I was writing a feature for my day job yesterday, and spent most of the day with this single by Owl City (Perhaps where Chuck Klosterman's Downtown Owl is located? I sort of like that idea.), "Fireflies," on repeat.
It's a pretty good. As Jonah Weiner pointed out on Twitter, Owl City has The Postal Service's light, electronic sound absolutely nailed. But the dude from Owl City isn't nearly as good a lyricist as Ben Gibbard. I mean, "'Cause I'd get a thousand hugs / From ten thousand lightning bugs"? Really, dude? There are some decent images in the song, but they're drawn from what's essentially a gimmicky, twee lyrical concept. Take, for example, "Clark Gable," one of my favorite singles from Give Up, sadly The Postal Service's only album to date:
The scenario, a guy inventing a project he can work on with an ex-girlfriend he misses, is eminently plausible. And the title lines are divine, economical, precise: "I kissed you in a style Clark Gable would admire / I thought it classic / I want so badly to believe / That there is truth that love is real." It's the exact kind of posturing we do every day, and an illustration of the posturing we do particularly with the people we are the most intimate with and thus the most vulnerable to.
Same thing with "The District Sleeps Alone Tonight," which I'll admit to having a soft spot for / being vulnerable to, since I've had many of the emotions the song describes in the city's it set in. Whether it's the lovely metaphor of the lonely city ("The District sleeps alone tonight / After the bars turn out their lights / And sends the autos swerving / Into the loneliest evening") or the absolutely wrenching declaration "And I am finally seeing / Why I was the one worth leaving," the song expresses absolute, common truths in surprising, revealing ways that makes them new:
Plus, the video is just insanely gorgeous, more high-concept and better executed than Owl City's one for "Fireflies," which is as twee as you might expect, not that that's entirely a bad thing.
The Imaginarium of Dr. P
A while ago, I expressed some concerns about Terry Gilliam's latest and Heath Ledger's last, The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus. GayAsXmas has seen it and he doesn't think it amounts to much. It's too bad, but it's basically what I expected, unfortunately.
Being InHuman
Man, I got all excited on Twitter this afternoon when I heard that SyFy had picked up Being Human, a BBC show about a ghost, a werewolf, and a vampire, who share a flat, that GayAsXMas has told me to watch, and which I've been lusting after because it's one of those tantalizing, frustrating things that isn't available on iTunes, isn't streaming online (at least not on the official site), isn't on Hulu, and that I'd have to subscribe to extra cables to get.
Sadly, my excitement was misguided. What SyFy is giving us is a remake. And I just don't see why. It HAS to be more expensive to remake the show than to syndicate it. Americans, particularly nerdy Americans, have a reasonably demonstrated taste for British television. Unless they're doing a frame-by-frame remake, there's not necessarily a reason to suspect the remake will capture the same things that made them buy the rights in the first place. Meredith at io9 has further disgruntlement. I might watch, but what I wanted was the original. And it looks like I'm not going to get it.
Sadly, my excitement was misguided. What SyFy is giving us is a remake. And I just don't see why. It HAS to be more expensive to remake the show than to syndicate it. Americans, particularly nerdy Americans, have a reasonably demonstrated taste for British television. Unless they're doing a frame-by-frame remake, there's not necessarily a reason to suspect the remake will capture the same things that made them buy the rights in the first place. Meredith at io9 has further disgruntlement. I might watch, but what I wanted was the original. And it looks like I'm not going to get it.
Whole New World
A full trailer for Avatar is out, and the effects are totally gorgeous (if not as convincing as James Cameron is marketing them as--although maybe it'll be different on the big screen). It'll be a lot of fun to watch, but I can't imagine that I'll want to watch it more than once, and this is why: the plot looks, rad sci-fi details aside, extremely pedestrian. Marine goes in to conquer the native! Marine falls in love with native hottie! Marine goes native! Marine musters inferior weaponry in righteous cause! All that's missing is whether: Marine leads the natives to victory! or Marine sacrifices his life in martyr-like fashion!
I'm really interested in the alienation from our bodies that's popping up in more and more movies, whether it's the robots in Surrogates, or the robot avatars that are showing up in a lot of music videos. I'm curious about how the body lives outside the mine. And I'm really curious about the questions involved in the ethics of colonizing and exploiting other planets (note the Red Mars obsession). Romance! and hotness! and drama! can happen alongside all of those things. I just hope the balance is closer to the issues in Avatar than to the cliches.
Fading
io9's Charlie Jane Anders (of whom I am a big fan) has a provocative argument up at that blog that the profusion of movies, television shows, and comics about memory loss and zombies is a reflection of America's anxiety about the coming massive wave of Alzheimer's and dementia the country faces. I'm intrigued by this, in part because I like watching for big patterns, and this was one I hadn't noticed.
I've also been fascinated by my own ability to watch zombie movies over the past couple of years. This may sound like solipsism, but I have extremely vivid, upsetting nightmares, and handle horror, especially visceral horror, extremely poorly. I suppose I thought in part that I could watch the lighter brand of zombie movies because I was getting a bit braver (Which is certainly true: I sat through my first big-screen horror movie, Drag Me to Hell, this summer. I laughed. I buried my head in my buddy Alex's shoulder only a couple of times. And I only knocked over my Milk Duds in terror once!) But I also think it's because zombies have become rather cuddly, whether they're the metaphors (and video game opponents) of Shaun of the Dead, the pets of Fido, or the canvass for Woody Harrelson to wreak creative destruction against in Zombieland. Perhaps that's our attempt to humanize something we find disgusting or frightening. But it also minimizes our fear instead of acknowledging--and reflecting it--it. Maybe it's all just one coping mechanism, a psychological and artistic funhouse mirror. But I'd be curious in seeing a analysis: does the takeoff of memory-loss and zombie plotlines correlate with a rise in Alzheimer's and similar diseases? Is there an argument for why they'd be more attributable to medical phenomena than political phenomena? I'm not invested either way: just exercising my brains before someone decides to eat 'em.
I've also been fascinated by my own ability to watch zombie movies over the past couple of years. This may sound like solipsism, but I have extremely vivid, upsetting nightmares, and handle horror, especially visceral horror, extremely poorly. I suppose I thought in part that I could watch the lighter brand of zombie movies because I was getting a bit braver (Which is certainly true: I sat through my first big-screen horror movie, Drag Me to Hell, this summer. I laughed. I buried my head in my buddy Alex's shoulder only a couple of times. And I only knocked over my Milk Duds in terror once!) But I also think it's because zombies have become rather cuddly, whether they're the metaphors (and video game opponents) of Shaun of the Dead, the pets of Fido, or the canvass for Woody Harrelson to wreak creative destruction against in Zombieland. Perhaps that's our attempt to humanize something we find disgusting or frightening. But it also minimizes our fear instead of acknowledging--and reflecting it--it. Maybe it's all just one coping mechanism, a psychological and artistic funhouse mirror. But I'd be curious in seeing a analysis: does the takeoff of memory-loss and zombie plotlines correlate with a rise in Alzheimer's and similar diseases? Is there an argument for why they'd be more attributable to medical phenomena than political phenomena? I'm not invested either way: just exercising my brains before someone decides to eat 'em.
Infinite Variation
Do we really need a Carrie musical? Especially given that it's been tried--and failed--before? Does everything need to be spun off into multiple permutations of itself? I realize I am a cranky old person who is raining on the parades of people who like cheerful song montages. But I'd really rather see original stories than movies, and musicals, and novels ripping each other off in infinite succession, unless there's a clear artistic rationale for the translation.
Against Biopics
Because, it seems, movie studios have decided that American audiences have an endless appetite for movies about fragments of famous people's lives, next up, the young John Lennon!
Now, I love the Beatles. I had a serious hippie phase in late elementary school that included a detailed drawing of Lennon's face in Sgt. Pepper mode on a "Make Love, Not War" sign that my mother wouldn't let me carry when I went trick-or-treating as a flower child. But this looks deeply tiresome. There's no music, no physical resemblance to jog those deep-seated, subcortical memories. It's only a family drama with a bit of guitar-playing (and Kristin Scott Thomas, who is lovely and aristocratic, but leaves me a bit cold) and accents. And this is the problem with biopics. Simply because people are or were famous, simply because they produced interesting work, doesn't mean they are themselves inherently fascinating.
