Wednesday, May 30, 2012
Coming This Sunday: Here Are Movies That Will Soon Make Me Feel Like A Creep
What kind of movies are these? Find out, Sunday at ten!
Sunday, May 13, 2012
on Felicity
During the WB's brief glory days in the late 90s, most of my friends watched Dawson's Creek. I was a bigger fan of The Simpsons than any show with Michelle Williams and more or less stayed away from teenage melodramas. As I entered high school and the Warner Brothers' now-pathetic television station morphed with another pathetic television station to become a single pathetic television station, a leftover from the golden years of the channel began its run on syndication.
The WE network showed Felicity at 5:30 every weekday, which was my supper hour as a teenager. It was now 2002, and The Simpsons was no longer worth watching. I didn't enjoy watching people from Arkansas singing Whitney Houston hits, so American Idol was out. I started watching Felicity because I needed an eating show, and it was on after a terrible sitcom that I liked at the time. Within a week, I watched Felicity because in last week's episode, Ben threatened to drop out of college. It stayed that way throughout high school.
To begin this essay, I'll confront all the legitimate criticisms of the show, starting with the cheesy music.
The show had a cheesy soundtrack, and this wasn't helped by the terrible, terrible singer-songwriter auditory fungus that was Felicity's best friend Julie's musical catalog. It's bad. Ditto for the theme songs. But while most of the music is cheesy, not all of it is cheesy bad. Some of the songs can be described as cheesy in a good way. This Azure Ray song is a good example.
There's a lot of drama, and some of it is goofy, but it never is unfitting to the characters' personalities. The writing is subtle enough that characters aren't sacrificed for plot. (Exception: the last half of the fourth season is completely crazy pants and does not count when evaluating the show as an entirety. Think of it as Felicity's answer to The Simpsons after season ten.)
I'll just give you an example of a good episode. "Help for the Lovelorn" is a Halloween episode inspired by The Twilight Zone and directed by a Twilight Zone director, Lamont Johnson. What other teen dramedy pays tribute to The Twilight Zone? None, that's how many. The episode is bizarre, it disregards the fact that the last episode was a cliffhanger by going into a, well, twilight zone, it has a semi-creepy ending, and it's awesome.
But outside of plot deviations, Felicity works because it stands on its characters. Noel's a smart guy who would be having a successful life if only he could get over his love of unattainable women. Elena is a typical nose-to-the-grindstone premed student who can't completely let herself enjoy life. Javier's a gay father-figure, comedic relief, and is all around the best character on the show. Felicity herself is a studious but mixed-up young lady who makes impulsive decisions and then spends months analyzing them. The characters do pull a bit from stock, but they manage still to develop into round, engaging people. You understand why Felicity is attracted to Ben, and you understand why she is attracted to Noel. And you're interested in who she'll choose. You care because it's interesting watching her, scared and friendless in the biggest city in the United States, and try to stand on her own feeble, sheltered girl legs and make her way through.
The problems that the cast face are first world problems in the highest, but for those of us who live in the first world, they ring true. A professor is a jackass. Parents, faced with the liberation of an empty nest, go through their own periods of poor decision making, friends choose to date terrible people, etc.Felicity's choice for friends make sense to her character, and watching those friendships fall apart and then rebuild ring true for anyone who's been in a college clique.
That the show's character-based show is engaging doesn't mean that it isn't cheesy. But I'm not arguing that cheesy is bad. Though if cheesy is something that you can't handle then yes, this is probably not a show you would enjoy. But if you would like your cheese well-written, Felicity is on Netflix.
The WE network showed Felicity at 5:30 every weekday, which was my supper hour as a teenager. It was now 2002, and The Simpsons was no longer worth watching. I didn't enjoy watching people from Arkansas singing Whitney Houston hits, so American Idol was out. I started watching Felicity because I needed an eating show, and it was on after a terrible sitcom that I liked at the time. Within a week, I watched Felicity because in last week's episode, Ben threatened to drop out of college. It stayed that way throughout high school.
To begin this essay, I'll confront all the legitimate criticisms of the show, starting with the cheesy music.
