…All of that is why I think that 30 Rock, despite its flaws, is probably the greatest piece of art about New York in the 21st century. The immense concentrations of capital — financial, social, and cultural — which have made New York what it is for 200 years are the primary subject of the show, and the gap between the 1% and the 99% which this 30 Rock-less summer and autumn have made clear is not only supported but demonstrated in practically every episode of the show to date, with Jack, Tracy (and, increasingly, Liz) safely ensconced in the 1% and everyone else, Pete and Frank and Kenneth and Lutz and Dennis and even Jenna, scrambling to stay afloat in the sea of the 99%. New York has always been a city where the gap between the rich and the poor was more immediately evident than elsewhere; while 30 Rock addresses class (as such) only rarely, the underlying issues and conflicts of class make up the background hum of the show, in ways both small and silly (the constant unexpectedness of Dotcom’s liberal-arts education) and big and silly (Liz discovering even as she says it that having “like twelve grand in checking” is a social faux pas).
Well now I’m obliged to make a list of the greatest pieces of art about New York in the 21st Century.