This seems to be something studios have yet to figure out. And I'll admit it's unduly prejudiced me against biopics in general. I feel as if I can tell the difference: Malcolm X is interesting because of how far he rose in life, and the ideological shifts he went through along the way; Johnny Cash had an astonishing, intriguing marriage, and performed remarkable feats of self-mythology and creation. I don't know that, even though I love John Lennon's music, that I actually find him interesting (it could be I'm just burned out from reading far too many Beatle biographies). Amelia Earhart did extremely brave things, but the reasons she did it are basic psychology today in a way they might have been thirty years ago (a point I think is well-made in this week's New Yorker review). Frank Sinatra probably has the makings of a decent biopic, but it depresses the hell out of me to read about how actors--who may or may not be remotely suitable for the role--are scrambling all over it because biopic means Oscar. Given the American public's viewing preferences, it's not totally shocking that studios would mistake fame for substance.
But it does make me feel a bit petulant about biopics as a form: I honestly don't want to watch them any more because I don't want to encourage them. I don't want more Morgan Freeman shot from the side and behind to evoke the thrill of recognition we get when we catch a glimpse of Nelson Mandela, I don't want any faux Cavern Clubs. I want performances that are as glorious and creepy as Philip Seymour Hoffman as Truman Capote. But for every single one of those, we have to put up with an impersonation that goes no deeper than a razored hairline, a fake nose. For now, I'm done with it.
Now, I love the Beatles. I had a serious hippie phase in late elementary school that included a detailed drawing of Lennon's face in Sgt. Pepper mode on a "Make Love, Not War" sign that my mother wouldn't let me carry when I went trick-or-treating as a flower child. But this looks deeply tiresome. There's no music, no physical resemblance to jog those deep-seated, subcortical memories. It's only a family drama with a bit of guitar-playing (and Kristin Scott Thomas, who is lovely and aristocratic, but leaves me a bit cold) and accents. And this is the problem with biopics. Simply because people are or were famous, simply because they produced interesting work, doesn't mean they are themselves inherently fascinating.
This seems to be something studios have yet to figure out. And I'll admit it's unduly prejudiced me against biopics in general. I feel as if I can tell the difference: Malcolm X is interesting because of how far he rose in life, and the ideological shifts he went through along the way; Johnny Cash had an astonishing, intriguing marriage, and performed remarkable feats of self-mythology and creation. I don't know that, even though I love John Lennon's music, that I actually find him interesting (it could be I'm just burned out from reading far too many Beatle biographies). Amelia Earhart did extremely brave things, but the reasons she did it are basic psychology today in a way they might have been thirty years ago (a point I think is well-made in this week's New Yorker review). Frank Sinatra probably has the makings of a decent biopic, but it depresses the hell out of me to read about how actors--who may or may not be remotely suitable for the role--are scrambling all over it because biopic means Oscar. Given the American public's viewing preferences, it's not totally shocking that studios would mistake fame for substance.
But it does make me feel a bit petulant about biopics as a form: I honestly don't want to watch them any more because I don't want to encourage them. I don't want more Morgan Freeman shot from the side and behind to evoke the thrill of recognition we get when we catch a glimpse of Nelson Mandela, I don't want any faux Cavern Clubs. I want performances that are as glorious and creepy as Philip Seymour Hoffman as Truman Capote. But for every single one of those, we have to put up with an impersonation that goes no deeper than a razored hairline, a fake nose. For now, I'm done with it.
Chance to Make It Real
Image used under a Creative Commons license courtesy Bettina Tizzy.
I've got a piece up in The Daily Beast about the pretty amazing work done by the Harry Potter Alliance, a large organization of Harry Potter fans who work on everything from gay rights issues to genocide prevention. The piece is partially about the work that the group does, but it's also about a question I've spent a bunch of time talking with HPA co-founder Andrew Slack about: how do people build out from fictional worlds into the universe we actually live in? I'm curious about the hold that fictional universes exert on us. Whether it's by writing fan fiction, role-playing, going to cons, etc., it's easy to burrow deep into the worlds that matter to us most. What's much harder than finding entry points into fiction within our world is altering our world to look like fiction. Science, of course, does it for us to a certain extent. We can build limited but glorious physical fantasies with the bricks and mortar and wood we have at hand. But achieving social change, or harnessing magical thinking to practical ends, is much, much harder. It's amazing to me that Slack and HPA have been able to do what they've done so far. If they succeed on a larger scale, and manage to spread their model to other fandoms, it'll be a fairly remarkable achievement.
Crazy Like A...
I think PostBourgie's G.D. is probably correct to worry about Tracy Morgan's mental health. But because a lot of people in the entertainment industry don't seem entirely mentally healthy, either because their business or fame made them that way, or because that imbalance is also the source of their genius, I want to take this interrogation a little further. It seems to me that there are a number of possible truths of this particular situation:
1. Tracy Morgan is perfectly sane, and, as an extraordinarily good actor, has decided that insanity is profitable. What that says about his regard for us as an audience and our taste for madness (especially in a man of color) is a bit uncomfortable, of course. But he's healthy, we're healthy, it's just the interaction between us as consumers and him as a provider that's a bit messed up.
2. Tracy Morgan is somewhat mentally unhealthy, but doing comedy is a healthy outlet for him. In that case, his behavior may be unpredictable, but it's basically controlled. Tina Fey should be commended for providing him that outlet, and for finding a way to mine fairly consistent gold from it. As well as from Alec Baldwin. We might want to be careful that we don't become too invested in Morgan's crazy, especially if he finds a way to divest himself of it and decides he wants to go for it. No matter how much we might love his art, his right to manage his brain however he sees fit trumps our right to enjoy the fruits of it.
Which brings me to...
3. Tracy Morgan is deeply mentally ill. In which case, is it ethical for the folks at 30 Rock to remunerate him for a role that is directly based in that illness? Even if he wants to do it?
I genuinely don't have the answers to any of the questions posed by these scenarios. In an era of widespread reality television and characters who are based closely on actors' personalities, the problems of whether it is safe to use people who aren't entirely well for entertainment purposes--for them and for us--and whether it's ethical to do so are worth consideration.
Ladies and Freaks
Alright, guys. Dirty little secret time. The real reason I wanted to keep the aperture of criticism as open wide as is humanely possible? So I could absolutely shred Chris Brown's new single when the time came. And he's obliged me by releasing a song and video that are both musically terrible, and in their own way, as inappropriate to his circumstances as "Russian Roulette" is for Rihanna right now. Let's take a look at the evidence, shall we?
The fact that the dude is getting his aesthetics from Transformers and what appear to be G.I. Joe outfits is grounds enough for criticism: universe mixing, and bad 'verse mixing at that. Also, what do we think about the wisdom of starting the song off with Lil' Wayne rhyming "I can transform ya' / No I can't dance, but I can dance on ya'"? The whole message of the lyrics is one that...well, let's just say that I'm never going to be particularly convinced by some dude bragging that he can ice out his girl, buy her some labels, and "transform a good girl to a freak." (Really, most of the worst bits of this song are Weezy's fault. Brown is just boring.) Now, I don't mind Ludacris saying "we want a lady in the street but a freak in the bed." Fun is as fun does, and I have no desire to deny Luda his, or anybody else hers. But, damn, Chris, we don't need anyone else engineering us into freaks, genetically or otherwise. Particularly not after you reengineered Rihanna's face. Run along, dude.
The fact that the dude is getting his aesthetics from Transformers and what appear to be G.I. Joe outfits is grounds enough for criticism: universe mixing, and bad 'verse mixing at that. Also, what do we think about the wisdom of starting the song off with Lil' Wayne rhyming "I can transform ya' / No I can't dance, but I can dance on ya'"? The whole message of the lyrics is one that...well, let's just say that I'm never going to be particularly convinced by some dude bragging that he can ice out his girl, buy her some labels, and "transform a good girl to a freak." (Really, most of the worst bits of this song are Weezy's fault. Brown is just boring.) Now, I don't mind Ludacris saying "we want a lady in the street but a freak in the bed." Fun is as fun does, and I have no desire to deny Luda his, or anybody else hers. But, damn, Chris, we don't need anyone else engineering us into freaks, genetically or otherwise. Particularly not after you reengineered Rihanna's face. Run along, dude.
Top 100
My friend Ross is working on a project on his blog where he ranks the Top 100 albums of the past decade. Normally, I don't like ratings systems like this very much: I think music is way too subjective for there to be an objective determination of whether the best of mainstream pop is actually better than the best of metal. But Ross is frank about his subjectivity up front, and about the role music played in the critical decade of his life:
The 2000s are my decade, in a lot of ways. I spent my 20s -- my defining decade -- during this decade. I fell in love. My family situation, uh, changed....When the decade began, I was 18. I am 28 now. Despite being raised Jewish, I didn't become a man in March 1994 (my Bar Mitzvah); one becomes an adult in his or her 20s. Living on one's own for the first time. It was the first time I'd had a roommate; later I had two and had to play mediator between them. I got my first job, got my first promotion and changed jobs for the first time. Maybe I say this because I'm in it now, but this was my defining decade. No, my favorite album of all time didn't come out in this decade; that record was released before I was born. But, the years 2000-2009 define me and will have the most lasting of all memories for me. This is the music that soundtracked those memories.I tend to believe that's precisely why popular music is meaningful, because of the way it gets muddled up in the most intense parts of our lives. And as such, I'm really enjoying this jaunt through Ross's musical head, and I think the rest of you will too: it's great to have another perspective on the musical and emotional topography of the last decade. The first installment is up here. Check it out.