The show had a cheesy soundtrack, and this wasn't helped by the terrible, terrible singer-songwriter auditory fungus that was Felicity's best friend Julie's musical catalog. It's bad. Ditto for the theme songs. But while most of the music is cheesy, not all of it is cheesy bad. Some of the songs can be described as cheesy in a good way. This Azure Ray song is a good example.
There's a lot of drama, and some of it is goofy, but it never is unfitting to the characters' personalities. The writing is subtle enough that characters aren't sacrificed for plot. (Exception: the last half of the fourth season is completely crazy pants and does not count when evaluating the show as an entirety. Think of it as Felicity's answer to The Simpsons after season ten.)
I'll just give you an example of a good episode. "Help for the Lovelorn" is a Halloween episode inspired by The Twilight Zone and directed by a Twilight Zone director, Lamont Johnson. What other teen dramedy pays tribute to The Twilight Zone? None, that's how many. The episode is bizarre, it disregards the fact that the last episode was a cliffhanger by going into a, well, twilight zone, it has a semi-creepy ending, and it's awesome.
But outside of plot deviations, Felicity works because it stands on its characters. Noel's a smart guy who would be having a successful life if only he could get over his love of unattainable women. Elena is a typical nose-to-the-grindstone premed student who can't completely let herself enjoy life. Javier's a gay father-figure, comedic relief, and is all around the best character on the show. Felicity herself is a studious but mixed-up young lady who makes impulsive decisions and then spends months analyzing them. The characters do pull a bit from stock, but they manage still to develop into round, engaging people. You understand why Felicity is attracted to Ben, and you understand why she is attracted to Noel. And you're interested in who she'll choose. You care because it's interesting watching her, scared and friendless in the biggest city in the United States, and try to stand on her own feeble, sheltered girl legs and make her way through.
The problems that the cast face are first world problems in the highest, but for those of us who live in the first world, they ring true. A professor is a jackass. Parents, faced with the liberation of an empty nest, go through their own periods of poor decision making, friends choose to date terrible people, etc.Felicity's choice for friends make sense to her character, and watching those friendships fall apart and then rebuild ring true for anyone who's been in a college clique.
That the show's character-based show is engaging doesn't mean that it isn't cheesy. But I'm not arguing that cheesy is bad. Though if cheesy is something that you can't handle then yes, this is probably not a show you would enjoy. But if you would like your cheese well-written, Felicity is on Netflix.
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
Coming this Sunday: Felicity is a good show. There, I said it. I'd say it again if I had to.
Sometimes I like to write about contemporary feminism and pop culture. Sometimes I like to write about music. Sometimes I just want to defend the best comedy drama (dramedy, if you will, though you shouldn't) show of all time. I also want an excuse to watch this. So see you next Sunday at 10p.m.
Monday, April 30, 2012
I moved back to my hometown of Austin last fall. It was the first time that I had lived there since 2006. I was 23 and living with dear old mother, a situation I was trying to remedy as quickly as possible. This proved to be difficult. Nothing in central Austin was near affordable. Meanwhile, I found that all the places that I liked when I lived in Austin as a teenager had disappeared. Little City Coffee: gone, replaced with Texas Republican offices. That cheap, weird vintage store on Guadalupe: gone, replaced with a series of themed sandwich shops. Any store worth going into on the Drag: gone, replaced with high end boutiques and more themed sandwich shops.
What the city now has plenty of are condominiums, spiking out of the skyline like shiny, expensive utensils. What were once bungalows, boot stores, the shaky little garage apartment that my parents and I lived in during the early nineties are all now shiny, high rise condos, ready for Californians and University of Texas freshmen coming from Dallas. Artists, a group of people not known for their ability to accumulate significant income, are being priced out of the city that they help made interesting. Now that East Austin is trendy and booming, supporting yourself with your art in this city is becoming less and less realistic.
This is not a recent situation, and the last two paragraphs are probably enough to make a lot of my old friends roll their eyes. But where can the interesting people in this town go? I didn't see very many around when I was in Austin last fall. I fear that Austin is going through a Manhattanization. In other words, what was once an affordable hub for artists and weirdos turns into a city that is affordable for investment bankers.
