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What Commentary Does “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt” Offer on Privileged Upper-Class Lifestyles?

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The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (2015) character of Jacqueline Voorhees (Jane Krakowski), wealthy Manhattan wife and Kimmy’s (Ellie Kemper) boss, is an amplified amalgam of every cliche, stereotype and assumption the typical bourgeois person has about how upper-class people live and behave.

When we meet Jacqueline, one of the first things she does is open her several thousand-dollar see-through refrigerator, take out a bottle of Fiji water, and offer it to Kimmy. When Kimmy declines the offer, Jacqueline throws it in the trash. It’s a hilarious scene that not only immediately helps define Jacqueline’s character, but capitalizes on an atmosphere of extraordinary wastefulness.

The things Jacqueline asks Kimmy to do are so outrageous, they’re the type only the super-rich could get away with demanding. In a scene where Jacqueline feels stressed about her looming divorce (which would only leave her with $12 million, a sum she can’t possibly survive on), she tells Kimmy she’s yearning to stress eat, and asks Kimmy to do it for her while she watches. The resulting scene has Kimmy diving into an enormous cheeseburger while Jacqueline verbally projects unto herself, saying things like “Excellent. Eat your shame.”

The rest of Jacqueline’s family is equally absurd in traditional high-society stereotypes. Her teenage daughter Xanthippe Lannister Voorhees (Dylan Gelula) is rebellious, spoiled, and determined to grow up as fast as possible. (Historically, Xanthippe was the name of Socrates’ wife who stemmed from a socially prominent family - And, of course, the Lannisters are the most regarded and diabolical family in Game of Thrones.) Jacqueline’s son Buckley is a shoplifter, a hilariously ironic behavior for someone with access to endless money, and her husband is never in town, possibly having affairs, generating all the family income. It also may not be a coincidence Buckley’s name harkens back to The Buckley School, one of the most prestigious and exclusive all-boy’s private schools located on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Overall, the family appears to be constructed from the cover of every tabloid and reality show popularization of rich American behaviors.

The show powerfully juxtaposes Kimmy and the Voorhees family, a group who could have all the luxuries and accommodations a human could need; Kimmy not only owns very few possessions, but she had her family and her childhood stolen from her by a crazy opportunist preacher who abducted her and forced her to live in an underground bunker for over a decade. The Voorhees clan complains endlessly about trivial issues and whines about privileged nonsense while a true survivor of horror lives in their home, full of life and bubbliness, providing abutment for the Voorhees’ insane lifestyles.

The Voorhees aren’t the only ones satirized by the program. Kimmy’s short-lived male interest Logan Beekman (Adam Campbell) is a commentary on how people who come from old family money are out-of-touch with regular life. Logan hails from some upscale billionaire family, speaks with an English accent despite being from Connecticut, and shows up with a cedar box containing four single inlaid cubes of “artisanal frozen water” when Kimmy asks him to pick up ice for her birthday party.

Yet, upon closer examination, the show also reveals a deeper truth about the affluent elite - money cannot replace love, security and family devotion. Whether cordoned off in a bunker like Kimmy or ensconced in an expensive brownstone on Manhattan’s Upper East Side like the Voorhees, individuals are simply looking for intimacy and a way in which to connect with those closest to them. Despite the show’s lighthearded approach, the Voorhees family members struggle with heavy and darker emotional issues: Jacqueline (albeit misguided and outrageously insecure) agonizes over the absence of love from her neglectful and unfaithful husband, Xanthippe wrestles with her own identity and personal values system amid the crushing social pressures imposed by her spoiled, bratty and rebellious group of friends, and Buckley acts out in an effort to gain love and attention from his absent parents.