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TV hospital drama Scrubs tells young men that it’s OK to lean on other people for support.

Everyone feels overwhelmed every now and then. Whether it’s the rigours of the job, the family or just the daily business of living, everyone recognises that life is not always easy. So we need other people to help get us through it. This is the premise of Scrubs, a hospital drama from the States, that has been running since October 2001 and which is now gaining in popularity this side of the Atlantic, particularly among young men.

How to cope?

The use of a hospital as the arena for this study of the male psyche is perfect. The subject in question is J.D., for whom each episode acts as a kind of journal that he keeps on his way through his medical career. He shares with the viewer his experiences of a job that can be unpredictably tragic and of relationships that can get unpredictably complicated. We see the crushing need that he feels to live up to the high professional standards required of him and then watch as his actions reveal his limitations. He is confident with patients but unsure of his decisions inside, clever in his academic understanding during Q and A’s with the consultants but needing emotional maturity in his understanding of relationships. How does J.D. cope? Well, he makes the most of his friends.

Away from the patients

This means that although the series is based in a hospital, the majority of the action is played out away from the patients. The common room, the basketball court and the nurses’ station are the most common settings and during scenes in the wards, patients are often ignored, while conversations about intimate and personal matters are often carried out without regard to them at all!

There is a strong comic and even slapstick angle to the narratives. This becomes most obvious in the little vignettes that reveal J.D.’s true feelings. When he is feeling under assault from his mentor, the action cuts to an image of him dressed in a punch bag with Dr. Cox wearing boxing gloves. When he and his friend Turk are praised as heroes, they are depicted wearing Batman and Robin outfits. It is a too obvious literal rendering that I found tedious after a while, but it does have comic value at times when the emotional tension needs breaking.

Team is OK

The title song ‘I’m no superman’ deals superbly with the tension of J.D.’s situation. Here he is as a doctor in a role that lends itself brilliantly to machismo, yet he doesn’t seem to be able to grasp it consistently for himself; look at the TV hospital doctors who have gone before him, after all! The drive behind every hospital drama plotline is the victim; the easily damaged human body. The stars are the courageous doctors and nurses who battle to revive, restore and repair. Think of George Clooney as the brilliant but soulful medic in ER; striding in to competently take over in every situation, or even back to the aloof confidence of Dr. Kildare saving the day in his 70s soap. They were the ones that had the nurses drooling and even their apparent failings turned into winning solutions that everyone else had missed. They really were supermen.

Doing it differently

Scrubs does it differently ‘I can’t do this all on my own’, the title song confesses and J.D. knows that he needs all of the team, nurses in particular, to lend their advice and expertise, to rely on and support him as he does his job. It’s a good message for young men when they feel expected to demonstrate independent strength and success at everything they turn their hand to. It’s OK to be part of a team, it says, rather than just coping as an individual.

Yet J.D., his friend Turk and Dr. Cox are still flawed male role models. Their perspectives are dominated and often warped by sex. Relationships do not hover at the pre-physical relationship stage for very long in this show. Even to the extent that during season 1, the very obvious tension between J.D. and Elliot is broken by a ‘day in bed’ together, a device clumsily levered into the plotline and so short-lived that it is completely ignored two episodes later when Elliot comes out as a lesbian to her mother.

Alternative role-model

Although Scrubs is fun to watch, the viewer needs to study an alternative male role model to really understand what it means to be a man. It is interesting to consider that even Jesus didn’t work alone. He had the means and the ability to rush in to save the day but he waited for the right time as set by his Father. He had the emotional maturity to cope with rejection because of his perfect dependence on God. He lived a life that respected women, avoiding selfish pleasures so that God would be glorified. He knew that his friends would let him down, but ended up dying for them. He made praying his priority because he knew that this was where his strength lay. He was prepared to look weak and even to weep when he felt overwhelmed with sorrow. He had confidence that his relationship with his creator God was certain and didn’t need the praise of men to feel like he’d done a good job. J.D. may be an Everyman because he needs to trust his friends, but Jesus is the MAN because he trusts in God.

'I can't do this all on my own - I'm no Superman'

How to cope?

Away from the patients

Team is OK

Doing it differently

Alternative role-model

Eleanor Margesson

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