The Economic Commodity of Grace and Frankie and Its Cultural Significance

05 June 2018

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Grace and Frankie is a 2015 TV show centered around the ideals of female empowerment and realistic aging and queer representations. Produced and distributed by Netflix, it stars Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin as two unlikely friends who need each other after their husbands, played by Sam Waterston and Martin Sheen, come out as gay and divorce them for each other. As of June 2018, it has four seasons, each containing thirteen episodes (all released simultaneously). It’s considered a comedy with each episode lasting between twenty-five and thirty-two minutes (Barbosa 1438). The inception of Grace and Frankie was meant to be an extension of the 1980 movie 9 to 5 starring the same female lead actors, but Netflix decided to create an original series in the same vein instead (Romero). Created by Marta Kauffman, who created Friends, and Howard J. Morris, there are some similarities between the showrunners’ and actors’ past works and this text, situating old experiences (literally and metaphorically) in a new media. One notable parallel is that Grace and Frankie lost their marriages because their spouses came out compared to how Ross from Friends also lost his wife when she came out as a lesbian. Kauffman, specifically, has worked with underlying feminist and queer texts in her career, where Grace and Frankie is her most transparent one yet.

The text internally parallels the feminist cultural legacy of Fonda and Tomlin. In Fonda’s 2005 book, My Life So Far, she discussed her “successful aging” campaign with L’Oréal and her involvement with gerontology, or the study and breakdown of aging behaviors (Jerslev 6). Fonda’s public persona shifted in the late 1990s and early 2000s for being a pioneer for postfeminist ideals of individualism, the body, and sexualization of older women; in other words, she used her fame and endorsements to foster an ideology that spoke to an older female audience and said, “You are still beautiful. You are still sexy. You can still do it all,” (Jerslev 7). Tomlin, on the other hand, still resided in this neoliberal ethos, but was more focused on gay and queer rights in shaping her presented ideology, identifying as a lesbian herself (Jerslev 7). These two cultural legacies are apparent in Grace and Frankie as its characters existence (both as “old” and as “old and gay”) is deviant to other shows streaming or broadcasting at the time – and even on Netflix. Numerous story arcs tackle these ideologies directly, acting as a cultural mirror to their actors’ real-world legacies.

In the first season, Frankie sprays whipped cream into Grace’s mouth and says, “Now you can’t eat until Monday,” (Jerslev 7). This connotes unrealistic body ideals, eating habits, etc. that women face on a daily basis, but it also alludes to Fonda’s own eating disorder she had when she was younger. Grace’s company Say Grace also parallels a lot of ads Fonda did with L’Oréal. And much of the character dynamics between Grace and Frankie are similar to Fonda and Tomlin in real-life, who’ve had a working relationship since 9 to 5 (Jerslev 7). Effectively, the show draws on a lot of realistic experiences that women in and out of the industry face and incorporates it into the story world of the text. This is important in understanding its cultural placement in its time.

“On a pure level, to see women coming together and having each other’s backs … it’s just amazing,” Tomlin said, “I think female friendships are incredibly important,” (Villarreal).

While not a lot is known about Netflix originals’ performances, its audience impressions can be studied to understand how the text is received. Anne Jerslev, from the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, did just that when she took over three-thousand comments from the Grace and Frankie Facebook page and analyzed them through the theory of fan studies (Jerslev 2). Jerslev sorted and examined any commenter that was over the age of fifty and identified as female. What she found was that virtually every commenter in this group praised the show for its authentic voice and representation to an older demographic (Jerslev 3). Jerslev noted that about twenty percent of the commenters identified as male, and by looking at Twitter impressions, many millennials are also highly engaged with the text (Jerslev 3). Grace and Frankie, from its social medias, appears to have resonated with a small, but dedicated fan following of primarily older women and young adult audiences. What is noteworthy about this is that the former isn’t typically targeted as consumers for content on streaming services and the latter is overly targeted to the point where when they do select a text, it’s important because it beat out over a dozen like it.

Because Netflix is a paid subscription, it doesn’t have commercial or magazine-style advertisements; however, it’s been widely debated about its use of product placement to generate extra revenue where traditional advertisements would be. Seventy-four percent of all Netflix shows have product placement, according to Greg Isaacs, chief product and marketing officer at Branded Entertainment Network (BEN); however, according to Trinh Le, marketing director for Kellogg, “Netflix doesn’t offer any paid placements” when asked about Stranger Things and Eggos (Castillo; Wohl). BEN has reported product placement costs between five and five-hundred thousand dollars per episode and confirmed they did over six thousand placements on Netflix alone in 2016, as seen with Dunkin’ Donuts and GM in House of Cards, Tincup Whiskey in Jessica Jones, and Jose Cuervo in Fuller House (Castillo). What this means is that Netflix clearly allows product placements on its original programming, but because it doesn’t release its own data on this, nor does it have to, there is a grey area of knowing what is product placement and what is writing. For Grace and Frankie, products like Vitamix, Chili’s, Del Taco, Trader Joe’s, Longmire, Apple, Kindle, Wheat Thins, and Spotify have all been claimed as “annoying product placement” when doing a deep Twitter search of the show. But Netflix and these brands have yet to confirm their relationship. Regardless of if Netflix is paid or not, this brand recognition acts in the same way with its audience. The following are tweets within a month of a seasons’ release.