Sentimentality
Invictus may be a terrific movie about racial reconciliation in South Africa. It may be a terrific movie about rugby. This trailer makes it look like neither.
There's no sense of what kind of odds the rugby team faces. There's no particular sense of how the rugby team wins black supporters as well as white ones. The idea that sport does what Truth and Reconciliation still hasn't, entirely, is insulting and absurd. I was talking to some folks last night about how Denzel Washington, and later Philip Seymour Hoffman, set the standards for biopics by fully inhabiting Malcolm X and and Truman Capote. The problem is that the physical and vocal impersonations alone do not a movie make.
There's no sense of what kind of odds the rugby team faces. There's no particular sense of how the rugby team wins black supporters as well as white ones. The idea that sport does what Truth and Reconciliation still hasn't, entirely, is insulting and absurd. I was talking to some folks last night about how Denzel Washington, and later Philip Seymour Hoffman, set the standards for biopics by fully inhabiting Malcolm X and and Truman Capote. The problem is that the physical and vocal impersonations alone do not a movie make.
Growing On Me: Spooks Edition
I have to admit, I was somewhat disappointed when I started watching Spooks, the Brit spy show I took up at my professor's recommendation. I was somewhat petulent in wanting multi-arc episodes, and a little bit vexed by the show's reliance on some stereotypes of Americans. But I'm into the second season now, and I think I'm finally convinced. The show keeps on being surprising, whether they're showing a lonely Serbian war criminal getting upset when he discovers the number at which he's trying to reach a spy who he fell for when she was in disguise as a video store clerk has been disconnected, or whipping out a Liar's Poker reference. And some of the plot decisions have been surprising. I particularly liked one that posited that coal miners who resisted during the strikes in 1984 and 1985 morphed into a band of anti-government hackers--it's farfetched, sure, but it's creative, and it gave the folks who run the show the excuse to use one of those quintessentially UK actors with a ravaged face in a terrific role as a miner-turned-educator.
The show cut down on the drama in the personal lives of the spies in the second season (although the addition of Ruth Evershed is fantastic. Anyone who says in the midst of a VX attack "We should be with our loved ones. Even if we've only got a cat." is excellent.), and as it's done that, has seemed more sharply aware of the wider world in which it operates. It's far from a perfect show, and it's definitely the thing that's made me realize how much The Wire and the original State of Play spoiled me for single-episode procedural arcs when the acting's this good. But it's smart, and it's enjoyable, and if it were made in the United States it would all be colored wigs and martial arts (of course, since it's the UK, we get people crucified on Hampstead Heath by Russian mobsters for our drama). Some day, we'll do the rest of government (and by that I mean civil service) as well as we do cops. Until that day, I'll be watching Spooks.
The show cut down on the drama in the personal lives of the spies in the second season (although the addition of Ruth Evershed is fantastic. Anyone who says in the midst of a VX attack "We should be with our loved ones. Even if we've only got a cat." is excellent.), and as it's done that, has seemed more sharply aware of the wider world in which it operates. It's far from a perfect show, and it's definitely the thing that's made me realize how much The Wire and the original State of Play spoiled me for single-episode procedural arcs when the acting's this good. But it's smart, and it's enjoyable, and if it were made in the United States it would all be colored wigs and martial arts (of course, since it's the UK, we get people crucified on Hampstead Heath by Russian mobsters for our drama). Some day, we'll do the rest of government (and by that I mean civil service) as well as we do cops. Until that day, I'll be watching Spooks.
More Goodness!
Not that this is remotely surprising, but I did do a bit of heel-clicking at the news that Neill Blomkamp is going to bring us more science fiction goodness after the deserved success of District 9. The one hope I have is that he'll bring some good, largely-unknown-in-America, actors like Sharlto Copley along with him again. It's rare for someone to both be that successful and to be handed so much creative control so quickly. Now that Blomkamp's got some awesome creative capital to burn, I really do think the most important things he can do with it are to make movies that are set in overlooked-but-interesting locations and to build stories around unfamiliar actors. My guess is that'll be good for him both artistically and commercially: he won't get stuck in some of the same cliches that other smart directors get sucked in to, and he'll be filling a niche that not a lot of other people are racing to occupy. I think District 9 made it clear that there is a hunger for the kind of movie Blomkamp seems able to and interested in making. Continuing down that path could serve us, and him, well.
(Although, to be totally honest, if the damn thing turns out to be about hipster mothers in New York who just happen to be carrying alien babies while trying to rediscover their creativity, I will probably go see it, simply as a thank-you for District 9.)
(Although, to be totally honest, if the damn thing turns out to be about hipster mothers in New York who just happen to be carrying alien babies while trying to rediscover their creativity, I will probably go see it, simply as a thank-you for District 9.)
Tabloid Teardrops
I find Taylor Swift extremely charming and engaging. But I have basically no sympathy for her when she says things like this:
“I write songs about people that I date. When you buy my album you are going to find out what I’ve gone through in the past two years. And you’ll probably be able to figure out how many break-ups I’ve gone through, how many people I’ve fallen for — it’s very autobiographical. If guys don’t want me to write songs about them, they shouldn’t do bad things! And if they’re afraid, going into the relationship, that they’re going to end up having a bad song written about them… Well, then they don’t have the best of intentions, do they? It’s a nice weeding-out process.”It's preemptive, and it's nasty. And most of all, it's just really, really young. From a personal perspective, folks who aren't public figures, or public figures who keep their personal lives very private, don't deserve to be threatened in advance of a relationship that if they somehow displease the person they're dating that they'll be vilified in popular song. And from a commercial perspective, a young songwriter who has made a mint annd her reputation from her ability to write popular songs that sound extremely universal, it's bad marketing for her to identify the boys the songs are based on, tainting them by association. Only someone young, and very on top of the world, would be as bold as to make declarations like this. She's clearly not particularly prepared for the idea that some guy will do something worse than write an anemic response song to her own musical tongue-lashing: some day, it'll be someone selling truly nasty stories, or pictures, or videos. In about five years, maybe, she'll understand that breakups can end in something more impactful than 27-second phone calls. And maybe it'll make her songs even better than they already are.
On Lockdown
Big kerfuffle in the entertainment gossip world today comes as Paul Haggis quits the Church of Scientology in a huff, citing factors as diverse as the organization's involvement in supporting Proposition 8 and the ways it requires members to cut out certain members of their families. The thing that I've never understood about Scientology is how it attracts--and asserts control over--so many people who are otherwise concerned with creative freedom. Maybe there's something attractive in handing over control of one, or several, areas of your life when the rest of it relies so much on taking risks and pouring yourself into fictional worlds. But I don't understand it.
Bust(er)ed
I haven't thought about Blockbuster at all for ages, but Kevin Carey's screed against the company brought back a whole lot of bad memories. These days, the company's only useful to me as a place where I can buy cheaply movies I want to have but am embarrassed to spend serious money on, or movies I'm curious about but don't want to make major investments in. A couple of years ago, I tried their mail-order service, which had the distinct disadvantage when compared to Netflix of having a queue system that didn't remotely work. It's always amazing to me how quickly companies can drive themselves into obselesence, but I'm reading a book by Frederick Hess on education reform right now that's a valuable reminder of how fast institutions in all industries, not simply entertainment where trends shift unusually fast, burn out: the average Fortune 500 company lasts, apparently, only 50 years.
Monuments to Your Ego
Watching Top Chef, Heather Havrilesky pens a valentine to arrogance on television:
But the real reason Heather's column seems a bit odd to me is that so much of this fall's best new programming relies on humility and modest, but extremely well-written drama, rather than volcanic ego. Community works because the show brings its main-character-lawyer-with-a-fake-bachelors'-degree low and forces him to work within the new constraints he's brought upon himself (an episode in which he conducts a poolside defense of a cheater with the judges at a diving table is priceless). Modern Family's characters have lovely, carefully drawn eccentricities, but their mistakes, their cruelties, their senses of themselves are all on a modest scale (the show manages to make a scene in which people jump and are pushed into a pool fully clothed, one of the oldest cliches in the book, feel fresh). Glee's characters want nothing more than to get out of their Lima, Ohio hometown, a small-scale ambition if there ever was one. Diva Rachel may dream of stardom, but her peers mostly want college scholarships, and not to have their lives dominated by teenage pregnancy. I know Heather knows this, of course--she and I love a bunch of the same shows. But I think this tendency towards modesty, and towards Anywhere, USA shows is part of what's made this fall's television season so good. It's an odd time to celebrate ego.
