Minimum-wage work, food poverty, lack of healthcare: Superstore is what you’d get if Ken Loach had directed Friends. It’s one of many series bringing harsh political realities to the masses
Years and years went by when no one in a novel had a job, and almost no one in a mainstream American sitcom or dramedy had money worries. Roseanne wasn’t earning enough but ever since that show was canned in 1997, people have had cute scrapes where they lost their job or their credit card – but grinding, day-to-day poverty, unable to make ends meet or imagine a future in which you would ever be able to? That wasn’t what sitcoms were about.
Instead, we’d take an office (The Office), or a police precinct (Brooklyn Nine-Nine), or a family (Modern Family), or a dojo (Cobra Kai – and yes, before you ask, I do watch a lot of telly), and some people would be richer than others, and some would make bad choices, and others would get into hilarious pickles, but one convention was always observed: nobody was struggling, or if they were, it was because they were on drugs.
Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist
