Much Ado About "The Nanny"

In April of last year, the first two seasons of The Nanny were available on Tubi for free, so naturally I quickly consumed the glorious first two seasons in absolute gluttony. I tried to cope with the disastrous quality of subsequent seasons' episodes via Youtube uploads that would disappear mere days after you saw them, but I needed my flashy girl from Flushing in the highest quality available. So, this April’s announcement of all seasons of The Nanny streaming on HBO Max was a heaven-sent. A pandemic bookend. The amount of serotonin that glitters in my glands when watching this show is almost as ridiculous as the show itself. It has reawakened the deep-seated desire to wear a very short skirt with tights or just anything risqué per say in me (not sure if that it ever left), so if you see me cosplaying Fran Fine fashion out on the streets in which I walk, please mind your business. I remember being the most annoying friend at sleepovers that would outlast everyone in that I just never tried to sleep (especially if the TV was on), and quietly delighted in the allure of Fran Fine at 3 am on Nick at Nite reruns as the last remaining non-sleeper. My friend Kinsley and I were both little brats that refused to sleep and would play air hockey in the middle of the night in the game room where everyone was trying to sleep while watching The Nanny (it was quite difficult to multi-task) and the sheer octave of Fran’s laugh was always more bothersome to our sleeping friends than the heavy hiccups of the air hockey table. In my recent jubilant re-watch of the series, I noticed something very familiar in the formula beyond just the classic nineties sitcom, but that the perimeters of the show struck me as Shakespearean in their comedy. (I also argue that the show is Austen-like in its dissection of classism and cultural satire, but the theatrical vein is an even stronger pull than the romance of the show to me.). For comparison, I decided to read Much Ado about Nothing to relate to the show, selecting Much Ado for its copious use of innuendo and the powerhouse character of Beatrice seemed like the most adpt parallel to The Nanny. In analyzing the characters, relationships, and structure of both works, Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing and The Nanny both utilize the power of suggestion for comedic effect.

Okay let’s talk about the it-girls of the aforementioned text, because their singularity is actually the entire reason for the success of these works. Both Beatrice and Fran exhibit sky-rocketing self-confidence and wit, suggesting the hilarity and power in cleverness. The Fran Drescher (co-creator and executive producer of The Nanny with her gay ex-husband) approach to her character is famously twofold: in its glamor of the designer aesthetic with a comedic twist (and commercial appeal) in combination with the wild nature of physical comedy. Drescher describes the juxtaposition in her appearance of “pretty girl with the funny voice,” as essential to her success. The character of Fran is so insistent upon her inherent pizzazz exclaiming one-liners like “ I’m smart enough to know when I’ve been insulted, sexy enough not to care,” taking pride in both her wit and exercise of her sexuality. She’s outfitted in overtly loud femininity in the traditional sense, reclaiming it as a source of strength for her rather than a reason not to be respected. Fran is emboldened by her sense of self-worth that is not diminished by her sexuality or her mistakefulness, but just the purity of the self-made magic. She’s the embodied dichotomy of carefully matched patterns and clumsiness. There’s an episode where Fran and her best friend Val (Rachel Chagall) go on a beach vacation and Fran walks across their hotel patio in a bikini looking like a knockout while trying not to spill their margaritas due the extreme wind because, well, they're in the middle of a hurricane (S04 Ep11 “Hurricane Fran”). For Fran, lots of jokes revolve around her flimsy moral compass, in that she’s shown frequently lying and the occasional cheating her taxes, but its flimsiness is really deceptive in her accuracy of street-smarts ( John Mulaney voice) and instinct to care about others. Her love of the Sheffield family is devoted, self-fulfilling her desire to be a wife and mother. Ultimately, Fran’s charisma is the spell that infects Mr. Sheffield's stoicism and enlivens his children (Maggie, Brighton, and Gracie) to relish in their childhood.