I was four years old when the movie Slacker came to theaters. I watched it sometime when I was in high school, but it wasn't until I was a home sick college student that I appreciated it. So many cute, rundown little houses, so many bizarre conversations carried on by people wearing unflattering denim. The Austin in that film reminded me of what was otherwise scruffy memories taken in when I was in kindergarten: the giant old Capitol metro buses, the old skyline whose tallest building was the one with the steps, etc. There was plenty of space for weirdos and college students without five year plans. Now, weirdos seem to be drying up and replaced with orange girls. There's always been a frat presence in Austin, with a giant university, it's impossible not to have one. But this presence seems to be taking over, and it has money on its side.
In order to understand what Austin stands to lose should it become unaffordable, we can look at what Austin was like when it was cheap. It's important to note that nobody looks stylish in Slacker, and while that can be attributed to the film's low budget, it also shows a city that doesn't have a dozen boutiques on every street corner and dozens of rich people to keep them open. The economy of the city in the film is completely different from the economy today, and that change itself changes the attitude of the city's citizens. Financial priorities in Slacker are keeping some kind of roof-like thing over your head, having enough money for coffee and beer, and keeping your bookshelf stocked..
In some ways, the film hurt its own cause by accidentally creating some new kind of hipness that younger viewers might absorb only on one level, growing up to spend all of their Daddy's money at the American Apparel on Congress and do some painful parody of what they think they admire. People who have the money to buy velvet body suits or did but didn't care to have been abandoned by the town that claims to champion them. It no longer matters what you think of the Smurfs or if you have Madonna's pap smear. You can feel however you want about anything so long as you're willing to spend ten dollars on scrunchies.
With the loss of beat-up old apartments and record stores comes the loss of what little authenticity Austin still had. Anyone who would participate in a film like Slacker wouldn't be living in this town today.
What the city now has plenty of are condominiums, spiking out of the skyline like shiny, expensive utensils. What were once bungalows, boot stores, the shaky little garage apartment that my parents and I lived in during the early nineties are all now shiny, high rise condos, ready for Californians and University of Texas freshmen coming from Dallas. Artists, a group of people not known for their ability to accumulate significant income, are being priced out of the city that they help made interesting. Now that East Austin is trendy and booming, supporting yourself with your art in this city is becoming less and less realistic.
This is not a recent situation, and the last two paragraphs are probably enough to make a lot of my old friends roll their eyes. But where can the interesting people in this town go? I didn't see very many around when I was in Austin last fall. I fear that Austin is going through a Manhattanization. In other words, what was once an affordable hub for artists and weirdos turns into a city that is affordable for investment bankers.
I was four years old when the movie Slacker came to theaters. I watched it sometime when I was in high school, but it wasn't until I was a home sick college student that I appreciated it. So many cute, rundown little houses, so many bizarre conversations carried on by people wearing unflattering denim. The Austin in that film reminded me of what was otherwise scruffy memories taken in when I was in kindergarten: the giant old Capitol metro buses, the old skyline whose tallest building was the one with the steps, etc. There was plenty of space for weirdos and college students without five year plans. Now, weirdos seem to be drying up and replaced with orange girls. There's always been a frat presence in Austin, with a giant university, it's impossible not to have one. But this presence seems to be taking over, and it has money on its side.
In order to understand what Austin stands to lose should it become unaffordable, we can look at what Austin was like when it was cheap. It's important to note that nobody looks stylish in Slacker, and while that can be attributed to the film's low budget, it also shows a city that doesn't have a dozen boutiques on every street corner and dozens of rich people to keep them open. The economy of the city in the film is completely different from the economy today, and that change itself changes the attitude of the city's citizens. Financial priorities in Slacker are keeping some kind of roof-like thing over your head, having enough money for coffee and beer, and keeping your bookshelf stocked..
In some ways, the film hurt its own cause by accidentally creating some new kind of hipness that younger viewers might absorb only on one level, growing up to spend all of their Daddy's money at the American Apparel on Congress and do some painful parody of what they think they admire. People who have the money to buy velvet body suits or did but didn't care to have been abandoned by the town that claims to champion them. It no longer matters what you think of the Smurfs or if you have Madonna's pap smear. You can feel however you want about anything so long as you're willing to spend ten dollars on scrunchies.