Which brings us back to some of the possible reasons why arrogance lights up the small screen like nothing else. Whether or not they feel comfortable with the spotlight, whether or not they approve of broadcasting themselves for a nation's idle amusement, the arrogant sooner or later come to adore the camera's gaze in spite of themselves....His arrogance lies to him, telling him that even when he falls apart and stomps his feet like a bratty little tool, the camera loves him and embraces his every move. And let's face it, the guy is pretty hot. He has angry bedroom eyes. He's cocky. He cooks a mean pressed chicken with calamari noodles, tomato confit and fennel salad. If this guy isn't neck-deep in fine women around the clock, there is no God.I think Heather is right that arrogance produces drama on reality television. I'm not sure she's correct that arrogance produces quality drama (And that's not even getting into the creepiness of her insisting that angry, arrogant guys should be rolling deep in compliant women. The idea that anger and passion are the same has caused a lot of women a lot of trouble.). Arrogance is interesting either when its manifestly earned, or when it is manifestly unjustified. And while it's certainly a personal preference, I'm more curious about those dramas when they occur in naturalistic settings, rather than in artificial ones brought out by competition.
But the real reason Heather's column seems a bit odd to me is that so much of this fall's best new programming relies on humility and modest, but extremely well-written drama, rather than volcanic ego. Community works because the show brings its main-character-lawyer-with-a-fake-bachelors'-degree low and forces him to work within the new constraints he's brought upon himself (an episode in which he conducts a poolside defense of a cheater with the judges at a diving table is priceless). Modern Family's characters have lovely, carefully drawn eccentricities, but their mistakes, their cruelties, their senses of themselves are all on a modest scale (the show manages to make a scene in which people jump and are pushed into a pool fully clothed, one of the oldest cliches in the book, feel fresh). Glee's characters want nothing more than to get out of their Lima, Ohio hometown, a small-scale ambition if there ever was one. Diva Rachel may dream of stardom, but her peers mostly want college scholarships, and not to have their lives dominated by teenage pregnancy. I know Heather knows this, of course--she and I love a bunch of the same shows. But I think this tendency towards modesty, and towards Anywhere, USA shows is part of what's made this fall's television season so good. It's an odd time to celebrate ego.
When Is The Gun Real?
Amanda Hess over at the Washington City Paper's Sexist blog disagreed with my post on Rihanna's new single, and asks this question: "When Rihanna does decide to make a public nod to her experience with domestic abuse, shouldn’t we refrain from suggesting that she’s not expressing herself correctly as a victim?" I think this is an important and interesting query, whether the victim in question is an ordinary person or a celebrity. But it's one that I'm going to leave to other sections of the blogosphere, mostly because I think the question is motivated by another issue: the different frameworks Amanda and I are operating under when it comes to artists and their personal lives, and since this is a pop culture blog, I want to explore those frameworks a bit. I think Amanda is operating within a framework that assumes because Rihanna hasn't spoken publicly about Chris Brown's attack on her, we shouldn't read that context--and perhaps larger narratives about abuse and the public conversation surrounding it--into her art. And I guess I think it's impossible for us to leave that context out, as critics.
One of the things I find fascinating about Lady Gaga is how opaque she really is. All the ridiculous clothes, and ridiculous interviews about pop operas and vibrators, are a massive, and clever, distraction. We know nothing about Lady Gaga's personal life, except for her declared sexual orientation and a bit about a rough early breakup. We know nothing of substance about her present personal life. Her lyrics are emotionally intense but unspecific. When she sings "Russian roulette is not the same without a gun" in "Poker Face," there are no actual events that are widely publicly know to read them against. The line is about the importance of the gun, but the gun seems singularly unreal.
Rihanna has no such substantive luxuries. Because the crime done to her is a matter of substantial public record and wide-spread knowledge, even when we don't particularly want to know, it's difficult to avoid associating the topography of her life with her lyrics. The songs about relationships on Good Girl Gone Bad about breakups take on retroactive significance. They're no more specific than Lady Gaga's lyrics, but there are associations to be made at all, simply because we have information about Rihanna's life that we don't have about Lady Gaga's. Is that fair to Rihanna? No. Something that was done to her, that is manifestly not her fault, has provided her with a context she never would have wanted, has stripped her of her ability to control her own image and the context of her own work. The impact of that change is bigger because Rihanna isn't a confessional singer: she makes dance songs for times when we don't want to have to think very hard. The juxtaposition between what we know about her life and what kind of music she makes seems even larger as a result.
I feel bad for Rihanna, I do. And I'm aware that my wishes for what she does next with her career are precisely that. She has no responsibility to me, or to anyone else. She wasn't an explicitly feminist (or even someone who could be plausibly read as feminist) before Chris Brown got busted for hitting her, and she has no obligation to be feminist afterwards, to me, or to anyone else. But Rihanna and her management do seem to have a strong sense of how to market her successfully: after the incident, Jay-Z and other artists rallied around her and provided something of a protective buffer between her and Brown. I don't expect those artists who are collaborating with her on her latest album (all of whom are men) to be feminist, or even to be exceptionally sensitive to how women listen (although slow-jam innovator The-Dream is in the mix, so, who knows) to popular music. What I did expect is that they'd be smart businessmen. "Russian Roulette" is a less than fantastic song musically, and it's one with lyrics that have clearly been subject to a wide range of interpretations, some of them fairly disturbing. In other words, it was a poor commercial choice for a first single off Rihanna's new album.
No matter what the content of Rihanna's music, all I really want, personally, is for her to be successful and happy. I don't know that "Russian Roulette" will serve that purpose, because I don't think it'll particularly sell well, and I don't think it provides much in the way of listening pleasure either. Politics are secondary, but they still are an important--and legitimate--part of criticism. Rihanna has the right to live her life however she chooses: if she'd gone to Chris Brown, I would have been worried for her, but I wouldn't have disputed her right to do it. She also has the right to make whatever music she chooses. But unlike in her private life, Rihanna's public product doesn't have some sort of right to be immune from interpretation and from criticism. Maybe critics like me will get it wrong, or read things in that aren't there. But I don't believe in limiting the critical scope for the work of someone who is continuing to produce a public product. It's entirely possible that folks would have seen frightening implications in "Russian Roulette" even if Rihanna hadn't been attacked. We can't know, of course. But it's possible, and interrogating those implications would be equally important under those circumstances, too. I'd rather we make some mistakes in our criticism of art, that we probe in mistaken directions, than that we let things that ought to trouble us go on by.
Past Is Present
Frank Rich can be hit or miss when it comes to political criticism. But his piece on the Heenes, and the way he places reality television and its economic lure in historical context, is powerful and useful.
Wise Old Men
Bunmi has a (characteristically) extremely smart observation about the problems with our expectations for a movie about Nelson Mandela:
Stringer Bell is definitely a heavy but a heavy with the chops to play Mandela. However, I think we've all been wired--honestly, no pun intended--to think Mandela will be a Sidney Poitier-esque kind of role and, thus, all of Elba's fine attributes become weaknesses. If they want a cute, young idealistic lawyer that will bowl a Winnie off her feet because the movie says so, then Derek Luke (Antwone Fisher) should get the job done. But if they want the audience to get bowled over by what Winnie sees, they should cast TV On Radio's Tunde Adebimpe (Rachel Gets Married and Jump Tomorrow) and pay him to get in touch with his inner rebel.I love the idea of a movie about badass Mandela. But I have to admit I never even considered such a movie a possibility. Mandela is fixed in public consciousness as the friendly old dude at the end of Malcolm X. A writer or director who tried to do anything more challenging might face some disconnect even from reasonably educated audiences. It doesn't mean someone shouldn't try. But it was interesting to have Bunmi point out a blind spot I was unaware of.
When There's No More Uncertainty
There is a terrific play about the uncertainty principle. Uncertainty is not it:
What you're actually looking for, if you somehow expected that this title would be about the fact that the speed and location of a particle are not simultaneously knowable, and that human beings are faced with a lot of terrible decisions, is Michael Frayn's Copenhagen (Which really may well be one of my favorite plays. Not sure how someone hasn't managed to make it into a movie yet, maybe someone with Lars von Trier's sense of staging in Dogville. It's probably because Margrethe is middle aged. Blergh.). And if you're looking for a movie about the fact that small coincidences can have a huge impact on people's lives, you would be well advised to see Sliding Doors, if only because of the fact that a character in that film uses "No one expects the Spanish Inquisition" as a pickup line.
