Radiation: Big bang theory
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But Murphy has this weird track record of casting lesbians as evil twisted and bitter, man-hating bitch cheerleaders.
I'm not really familiar with his earlier work, so that's new to me - but weird is definitely the word.
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I don't know what to think about this scene in Glee last week with the Deaf choir. Is it tokenistic?
Ok I'm going to reveal how simplistic I am. I loved the scene and cried both times I watched it. I appreciate that it's likely they are actors (as opposed to real people) and I did cringe when the Glee members joined in, which in real life I would think was horribly rude.
But for me, the scene worked, the combination of the actors (deaf or not) and the song, because it is one of the truly great songs, just worked.
Glee is not even remotely real life, the characters are caricatures and played for laughs and tears and I don't demand more of them. Sometimes they deliver more and that's a bonus for me.
I guess to answer the question I'd say I didn't "think" about it I just enjoyed it.
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Nope -- as long as The Simpsons is on air, there's no room for Fox to greenlight Seth MacFarlane to pinch off another load of mean-spirited poo gags. Seriously, The Cleveland Show is painful...
Spoke too soon.
Frankly, The Simpsons has been going downhill for so long, I just can't wait for it to die ... For me, seasons four and five was the peak, and pretty much each season since (21st, now) has been a bit less great than the previous.
I'd have said four through nine, but it hasn't just been a slow decline. I've really like a number of episodes in seasons 19 and 20.
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I don't know what to think about this scene in Glee last week with the Deaf choir. Is it tokenistic?
I can normally accept silly cheesy emotional heart-string pulling, but even that was too much for me. Not a Glee watcher however, so maybe it fits in context better.
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So, two widely unwatched men on the least watched network (which appears to be run by people who couldn't arrange the proverbial field trip to a brewery) is "history" because...?
Because ... The Tonight Show has been on the air for more than 50 years. It has a place in American history...
... as does Letterman.
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and also very heavily closeted until she got involved with Melissa Etheridge, one media dyke you can't really date from inside a glass closet.
Wait: Melissa Etheridge is gay?
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3410,
leacacy
I mean 'legacy'. (6:46 am, and all).
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Fiona, never leave us for this long again! Also: ouch.
I'm with Graeme: the Tonight Show debacle has been fascinating. But perhaps the fact that we don't get Conan or Leno rather undercuts all the drama. I've been a fan of Conan's for a decade now and I have *despised* Leno for just as long, so I'm completely interested in how this played out. Most worrisome: after the settlement NBC still 'owns' the characters Triumph the Insult Comic Dog and the Masturbating Bear! (Someone on the tubes also linked to this reasonably long article about Jerry Lewis' failed early 1960s talk/variety show on ABC, noting the parallels. It's a good read, especially if you hate Jerry Lewis. And let's face it, who doesn't?)
Glee: my husband theorises that the show is a satire of square white culture, so the cheesiness/tokenism makes sense in that context. If that's true, I think they do sometimes miss the tone for which they're aiming. The song choices are often quite fabulous, though: that new jack swing stuff from a few weeks back? I never thought I'd hear Bell Biv Devoe in another context! Or Young MC's 'Bust a Move'! (Yeah: I feel like this show is aimed at 30somethings, not young people.)
Freaks and Geeks comparisons: I dunno about that. F & G was aiming for 'painfully, hilariously real', whereas Glee is clearly a giant over-the-top fantasy concoction. I think the former is OODLES better, but of course it is one of my favourite shows of all time.
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If you have 1/2 an hour to waste some of this is hilarious, such as communists make porn, and a really odd link to beastiality that's not there.
NSFW due to time more than anything else.
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We're just into the second season, and while I enjoy it a great deal, it definitely suffers from a few characterisation issues - notably Leonard's inconsistent people skills (+20 whenever the episode demans he play straight man to Sheldon, -20 whenever it doesn't)
I have the same problem with Bones - Temperance always seems to be as socially skilled as the script requires her to be at that particular moment. Also not sure about how TV shows seem to be treating Aspergers as the new "quirky".
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It's a good read, especially if you hate Jerry Lewis. And let's face it, who doesn't?
That does it, I'm going to rent King of Comedy today.
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We're just into the second season, and while I enjoy it a great deal, it definitely suffers from a few characterisation issues - notably Leonard's inconsistent people skills (+20 whenever the episode demans he play straight man to Sheldon, -20 whenever it doesn't)
They've sorted that out in the current (ie: US) series. Leonard's the straight guy, girlfriend and all.
But the all the action is really around the relationship between Penny and Sheldon . See:
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Wait: Melissa Etheridge is gay?
I know! Next they'll be outing Ellen DeGeneres.
Jane Lynch talks about Glee and what makes her comedy tick.
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Next they'll be outing Ellen DeGeneres.
Well duh! Lesbians don't wear dresses so it was obvious she had to be gay.
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We're just into the second season, and while I enjoy it a great deal, it definitely suffers from a few characterisation issues - notably Leonard's inconsistent people skills (+20 whenever the episode demans he play straight man to Sheldon, -20 whenever it doesn't) and the female characters, who are really quite badly written, even for a show where everyone is a stereotype to some degree.