With the loss of beat-up old apartments and record stores comes the loss of what little authenticity Austin still had. Anyone who would participate in a film like Slacker wouldn't be living in this town today.
Thursday, April 26, 2012
Linklater, Slackers, and Austin
Coming this Sunday: As Richard Linklater releases a new movie, I remember my introduction to his early films (this is a sentence that sounds pretentious, but oh well) and his presentation of a new group of people. Now that more than half of recent college graduates are unemployed or underemployed, the slackerness that Linklater presents is less of a lifestyle choice than it used to be. The term 'slacker' means something different today than when the film Slacker came out in 1991, and the town it was filmed in is different as well. Find out more this Sunday at 10!
Saturday, April 21, 2012
When This Become Hotter Than This Than This Than This?
Last week, model Alexa Chung took down her Instagram account after receiving some nasty comments regarding a photograph of herself. In the picture, Chung wears a denim dress that shows her legs. Negative comments ranged from "your legs look skinny, but I love the outfits" to the more straightforward "you're ugly." There were some more comments after that, ranging from the "we need to be healthy and mind our own business" range to how Instagram isn't the The View.
After viewers made these comments, Chung responded "hi, I am here. I can read. Ok, everyone thanks for the teen angst discussions. People are different sizes. I’m not trying to be thinspo for anyone. I am now making this account private. Byyyyyeeee."
A month or so ago, a meme popped up on sites such as reddit and Facebook. This meme contained pictures of four contemporary female celeberities wearing bathing suits and looking thin. Underneath were four pictures of famous ladies of yesteryear, also modeling bikinis. The words "when did this" are on top of the skinny ladies pictures and become hotter than this?" cover the curvy lady pictures.
My first reaction on seeing this meme was positive. Yay, I thought, people recognize that bigger ladies are attractive. These men must find me attractive, as I am bigger than most models and actresses." But this feeling dissipated when a few of my friends pointed out some issues with this meme. These are the same issues that are involved with Alexa Chung's Instagram account.
Just as it's unfair to call fat people ugly or unhealthy without knowing any facts about their health, it's unfair to call a skinny person anorexic. Saying that curvier women are more attractive than skinny women may feel good to people (including yours truly) who have dealt with a lifetime of insecurity for not being skinny, but it's not progressive or helpful. We don't know anything about Chung's health, and it's unkind to post that a woman, fat or thin, is unattractive. The goal here, I really do think, is noble. It's an attempt to even out the playing fields. But it ultimately causes the opposite of its purpose. It alienates a group of people because of their appearance, which they can change only through severe measures. This is not the point of the fat acceptance movement. A signicant part of the fat acceptance movement is that looking at people isn't an accurate way to measure health. Writing "ew, she's so skinny. It's gross" doesn't help, and it's mean. Calling people gross because you're trying to defend other people who don't look the first set of people doesn't help anyone. It just sets up another baseless standard.
But it feels so good! After years and years, can't we just give a little like we got? I'm sorry, but no. Saying that such an actress is better looking than another actress (or any person of any profession, for that matter) because of her body type enforces an unfair beauty standard, and that's that. And it's obnoxious to hide behind "it's ok, because I'm doing the opposite of fat shaming" as an excuse to call Alexa Chung ugly. Don't call anyone ugly, especially if you're on the internet. You were raised better than that.
But it feels so good! After years and years, can't we just give a little like we got? I'm sorry, but no. Saying that such an actress is better looking than another actress (or any person of any profession, for that matter) because of her body type enforces an unfair beauty standard, and that's that. And it's obnoxious to hide behind "it's ok, because I'm doing the opposite of fat shaming" as an excuse to call Alexa Chung ugly. Don't call anyone ugly, especially if you're on the internet. You were raised better than that.
Thursday, April 19, 2012
Next Sunday: Awkward Body-Snarking Situation with Your Host, Alexa Chung
Model and television host Alexa Chung shut down her Instagram account this week after receiving a barrage of negative comments about her skinniness. While body-snarking, which means making rude, negative, and usually online comments about someone's appearance, is more often directed at larger people, here it's taken a turn in the opposite direction. So what does this mean for those fighting fat phobia? Find out this week.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)