Too Fond of Books

Recently, while I was visiting my sister, I finished watching the first season of "The Carrie Diaries" on my AirBnB's host's Netflix account and griped to my sister about it next morning. I went into a few reasons why I was dissatisfied with the show and after a minute, my sister spoke up. "Why," she asked, "Would you waste your time on something you hate so much?" I backpedaled a bit, and tried to explain what had drawn me to the show in the first place (the awesome of Freema Agyeman--much minimized, alas; 80s clothing; somewhat interesting character arcs for a few of the minor characters), but it was clear that my sister thought I was 100% crazy, and that she'd never heard of hate!watching anything at all.

Generally, I don't hate!watch shows much. America's Next Top Model, for example, is fun with a glass of wine and MST3K-style snarkery, but it's usually the same thing from episode to episode, and I move on. The problem occurs when a show that I like veers from 'genuine pleasure' to 'guilty pleasure' category, and then into hate!watch territory. Once Upon a Time went from "oh, wow, this show is so much fun, I need to watch every episode obsessively" to "OK, this is getting little over the top, but still fun" and, finally, "who are all these people and why should I care about them?" I guess if that's the case, a long, slow demise, then I don't feel so bad about hate!watching a few episodes in the hopes that the whole endeavor will slide back onto the quality side of the equation.

More problematic, though, is the show that goes from "genuine pleasure" to hate!watching at alarming speed. This is where I am with SyFy's Defiance. There are a lot of reasons I want to like it: there's a dynamite ensemble cast who have a lot of chemistry together; the setting is interesting and the world-building, although muddled, compelling; and the themes of the show and the individual storylines within it are mostly interesting. Add to this a lot of diverse roles for female characters and slightly dystopian sci-fi feel to the whole thing, and bam, it should rock, right?

Well... not as much as I'd like.

For one thing, not since Lost have I had so many questions about the larger meta-plot of the story that are going largely unanswered. The frustrating thing about this is that many of these could be answered with a few lines of dialogue. I don't need an exposition dump; I just want to know a few things that would help me understand the characters and their motivations better. For instance, the show is set in the near-future, after an alien invasion/colonization effort went bad. Why is there no anti-alien sentiment? Where's the "Aliens go home" graffiti that I'm sure would adorn many, many buildings in this setting? Further, the Earth Republic (a kind of grumpier UN, at least as far as I can make out) seems to have no greater goals than messing with our heroes/heroines' plans. Wouldn't they have some bigger idea? Why do we never hear about them trying to do good things, like starting up manufacture of medicine and infrastructure?

Equally frustrating is this show's depiction of women. On one hand, there are a number of interesting, diverse roles for female characters. Jaime Murray is excellent as Stahma, an alien woman dealing with newfound power and the cost to hold onto it. There's also Doc Ewell, whose dry sarcasm is perfectly timed and in sharp contrast to the earnestness of those around her. Julie Benz plays Amanda, the town's (now ex-) mayor, with a lot of poise, except when she's being menaced by memories of her rape at the hands on an unknown assailant when she was younger. This sexual assault is on its way to becoming a major plot point, and, really, all the women on this show have been shown sexually threatened, assaulted, or wounded at some point, whereas the men (with one notable exception) have not. It's gotten so frustrating that I'm beginning to wish there was a pact that authors/writers/showrunners (for this show and all others) could sign agreeing not to use rape or sexual assault as a plot device. I don't care that it "develops" the character further (because there are other, more effective and less rape-y ways to do this just as effectively), or that it's "realistic" (because sci-fi and fantasy are chances to do something that isn't necessarily realistic.) It's not even very original. I would like to watch one episode of Defiance that doesn't show one of its female characters wounded, assaulted, or threatened sexually. Just one.

And that worst thing is, this show has a lot of potential to be fascinating. I've never seen a mainstream piece of work approaching a tricky subject like cultural appropriation in such a thought-provoking way. I also like the religious systems the aliens brought with them that are slowly being revealed in fits and starts, sometimes clearly menacing, but always completely alien and convincing. As I mentioned before, the cast is fantastic and the special effects work well with the story and feel organic. I don't want to end up hate!watching this show... but I don't see how much longer I can watch it for pleasure, either.

I've seen, read, and experienced a lot of wonderful pop culture this year, and I'm still boggling over just *how much* I've gotten to experience at all, given that my son turned 2 and spent much of his time unintentionally taking up mine. (99% of the time, that's great, but the other 1% is tough.) I've been lucky to get anything done at all! Fortunately, what I have been able to reward myself with is on the top-notch side of the equation.

( Movies! The usual suspects, with a late entry of 'Argo', a tremendous, tight piece of filmmaking. )

( Books! Are you my influencing machine who knows how to be a woman/space girl/consulting detective/mother, or just a cloud atlas? )

( TV Shows! Escapism in the form of ensemble comedy and music. )

If I had to wear a t-shirt with a design that encapsulated my pop culture choices of 2012, it would definitely be a collection of awesome ladies all having tea at the same table. (Princess Bubblegum would be hosting and discussing futurism with Sonmi-451; Alison Bechdel and her mother would be facing off against some of Joanna Trollope's family characters; Hushpuppy would be comparing monsters with Zita the Spacegirl; and everyone would have a "Leslie Knope for President!" button.) Before I forget about it, here is a tremendously interesting video that showcases the roles that women had in Hollywood/mainstream film this year:



This leads me into my hopes and dreams for 2013 and pop culture: ( More here. )

I think very few people are tuning in for Bravo's "Work of Art" reality TV show this season, and this makes me a little sad. I realize this show doesn't have a lot going for it; it's so-called "reality TV" (strike one), it's about modern art (strike two), and it has some pretty crazy casting choices, both on the part of the judges and contestants (strike three, change the channel.) But despite all these failings, I can't help but love it. Even with the overly edited nature of the episodes, the terrible, terrible "art", and weird characters, I think it's an interesting idea, and its execution, although deeply flawed in some areas, is fascinating to behold.