 “I only accept product placement when it’s completely fucking ridiculous like this (side-eyeing Grace & Frankie’s kindle explanation scene)”. Kyle

“@GraceandFrankie this trip to chili’s is the cringiest product placement ever”. Robert

“There’s a lot of product placement for Apple in #GraceAndFrankie. Everyone owns an iPhone and a MacBook, but surprised no apple watch.” Tony

What is initially interesting is that the more negative comments on product placement in Grace and Frankie are from men, while more excited or indifferent product placement response came from women.

“Trader Joe’s product placement in Grace & Frankie is spot on.” Abby

“Whoever got @PooPourri product placement as ‘clown repellent’ in S2E2 of #GraceandFrankie is a genius. (I should thank writer Alexa Junge!)” Grandma Ogre

There is a necessary distinction to be made about whether or not a product placement fits within the storytelling. For example, when Grace and Frankie use an iPhone or Kindle, it jokes about the learning curve of new technology with older consumers; it is a specific problem that is relatable to the text’s targeted audience. “Psychographic and demographic factors may significantly impact the effectiveness of product placements [and its inclusion]” (Ong 151). So, when a product placement is oppositional to a demographic (say, a man is oppositional to a product placement designed for older woman like the Vitamix), such that their ideologies conflict, audiences begin dissociating with the text itself. However, audiences can have a dominant or intended reading of the product placement, as one user claimed to have bought a Vitamix after watching season two, episode two, titled “The Vitamix”. Either option may cause them to tweet the show and make social media impressions. This is exactly what Netflix wants, as it uses this and internal data to build profiles of users (Amatriain 391). Using its recommendation and ranking algorithms, Netflix is able to pinpoint the interests of specific users, which then affects what product placements are attached to what shows (Amatriain 394). This is in hopes of decreasing oppositional readings and increasing dominant readings of internal ads in Grace and Frankie and on Netflix as a whole to increase revenues.

In a study conducted by Beng Soo Ong, from the University of Arkansas, he found that on a scale from one (strongly agree) to five (strongly disagree), audiences believed product placement as an unethical form of advertising on TV to be a little under four (Ong 155). This neutral-leaning-disagreement implies that viewers are, by and large, okay with product placement if it means their content is uninterrupted, higher quality, supports the cast, lasts longer, etc. This economic model is supported by what Netflix has based its original programming behind from the beginning and what it continues to do with Grace and Frankie’s story world for an older demographic.

“It really has to do with what happens when your age becomes a betrayal,” Kauffman said, “The big thing is really coming to terms with ‘What does it mean to be this age? What am I still capable of doing? What do I want for myself at this age?’” (Villarreal).

Historically, older women have low representation in media compared to their population size. Texts like The Golden Girls (1985-1992) and Last Tango in Halifax (2012-present) have shed some light on these identities, but they’re still far from equal (Barbosa 1441). Those forty and over represent forty-seven percent of the U.S. population, yet only twenty-six percent of women on TV are older than forty (Ulaby). Of Grace and Frankie’s eight reoccurring characters, half are women, half are men, half are over forty, and half are under forty. The show evenly represents two genders and age brackets, more similarly to real-world demographics than that of the average TV show. And when it comes to running a company, women only make up fourteen percent of those leaders on TV, compared to its real-world equivalent of twenty-five percent (Ulaby). On Grace and Frankie, Grace founded and ran a multi-million-dollar cosmetics company called Say Grace. After her retirement, her daughter, Brianna, took over. This lineage of female power is crucial to understanding the cultural impact of the show, as it constantly shines a light on various types of women. Grace had children and was a CEO. Brianna didn’t have children and is a CEO. Grace’s other daughter, Mallory, is a stay-at-home mom. Frankie was a stay-at-home mom and painter. Multiple female identities are presented in this text, contrasting what is typical for other TV shows in this era still. “Grace and Frankie seems to offer new ‘ways of being in the world that are not defined solely by their role as mother, wife or professional,’” (Barbosa 1445). Though it is worth mentioning that Grace running a cosmetics company keeps gendered communities and products confined and reinforced, part of the text’s ideology is a postfeminist understanding that woman can have stereotypical behaviors (caring about makeup and fashion) and still be an individualized, strong person outside of any one character trait.

Additionally, sixty percent of working women are mothers in America, yet virtually no high-ranking working women on TV have children (Ulaby). Brianna is the only main female character to not have children, and she has story arcs specifically about refuting the notion that all women must have children at her age. Analyzing the statistical representation to real-world demographics allows a way to understand a direct link of cultural reflection this text produces. The only asterisk is that while Grace and Frankie deals with age and gender roles, it lacks racial and socioeconomic lenses when presenting its characters in this cultural reflection.

“We have to be doing more than resist,” Fonda said, “We have to be creating the kind of future that we want,” (Villarreal).

