Wilbur
New Member
People are always asking Jenji Kohan if she's high on marijuana most of the day. Not the kind of question that usually arises in polite conversation, that's true, but when you're the creator of a TV show like Weeds, which follows the misadventures of a mother-of-two who just happens to be her neighbourhood's premier pot dealer, a few dope-related enquiries could be seen as an occupational hazard.
For the record, Kohan – whose credits as a writer include stints on Sex and the City, Gilmore Girls and Will & Grace – isn't one to break out the bong on a regular basis. "I'm too much of a control freak," she laughs. "And if we were always stoned, how would we put two words together?"
While there is a whole lot of smoking going on as far as the characters on Weeds are concerned, Kohan is quick to clarify that marijuana is not the central focus of the show. Indeed, the weed is "just a device we use to tell our stories", a representation of the secrets lurking behind the closed doors of the perfect houses in the idyllic California suburb of Agrestic.
Supplying the residents of these perfect houses with their pot is Nancy Botwin, played by Mary-Louise Parker. A recently widowed mother of two young sons, Nancy has discovered that maintaining a middle-class lifestyle in the modern world requires a certain income, an income a woman who's been out of the job market for 20-plus years mightn't be able to earn, even if she could land a legitimate job.
"As a woman in her early 40s, if you want to maintain that certain lifestyle for yourself and your children, you have to look at other options," said Kohan.
That's not to say that Nancy is looking to make a full-time career out of peddling marijuana to her friends and neighbours – she's making a concerted effort to take the skills she's currently using as a drug dealer and transfer them to a straighter line of work. But in the meantime, she's constantly balancing the challenges of raising two sons, each facing troubles of their own, and earning a living outside the law.
It's all in keeping with Kohan's initial vision of the show. "I wanted to do my version of something like The Shield or The Sopranos," she admitted.
"I'm really inspired by shows with those kinds of anti-heroes who were deeply flawed. So I went looking for some sort of criminal activity. Around this time in California, a medical marijuana initiative had just been passed and a lot of people were talking about it.
"When I started asking questions, I found it amazing how everyone either had a stoner in their family or they themselves were the stoner in their family and had stories to tell about their dealers. Everything else came out of that, really, and Weeds was a one-line pitch to the network: 'Suburban widow, pot-dealing mom'."
The widespread perception that marijuana is a "softer" drug also influenced Kohan's decision to make Nancy a pot dealer, although Kohan stresses that Weeds does aim to take a neutral position about the narcotic.
"We don't say it's a gateway drug to heroin and that you'll ruin your life if you smoke it, nor do we say it's this wonderful thing that's going to change the world," she said.
"We try to present it as something that exists in the world, something that people are using, without passing judgement on it. If asked, I believe it should be legalised and regulated and taxed. But I'm in no way looking to become a spokesperson for the marijuana community."
Weeds isn't so much a look at the marijuana community as it is a look at the community of Agrestic, a middle-class suburb that looks the ideal image of conformity and uniformity on the surface but that is buzzing with secrets, lies, resentments and desires underneath.
Kohan and her creatives did their due diligence once the show was bought by US pay-TV network Showtime, travelling out to various "just-add-water neighbourhoods" to get the lowdown on what life was like for the residents of real-life Agrestics.
"There were about nine of us driving around in this big white van, and we would literally knock on doors and ask people 'Hey, could we come in and check out your house?'," laughed Kohan.
"There would be these women home alone, dying for company, who would invite nine strangers in a van into their house! And we found the houses had all shot their wad on one or two rooms that were beautifully decorated, then there'd be folding chairs and a card table in the other rooms because the budget had been blown. It was a very poignant insight into the way people were living."
Taking a warts-and-all look into the lives of women like Nancy and her acerbic best friend Celia (Elizabeth Perkins), complete with frequent drug use, coarse language and sexual references, required the kind of leeway Kohan couldn't expect from a commercial television network in the United States.
"That there are no heroes and villains, that everyone is so flawed and exist in such grey areas, is unusual territory for commercial networks," she said. "We all want to work on [pay TV] for the freedom to say what we want. We sacrifice some of the money we'd make working for the commercial networks but we do get to have our little party. Of course, now I don't have a swimming pool."
Sounds like life imitating art. "Well, I did have one of the advisors on the show saying, 'You know, I could set you up with something ..." laughed Kohan. "I don't think I'm quite ready to take that step."
