Critic’s notebook: One man’s trash is another man’s ‘Glee’

Hello, “Glee” lovers, wherever you are! (And you are everywhere.) It has been a good year for your favorite show! Nineteen Emmy nominations! That’s two more than “Mad Men”! And you “Modern Family” fans — 14 Emmy nods is nothing to sneeze at!

Surely these are the season’s most beloved new TV series, praised by professional and amateur reviewers alike, the subject of much Twitter tweeting and Facebook posting and possibly even old-style, in-person, water-cooler conversational bonding. But they are not beloved by me.

I don’t say this to be contrary or controversial. If anything, I’m in a state of wonderment. It feels odd, critically, to remain so unmoved by things that have moved so many, to be left cold by what warms the multitudes. Do I think that people who like these shows are wrong? I suppose in some way I must, just as I imagine that they would pity my inability to enjoy them, as though I were unable to appreciate the taste of strawberries or the smell of cut grass.

Still, I have come neither to defend myself nor to convert anyone to my thinking. Although many writers will attempt to demonstrate to the world, or just (or especially) to their fellow critics, that their own take on a show, a band, a book, or a film is the correct one — here the words “overrated” or “underrated” usually come into play — it requires confusing opinion with fact, and there is quite enough of that around as it is.

I think my job is something else: a sort of informed, outward-looking, public self-analysis in which the process of coming to terms with one’s reactions to a work of art, or of “art,” hopefully throws off some interesting sparks — an original idea, a fresh perspective, a joke worth repeating, a well-turned phrase that might crystallize a reader’s thoughts on the subject. It should also be entertaining in its own right, but not at the expense of honest appraisal.

When I reviewed “Glee,” at the time of its premiere, I did call it “one of the best new shows of the fall season.” That is a relative term, of course, and in the next sentence I also described it as “maddeningly schizophrenic” and went on to detail my caveats, which still substantially remain (cardboard characters, ridiculous situations.) My own indifference has had, of course, not derailed this pop-cultural juggernaut on its path to world conquest. Madonna has allowed the use her songs; Paul McCartney sent creator Ryan Murphy two CDs worth of his own stuff, hoping to be similarly celebrated. Britney Spears is lending her music and her person to the new season. And, in the final devotional melding of viewer and object, “Glee” nation has given itself a name: “gleeks.”

“Modern Family,” whose fans have no special name for themselves, as far as I know, is a more difficult, even puzzling, case. For while I can see perfectly well what people like about “Glee” — it has singing and dancing and underdogs who regularly triumph through performance, and a touching occasional story line involving a gay teen and his unexpectedly understanding dad — “Modern Family” does not work on me at all. It’s as if we existed on different planes, or came from different planets, or that I suffered from some sort of neurological deficit that denatured every joke and feel-good moment.

As it happens, I have not until now written about the show; it was originally reviewed for The Times by my colleague Mary McNamara, who called it “sharp, timely and fresh,” and her opinion has been seconded and thirded and fourthed all up and down the line. The series earned “universal acclaim” on the review-aggregating website metacritic.com. To use another highly scientific metric, Googling the phrase “love modern family” fetches 444,000 hits, “hate modern family” a mere 2,530.

Just today (as I write these words), I was at a party where I was asked what I thought of “Modern Family,” the statically probable expectation being that I liked it as much as did my interlocutor, and that we would move on possibly to share our favorite scenes and characters. Instead, she got to hear something along the lines of what you’re reading now. This sort of thing has happened not infrequently over the past year, or nearly, with “Modern Family” fans of many ages and otherwise diverse tastes, some of them related to me.

Oddly, because of this great discrepancy between my reaction and what can seem like everyone else’s, I have spent more time watching these series, and more intently, than shows I prefer, in order to make sure that I’m giving them a fair shake and not merely reacting to the reaction: Hype creates backlash; popularity breeds suspicion. But I am pretty certain: I am authentically unaffected. I don’t even dislike “Modern Family”; I am all for positive depictions of nonstandardized family life. But I don’t believe any of it for a minute; it seems constructed from the outside in to me. And yet millions would disagree, as they continue to feel their lives, or at least their Wednesdays, improved by the existence of this show.

Well, to each his own. Different strokes for different folks. It’s what makes horse races. There’s no accounting for taste — well, probably on some psychological, sociological or biological level there is some accounting for taste, but you are not required to account for it. We all have a right to like the things we like, without explanation (unless we’re, you know, being paid to explain them). You do not have to defend your love for Justin Bieber or Herman’s Hermits, “Jersey Shore” or “I Dream of Jeannie.” My own favorite series of the last couple of years “Food Party,” is basically a puppet show. That’s just me.

So go on, “Glee,” forward, “Modern Family” to your date with Emmy destiny. I won’t not root for you. Meanwhile, there are plenty of other fish flopping around the vast wasteland: “Bored to Death” (one Emmy nomination — and win! — for title design) is coming back soon, and I’m super excited about that. You, maybe less so. But hopefully we can still be friends, here where opinion meets the page.

robert.lloyd@latimes.com