Conservatism of Call Me Kat
I have been enjoying a lovely sitcom called Call Me Kat. It's about a mathematician turned cat cafe owner, her employees, neighbors, and friends. The math references are not clever or informed, and they are (thankfully) infrequent. The interpersonal relationships are full of the challenges of sitcom relationships, but consistently respectful and positive. It makes for a refreshing break in the evening when I'm worn out.
But there is one character that I really don't like—Nick. Of course, we're supposed to think he's a jerk. Nick takes business from Kat. He speaks disrespectfully to her. He paints the curb yellow in front of his store—without permission from the city. He sells illegally imported cheese and meat on his sandwiches, and sells beer without a liquor license. Unlike the rule following Kat, he skirts the law when it suits him. On top of that, the show makes Kat attracted to him against her better judgement. After her break up, Kat even has a fling with him.
Then Nick buys Kat's building and raises her rent 40%. I don't know how it's going to work out, and it doesn't really matter. Kat talked about saving to buy her own building as a retirement investment, but said she couldn't afford it yet. So Nick buys it, decides her rent is way under market value, and raises it beyond her ability to pay. We're supposed to hate the guy. Maybe he'll have a change of heart. Maybe Kat or her friends will come up with some way to force him down to a reasonable rent, or buy the building off of him. I'm going to find out, but part of me really doesn't care. The show has Kat just accepting it as an ugly fact of life. Moving back with her mother so she can sublet her apartment. Tutoring kids in math. Firing one of her employees. It's how it has to be because this is how business works. Fine. Nick's a jerk. The sitcom will fix it somehow. What the sitcom won't do is point out that all investors are jerks like this, now.
What did Nick do to deserve Kat's retirement money? Did he work for it? Did he provide a service? No. All he did was have money already. He then used that money to squeeze all the money he could from some other working person who had less to start with. In our country, right now, Nicks rule the world. Most of the Nicks aren't people you know. They aren't someone you can go to and tell them how they ruined your business and your life. They are big investors living far away, insulated from the harm they are causing. They have made the rules. If another company isn't willing to be as cutthroat as them, they will take over with a leveraged buyout because they are just doing what's best for their shareholders, and that's their job. It's not personal. It's just business.
But it is personal, and it doesn't have to be like this. It could be as simple as following Elizabeth Warren's plan to make all businesses doing over a billion dollars business in the US become benefit corporations. Then they would have to consider more than just shareholders. They would have to consider their workers and the communities they do business in. Or any of dozens of other ideas where we, as a people, say, no, that's not just business. That's just greed, and we're not going to let our community, our country, our world be ruled by greed.
I'm two seasons in and really liking the Call Me Kat. It's sex positive, but not sexual. It's human and funny and respectful. It is not progressive. Oh well. Not every show has to be everything.