Who watches Strong Medicine?

June 12, 2007 in Michelle Krusiec

Okay, so it hurts my heart and political consciousness a bit to start bashing Strong Medicine.  I watched last night’s ep of Strong Med and learned that Whoopi Goldberg developed it and Fran Drescher of The Nanny directed that particular episode.  I wanted to enjoy it.  I wanted to be behind it.  We need more representations of women and women of color in the media.  But, I had to actually mute most of it cuz it was like watching a bad soap opera try way too hard to be edgy and “real.”

Let’s start with the pros: 1) love that Rosa Blasi–she cool; 2) love Home Improvement mom–Patricia Richardson–she’s a convincing actress; 3) love Michelle Krusiec–she has her funny and earnest moments in the episode.  The blahs: 1) who writes this crap?  I could write crap.  The show is not well written–from the storyline to the actual text; 2) The delivery of the lines from the rest of the cast is also crap–except the feisty nurse woman–who, let’s be honest here, plays on stereotypes of black women.  I wanted to like Tamara of Sister, Sister and hottie homeopath, but they deliver lines and facial expressions like they should be on Passions. And, let’s not even start on the cliffhanger that ended the show–that was like a da dum moment worthy of daytime TV.

Okay, in terms of the storyline involving MK–there would be so many ways to critique it.  I don’t have time, nor should I, seeing that I actually have my own work to do at the moment.  Let’s just say, that you get the standard Old World vs Americanized Asian child syndrome going…you get the “sexiness” of avian flu connected to immigrant biznesses with a twist…you get the evilness of corporations vs the American Dream…The CDC has a pretty prominent role in this ep which makes me think this ep is part of the CDC’s initiative to educate the public through popular media (but that’s an entirely different blog).  In summary, you get a stereotypical portrayal of a Chinese American family through what seems like an honest attempt to counter stereotypes of race and disease.  Eh, not a profound summary but short and sweet.  I’d love to hear what others have to say if you watched it.