Also, Lynn Collins was one of only many terrible things about Wolverine. I am displeased to see her on screen with Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who, considering the dreadfulness of his decision to participate in G.I. Joe, may have to be put On Notice shortly. Mopiness does not automatically equate with depth, dude.
Out of Sight
While I tend to think that the chase-a-public-figure-who-doesn't-want-to-talk-to-you genre is a bit tired as a means of political journalism (how do you beat Roger and Me?), I think in some cases, it can be intriguing. One of them would appear to be Nevin Martell's upcoming book about trying to Calvin and Hobbes creator Bill Watterson. Artists have the right to talk or not talk to whoever they wish, of course, and it's entirely fair to ask questions about how invasive these kinds of projects can get. There are different accountability standards for individuals who create art that many people enjoy, and individuals who make public policy or business decisions that have vast impacts on other people. But I think what's interesting, in addition to Watterson's decision to walk away from huge amounts of money, is hiding yourself from the genuine love people feel for your work--and for you for creating it. I remember reading Calvin and Hobbes as a child--and I remember crying as an adult reading the series of strips where Calvin broke his father's binoculars. I think the love people feel for Calvin and Hobbes is remarkably deep. But if Watterson wants to separate himself from that, it's his choice, even if I don't understand it.
Rules and Regulations
So, I have a confession to make. Because my day job involves writing about civil servants (and frequently about the misconceptions about civil servants federal agencies face as they try to recruit a new generation of federal workers), I have, thus far, avoided Parks and Recreation. I couldn't stand the idea of another portrayal of government workers as dim but well-intentioned, even though I adore Amy Poehler.
Man, did I do the wrong thing. Parks and Recreation is utterly delightful. Watching Poehler pretend to be alternately someone's fake aunt and a robot warning system in succession as she tries to get a guy who is suing the city on the phone is hilarious. The parody of Habitat for Humanity (starring Donnie the Head Page for 30 Rock) is pretty dead on. And I have to admit, watching Poehler's character ask who she has to ask for permission to cut corners on a construction project is a pretty dead-on satire of a lot of the decision-making processes I've witnessed in government. The show even ends with a post-credits joke--that turns into a useful public service announcement. The Parks and Recreation characters aren't dumb or slow--but the regulations they work within are. That's a useful point to make. And Parks and Recreation turns out to be a fairly hilarious way to make it.
Saying It Better Than I Could
From thegirlwhoateeverything (whose blog is full of lovely food photograph, and whose handle is a fab allusion), on this post:
I really like what you said here:
"I have no particular interest in movies about parenting, or about Doing Any Other Theoretically Momentous Thing in New York or Los Angeles at this point, if only because locating movies in those cities tends to either overdetermine the action to the extent that it becomes hugely predictable, or denude the movie of any sense of local detail."
There's a whole big country where people parent, fall in love, find career success, get their hearts broken, get sick and die...I'm so tired of stories that take place in the same three neighborhoods in New York or LA. I'm tired of young white people and their love problems. I'm tired of FBI agents. I'm tired of movies that are set in a New Yorker or LA person's stereotyped idea of what other parts of the country are like. And for the love of all that is holy, putting glasses on a pretty woman makes her a PRETTY WOMEN WITH EYEGLASSES, not a hopeless frump.
I saw Chuck D. speak at Columbia College last year, and something he said has stayed with me. The entertainment industry thinks that New York and LA are where things get created and the rest of the country are just markets for consuming. It's funny because it's true, and sad, and hopefully changing as people make local work and build local audiences and use the web to connect with their audiences all over the world.Preach!
Hugo Weaving Is The State
Woo, new Wolfman trailer, courtesy io9! And while there is obviously lots and lots to discuss in this movie, one thing that intrigues me is that it's yet another role for Hugo Weaving in which he plays a semi-malevolent agent of authority. Whether he's the deliciously creepy Agent Smith in the Matrix movies, the Big Boss Elf Elrond in Lord of the Rings, the voice of Megatron in the Transformers movies, and now as Detective Aberline in Wolfman (who, on one hand, is trying to kill the terrifying monster stalking the countryside, but on the other hand might off Benicio Del Toro in the process), Weaving has a gift for making power both compelling and uneasy. Even though his role as the title character in V for Vendetta was an anarchist, he embodied the same sense of his own correctness that makes both some states and some of the the fanatics that seek to topple them so dangerous. It's an odd thread to have running through a considerable section of an actor's career, but a very interesting one: more so than we get from even the most high-brow Hollywood actors.
Uncertainty
So, I'm trying to decide how I feel about the rumor that Jennifer Hudson may be gearing up to play Winnie Mandela. Readers of this blog may know that I loved District 9, and I would really, really like to see some powerful, engaging movies about South African history. I find Hudson basically likable, but I thought she was awful in Sex and the City (which wasn't entirely her fault, the part was humiliatingly underwritten, she was essentially Carrie Bradshaw's Magical Black Assistant who leaves New York City to get married). I haven't seen Dreamgirls and don't ever intend to (It's a long, personal story. I'm sure it's good. I just can't watch it.), but from what I hear of it, it sounds like Hudson can show some genuine emotional range when it comes to heartbreak.
But I have no idea if she's able to embody someone who is viewed as both a national liberator, and as the woman who cheated on Nelson Mandela, and as someone who was was accused of involvement in 18 human rights abuses including eight murders. That's multitudes for an actress to take on: she'd have to be convincing in all those dimensions for that portrayal to be as powerful as it deserves to me.
I also have my doubts about Idris Elba as Mandela. Don't get me wrong, I love the man. I would take up with Stringer Bell after he had my baby-daddy murdered in prison any day. But the physical typing doesn't feel right. That doesn't matter if the acting is strong enough--Philip Seymour Hoffman is a much bigger dude than Truman Capote, and he absolutely nailed that one. Maybe Elba can do it. And depending on how familiar audiences are with Mandela, maybe it doesn't matter (although Morgan Freeman's performance as Mandela in Invictus might remind people enough, and the physical resemblance there is a lot stronger). It may also be that I'm just way too nervous and invested in a movie like this for me to be sanguine about it in advance. If it happens, I hope it's good.
Our Bodies, Ourselves
This week has been a postive bonanza for those of us who love idiosyncratic female comedians. Theatermania scored a terrific and touching interview with Jane Lynch, which touches on, among other things, her earlier ambitions to act (and her parents' decision to discourage her), and New York published a warm and funny short profile of Sherri Shepherd (of The View and 30 Rock fame. Whatever Shepherd's political views are, she's fantastic on 30 Rock, where she mines humor from intense control as a brilliant contrast to Tracy Morgan, who plays her hilarious and unhinged husband.). There's a lot to love about both pieces, and both women. But one thing that struck me particularly hard about both interviews was the ways in which Lynch and Shepherd have reckoned with the way their industry looks at their bodies. Lynch, who is quite tall and skinny, says:
M: Is fashion something that personally interests you?
JL: Fashion is a very frustrating topic for me, because I'm hard to fit. My body is all over the place in terms of proportion. Believe it or not, I am so delicate in the neck and ear areas, that when I put on jewelry there, I look like I am weighted down. But I have a really good eye for color; I can see different shades of green; blue, even black. That's right, I can tell the difference between blue-black, brown-black, and gray-black, And I just love watching all those makeover shows on TV, like What Not to Wear.
TM: Fashion doesn't seem at all important to your character, Sue Sylvester, on Glee. All she wears are track suits. Was that your decision?
JL: It was [producer and head writer] Ryan Murphy's idea to put Sue in track suits all the time. I love it -- they're so easy to wear; it's like getting to pad around in your pajamas. However, most of them are custom-made for me; we can't buy off the rack because of my size.
And Shepherd says of her role on 30 Rock (also, you MUST read about what happened when she and Tracy Morgan ended up living in the same apartment building. Oh my LORD.):
“Tina [Fey] had seen me doing a bit on Ellen about breast-feeding,” says Shepherd. “She was pumping at the time, and liked it, and offered me the part of Tracy’s wife. The first episode I did was for Valentine’s Day, and they told me I’d be playing sex games with Tracy, and he’s going to rip my clothes off. And I said, ‘What!? You know I’m a big girl, right?’ I had about twelve White Castle burgers before the scene, I was so nervous, and when I finally met Tracy, I’m standing there in my corset and he goes, ‘All right! You’re a big girl, we’re going to have fun! I like big girls!’ ”It's really good stuff. But it's a reminder that the strict standards for female body image in entertainment excludes many kinds of women. It's the rare tall woman, or very curvy woman, who makes it in despite those standards. I'm thrilled for Lynch and Shepherd. But I want them to be pioneers, rather than exceptions.