Newshawk: User - 420 Magazine
Source: Rural Press Limited
Pubdate: 3 December 2006
Author: Guy Davis
Copyright: 2006 Rural Press Limited
Contact: ararat.yourguide
Website: ararat.yourguide
For the record, Kohan – whose credits as a writer include stints on Sex and the City, Gilmore Girls and Will & Grace – isn't one to break out the bong on a regular basis. "I'm too much of a control freak," she laughs. "And if we were always stoned, how would we put two words together?"
While there is a whole lot of smoking going on as far as the characters on Weeds are concerned, Kohan is quick to clarify that marijuana is not the central focus of the show. Indeed, the weed is "just a device we use to tell our stories", a representation of the secrets lurking behind the closed doors of the perfect houses in the idyllic California suburb of Agrestic.
Supplying the residents of these perfect houses with their pot is Nancy Botwin, played by Mary-Louise Parker. A recently widowed mother of two young sons, Nancy has discovered that maintaining a middle-class lifestyle in the modern world requires a certain income, an income a woman who's been out of the job market for 20-plus years mightn't be able to earn, even if she could land a legitimate job.
"As a woman in her early 40s, if you want to maintain that certain lifestyle for yourself and your children, you have to look at other options," said Kohan.
That's not to say that Nancy is looking to make a full-time career out of peddling marijuana to her friends and neighbours – she's making a concerted effort to take the skills she's currently using as a drug dealer and transfer them to a straighter line of work. But in the meantime, she's constantly balancing the challenges of raising two sons, each facing troubles of their own, and earning a living outside the law.
It's all in keeping with Kohan's initial vision of the show. "I wanted to do my version of something like The Shield or The Sopranos," she admitted.
"I'm really inspired by shows with those kinds of anti-heroes who were deeply flawed. So I went looking for some sort of criminal activity. Around this time in California, a medical marijuana initiative had just been passed and a lot of people were talking about it.
"When I started asking questions, I found it amazing how everyone either had a stoner in their family or they themselves were the stoner in their family and had stories to tell about their dealers. Everything else came out of that, really, and Weeds was a one-line pitch to the network: 'Suburban widow, pot-dealing mom'."
The widespread perception that marijuana is a "softer" drug also influenced Kohan's decision to make Nancy a pot dealer, although Kohan stresses that Weeds does aim to take a neutral position about the narcotic.
"We don't say it's a gateway drug to heroin and that you'll ruin your life if you smoke it, nor do we say it's this wonderful thing that's going to change the world," she said.
"We try to present it as something that exists in the world, something that people are using, without passing judgement on it. If asked, I believe it should be legalised and regulated and taxed. But I'm in no way looking to become a spokesperson for the marijuana community."
Weeds isn't so much a look at the marijuana community as it is a look at the community of Agrestic, a middle-class suburb that looks the ideal image of conformity and uniformity on the surface but that is buzzing with secrets, lies, resentments and desires underneath.
Kohan and her creatives did their due diligence once the show was bought by US pay-TV network Showtime, travelling out to various "just-add-water neighbourhoods" to get the lowdown on what life was like for the residents of real-life Agrestics.
"There were about nine of us driving around in this big white van, and we would literally knock on doors and ask people 'Hey, could we come in and check out your house?'," laughed Kohan.
"There would be these women home alone, dying for company, who would invite nine strangers in a van into their house! And we found the houses had all shot their wad on one or two rooms that were beautifully decorated, then there'd be folding chairs and a card table in the other rooms because the budget had been blown. It was a very poignant insight into the way people were living."
Taking a warts-and-all look into the lives of women like Nancy and her acerbic best friend Celia (Elizabeth Perkins), complete with frequent drug use, coarse language and sexual references, required the kind of leeway Kohan couldn't expect from a commercial television network in the United States.
"That there are no heroes and villains, that everyone is so flawed and exist in such grey areas, is unusual territory for commercial networks," she said. "We all want to work on [pay TV] for the freedom to say what we want. We sacrifice some of the money we'd make working for the commercial networks but we do get to have our little party. Of course, now I don't have a swimming pool."
Sounds like life imitating art. "Well, I did have one of the advisors on the show saying, 'You know, I could set you up with something ..." laughed Kohan. "I don't think I'm quite ready to take that step."
Newshawk: User - 420 Magazine
Source: Rural Press Limited
Pubdate: 3 December 2006
Author: Guy Davis
Copyright: 2006 Rural Press Limited
Contact: ararat.yourguide
Website: ararat.yourguide