Beatrice is constantly joking and insulting Benedick (which is very C.C and Niles, but they lack in star quality what Fran and Maxwell have to be the couple in comparison ) , but exhibits a fierce loyalty to her cousin Hero in her distress. While Beatrice is outright disdainful towards men, indignant in lack of interest in matrimony quipping, “ “I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow than a man swear he loves me” (I.I line 124-5), Fran embodies the foil assertion of an obsession with marriage as the pinnacle of life’s success spouting out sentences like after a woman asks her out on a date saying “I just assumed. You're over 30, never been married, there isn't a man in your life…” to which Fran replies, Oh, honey, I'm not gay. I'm just pathetic.”

In season four, Fran goes to therapy to confront her obsession with marriage (meanwhile, I should go to therapy for my fear of the concept of marriage) , realizing that she’s been relying on the approval of men at times to supplement self-approval. The writers use the therapist (therapy is in general a central plot device which is so fascinating and hilarious in terms of the 90s milieu, especially on its influence upon the character of Gracie) as an additional procrastination method to Fran and Mr. Sheffield’s romance to offer narratives of Fran’s reliant self-esteem, her relationship with her father, her need for a career pursuit, etc. While self-reflection is a worthy pursuit, it seems clear that what Fran ultimately determines is that she is self-confident and happy with her relationships, but is sick of Mr. Sheffield’s deference in his fear of intimacy. At the end of season four ,she quits and then is reinstated by Mr. Sheffield’s insistence that he cares for her. Even in Fran’s obsession, it is inherent to the comedy, satirical in its operation, ironic in the rise of the modern nineties trends of career women. Like the construction of comedies traditionally ending in a wedding, Fran envisionages her life to follow that narrative, so the character’s obsession has the dual function of the central character flaw but also her main aspiration, bottling the complexity of parchiarchial pressure. The stark juxtaposition of C.C and Fran in The Nanny also reveals that C.C is ambitious but rather heartless, but Fran’s ambition is glamor, not in a selfish way, but in an attitude that prizes joyfulness. Fran’s ethic Jewish identity is her hallmark in her delightfulness embedding Jewishness into the DNA of the show, embodying the stereotypes of Jewish women to be positive rather than pejorative, incorporating copious amounts of Yiddish and the invasive parents as part of the functions of the show. Fran’s mother, Sylvia (Renée Taylor) is the instigator of France's obsession with marriage in ingraining that pressure in her childhood. In season two, all three women attend a therapy session where the therapist asks what brought them in that day. Fran responds, “I’m here because my mother has an obsession with me getting married.” To which, Sylvia groans, “I came because my daughter has a delusion that I have an obsession.” Finally, Grandma Yetta chimes in, “I came because they brought me. And I don't know how to get home," exemplifying the humorous dynamic that the three Fine women share and how their interconnectedness is central to their individual identities ("Dope Diamond" S03E03).

In Much Ado’s Beatrice has a complicated position in her family characterized by the fact that she is orphaned and unmarried in her uncle Lenato’s household, but differentiates herself from her often silent cousin, Hero by her outspoken nature and quick wit. Language is her amusement and her rebellion, her sense of power. Hero mocks Beatrice in act III, in context of the royal court devising the plan to convince Beatrice and Benedick of their match asserting Beatrice obstinance, “ She cannot love,/ Nor take no shape nor project of affection,/ She is so self-endeared,” which is hyperbolic and untrue of Beatrice, but I would also like to be called self-endeared, because that sounds luxurious to me. Critics often argue that Benedick and Beatrice are the most sarcastic characters but the most well-intentioned, in their consideration of each other feeling’s and aid to Hero in her false accusation of the “fallen woman” (aka combating a rumor that Hero is not a virgin, even though she is very much a virgin who can’t drive). Beatrice exercises freedom in the removed pressure of not having to please her parents in not having the duty of “Father, as it please you” as Hero does, encouraging Hero to utter “Father as it please me.” When the family repeatedly expresses desire to see Beatrice married, Beatrice retorts “ Not till God makes men of some other metal than earth. Would it not grieve a woman to be overmastered with a piece of valiant dust? To make an account of her life, to clod of wayward marl?” which should hang on a plaque on my wall, because I love the quip so much. This response is the epitome of Beatrice’s dissent of societal expectation and understanding that men are mostly slop. The oppositional viewpoints of Fran and Beatrice converge to their ultimate accomplishment of wit and charm being the path to love, retaining their own power of wit in marriage.

