PERFECT HARMONY …

For the past 17 years, my TV watching habits have been dictated by a person with the duel diagnosis of Autism and Angelman Syndrome. So, if you peer into our DVR, you’ll find episodes of Barney and Curious George as well as the Three Stooges and The Voice.

Through the years, my wife and I have spent thousands of hours seeking out things that will stimulate, educate and entertain our daughter. And given her limited access to a lot of the worlds all of us “typical” people take for granted, she accesses most of her worlds through screens.

Even after all these years of trial and error, watching and recording and re-watching and erasing and trying to find just the right cocktail of funny and light and age-appropriate and educational and whatever, whatever, we still don’t really know if we know exactly what she’s responding to when she laughs or cries or claps or loses interest in something she sees on a screen.

But we have found some tried-and-true things that always work for her. One thing we have learned is that music seems to be the critical component of anything she engages with. Years ago, it was American Idol. Neither my wife nor I were all that into that show before her. But her absolute obsession with it forced us to pay attention. And it ended up changing our lives forever.

So, I guess you’d say we pay attention when she pays attention. She has some strange sixth sense about the worlds created in those screens. It’s almost like she can tell immediately if there is an innate chemistry that is working or if it’s being phoned in. And we’re pretty sure she can resonate with a good soul through the wires and ones and zeros.

She absolutely, one hundred percent, without question LOVES Dolly Parton. She could watch Dolly recite the phone book and never move. Is it the hair and makeup? Is it the undeniably distinctive voice? Or is is it something deeper? Is she responding to a kind spirit; an authentic heart?

We’re not exactly sure. But Dolly sends us a Christmas card every year and on more than a few occasions, my daughter has run to it and placed it on her face in an attempt to give Dolly a hug and a kiss. I personally believe there’s a spiritual thing going on there.

Watching Dolly led us to a film called Joyful Noise, which is one of Bella’s (my daughter’s) favorites. And that genre (that revolves around choirs and vocal performances inside the story itself), led us to the Pitch Perfect series of films. Bella was instantly hooked on those films. And she grins every time they call themselves “The Bellas.” We’re pretty sure she thinks they’re talking about her.

One of the stars of the Pitch Perfect films is Anna Camp. So, when we saw that she was co-starring in a new NBC series, Perfect Harmony (based on a church choir), we immediately set the DVR to record series. These actors, whether they know it or not, have become my daughter’s friends through the years. We’re pretty sure she sees it that way, at least. You’d have to be the parent of someone who lives in a lot of isolation to really understand.

You see, no cars ever show up at my house to take my daughter to the mall. She doesn’t get barrages of texts from bff’s, asking her what she’s wearing to the spring formal or who she’s crushing on. There are no sleepovers at my house. There’s no revolving door of teenage girls, coming to see their friend and leaving in a whirlwind to go get ice cream and hang out.

No, when the therapists clock out and the very good-hearted and well-intentioned school peers dash off with the kids they can talk and relate to, and even when her own brother steals away to his gaming lair or heads to the skate park with a bro, it’s just she and her mother and me doing the best we can to make every evening a good one.

So, yes, we rely on our friends in the entertainment industry maybe a little more than we should. Still …

One of those evenings we gave Anna and her on-screen crew a shot at bringing their little world into ours for 22 minutes. Many times, when Bella is watching something and remaining contented, my wife and I just tune it out while we’re prepping food and medicines or making beds or folding clothes or managing any number of the daily rituals for someone who requires 24-hour care.

In the case of Perfect Harmony, we heard some one-liners that actually made us chuckle and perk up. Then, we found ourselves following the story lines and getting invested in the characters. My daughter was instantly transfixed and fell in love with that little world immediately.

We’ve watched the entire series several times, now. And we absolutely love the show and the people in it. When my daughter is restless and fidgety and is walking through the house trying to destroy things, we can always calm her down by putting on a Perfect Harmony episode. She loves going to that little town in Kentucky and watching those imperfect people try to work out their lives, while delivering zingers every 30 seconds and rolling out a new vocal arrangement of an unexpected pop song.

But the show is also doing something I personally believe we really need as a nation right now. It puts an East coast, ivy-league progressive professor (Bradley Whitford) in a small, Kentucky town with people who are the EXACT opposite of him. And while that creates the obvious sustainable conflict for as many episodes as the network will buy, it also allows us to see what we need to acknowledge now more than ever; that whether we’re wearing MAGA hats or pretentious scarves, we’re all human just beneath the surface. And we might have more in common than we want to admit.

The cast is (as all casts must be these days) multi-racial, multi-aged, multi-gendered, multi-cultural, multi-sized, multi-everything. But they’re also well-drawn and more complicated than the caricatures they could’ve been. Each off-beat and quick witted in their own way, what’s cool about the people created in this little sit-com world, is that they are all ultimately good spirits. And I am certain that is the main thing my daughter is responding to.

I sit on the couch and feed her her bedtime snack, and I root for these people on the screen. I enjoy their little world. And I look forward to them coming in to our house again the next week. And Bella laughs at them and smiles at them, then claps for them when they perform the inevitable, final number at the end of each episode.

I don’t know how well Perfect Harmony is doing ratings wise. I don’t know if it’s being hailed or hung by the critics. I don’t know if it will be back next season. But I do know that for a 17-year-old girl with a severe disability, in Brentwood, Tennessee, it has been a wonderful place for her to go for a few minutes every week.

And if we can create wonderful places for people to go, through music or dance or art or movies or…yes…even sit coms, then we’ve done something truly worth while as artists.

Perfect Harmony airs on Thursday nights at 8:30 PM Central Time.

If you’re looking for a world to visit through your screen, my daughter and I highly recommend it. It’s a wonderful place to go.

 

R

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