One of the largest motifs in Grace and Frankie is the sexual re-awakening of the characters after their divorces. Human rights activists, Maria Luisa Mendonça and Clarissa Motter defined an “ideological orientation” in contemporary mass media that has rejected female aging due to the male gaze and its oversexualization and positioning of women in story worlds (Barbosa 1441). With a multi-season story arc of the titular characters selling vibrators and homemade yam lube, it becomes clear that the text naturalizes, disenchants, and simply presents the aged body as it is and sexually can be (Barbosa 1441). Grace and Frankie break this “ideological orientation” by simply existing and pursuing their sexual and social desires.

In season one, episode six, Grace finds an ex-con (one of Frankie’s students that Grace has hated for the season) in her kitchen. When the ex-con hits on Grace after he notices condoms fall out of her purse, an earthquake shakes the house, and, in that moment, they’re pushed up against a wall and kiss passionately. This sensual kiss empowered Grace as a woman without being limited by her age or trying to re-contextualize the moment to make herself seem younger (Barbosa 1441). It’s also important to understand Grace’s initial embarrassment of dropping the condoms (“because older women shouldn’t be having sex”), and how her relationship to sex changes over the course of the series.

Family as a social desire is also necessary to analyze within this realm of aging. The suburban homes that Grace and Frankie raised their kids in embodies not only the years (and, therefore, age) of being a young mother, but also the social dynamics of those thought-to-be-straight marriages and parents (Barbosa 1442). When Grace’s husband, Robert, takes their home, he takes that domestic space away from Grace. When Frankie’s husband, Sol, sells their home, he destroys that domestic space. During the scenes of Frankie and her children packing, it is apparent that they are saying goodbye to their early years in a permeant way. This forces both Grace and Frankie into a new space (the beach house), which is now reconfigured to their sentimental and sensual older years (Barbosa 1442). This space is where Grace was allowed to kiss the ex-con and have it been naturalized. Future scenes of Frankie and her new boyfriend take place in the beach house – localizing their sexual re-awakenment outside of the gendered roles of their domestic motherhoods or matrimonies.

Sex isn’t the only desire to be naturalized in the beach house – a strong platonic friendship is also born here out of necessity. Grace and Frankie are clear dramatic foils, so their intimacy “develops through the complement that one offers to the other,” (Barbosa 1444). This is seen by their initial reactions to the beach house post-breakup. Grace slumps on the couch, and Frankie goes to the beach to take hallucinogens, only for an age-specific physical aliment (Frankie’s back locking up) to bring them physically and characteristically together (Barbosa 1444). Their new home is a catalyst for this next chapter of their lives that are heavily influenced by their aging bodies in contrast to their young-feeling minds.

Sex, family, and friendship are all complex needs that are overlooked for older characters in the TV industry. Grace and Frankie already has a cultural legacy because it gives a third-dimension to older woman in these traditionally taboo or strictly gendered roles.

In conclusion, Grace and Frankie presents a deviant presentation of aging women that is without competition in its embedded media services. Due to a lack of this representation, its existence is its core driving force in creating a postfeminist ideology of what it means to be a woman and what it means to be an older woman. It also examines queer rights in this aging space. Both of these ideologies are additionally supplemented by the cast’s and showrunners’ previous works and experiences in the industry, allowing for a realism to give the text an authentic voice. By looking at the text as an economic commodity, it’s clear to see that Netflix uses this show similarly to its other original programming, by paying for it with subscription and product placement revenues. How all of this reflects back onto the viewers is mixed between demographics, but for Grace and Frankie’s target demographic of older women, it is clear from fan studies that its reception is welcomed as the beginning of a larger cultural shift away from the “ideological orientation” and into the full empowerment of women.  


Works Cited

Amatriain, Xavier, and Justin Basilico. “Recommender Systems in Industry: A Netflix Case Study.” Recommender Systems Handbook, 2015, pp. 385–419., doi:10.1007/978-1-4899-7637-6_11.

Barbosa, Karina Gomes. “Affects and Female Old Age in Grace and Frankie.” Revista Estudos Feministas 25.3 (2017): 1437-446. Scientific Electronic Library Online. Web. 05 June 2018.

Castillo, Michelle. “A Company Owned by Bill Gates Is Placing Ads in Netflix and Amazon Shows.” CNBC. CNBC, 27 July 2017. Web. 05 June 2018.

Jerslev, Anne. “‘A Real Show for Mature Women’ Ageing along with Ageing Stars: Grace and Frankie Fandom on Facebook.” Celebrity Studies, 2018, pp. 1–16., doi:10.1080/19392397.2018.1465298.

Romero, Ariana. “5 Ways ‘Grace and Frankie’ Breaks the Mold.” Multichannel. Multichannel, 14 Apr. 2015. Web. 05 June 2018.

Ulaby, Neda. “Working Women on Television: A Mixed Bag at Best.” NPR. NPR, 18 May 2013. Web. 05 June 2018.

Wohl, Jessica. “How Eggo Is Playing Up Its Moment in the ‘Stranger Things’ Spotlight.” Ad Age. Ad Age, 16 Oct. 2017. Web. 05 June 2018.