Measuring (Pop) Rock-Bottom
After Jonah Weiner published an inexplicable defense of Creed (there are guilty pleasures, and pleasures for which folks find you guilty, dude), I teased Matt by asking him who was worse, Creed or LFO? This plunged us back into the Great Worst Summer Song Debate of September 2009, and ended with both of us listening to a whole lot more LFO than I think either of us ever intended (And with feeling kind of sorry for the guys than I expected. They tried for solo careers and serious projects, and ended up back together, making music that is considerably worse than the music they made before, I suppose on the grounds that it's better to have a sad music career than no music career.). The whole thing made me wonder how we can best measure the comparative awfulness of various pop songs. Matt's commenter low-tech cyclist has a proposal (despite my disagreement with him on Celine Dion) that I quite like:
Since anyone can record an absolutely terrible song that will never see the light of day, I think an important metric with respect to the awfulness of songs, or their performers, is the amount of airplay they get: the Total Awfulness of a Song (TAS) should be:I think you might have to come up with a metric for (awfulness of one listen of the song). Among the factors I'd include would be 1) use of unrelated references or cliches when you clearly can't be bothered to write decent lyrics and 2) rap interludes by people who are manifestly untalented in the medium. But I think it's very, very clear that reach should be a magnifying factor in the final calculations.
(awfulness of one listen of the song) x (amount of airplay it got on station N) x (Arbitron ratings of station N)
Summed up over all N, of course.
(Yes, I’m a geek. Deal.)
The total awfulness of a particular performer or group (TAP) would be obtained by summing up TAS over the collected works of that performer or group.
Shopping List
Normally, I find list-based articles, especially ones purporting to rank something in entertainment, really vexing, just because they're so arbitrary, and so frequently lazy. But I actually think the choices in this New York Daily News list of books that would make great feature films is largely dead-on. A couple of them in particular I'd be a total sucker for. Someone would have to be tough and very careful in doing The Secret History, which is a remarkably brutal book for all its languor, and the explanation of ancient Greek worldview and ethics would be tough. I also have no idea who you'd cast in a number of the roles. And Ender's Game is one of those books that I love but am truly relieved hasn't been adapted until now, when I think filmmakers finally have the technology to do the book justice. Can you imagine the aliens of District 9 as the Formics, and the Battle Room looking like something out of Tron 2? It'd be hellaciously expensive to make, but amazing-looking if it could be integrated smoothly into a coherent universe. And given the rise of the blogosphere, the book's subplot about the internet could be pretty powerful, too.
The Ugly Truth
Once upon a time, I was the target audience for Ugly Betty. Betty started work in the magazine industry three months and twenty-nine days after I did in 2006. She came from Queens College, I went to school just one state over. We had similar dreams, to do serious, long-form feature writing for some of the best magazines on the planet. Betty ended up at a glossy high-fashion magazine, while I landed at a seriously sober political weekly. And for the first season and a half or so, I followed her trajectory obsessively, enjoying the soapsuds and the deeply fictionalized perspective on our industry. But I fell away eventually: I found the bitchiness of Marc and Amanda, two of Betty's colleagues, exhausting after a while, Betty's boy drama repetitive, etc..
But more than plot fatigue, I found the image of journalism just totally unsustainable. The publication I was at went through layoffs five months after I worked my way into my first writing job. The idea of getting a car service, much less an in-office steam room (things Betty gets introduced to at the beginning of the fourth season when she becomes a junior editor) started to seem not so much enviable as obscene. And more than that, Betty's continued willingness to put her boss (and now former boss) above her career (though Ugly Betty doesn't seem on the trajectory of the Betty la Fea iterations that preceded it, which hook up Betty and the boss), and to continue to pursue assignments that have nothing to do with her long-term goals (a high-fashion mosquito net shoot at the UN) started to seem a little...annoying to me. Bashing Betty makes me feel horribly guilty, like I'm throwing my girlfriend under the bus. But after three years, I want Betty to actually behave like the working adult she's trying to be. Or I reserve the right to judge her.
Now, I'm not saying that everything about journalism can only be depicted in strictly realistic terms. This is a soap opera we're talking about, and I enjoy the suds. Ugly Betty is always a singularly good-looking show, not merely because it's set at a fashion magazine--there's a glorious vignette in the Season 4 premiere involving a lot of butterflies that is the height of gorgeous-looking fantasy. But there's a lot of drama to be mined from economic squeezes, something the show seems to understand really well when Betty's at home, and something that could only enhance competition and cattiness between the junior employees. New York seems to think the glorification of pre-layoff Conde Nast is a sentimental homage, but to me, it seems like a symptom that the show doesn't know how to exploit what's actually making the pot boil in Betty's work universe today. And that's terribly de-Mode.
But more than plot fatigue, I found the image of journalism just totally unsustainable. The publication I was at went through layoffs five months after I worked my way into my first writing job. The idea of getting a car service, much less an in-office steam room (things Betty gets introduced to at the beginning of the fourth season when she becomes a junior editor) started to seem not so much enviable as obscene. And more than that, Betty's continued willingness to put her boss (and now former boss) above her career (though Ugly Betty doesn't seem on the trajectory of the Betty la Fea iterations that preceded it, which hook up Betty and the boss), and to continue to pursue assignments that have nothing to do with her long-term goals (a high-fashion mosquito net shoot at the UN) started to seem a little...annoying to me. Bashing Betty makes me feel horribly guilty, like I'm throwing my girlfriend under the bus. But after three years, I want Betty to actually behave like the working adult she's trying to be. Or I reserve the right to judge her.
Now, I'm not saying that everything about journalism can only be depicted in strictly realistic terms. This is a soap opera we're talking about, and I enjoy the suds. Ugly Betty is always a singularly good-looking show, not merely because it's set at a fashion magazine--there's a glorious vignette in the Season 4 premiere involving a lot of butterflies that is the height of gorgeous-looking fantasy. But there's a lot of drama to be mined from economic squeezes, something the show seems to understand really well when Betty's at home, and something that could only enhance competition and cattiness between the junior employees. New York seems to think the glorification of pre-layoff Conde Nast is a sentimental homage, but to me, it seems like a symptom that the show doesn't know how to exploit what's actually making the pot boil in Betty's work universe today. And that's terribly de-Mode.
Internet Media Me
The cool folks at Critiqulous were nice enough to include me in their interview series. So if you want to read about my favorite movies of the year, what it's like to have a semi-schizophrenic writing career, or what I want to do when I grow up, check it out.
Special Request: Kristen Bell Edition
So, Leee emailed me a couple of days ago and asked if I'd write about Kristen Bell's inexplicable decision to trash her post-Veronica Mars career in favor of roles that make her look like a hectoring shrew. I demurred, because Veronica Mars is on my list of must-watch things, and I didn't feel like enough of an expert to declaim on the subject. But then I saw the trailer for Serious Moonlight, and I felt moved, nay, compelled, to act:
This movie looks awful. It may be the least-promising-looking movie I've seen in years. It's misogynist on multiple levels, implying both that Timothy Hutton falls out of love with Meg Ryan because she's more accomplished than he is (and presenting that as an essentially valid way to feel totally unencumbered by expectations about gender roles), and sending Meg Ryan (who looks strained, unhappy, and utterly void of her earlier comic timing, perhaps because she's aware she's acting in a piece of trash) crazy-go-nuts in an attempt to keep him. But I don't care that much about Meg Ryan, who has made a whole passel of good movies, and can be sure that even if she quits to spend more time with her kid, her legacy is secure, or about Hutton, whose gig on TNT's leverage seem guaranteed to keep him in silly hats for life.
The person I am concerned about is Kristen Bell, who for the second time in recent memory is playing someone who was involved in long-term cheating. This time, she's the other woman. But unlike in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, which, even thought it was cruel to her (giving her herpes and getting her fired), gave her perspective fair airing, Serious Moonlight presents her as a dumb slut. Sarah Marshall's unexpected strength was a scene where she explained to Jason Segal how depressing it had been to be his girlfriend, how his lack of motivation weighed upon her, and how much work she'd done to try to keep the relationship alive. It was probably the best rebuke to the framework of glorified man-boyness Judd Apatow has made so immensely profitable, even if it was buried, and Bell's character was shamed. The ways she humiliated herself felt real, even if her punishment seemed (to me at least) out of proportion. It was a step in the right direction, and a strong, sad, funny performance.
