Since we all have a lot more free time, there’s a good chance that you’re whittling away the days, killing time watching TV shows on Netflix. It only seems right, especially since the streaming service has taken admirable leaps in order to collaborate with some of the most accomplished producers that the medium has recently produced. We’re talking Shonda Rhimes and Greg Berlanti. Figures who have become reliable and create recognizable content that no other producer could make.
At the height of that list has been Ryan Murphy. Even if you don’t openly watch any of his 20+ years of series, there’s a good chance that you’re familiar with his work. They often start strong but dwindle as they go on until they wind up as some chaotic mess. After breaking through with Glee, he has been an unstoppable force in media, bringing queer narratives to the mainstream, reviving the anthology series, and producing some of the most profane and dimwitted plot twists in history (hello, 9-1-1). He’s also one of the most acclaimed producers, leading shows like Pose and American Crime Story to Emmy-winning seasons.
With his latest, Hollywood, he is back out there reimagining the world in his own image. This time he takes on the Golden Age of Hollywood by focusing on the outcasts, who want to have their shot at glory by producing a Peg Entwhistle biography that falls apart with studio interference. It’s a bigger metaphor for how these voices became marginalized, and it’s another fascinating look into his ambitious technique. It’s far from perfect, but with the penchant stunt casting (you’ve never seen Jim Parsons like this before), it’s hard to deny that somewhere in the murk is a unique television experience.
You’d be forgiven for thinking that his work is largely garbage, appealing to mass audiences wanting flamboyance over substance. However, the 2010s have seen him take on more serious stories and in the process reinvent TV. Considering that he has a big deal with Netflix, there’s a good chance that there’s even more on the way. For now, he’s a fascinating figure starting to take on our understanding of the industry and forcing a change for the better. He may not always go about it in the smartest way, but there’s no denying that he gives you a show, for better or worse.
1. Pose (2018 – Present)
No matter what else Ryan Murphy will do for the rest of his career, he will have earned TV immortality for creating the first series centered largely on the transgender community. This is a show that feels so lived in, reflecting the ongoing economic and social strife while not skimping on the ballroom culture. The story has spanned everything from the AIDS epidemic to the cultural impact of Madonna’s “Vogue,” reflecting a nuanced take that has never been seen on TV, allowing these voices to speak for themselves and create a powerful sense of family in the process. For every sad moment, there comes a deeper understanding of why these dance competitions exist. It’s a moment to be freed from the outside terrors and find acceptance, making some of the most exciting moments on TV.
That’s also of course because of Billy Porter’s Emmy-winning performance as Pray Tell. On the surface you’d think that he was a one-note character, judging these contests with quick-witted responses. However, his story is just as rich and compelling as those around him. He loses a boyfriend to AIDS, struggles with his own self-esteem, and learns to become a leader for his younger co-stars. It’s a performance for the ages, elevating Porter to an award show fashion icon that pushes as many boundaries as the show does. It also helps that he’s surrounded by an amazing cast, including MJ Rodriguez, Dominique Jackson, and Indya Moore, among many, many others.
Pose’s greatest accomplishment is allowing the transgender experience to feel culturally accepted. While there is occasional dark drama, this is about accepting their struggles as real, normalizing their conflicts so that they don’t feel like an other. This is a conflict of the human spirit, of wanting to live and feel accepted. To see them don the gowns and lay on the beach in bikinis is to allow us to see them as they are: beautiful. If the 2020s don’t end with more shows that are this perfectly representative of the LGBT community, then we’ll be worse off. If you haven’t watched this show, please change that. It’s more than another Murphy show. It’s barriers being broken and hopefully changed for the better.
2. American Crime Story (2016 – Present)
If one wants to know where Murphy went from being this campy producer catering to trashy genre shows and something more reputable, you start at American Crime Story. This anthology series has perfectly distilled all of his best tendencies into a package that takes real-life crime stories and finds their social value. In the first season, he took on the O.J. Simpson trial and, in the process, managed to explore the various ways that the media represented race, gender, and even the legal system in ways that made for compelling dramatic TV. The fact that it had John Travolta and David Schwimmer in roles servicing as dramatic cruxes only reflected his stunt casting at its best. While there’s his penchant campy humor, it’s less egregious and often services character better than it has anywhere before.
Even then, Murphy’s greatest work came in his second season when tackling “The Assassination of Gianni Versace.” While the approach may have been gimmicky (telling the story of Andrew Cunanan in reverse), it was done to reflect how society ultimately made him into a tragic figure with the rise of the AIDS epidemic, the “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” measures, and an overall lack of emotional support at home. This is a career-best performance by Darren Criss, finding a dark story being torn apart to its basic core, making us understand how society is just as responsible for Cunain’s downfall as the man’s obsession with the fashion designer ultimately was. It also proved that this wasn’t going to be your average anthology series. It was going to take narrative risks and, for the first time in Murphy’s career, it felt like a perfect enhancement.