To be fair, Lucy, you're not the only person who found Penny The Hot-But-Borderline-Brain-Damaged-BimBlonde the least appealing thing in BBT. But to give credit where it's due, Kaley Cuoco is getting a lot more to work with than rolling her eyes when the geeks get all weird on her. (And to be blunt, it's a downright feminist fiesta compared to Chuck Lorre's other show -- the terrifyingly vile Two and A Half Men where every women is some combo of a little bit nutty, a whole lot slutty or an emasculating she-male.)
The one character on BBT that really irritates he is Howard Wolowitz. As one of my favourite tele-bloggers, Alan Seppinwall, puts it: Howard is the one character you always end up laughing at rather than with. His relentless sleaziness and scary Jewish Momma also, to my taste, never seems to get on the right side of the line between comically cringe-inducing and outright creepy.
Because ... The Tonight Show has been on the air for more than 50 years. It has a place in American history...
You could say exactly the same about As The World Turns -- which has been on the air since 1954, is currently the longest running "daytime drama" in American television history... and has been cancelled with no expectation another network is going to pick it up.
The difference is that CBS hasn't been a corporate basket case for the last decade. And Leno and Letterman's mutual contempt has been an endless source of entertainment to industry watchers ever since the nasty (and very public) tussle over who was going to replace Carson when he retired in 1992.
I know! Next they'll be outing Ellen DeGeneres.
Well, Tammy Lynn Michaels has talked about the irony of playing a character on Popular who was spitting out homophobic and misogynistic insults that turned her stomach, but never spoke up because she was so deep in the closet she thought any object was tantamount to coming out.
BTW, Recordi, DeGeneres did a pretty good job of closeting herself. I saw a tape of her stand-up once, and the convoluted de-gendering of pronouns in a series of gag about her relationship with her *cough* significant other was funny for all the wrong reasons.
And I don't want to sound like I'm bagging Jane Lynch here -- she is piss your pants funny, and I admire her for being totally out of the closet when the conventional wisdom is still that out = career death/typecasting in gay roles. (Obviously, nobody told Neil Patrick Harris.) I even enjoy Sue Sylvester for cutting the treacle with a bit of pepper. I just find it deliciously ironic that (debatably) the highest profile role currently played by an out lesbian on American television is so close to way "mannish women" were portrayed back in the day when the L-word was unspeakable, even on basic cable. :)
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3410,
Most worrisome: after the settlement NBC still 'owns' the characters Triumph the Insult Comic Dog and the Masturbating Bear!
What about Bugatti Veyron Mouse?
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To be fair, Lucy, you're not the only person who found Penny The Hot-But-Borderline-Brain-Damaged-BimBlonde the least appealing thing in BBT.
She's not the neighbour, is she? I saw only one episode of BBT, where she threw a birthday party, and she was the only one in the show that appeared to have half a functioning brain.
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not sure about how TV shows seem to be treating Aspergers as the new "quirky".
Concerning me a little too with Bones and Doc Martin starting again last night. One or more of the characters in Glee likely will have their tentative Aspergers played up in the future I'm sure. Not counting books and movies, eg the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and About A Boy which screened the other night. And the Temple Grandin movie will be out soon.
I blame Peter Sellers/Hal Ashby and Being There for starting it all (or maybe Harold and Maude even earlier).
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Concerning me a little too with Bones and Doc Martin starting again last night. One or more of the characters in Glee likely will have their tentative Aspergers played up in the future I'm sure.
Well, I think we've had this all out on another thread but I'm more 'concerned' about the need to put a clinical label on Sheldon in The Big Bang Theory or Temperance Brennan in Bones. Not because I think being an Aspie is some repulsive mark of Cain, but because we really don't need another way in pop culture to turn social outsiders into pathological cases who can be explained away with lashings of pseudo-medical jargon. Do we?
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Craig - depends whether you are talking about Aspergers as a DSM clinical diagnosis, or a cultural construction.
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About A Boy
Is there Aspergers-referencing in that film? I don't remember that, but I haven't seen it for a few years.
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No, Danielle, there isn't specifically, just as there isn't in most of the other movies, programmes, books mentioned. But Nick Hornby is a specialist in the field and it's a strong unspoken theme in most of his books.
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Not because I think being an Aspie is some repulsive mark of Cain, but because we really don't need another way in pop culture to turn social outsiders into pathological cases who can be explained away with lashings of pseudo-medical jargon. Do we?
Seconded.
"mannish women" were portrayed back in the day when the L-word was unspeakable, even on basic cable.
In my initial post mark 15, redacted, I quoted Jane from the link above saying of her role in A Mighty Wind;
"I couldn't wait to get the fake tan and push-up bra off at the end of the day... but it did kind of open up a femininity in me, if you will"
She seems fairly well in touch with her own irony.
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I have a deep, deep loathing for 'about a boy', mainly because the underlying message appears to be: 'only by conforming can you be truly happy'.
How that would fit in with the aspie angle (if at all) I don't know.
Plus it has Hugh 'well, er, gosh!' Grant in it.
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'only by conforming can you be truly happy'
Oh, I didn't get that feeling at all! It's not exactly Ally Sheedy's makeover in The Breakfast Club, is it?
Plus Hugh plays kind of a douche, which I think is actually his true calling (see also: Bridget Jones's Diary).
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