Tuesday, September 08, 2009
Flo
No surprise actor Stephanie Courtney, who instantly & brilliantly creates "Flo" on the Progressive Insurance commercials, is a veteran member of The Groundlings improv comedy troupe. "The way I play her, she's pretty much the most asexual thing on TV right now." Also my impression of Flo.We all knew a "Flo" in high school & college. Liked being around her sometimes, not for too long. She's the kind of girl you enjoy running into at a party, she'll play a beer bottle flute duet with you in the kitchen & act more inebriated than she is. Most guys don't want to get close to her, & the ones who do might be fantasizing that Flo has bondage fantasies, which she won't act out with them even if she does. The Flo type carries a torch for a guy (maybe a gal) she can't have at the moment - or probably ever. She's forthright up to a point, even about carrying a torch if you pry enough, but always keeping a distance & holding back something, never quite connecting. Flo thinks what she's holding back - her third dimension - makes her mysterious & fascinating. But she's trying to keep others from discovering what she's hiding is much like what she's showing. We like Flo because what she shows isn't phony. In the commercial, Flo has found a niche in a strange, antiseptic, corporate workplace. She can in real life, too. Flo is adaptable, possibly with a capacity to be amoral, a team player for the product & an enthusiastic facilitator - provided she's permitted her few outward eccentricities. Otherwise, she becomes resentful & gossipy. Then she's banished to a computer in a windowless cubicle in the warehouse.