3. American Horror Story (2011 – Present)
You can love or hate this series all you want, but I promise you that modern TV would be way different without season two’s “Asylum.". Following season one’s ending where the entire cast wound up dead, the unannounced decision to make this into an anthology series became the stroke of genius for Murphy’s career. He suddenly wasn’t enslaved to years-long narratives that dwindled over time. All he needed was 13 episodes to tell a narrative that in the process informed the modern binge model for a TV show. If you hated a story, you just had to wait until next season for a fresh reset.
I personally think that the early run was the show at its best, managing to play with genre techniques in such a way that you were in awe of what he pulled off. Even if they weren’t all created equally, seasons like “Asylum,” “Coven,” “Hotel,” and “Roanoke” all came from these fascinating perspectives that found stunt casting and crazy ideas all clashing with unpredictable results. It was a thrill ride, and one that you couldn’t deny became fun once you accepted the craziness for what it was.
While recent seasons, like the misfire “Apocalypse,” have tried to connect all of the dots, I personally love the idea of seeing every season as its own monster. Even if “1984” wasn’t great, the idea that Murphy still has a way of keeping you guessing is exciting and makes for appointment TV. I never learn my lesson when it comes to this because honestly, they’re so much fun to see through to the end. Some may be bad, but when they’re inspired amid the chaotic clutter, I can’t deny that this show has a fantastic wave-length worthy of the commitment.
4. Feud (2017 – Present)
In keeping with his more socially-conscious narratives, Murphy created this show to reflect famous feuds from throughout history. He chose to start with one of the most infamous in history: Bette Davis and Joan Crawford. One has to wonder what will happen now that knives are out. What could’ve been his campiest show about two actresses opposed to each other ends up being one of his most sympathetic and heartfelt, featuring great performances by Jessica Lange and Susan Sarandon. This is a story about how media turns women against each other, ultimately finding that they fed into it in order to maintain career relevancy as they entered their “hagsploitation” phase. It ends by asking us to think of them not as rivals, but women vulnerable to the terrible treatment that older actresses received at the time.
The only thing keeping this show from ranking higher is that there has only been one season, and from what I can gather there’s not much talk of another. While American Crime Story is reportedly getting a third season about the Monica Lewinsky scandal, I couldn’t tell you what the future of Feud is despite being a proposed anthology show. Murphy personally has said that it’s not going to be another Hollywood-centric tale, which makes one excited to see where things go from here.
5. The Politician (2019 – Present)
I’ll totally confess that when it comes to Ryan Murphy, I am largely clueless to his work before 2010. I don’t know if Popular or Nip/Tuck are these early masterpieces. What I do know is that of his recent work, he’s still trying to find a balance between his meaningful commentaries like Feud and his love of trashy genre shows like Scream Queens. The bowl is big and they all fit in there, but unfortunately, the latter has an overwhelming residency that keeps his prestigious reputation from having a giant asterisk next to it.
While I liked Hollywood, I have to confess a dirty secret: I really liked The Politician more. It’s a satire that finds high school politics standing in for the corrupt nature of local and even federal-level campaigning. There are so many crazy twists with reason sometimes going out the window. There are so many petty characters that it becomes a hierarchy of picking the lesser evil, and each seedy twist comes with a theatricality that is borderline impractical but always entertaining. It helps if you’re a fan of Dear Evan Hansen (whose Ben Platt and Laura Dreyfuss headline this series), though season two promises to take things even further, moving the schoolyard fights to the city streets. I don’t know that it’s perfect, but it’s a delightful mess.
This isn’t to include his several dives into producing film and documentaries. With reports that he’s working on Netflix adaptations of The Prom and The Boys in the Band, there’s a good chance that I could do a whole different Top 5 dedicated to those. For now, however, he is largely seen as a TV man, and I am embarrassed to admit how excited I’ve become to see his name attached to a show, finding that the auteur theory actually works decently for all of these programs whether they’re Pose or something as trivial as the short-lived The New Normal.
Do you think that Ryan Murphy is a pioneer of a new kind of TV, or is he just filling the airwaves with a new layer of trash? I personal think he’s doing a bit of both, but I like that he’s challenging the basic function of a show and forcing us to look at the medium in a different and more exciting way. He may have too much carte blanche when it comes to greenlighting anthology shows (seriously, is there ever going to be a second season of Feud?), but even the slivers have something interesting – maybe even important – to say, and that’s why I think he’ll continue to resonate, servicing an important place in the TV canon.
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