To learn to love Frasier, you’ll first need to love the tension of seeing an acute social embarrassment far on the horizon, then enduring its long, sometimes circuitous journey to its destination. That’s an acquired taste, a social anxiety version of the tension in a horror film, when the young couple enter the abandoned house in the rainstorm, and you clutch your fingers over your face waiting for the inevitable, shocking appearance of the supernatural beast that seeks their blood. We wait in pained trepidation for blood ourselves – the blood rushing to the cheeks or draining from the face.
The fact we’re expecting the inevitable consequence, even when Frasier (or sometimes Niles) has no idea it’s coming, doesn’t detract from the pain of its realisation. In fact, quite the opposite — our minds enter an overdrive of expectation, and when that tension is finally popped we feel a heightened sense of whatever social situation occurs, as well as a comforting, deep-breathe exhale relief: finally, it’s over. This literary conceit — the audience knowing something the character does — is a staple of Frasier’s comedy of manners, a classic crossed-wires scenario that viewers find extremely rewarding.
It works extremely well in episode 10 of the first season, Oops!, where office gossip is reaching a crescendo as KACL 780 is prompted to sack one of their hosts as a cost-cutting exercise. At the start of the episode we are none-the-wiser than the assembled talent as Roz shares this piece of gossip with Frasier and the station’s inimitable eye-in-the-sky ‘Chopper’ Dave. Rumour invites speculation, and before long it the crew have decided that Bob ‘Bulldog’ Briscoe is due for the chop. As the episode progresses, it becomes clear that they’re wrong, but they don’t know that yet, and we wait with baited breath for Frasier to inevitably, accidentally, inform him. Once he does, Bulldog is ready for a fight, and storms into the station manager’s office to not only quit, but to let him know even more station gossip about his wife’s affairs. In the meantime, we, the audience, know what Bulldog doesn’t — that far from firing him, the station was planning to syndicate his show and “go national”.
Making gossip the centre of this episode, and an integral part of the wider show, is a neat little trick, because dramatic irony is built into gossiping as a mode. The whole point of gossip is to inform you of something you shouldn’t know — sometimes for entertainment, but just as much for protection, or out of a sense of solidarity. When Roz fills him in, Frasier, of course, takes the moral high ground, claiming he is anti-gossip. “Roz I’m ashamed of you. Gossip gossip gossip. Don’t you realise how destructive it can be? It does nothing but sully good people’s names and create an atmosphere of suspicion and mistrust.” But Roz hits a key point, defending herself saying “Oh lighten up. Gossip is the lifeblood of the corporate world. If it wasn’t for gossip we wouldn’t know any of the important things.”
It’s true — restricting information is a tool of bosses, and gossip is frequently a tool of solidarity amongst workers, something that can help them discuss their situation and prepare themselves against the boss. As Keller Easterling writes in Extrastatecraft, “the servant gossips about the master; the underlings can, with anonymity, stir up public opinion about the boss. Gossip…never starts anywhere.’
It’s also a powerfully gendered mode of interaction, allowing women to share basic information about men. Not knowing about a man’s history, his demeanour in private, can be a dangerous ignorance; knowing the gossip of other women about him can be life saving. In her article Witch-hunt, artist and writer Hannah Black addresses this valuable tool, writing:
“When we gossip, we share vital information: this one is sad, this one is in love, this one is dangerous. In most families, news of birth, death, failure and achievement travels through the women. Communities of gossips nurse each other through the degradations that partners, bosses and families inflict on us. Without the love of gossips, most of us would be either dead or dead inside.”
It’s not hard to see how gossip would be a vital tool amongst workers, especially women, at KACL 780; harassment and abuse is rife (before leaving for the boss’s office, Bulldog pins and kisses Roz from nowhere) and violence is part of the workplace, as Frasier discovers when he visits the station manager and finds the hole in the wall caused by Bulldog’s head. The value of knowing who’s a creep and who’s a violent bully, and knowing it without them knowing you know it — a real-world dramatic irony — saves you from finding out the hard way – yourself. Like Roz says, if it weren’t for gossip, we wouldn’t know any of the important things.
Check out my non-Frasier writing at utopian drivel.