Both the Kotsko and Batuman readings mention Arrested Development as an example of awkwardness, but I would like to discuss it through the lens of the elasticity of the zany Tobias Fünke. His professional and personal identities are in constant flux; after losing his psychological licenses, the terminally unemployed Tobias one day decides his calling is to become an actor, an occupation revolving around the plasticity of the self and the aesthetic. Tobias’ headshots (see below) depict him portraying various occupations characterized only by their cliched costumes as his affect in each is unchanged, drawing attention to work itself as performance art (Ngai 216).
Tobias, while aesthetically changing roles moment to moment, remains recognizable as his goofy self. He is at once adaptable and staunch, fluid and clunky—a negotiation of roles, relationships, and identities. Met with constant professional failure and dismissal from the Bluth family, including his own wife, there is a certain desperation and resentment behind his incessant efforts that upholds the zany as “not just funny but angry” (Ngai 218). The family insists Tobias is not an actor because he is never hired, but really, he is acting all the time. Aside from his willingness to adopt any role, there are several running gags in the show insinuating he is a man of many hidden identities: that he is secretly gay, a “never nude,” oddly catlike, and even that he is actually a black man. These gags never culminate in any reveals about Tobias’ sexuality or race. As in Ngai’s discussion of gender, the zany plays at uncertainty, transient in its occupation of categories. This very shifting, the dropping of one just to zip another on like a costume, the treating of identity and social roles as a matter of aesthetics, renders these distinctions somewhat superficial. It is the zany’s job to commit with irreverence (if not also incompetence) to that which is exposed to be hollow. The zany is dedicated, even if the primary object of that dedication is not static but change itself.
This is such an interesting take on Tobias because I always viewed him as sort of unawarely, earnestly trying to make space for himself within the family dynamic and is innocent to the fact that they all dislike him. But its true that his plight is endless and there must built up anger and resentment that shapes the character.
I think Tobias is a great example of a zany character also because he embodies a point that Ngai made on page 200, that “the cable guy is zany not just because he performs this affective activity but because he cannot seem to stop performing it.” There is a certain compulsivity in the way that Tobias goes through life, committing himself to things and people, the blue man group and actress Debrie Bardeaux being examples of this.