This just looks dreadful. As does her brittle turn in the inexplicable Couples Retreat, where she plays half of a couple that explains their marital problems by PowerPoint (and which I will not dignify with links of any kind). That may in part be the nature of the roles available to her. Moviegoing audiences appreciate a range in types of teenage girls: you can't have a perky cheerleader without the cranky, artistic girl who challenges her. But we seem to like our adult women awfully homogenized. It could be that Bell just hasn't found a role as rich as Veronica Mars, or even Sarah Marshall, was. It could be bad choices. But whatever it is, I hope Bell taps in to some of her rich talents soon. This stuff just makes me depressed.
This movie looks awful. It may be the least-promising-looking movie I've seen in years. It's misogynist on multiple levels, implying both that Timothy Hutton falls out of love with Meg Ryan because she's more accomplished than he is (and presenting that as an essentially valid way to feel totally unencumbered by expectations about gender roles), and sending Meg Ryan (who looks strained, unhappy, and utterly void of her earlier comic timing, perhaps because she's aware she's acting in a piece of trash) crazy-go-nuts in an attempt to keep him. But I don't care that much about Meg Ryan, who has made a whole passel of good movies, and can be sure that even if she quits to spend more time with her kid, her legacy is secure, or about Hutton, whose gig on TNT's leverage seem guaranteed to keep him in silly hats for life.
The person I am concerned about is Kristen Bell, who for the second time in recent memory is playing someone who was involved in long-term cheating. This time, she's the other woman. But unlike in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, which, even thought it was cruel to her (giving her herpes and getting her fired), gave her perspective fair airing, Serious Moonlight presents her as a dumb slut. Sarah Marshall's unexpected strength was a scene where she explained to Jason Segal how depressing it had been to be his girlfriend, how his lack of motivation weighed upon her, and how much work she'd done to try to keep the relationship alive. It was probably the best rebuke to the framework of glorified man-boyness Judd Apatow has made so immensely profitable, even if it was buried, and Bell's character was shamed. The ways she humiliated herself felt real, even if her punishment seemed (to me at least) out of proportion. It was a step in the right direction, and a strong, sad, funny performance.
This just looks dreadful. As does her brittle turn in the inexplicable Couples Retreat, where she plays half of a couple that explains their marital problems by PowerPoint (and which I will not dignify with links of any kind). That may in part be the nature of the roles available to her. Moviegoing audiences appreciate a range in types of teenage girls: you can't have a perky cheerleader without the cranky, artistic girl who challenges her. But we seem to like our adult women awfully homogenized. It could be that Bell just hasn't found a role as rich as Veronica Mars, or even Sarah Marshall, was. It could be bad choices. But whatever it is, I hope Bell taps in to some of her rich talents soon. This stuff just makes me depressed.
Surrender
So, I wouldn't say I actively love Lady Gaga so much that I've kind of accepted her effectiveness. She's sort of a brutally efficient pop machine, and that's okay, but it doesn't inspire a lot of deep-seated affection. And I've always thought lyrics were her real, deep weakness. But every once in a while, she kind of surprises me. The "I'm your biggest fan / I'll follow you until you love me" line in "Paparazzi," particularly her inflection in delivering it, is unexpectedly effective. (As is the insane video:
Lady Gaga - Paparazzi (Official Music Video)
Lady Gaga | MySpace Video )
As is her delivery of the stark lines "I want your love / And I want your revenge / I want your love / I don't want to be friends" in her new single "Bad Romance." Perhaps I like it because I think refusing to be friends with someone who doesn't love you is sort of the relationship equivalent of so-called Bad Mother behavior: it's an emotionally honest and self-protective thing to do in some situations, or it can be, but you're not supposed to do it if someone offers. But I also think I just like the masochism of the verse, and find it effective, even if I think there's a lot of annoying nonsense surrounding it.
Lady Gaga - Paparazzi (Official Music Video)
Lady Gaga | MySpace Video )
As is her delivery of the stark lines "I want your love / And I want your revenge / I want your love / I don't want to be friends" in her new single "Bad Romance." Perhaps I like it because I think refusing to be friends with someone who doesn't love you is sort of the relationship equivalent of so-called Bad Mother behavior: it's an emotionally honest and self-protective thing to do in some situations, or it can be, but you're not supposed to do it if someone offers. But I also think I just like the masochism of the verse, and find it effective, even if I think there's a lot of annoying nonsense surrounding it.
Self-Aware Mr. West
About a month back, I suggested that maybe Kanye West needed a vacation. Dude seemed tense, and was clearly acting out. So it was interesting to watch the beginning of the short film that he and Spike Jonze made together:
Which starts, of course, with Kanye acting out, freaking out on a couple of waitresses in a club who bring over champagne that's been bought for him by some other guest to celebrate his birthday. According to io9, it gets super-weird after that. I guess what I'm curious about though is Kanye's willingness to portray himself as tense, and strange, and behaving inappropriately, unable to accept kindness even if it's obsequious. It's a self-aware little scene. But it also illustrates the difficulties of adopting a complicated and not entirely functional public persona to further your art or your image. It's not easy to simply pretend to be difficult without slipping into actually being difficult, especially when you spend so much of your total life cultivating that image in public.
I still think Kanye could use a genuine vacation, someplace there aren't any photographers. Maybe he should go to Cape Cod for a while. It's quite there in autumn.
Which starts, of course, with Kanye acting out, freaking out on a couple of waitresses in a club who bring over champagne that's been bought for him by some other guest to celebrate his birthday. According to io9, it gets super-weird after that. I guess what I'm curious about though is Kanye's willingness to portray himself as tense, and strange, and behaving inappropriately, unable to accept kindness even if it's obsequious. It's a self-aware little scene. But it also illustrates the difficulties of adopting a complicated and not entirely functional public persona to further your art or your image. It's not easy to simply pretend to be difficult without slipping into actually being difficult, especially when you spend so much of your total life cultivating that image in public.
I still think Kanye could use a genuine vacation, someplace there aren't any photographers. Maybe he should go to Cape Cod for a while. It's quite there in autumn.
Is Rihanna's New Single A Defense of Staying In a Violent Relationship?
I don't think there's any real denying that Rihanna's new single, "Russian Roulette," isn't much good. The song relies on her weakest skill: making vocals big, rather than cheerfully and aggressively robotic and dance-oriented. The tempo's strange. And the song feels really overproduced: big drumbeats, backing singers, and electronic interventions. But the thing that scares me to death is the lyrics:
And you can see my heart beating
You can see it through my chest
And I’m terrified but I’m not leaving
Know that I must must pass this test
So just pull the trigger
...
As my life flashes before my eyes
I’m wondering will I ever see another sunrise?
So many won’t get the chance to say goodbye
But it’s too late too pick up the value of my life
I mean, really? This isn't Lady Gaga-esque bravado, a declaration that "Russian Roulette is not the same without a gun / And baby when it's love, if it's not rough it isn't fun." This is literally a song about playing Russian Roulette with someone. It ends with the sound of a gunshot. The lyrics literally are about the singer undervaluing her own life, and treating the terror she's experiencing as a test she has to pass, presumably to win the love of the guy she's playing with. The song makes me ill--when "Silly Boy" leaked as a Rihanna track a couple of months ago, I thought it was a perfect career move for her: upbeat, vocally playing to her strengths, and by far most importantly, a rebuke to a guy who would treat his girlfriend badly. I do understand that it's extremely difficult to leave an abusive relationship, and I respect that. But I thought it would have been terrific for someone to overcome such a relationship in public. Instead, Rihanna is using a song about embracing being terrorized as her comeback single.
And you can see my heart beating
You can see it through my chest
And I’m terrified but I’m not leaving
Know that I must must pass this test
So just pull the trigger
...
As my life flashes before my eyes
I’m wondering will I ever see another sunrise?
So many won’t get the chance to say goodbye
But it’s too late too pick up the value of my life
I mean, really? This isn't Lady Gaga-esque bravado, a declaration that "Russian Roulette is not the same without a gun / And baby when it's love, if it's not rough it isn't fun." This is literally a song about playing Russian Roulette with someone. It ends with the sound of a gunshot. The lyrics literally are about the singer undervaluing her own life, and treating the terror she's experiencing as a test she has to pass, presumably to win the love of the guy she's playing with. The song makes me ill--when "Silly Boy" leaked as a Rihanna track a couple of months ago, I thought it was a perfect career move for her: upbeat, vocally playing to her strengths, and by far most importantly, a rebuke to a guy who would treat his girlfriend badly. I do understand that it's extremely difficult to leave an abusive relationship, and I respect that. But I thought it would have been terrific for someone to overcome such a relationship in public. Instead, Rihanna is using a song about embracing being terrorized as her comeback single.
Yes. Exactly.
