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The title drew my attention last spring but the show did not. Notes from the Underbelly: Now that's a title for ya. With cursory glances at its promos, I figured out the show had something to do with pregnant women who may or may not want to be pregnant and then crossed it off my "to watch" list. Reason? Been there done that, pictures and children to prove it. Still, ABC's been promoting the show so heavily that Notes caught my attention again.
Despite not having time for TV, I decided to watch the sitcom online thinking I may not be interested in this show at this point in my life, but surely young mothers and mommy bloggers will like it. And after researching the show, I could tell ABC wants mommy bloggers to plug the show. They want you, mommy bloggers. They really do.
Does that translate into attracting mommy bloggers through plot and character development? Like the book that inspires the show by novelist Risa Green, Notes from the Underbelly is promoted as a comedy about pregnancy, but I'm unsure whether mommy bloggers will find the show's portrayal of a mommy blogger funny.
In the "Blackout" episode that aired on December 3, one of the show's characters, Julie, proudly admits that she's a mommy blogger. Julie is the show's stereotypical, happy, stay-at-home mom, and during the brief blackout at the beginning of the episode, she suggests the central characters play a game telling their most embarrassing moments. Here's some of the dialogue that begins with Danny, the show's spacey bachelor, immediately shouting Andrew's most embarrassing moment (Andrew and his wife, Lauren, are the show's central couple).
Danny: Andrew got wood in a 7th grade basketball physical!
Andrew: Danny had sex with a 50 year old!
Danny: Why would that be embarrassing? She looked exactly like Blithe Danner (Notes).
Other dialogue follows that sets up a later dilemna in the episode. Then it's back to game. Cooper--the show's cynical, baby-hating career woman--steers the game toward Julie. She wants to know Julie's most embarrassing moment. However, Julie says she doesn't have any embarrassing moments (a bit of character revelation here, I guess, since Julie's the one who suggested they play the game in the first place).
Julie: I'm proud of everything that I do that's why I started blogging. It's like a video diary online. It's all about baby Perry. I don't want to brag but I've had six hits.
Cooper: Okay, Julie wins. Her blog beats Dan's wood. (Notes from the Underbelly)
Later it's revealed that Julie discusses her sex life in her blog, and Cooper uses the blog to gain popularity at work so she can get a bonus. You'll have to watch the whole episode to understand that.
When I saw that a featured character had a blog, I wondered. Is this how the show hopes to get attention and viewers, to make one of its featured characters a mommy blogger?
Considering the show's image for the type of person who has a mommy blog, how her having a blog is used later in the show, and that her having the blog won the "most embarrassing" game, I'm not sure it should work out that Notes wins mommy blogger love. The way the mommy blogger has been presented could just as easily indicate that the show's writers don't think much of mommy bloggers.
Julie, the blogger, is portrayed as an obsessive mom whose entire world revolves around her baby. Also, Andrew describes her in that same episode as a person who asks stupid questions. (She does come off as a bit daft.) Finally, with her admission that she's proud of everything she does and that's why she started her mommy/baby blog, she comes off as narcissistic, which might peg her as one of those "hipster parents" Time magazine writer James Poniewozik criticized:
There's an unsettling parenting-as-performance aspect to this genre, an effort to elbow one's way into the baby photos. Look, sweetie! Here's me putting you into your Sex Pistols onesie! Here's me making your first mix CD! Once, it was understood that raising kids was about subordinating yourself, recognizing that, as least as far as Darwin and the gene pool were concerned, you were
