Sunday, March 06, 2011
Son of a Ben
In these days of Charlie Sheen’s burgeoning monomania and the simultaneous closure of my local Blockbuster Video outlet, I am drawn again to a moment I have relived countless times since the day it happened. And that was a long time ago, so this story is plenty full of excess modifiers and diverticulations. Pull yerself up a la-z-boy and put down the remote - you’re not changing the channel till I’ve said my fill today about Benson.
A person of my general age - my cohort, if you will - may have more associations with the name “Benson” than one might expect. There’s Robbie Benson, 80s pre-hearthrob (or perhaps pericardial twitch); there’s Benson & Hedges, the cigarette with the once-ubiquitous “America’s Favorite Cigarette Break“ campaign, and, of course, Lloyd, who. though technically a Bentsen, is nigh mimetophonic. And then there’s Robert Guillaume’s chef d’oeuvre, the caricaturization with which he will forever be inextricably linked - the snooty servant who became a lieutenant governor, Benson DuBois. For such persons as myself, who fall within a specified range of chronological maturities, “Benson” has for many years mainly meant this effete inverter of roles and classes, the comic avatar who personified the timeless archetype of the urban urbane.
When Guillaume’s Benson came onto the television lineup he was in the company of such giants as JJ Walker and Redd Foxx and Flip Wilson, that crossdressing pothead - all men who broke through the megalomedia color line by embracing expectations of broad jokes and broader mugging, “mugging” in this case meaning “pulling funny faces for comic effect.” In 1975, black men on the teevee were mostly either mugging for on or the camera, acting goofy or being criminals. There wasn’t much middle ground.
It was inherently comedic to put a black man in a position of authority, as in the immortal The Jeffersons or Carter Country. A black man in charge - it is to laugh. But then came Benson: a black servant in charge - it is to laugh selfconsciously, in expiation as much as in catharsis. We know we’re complicit in the hegemony that tied this exceptional character, surely capable of greater things, to his menial tasks. The tale is as old as Aesop, and we are no more comfortable with it now than we were then - perhaps less so.
Benson came on the scene as an ancillary character in the groundbreaking sitcom Soap, and snuck into our hearts because the real controversy was taken up by Billy Crystal’s prime-time premiere of a gay character. Once we got to the point we needed more Benson than Soap could provide, they put him in his own show and moved him from house servant to the state’s second in command over the course of seven years on the air. Benson: this name resonates for me, very specifically. People older or younger than I may not feel the same - but for my ilk, “Benson” is a very well-defined quantity.
In the waning days of the Benson show, when most people no longer admitted to watching his antics and shenanigans on the ol’ boob tube, I one afternoon happened to visit my local video outlet. For yea, these were yet the days when telephones had cords and video was recorded on spools of magnetic tape held in flat little plastic cases. VHS had won the battle for the future of home entertainment, defeating the ignominious Beta format, and whole stores sprang up dedicated to the proposition that people starved for jollies would climb into their cars to rent videotaped movies for a day or three, and then would drive back again to return them. These “video stores” flourished in those care-free days, and even I sometimes found myself browsing those stubby racks for a Walter Matthau caper or Peter Sellers romp. I mean, I’m not made of stone - and honestly, everybody did it.
Thus it was that I found myself in 1986 or so at 2020 Video on Ventura Boulevard near Coldwater Canyon Drive. Right? The pulsing heart of Studio City, the one true boulevard of the San Fernando Valley, just at the spot where a key canyon wends up and out to the glitter and glam of Beverly Hills and the greater West Side. Today it’s obviously a place where things are happening, but even back in nineteen and ‘86 Ventura Boulevard had a real sense of vibrancy - especially at Coldwater.
What’s more, that corner was essentially mine. My bootery was right on the corner (northwest), and then my video store, and then my bakery… the hobby shop was just to the east, and to the south was the stereo shop where I’d buy my blank cassette tapes. I knew every shop along that busy commercial strip. I’d grown up there. Even though it was the Valley’s throbbing little hub, I felt almost proprietary about the place. It was my neighborhood, and these were my places of business.