So, a couple of months ago, I reacted with some disgruntlement to Jonah Weiner's defense of "no homo" as a rap term on the grounds that it's raising awareness of the existence of gay people. I think I did an okay job then, by my goodness does this do me one better (I'd recommend headphones, or a very tolerant boss):
Bad Mother Movie
I have never been anybody's mother (although there are people who will testify that I did a pretty adequate job as a big sister), so take what I say next with a grain of salt. I appreciate that it might be a good idea to make a movie about the difficulties of parenting in New York, and the pretensions and expectations of mothering in particular. I can see that being a good, sharp, funny movie. But I'm not sure why the makers of Motherhood had to do it by making Uma Thurman look frumpy and frowsy in addition to making her overwhelmed and creatively frustrated:
I have no particular interest in movies about parenting, or about Doing Any Other Theoretically Momentous Thing in New York or Los Angeles at this point, if only because locating movies in those cities tends to either overdetermine the action to the extent that it becomes hugely predictable, or denude the movie of any sense of local detail. But I am interested in the challenges of mothers with creative and professional ambitions, mostly because I hope to become one. I think certain things about this trailer are promising, among them Minnie Driver stating quite clearly and frankly that being a working mother takes money in the first place if you expect to hire child care to provide a certain level of attention to your child. I like that the movie makes clear how hard it can be to write and be creative when you're trying to parent.
I have no particular interest in movies about parenting, or about Doing Any Other Theoretically Momentous Thing in New York or Los Angeles at this point, if only because locating movies in those cities tends to either overdetermine the action to the extent that it becomes hugely predictable, or denude the movie of any sense of local detail. But I am interested in the challenges of mothers with creative and professional ambitions, mostly because I hope to become one. I think certain things about this trailer are promising, among them Minnie Driver stating quite clearly and frankly that being a working mother takes money in the first place if you expect to hire child care to provide a certain level of attention to your child. I like that the movie makes clear how hard it can be to write and be creative when you're trying to parent.
But I'm skeezed out by Uma's husband, who seems to be discouraging her from writing. And I'm even more creeped out by the movie's need to draw a physical distinction between Thurman, who is undeniably stunning, and the richer mothers she competes with. When an impeccably dressed, clearly more affluent woman, asks Thurman if she's wearing her nightgown, it's a weird, ugly moment, one that suggests that despite her good intentions, she really isn't holding it together. And it seems to imply the exact opposite of what I think the movie's point is, that good parenting is a matter not of aesthetics but of effort. But then, expecting coherence from this project may be a little much, anyway.
Sweet and Sour
PostBourgie blogger, and good friend Shani-O has a great post up on that site about the differences in tone and approach between Glee and Community. She comes down on the side of Community both because of its more generous tone and more progressive approach to racial types. And the thing is, I don't really disagree with her on her evaluation of the shows, both of which I'm watching avidly.
I just like the tartness of Glee: the New Directions singers feel like my own personal Sour Patch kids. Maybe this is just me, but I don't really remember any of high school as sweet or uplifting. I may not have gotten myself pregnant by a guy not my boyfriend and arranged to give the baby up to the super-scary wife of my glee club coach, but then, I wasn't a cheerleader, and my debate coach could not have been further from married. I may not have given my panties to a nerdy blogger as a blackmail payment, but I don't think anyone in my high school thought I fetishworthy (for which I am retrospectively super-grateful). But I remember high school as a series of compromises between unpleasant options that I had to make in order to get some place where I could actually spend time on figuring out who I wanted to be, what I wanted to be good at, and who I wanted to be friends with.
Glee is true to that. If anything, I think it's sweeter than my high school experience was. When people are desperate, they tend to make compromises that allow for more leeway. The gay kid can join the football team. The football stud and his cheerleader girlfriend can join the glee club--and in fact find actual sanctuary there. Those are more porous borders than any I encountered outside of senior-year physics, where we were all--including our teacher--desperate to get out of dodge. Glee understands that bitterness, and amps it up with an additional 7 or 8 years of technology and college panic. And I appreciate that. The show may be stereotyped, but in a lot of ways, it's more realistic--and perhaps even honest--than Community, which trends significantly more surreal, and obscures some of the genuine academic and economic deficiencies quite a few community college students face. I don't want full-on social realism, mind you, especially not if it means giving up hyper mashups and the rantings of an Asian Spanish teacher. But something in Glee resonates with me. What that says about my high school experience, I'm not quite sure.
Also, Andrew Gensler's great, great blog post on The Moment placing Glee (and the soundtrack to Where the Wild Things Are) in the context of historical use of children's voices in popular music is a fascinating must-read.
I just like the tartness of Glee: the New Directions singers feel like my own personal Sour Patch kids. Maybe this is just me, but I don't really remember any of high school as sweet or uplifting. I may not have gotten myself pregnant by a guy not my boyfriend and arranged to give the baby up to the super-scary wife of my glee club coach, but then, I wasn't a cheerleader, and my debate coach could not have been further from married. I may not have given my panties to a nerdy blogger as a blackmail payment, but I don't think anyone in my high school thought I fetishworthy (for which I am retrospectively super-grateful). But I remember high school as a series of compromises between unpleasant options that I had to make in order to get some place where I could actually spend time on figuring out who I wanted to be, what I wanted to be good at, and who I wanted to be friends with.
Glee is true to that. If anything, I think it's sweeter than my high school experience was. When people are desperate, they tend to make compromises that allow for more leeway. The gay kid can join the football team. The football stud and his cheerleader girlfriend can join the glee club--and in fact find actual sanctuary there. Those are more porous borders than any I encountered outside of senior-year physics, where we were all--including our teacher--desperate to get out of dodge. Glee understands that bitterness, and amps it up with an additional 7 or 8 years of technology and college panic. And I appreciate that. The show may be stereotyped, but in a lot of ways, it's more realistic--and perhaps even honest--than Community, which trends significantly more surreal, and obscures some of the genuine academic and economic deficiencies quite a few community college students face. I don't want full-on social realism, mind you, especially not if it means giving up hyper mashups and the rantings of an Asian Spanish teacher. But something in Glee resonates with me. What that says about my high school experience, I'm not quite sure.
Also, Andrew Gensler's great, great blog post on The Moment placing Glee (and the soundtrack to Where the Wild Things Are) in the context of historical use of children's voices in popular music is a fascinating must-read.
Humor In the Details
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I don't have a vast amount to say about last week's 30 Rock premiere, except that I would watch Tracy Morgan walk down the streets of any city on pretty much any day for almost any given half-hour time slot. But one thing did strike me about the show. Far more than any other mainstream television program (The Wire excluded, both on grounds that it's The Wire and that it's on HBO), 30 Rock organizes and engages with the idea of organized labor. That makes sense in part because television as an industry is fairly unionized, so it's realistic within the context to have unions in the mix. But 30 Rock also manages to mine some considerable humor from not simply the existence of unions, but from the details of the way unions and employers interact.
Take "Sandwich Day," in which the TGS staff eat the fantastic Italian sub the show's Teamsters have brought for Liz Lemon, and are required, by the terms of the union's contract, to defeat them in a drinking contest to obtain another one for her. It's a fantastic joke on the absurdities of old-school, grandfathered contracts, but it's also extremely funny to watch the TGS staff flounder as they try to relate to the Teamsters. Whether it's Lutz declaring that he knows "all about driving the long-haul" because he roadtripped to South by Southwest, or Jack, in an irritated tone, informing the staff that the drinking contest requirement is "in their contract" and so he can't do anything about it, it's amusing--and perhaps even a little gratifying--to watch the folks on the privileged end of that particular interaction flounder.
And one of the most notable parts of the premiere, for me, was that they did it again, sending Kenneth and the other pages out on strike after Jack cut their overtime:
And the details were absolutely perfect. The pages form an alliance with a local that represents mall Santas and bucket drummers. And Steve Buscemi in his always-fabulous role as Jack's private dick is back, this time as an undercover union buster. He's incredibly incompetent at it, of course, but how can you resist lines like these, which Salon's Heather Havrilesky justly singles out:
Jack: Lenny, this page strike is an embarrassment to the company.
Lenny: I get it. It's like I tell my assistant: Your weight is a reflection on me.
Jack: I can't have that apple-cheeked goon outside screaming about my bonus. What are my options?
Lenny: Let me ask you a question, Mr. Donaghy. How do you kill a snake?
Jack: Cut off the head!
Lenny: Of course! Thank you. Now I won't be afraid to go into my garage. All right here's how we play this page thing. I go undercover, infiltrate the union. Take this Parcell guy down from the inside.
That Tina Fey, who was out on picket lines during the writers' strike two seasons ago, would have progressive union politics isn't remotely surprising. But in a world where fewer and fewer people are familiar with the mechanics of union politics, it's a brave act. Maybe it's part of the insular conversation that keeps 30 Rock's audience relatively small. But it's a brave act none the less.
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