Of course, the idea that anyone is going to find the "next great American artist" via the reality show medium is patently ridiculous. Likewise, the idea that art produced in the course of a twelve-hour challenge is somehow going to be fresh and original, is laughable at best. (Can you imagine asking great artists of any century to produce a masterpiece in a set amount of time? It's happened, but very, very rarely.) In fact, the testing format is more like the SAT, and like any standardized test, it rewards a set kind of thinking that isn't necessarily indicative of creativity. The judging criteria so far has skewed towards picking out obvious crap (the word "derivative" is, so far, the worst insult flung) and getting rid of it, while favoring pieces with "stories" (what these stories are, it's really hard to tell) or works of art that take the artists out of acceptable comfort zones. The challenges have run the gamut from interesting (create a museum installation around the theme of motion, which one only of the teams managed to pull together) to standard (create a piece of pop art, creating consternation among some of the competitors about the definition of pop art.) But even in teams, or individually, the artists are hampered by time and financial constraints, and their creativity appears a bit stilted at best, and utterly absent at worst.

But what I love about this show is that the questions it shakes in the modern art world's face: What is modern art, and what's its purpose? Who is allowed to judge it, the creator or the patrons? Where is all the money coming from, and do those sources allow for true creativity? Can someone with no artistic education be considered a true artist? None of these questions are easily answered, but the narrative dances around the edge of them, offering answers here and there before hastily pulling back into reality show convention. (So far, there is no clear villain, although I think the editors are very sad that the tear-prone, creepy photographer Cathryn lost last week's challenge.) The modern art world, as personified by the judges and personalities at the gallery, is a mystifying and snobby place, filled with money (if you know who to sell to) and pretentious, overly judgmental statements. (For example, one of the judge's words to the deaf contestant about his piece not addressing how deaf people use Facebook is pretty much one of the rudest, most facile things I've ever heard on TV.) It's no wonder that the competitors have all banded together; even if their mediums and subject matter are all completely different, it's better to support one another instead of sniping or snarking. Even the contestant who's named himself "The Sucklord" is a pretty tolerable guy, despite his overly exaggerated concern that the women in his life are going to "cut his bawls off" every time he does something wrong. All of these contestants have at least some talent, and how it's going to serve them in the art world is a great question. It's what I want to see play out.

I should I say there is one thing I want to smack the editors for, and I have no idea if it was from the hypocritical higher ups at Bravo, or from some other force, but I find the censorship of women's breasts to be pretty laughable. In the pop art challenge, one woman photographed herself, topless, holding a plastic water bottle. During the actual photograph session, when she was posing, her breasts were pixelated out. But the photograph itself was depicted on TV, completely un-pixelated. And this was a high quality digital photographic print, with every detail shown to the audience. What on earth is the difference between taking a topless picture for a camera, and showing the topless photo that that camera took? Absolutely nonsensical.

Anyway, regardless of stupid censorship standards and art world pretentiousness, I'm curious enough to stick around and see which artist wins. At the very least, watching host China Chow's insane fashion choices is entertainment to last me for an entire week. I hope others will give this show a chance, not only because it's a good show, but also because I'd love to have someone else to talk about it with.

One of the side effects of breastfeeding is that I am suddenly parked on the couch for long spans of time, with very little use of my hands. Reading is basically out; I tried it several times and it takes either a very lightweight book (in terms of actual weight, not the content, ha ha!) or magazine, and even then it's really the luck of the draw whether it will work or not. So, I've been watching a lot of Netflix things, some old and some new. Catching up on every 'Futurama' episode is good, and at about the intellectual level I'm at these days, what with the very patchy sleep and all.

In Manga:

Rinne, Vol. 4: I did manage to read one volume of manga, and this is it. Fortunately, this was a very good volume, which heaped trouble on trouble upon our hero's already overloaded and in debt head. Hero's father turns out to be a good-for-nothing spendthrift who has nothing better to do in his (after-)life except create get rich quick schemes that don't work out and ultimately ruin his son's life. Our heroine continues to be completely oblivious to the hero's feelings for her, to somewhat plot-contrivance degrees, but this is a Takahashi manga, so I don't expect the love story to happen in the first 20 or so volumes. In the meantime, there's lots of comedy and glimpses of an underworld that apparently runs on scantily clad demon ladies and ridiculously handsome demon guys... and despite our hero's warnings to the contrary, the heroine never seems to keep away from ending up there. I would like the hero to catch a break, but I'm not holding my breath.

On TV/Netflix:

Avatar: The Last Airbender: So I held off watching this series for a long time. ( There were a lot of reasons why, some better than others. But I shouldn't have held out so long because it turned out to be pretty good! Copious spoilers ahead. )

Better Off Ted: I am amused that everyone I have talked to who's watched this show swears it was based on *their* office with [insert name of X huge company here]. If this is indeed true, then I weep for the soul of the American workplace. While I'm doing that, though, I'll be watching this sly little comedy with no laugh track (yay!) and a cadre of excellent actors.

Spartacus: Blood and Sand: orichalcum recommended this and even though yebisu9 and I have enjoyed it so far, I feel like it's pushed the TV-violence envelope even further than the most recent season of 'True Blood' did. I'm not sure I like that fact too much. OTOH, I do like several of the characters, and I'm reasonably intrigued such that my interest outweighs my gross-out factor. I will admit that I went into it thinking that if it were good, I would show an episode to my humanities class; ten minutes in, I realized that if I did that, I would probably create all kinds of controversy on campus and possibly get fired. So, a cautious yay for the time being.