So, I’m at 2020 in ‘86, checking out. The clerk is proto-scary - pale and skinny, spiky black hair (well before it was done to death), black t-shirt and leather jacket and pants all fitting tightly to his emaciated body. He looms judgmentally at the shop’s counter of power. Video clerks in L.A. knew all about movies, and film too, and even cinema. They were gatekeepers, opinion leaders. Would he look upon my selection with favor, or with scorn? For no reason at all, his opinion mattered to me. I couldn’t bear the thought of other 2020 patrons being exposed, even peripherally, to my humiliation if the punk ska-zombie at the cash register didn’t enthusiastically endorse whatever I wanted to rent. I’d like to remember my choice as having been The Runaway Train; it was probably one of the lesser Fletches. Whichever, I’d gotten myself all worked up about what this entry-level authority figure would think about my selected video.
The moment of truth was at hand - I played it cool but intense, as was even then my wont, fixing him with a gimlet eye and pushing my empty cardboard box across to him without even looking at it. His pale green contacts shone coldly back at me. Time slowed as we assessed each other. Was I a patron to be patronized, or a kindred spirit to be encouraged with some crumb of approbation? And conversely, I had this last opportunity to ask myself if this man’s opinion truly signified for me. Yes, he stood at the apex - the very apex! - of San Fernando Valley video clerkdom, and I was fully mindful of his trend-affirming powers. I didn’t want to offend him. But really, did I need to care so much whether I did or not?
There we stood, eyeball to eyeball, my blues steady on his greens - and then he blinked. Not even metaphorically, either. His stare broke from mine and slid to the side; his carefully hooded gaze rapidly un-hooded, he stood up straighter and, grinning openly, leaned close to stagewhisper in a broad Ozarks accent: “Oh wow - Benson!”
I didn’t have to turn my head - despite not having personally seen Mr Guillaume browsing the racks with me, it would be natural for him to be doing so. Universal, Buena Vista and CBS studios were all just down the road; the BH hotel was right over the hill, and the Tujunga Pass was a pit where no one tarried. Big stars showed up around “stud city” all the time. I found myself grocery shopping with Annette Funicello; I stood in line at the post office with the Fonz. Celebrities in Studio City were like lakes in South Florida - it was a little weird to go too long without seeing one. So, sure, “Benson” was browsing somewhere behind me. By then his show was near cancellation if it hadn’t already happened; he was probably keeping a low profile. I’d seen it before. Turn my head to see it again now? Too much effort.
Too much effort: I took another look at the clerk. It must have taken him an hour to get all dressed up like that to work at this dinky store, and now he’s starstruck by the presence of a sitcom butler, an actor whom he only recognizes by his character’s name, consigning the man himself to anonymity - or, worse, non-identity, the utter subsumation of the individual into the role with which he was associated. Not “Oh, Robert Guillaume has come out today,” as one might casually identify a wildflower spied on a springtime hike - but “Oh wow, Benson!,” with that limestone softness of speech, the instinctive stiffening of his spine in the presence of his betters.... he was actually really impressed. Most likely he’d only lately arrived from some distant hamlet up in the piney woods; where he’d rented his fashion sense I couldn’t say, but surely a motivated wannabe could have come up with it somehow. His toughness was obviously feigned and I had finally seen through it. I didn’t know much, but I knew enough to know you don’t get all revved up on a Benson sighting. I didn’t, anyway.
I transacted my business and left the store. I think the clerk continued to revel in the rapture that Benson himself was shopping in his videotorium, but I had stopped caring enough to really notice. A man, no matter how carefully styled, cannot allow himself to get carried away like that. His approbation was insignificant. I didn’t need his approval, now that he’d lost my respect.
Chucklenote: I did not take one single photo that is linked to this post. Thanks, populators of the internet, for making this boring story visually stimulating for those of us with the guts to click on links. You guys rock. No seriously.