In addition to humor, these women’s persuasive powers enter light-hearted accounts of the potential for the more devious side of sweet talk. In in a fever dream of The Nanny episode in which a Fran and her mother Sylvia are held hostage at bank robbery, but the thief is so incompetent that Fran and Sylvia order him around while waiting for the police (S04 Ep16 “The Bank Robbery”). Sylvia screams that she’s “HIPPOGLYCEMIC!” to force the robber to order the hostages lunch from the deli. Fran makes the robber be the phone go-between when Mr Sheffield tries to call Fran, because she’s annoyed with him. It kind of unveils Fran’s capacity to be juvenile, but she is centered in the buoyant world of The Nanny, so her mistakes are quickly dusted away. In fact, it’s a little fun to see her outside her good nature. The chief engagement of The Nanny is to entertain, to create fun for the audience and to showcase the narrative voice of Fran Drescher’s creation. As Fran remarks to the children in season one, “Everything has to have a moral. What am I, Mother Goose?,”claiming the purpose of the show is enjoyment not didactics. That charm with a propensity to danger dwells deeply in Beatrice. After Beatrice and Benedrick's initial confessions of love in Act III, Beatrice asks him to rectify Hero being cancelled by instructing Benedick to “Kill Claudio!,” which shocks audiences, but I, of course, found it melodramatic in a humorous way. Benedick is trying to be all valiant and Beatrices rationalizes that if you actually love me, prove it by killing a newfound enemy of my family, please. Comedy! But if we take the claim seriously, then the play is questioning the motivations of Beatrice’s persuasion, but really y’all it’s just a joke about murder, take it easy. Of course, Benedick scrambles for the play’s next act trying to convince himself to kill Claudio, but resorts to empty threats instead. There are elements of the conceit that women are shrewd and crafty here, but I truly think that it makes light of the trope.

Fashion is a pivotal piece of both The Nanny and Much Ado, in that it is purposeful in creating the character’s style and the construction of the format itself. The costume designer for The Nanny, Brenda Cooper made it her mission to infuse humor in clothing creating Fran’s signature looks in Moschino, Todd Oldham, Chanel, department store finds, Kmart turtlenecks, and everything in between. Cooper said in a Huff Post interview, “Could you imagine if I dressed that show and dressed Fran like an average, everyday nanny? We wouldn’t be having a conversation right now. I wouldn’t have an Emmy. WhatFranWore [Instagram account] wouldn’t exist. This is all because of the way somebody was dressed,” articulating how instrumental fashion is to the legacy of The Nanny as an outward expression of the allure Fran possessed. Fran’s wardrobe connotes sex in short skirts, cinched blazers, vests, glitz, patterns, animal print, but it also encompasses Fran’s signature charm and wit, her sense of style is an extension of self. Fran’s awareness of her own sensuality materializes episode after episode, but I love when she combines this with her unconventional problem solving skills like the time she performs a strip tease to a superstitious Mets hockey player that convinced all of New York City that she was his bad luck charm on the ice while they were dating, incorporating every superstitious unlucky trope (with props of a rabbits foot, 13 themed things, a mirror) into her strip tease to force him to publicly redact his statement ( S3 Ep21 “The Hockey Show”). Mr. Sheffield’s own style of an all black or navy or brown monochrome turtleneck and pant look with a grey or green or maroon or khaki suede overcoat champions the oversized Dad look as kind of hot when paired with his thick brunette quaff with a charming silver lining. (This older, well-dressed man trope is really a weakness of mine.) Each character’s costume informs their personality perfectly.

