there is some evidence to see it differently.

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 9/19/05 at 2:24pm

I adore Raymond. It's one of my favorite shows, though the last season couldn't hold a candle to Desperate Housewives. Furthermore, Heaton is my FAVORITE actor on the show. Her reactions to Raymonds antics are brilliant. And she never fails to make me laugh. She plays an exhausted housewife who has a teenage kid for a husband and the most aggravating and intrusive in-laws in her face every day. Her behavior is not shrewish or hateful, it's realistic frustration and its the truth that she's put into her character that makes it so funny for me. The dawn of realization on her face just before she says, "The one-man wedding band!" in the Wedding Invitation episode is one of my all-time favorite moments (as well as episodes) in American sitcom history. It was brilliant. I laugh out loud every time I see it. The characters were based on Ray's own family and I think its the fact that so many families can relate with so many of the characters that has kept the show so popular for so long. But personally, I always thought Brad Garrett and Peter Boyle were the weak links in the cast. Doris and Patty carry most of the episodes.

"Hank 'n' Pat???? Hank 'N' Pat!?!?!?!?!"


"A grown gay man as a teenage girl--gosh, glad there's no stereotyping--duh."

As if there's no truth in it? If I had a nickel for every gay man I met who behaved and/or wanted to be Jack (or Brian from Queer as Folk), then I would living in a bigger apartment. And for the record, what is a sitcom without stereotypes? Even when breaking the stereotypes such as The Cosby Show, 227 or A Different World, they just throw in nonracial stereotypes, such as the gold-digging debutante or the womanizing hunk because rich women always seek a rich man and go shopping and a hot guy sleeps around with women and think of them as sex objects. There are stereotypes in virtually every sitcom character out there. We just call them out in the shows we don't like as opposed to the ones we do.

[bythesword84]

Posted: 9/19/05 at 2:34pm

Okay the Hank N Pat episode is one of the best episodes that show ever did! "THEY WEREN'T SUPPOSED TO GO OUT!!" So funny.

I think Raymond was the best comedy on television for a long time. I used to watch Will and Grace but it got old too fast for me. I've never seen an episode of ELR where I wasn't laughing, and a lot of them had me laughing so hard I was in tears. The family dynamic of that show was fantastic. The characters were so well written and it never reached the point that so many sitcoms do where it got old.

I agree with Mister Matt about Patricia Heaton. The woman is so talented when it comes to her reactions to Ray's family. I always come back to the episode where Ray and Deborah are talking to one of the kids' teacher and she does her "Until you've walked a mile in my shoes..." speech, absolutely fantastic.

I also agree with what Mister Matt said about relating to the characters. I, personally, felt like this show was a great parallel to the dynamics in my own family. I did love that show and so does the rest of my family and most of my friends.

[smartpenguin78]

Posted: 9/19/05 at 2:42pm

Matt, I agree that there are sterotypes underlying almost every sitcom character. The post in question here said that Jack is not a stereotype, which is not the case. Additionally, just because it is standard does not mean it is not problematic. The show has rightfully been given credit for helping to usher in a slightly more mainstream acceptance of gay people, but inherent in the character of Jack is prescisely the attributes that cause that wide audience to maintain their hateful veiws.

I don't think the show needs to apologize for this, but it stands in the way of me being able to actually laud the show.

I also think it was never really all that funny to me. It never created a spark that made me desire to see the show.

[gymman]

Posted: 9/19/05 at 3:20pm

That's still a stereotype--and by the way, I have known plenty of gay men over the last 30 years, and not one was as stereotypically "gay" as Jack. The character is never allowed to grow, to change. He's stuck, and that's kind of sad, really.