The clothing is a key player in Shakespeare too, in which scholar Peter Holland notes, “Shakespeare’s play is much concerned with clothes and fashion: Margaret's elaborate comparison of Hero’s wedding gown with one worn by the Duchess of Milan (III.4.13-22) is the epitome of the trope. Much Ado About Nothing is also anxious over the ways people fashion plots as Don Pedro ‘doubt[s] not but to fashion’ a match between Beatrice and Benedick (II.2.42-43).” Greater than clothing being switched as the monumental mixup that led to Hero’s downfall (of her servant Margaret in Hero nightgown talking to Don Pedro), fashion in terms of the design or the fabrication of the structure of the play is the crux of the play’s comedy in that the royal court fashions the game of matchmaking Beatrice and Benedick while they are waiting for the Hero and Claudio’s big wedding in order to entertain themselves. The goal of the characters is to see these impossible characters get together as a ruse while the wedding preparations take place, exhibiting a show within a show reflecting the meta nature of the actors putting on a play for the audience.The construction of Beatrice and Benedick’s relationship is dependent on the knowledge on eavesdropping. Hero and Margaret are aware of Beatrice listening so they consciously spin stories of Benedick being in love ith Beatrice. Likewise, Don Pedro, Claudio, and Leonato loudly converse about Beatrice's love for Benedick, so that Benedick will overhear. In this way, Niles the butler frequently clues into Fran and Mr. Sheffield’s relationship, listening in on the intercom, leaning against the door, investing real time and energy in the entertainment value of wanting to see the two of them together. The game of the will-they-won’t-they is the ruse created by the writers of the show to entertain the audience, to taunt and delight them with the success of these characters. Niles collects gossip ultimately to feed to Fran or C.C (Max’s business partner) or Mr. Sheffield. Actually in episode S05 EP05“The Ex-Niles,” Niles gets fired for snooping too much, rehired because Mr. Sheffield realizes he relies on Niles’ snooping. (The same episode Niles gives tours of the Sheffield house claiming it was the pre-Kennedy Jackie O is’ prior residence. But my favorite Niles prank is in the episode with Elton John, Niles convinces C.C. that Mr. Sheffield has a fourth child named Sydney.)

Like Much Ado, The Nanny leans into the comic aspects of artifice, for the show’s tone is fashioned, put-on, constructed very much aware that it is unrealistic, anchoring the show as aspirational in Fran’s closet stocked with skirt sets but admirable in its awareness that it was a TV show, in on the joke of the show being lucrious. In a blooper reel, Fran Drescher and Renée Taylor are laughing in the Fine family kitchen in which they both do a joke about using their breasts to their advantage, pushing up their cleavage in a tut-tut way, in which Drescher keeps laughing exclaiming, “who are these people?” laughing through the portrayal of these hyperbolic characters. Yet as an audience, their clothing is an immediate indicator of who the characters are, so once they start speaking it's as if they already make sense in the constructed world of the show—we already get them.

Now the real “plot” of these works is in the formation of desire between Fran and Mr. Sheffield and Beatrice and Benedick, for the dramatic pull of the central couple is the stakes of the story. The first two seasons of The Nanny, Maxwell is a little distant and Fran actually focuses on the children, but we witness increasingly flirty behavior in the writers conjuring scenarios in which Fran and Mr. Sheffield kisses and then dismisses the gravity of the kiss. The classic kiss and dismiss. The foremost example is in the episode S03 Ep06 “Shopaholic” in which Fran’s shopping addiction is so concerning that Mr. Sheffield has to come to the mall to talk her down from a shop-induced frenzy. Then they have a ‘moment,’ kiss and Fran falls and has a concussion with no memory of the event. So stupid. So amazing. Throughout the show, Fran is frequently coaxing Mr. Sheffield to publicly admit how he feels for her on department store intercoms (S03 Ep15 “Where’s Fran?”), over megaphone (s3 Ep21 “The Bank Robbery”), as acknowledgement and confirmation of his feelings. Likewise, Benedick shoves off his reputation in valuing Beatrice, “As you hear of me, so think of me,” (line 331-32) which is of course the equivalent of Fran and Mr. Sheffield going to confront the tabloid for spreading rumors about them, but they end up making out to prove to the tabloid writers’ they are hot enough for rumors when the tabloids cite poor sales of the “The Nanny and Producer Hunk'' storyline (s04 EP20 “The Nanny and the Hunk Producer”).

Embarrassment is also an important virtue of sitcoms; all my favorite sitcoms the characters are constantly embarrassing each other and choosing to embrace the embarrassment for their friendship. Some of the most memorable examples are: in Friends: Rachel running in the park with Phoebe, committing to the outlandish way that Phoebe runs (S06 E07 “The One Where Phoebe Runs”), New Girl’s pilot episode features Nick, Schmidt, and Coach serenading Jess with Dirty Dancing’s “(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life” in the middle of the restaurant to cheer her after she is stood up by her date, Derry Girls season one finale in which the girls join Orla in her terrible talent show dance routine. Or in terms of love interests, Danny’s willingness to dance for Mindy to delight her in The Mindy Project (frankly, to the audience’s own embarrassment) (S02 E11 “Christmas Party Sex Trap).The characters of Much Ado think it would be funny to see Beatrice and Benedick together, to embarrass them in how love wounds in pride (frankly, love is embarrassing), devising the satisfaction in others embarrassing themselves as a primary source of recreation.

The suggestive dialogue of both The Nanny and Much Ado is integral in intensifying the comedy in romance and sex , and is ultimately effective because the comments stem from real sexual tension between characters. There’s all kinds of sexual puns in the scenarios of Fran crawling under Mr. Sheffield’s desk to administer a foot rub as Niles walks with a giggling Fran under the desk as she asks “Do you think we should rub some lotion on it?” with no context of a foot massage (S03 E14 “Fashion Show”). Or another great example is in an episode where Fran and Mr. Sheffield nearly have sex, Fran diverts to suggest they play ping pong instead in which they proceed to have a hot and heavy ping pong match that can be only be described as orgasmic. Beatrice’s first line in the play is an innuendo asking where Benedick is, “ I pray you, is Signior Montanto returned from the wars, or no?,” trying to undermine Benedick with her sarcastic pun on “Montanto” a fencing term for a “upright blow or thrust.” These spicy zingers are littered throughout each work and reveal the underbelly of horniness that all the characters inhabit. The outright nature of the sexual humor is a way to express their sexual desire while in a repressed situation, leading to the eventual culmination of future romances.

Again with the structuring of the romance of Beatrice/Benedick and Fran/Maxwell, there is a climatic confession of love that is redacted by the man that causes distress. The finale of season three of The Nanny, Fran ends up accidentally accompanying Mr. Sheffield to Paris. This is one of the most famous episodes that used to be on reruns frequently, so I remember watching this episode as a child instantly knowing that these two needed to get together. At the end of the episode, when they think their returning flight plane is going to crash, Mr. Sheffield finally confesses that he loves Fran. In the first episode of season four, he swiftly takes it back. The whole season four runs the gag calling Mr. Sheffield’s fickle confession “The Thing,” in which Fran orchestrates manipulation after manipulation, because of Mr Sheffield how much he owes her because of “The Thing.” For the first four seasons, the show and the characters themselves have devised scenarios for Fran and Maxwell to make out or “feign” intimacy that can be routinely brushed aside as play, not sincere expressions of desire. Every episode, Fran and Mr. Sheffield’s bond and thorough sexual tension is unveiled, only to be veiled again, regenerating the sitcom formula. Like the ending of the Shakespeare comedy, the audience knows the couple will marry in the end. ( Fran Drescher and creators protested their marriage because they thought it would kill the show. The network forced them to get married or have the show be cancelled at the end of season five. This is why the sixth season flops a bit, but it is still enjoyable.) Beatrice reveals that Beatrice and Benedick do have a past history in which she recalls to Don Pedro, “Indeed, my lord, he lent it [his heart] me awhile, and I gave him use for it —a double heart for his single one. Marry, once before he won it of me with false dice; therefore your grace may well say I have lost,” that she did love him once but he deceived her, which is why she later treats his earnest confession with trepidation (III.1. 264-266). This parallels Mr. Sheffield’s return of his confession to his deception of Fran, indicating a large obstacle for both Beatrice and Fran to overcome in order to re-accept their lovers. In “An Affair to Disremember,” Fran is still heartbroken over Max, but she considers running away with his brother in an effort to be happy in a spoof of ‘An Affair to Remember'. The show cosplays dramatic acting which, of course, Fran Drescher pulls off and connects so deeply with the idea of waiting for your life to begin that I almost cried. This silly, fun-loving Moschino advertisement of a show harbors real heart too.

While heartfelt, the purpose of the romance is comedy in that The Nanny reinvigorates the Shakespeare concept of the comedy of errors (the phrase deriving from an early Shakespeare work literally titled “Comedy of Error”) in which comedy springs out of blunders and miscommunications. One of my favorites examples of this is S03 Ep18 “Love is a Many Blundered Thing,” in which Fran commissions a billboard to wish Mr. Sheffield “Happy Valentine’s Day” because she thinks Mr. Sheffield is her secret admirer sending her cards. But upon realizing that her admirer is actually a fourteen year old friend of Brighton’s, Fran enlists Val to help her paint over the billboard. Of course, this goes very awry and Fran winds up suspended on a wire in front of the billboard. Every episode of The Nanny is a comedy of errors! The Nanny is doing slapstick, broad, campy comedy episode after episode, redefining Shakespeare conceits of love, sex, and marriage to humor the nineties sitcom audience.

Finally, I must mention the episode (S02 EP7 “ A Star is Unborn”) in which Fran plays Juliet in a local production of Romeo & Juliet, because the director wants the play to fail as a tax write-off but Fran thinks it is her big actoral debut. (Fun fact: Drescher’s then husband and co-creator of The Nanny Peter Marc Jacobson plays Romeo). Fran and Mr Sheffield do a sizzling rehearsal to help Fran practice her lines with Max as Romeo. But the whole episode is an undeniable display of Drescher’s comedic skill in which she drags out the Juliet suicide for so, so long, standing up, throwing herself across the stage, tripping midway through the scene while continuously yelping. She checks for lipstick on her teeth in the reflection of the dagger.Then Romeo and Juliet ascend to heaven on the suspension cables and as Fran fails around in the air knocking over the set, noting that Romeo as “quite a wedgie” from the harness. After asking the director if Juliet would really kill herself after Romeo’s death, she retorts that “You can tell this play was written by a man.” Which is an apt point that crystallizes my frustration with the ending of Much Ado about Nothing when as soon as Benedick and Beatrice marry, Benedick interrupts Beatrice during the ceremony, “Peace! I will stop your mouth,” with the ceremonial bride and groom kiss. Which is played for laughs, but has an eerie feeling of silencing women that Shakespeare comedies often enact.

The Nanny, though, feels like how listening to good pop music feels, that life is just falling in love, having fun, and general melodrama —the show does have its on cadence with the upbeat clicking of Fran’s high heels around the house, her nasal belts, the pattern of insult exchange between Niles and C.C.—that the melodies of the show you want to reply over and over again. The importance of guest stars (Bette Midler, Celine Dion , Elton John, Elizabeth Taylor ) throughout the run of the show identifies (and Fran’s love of Barbra Streisand) how these people are a part of defying moments in our lives, dramatized in sitcom ability. Routinely, cementing Fran as gay icon herself. While there is a sense of normalcy in gay identities that is pretty ahead of its time, it is important to note the persuasiveness fatphobic jokes, a brown face moment, and in general some perpetuation of gendered stereotypes that do ground the show in the nineties.

These traits of dress, double entree, and romance are concepts humans find intrinsically funny, so the evolution of Shakespeare comedy to classic sitcom formulas are materials cut from the same cloth. Funny keeps being funny as we invent and repackage societal customs to satirize. I love that the The Nanny characters all laugh at their own jokes, acknowledging that even if the “real word” the characters’ belong to is still in jest, they aim to entertain one another. The stakes are just your ability to be charming, that’s it. Which is an altogether dangerous lesson that both Shakespeare and The Nanny are teaching me, that you can just be fun and witty and maybe that’s enough to get you anywhere.