Project Mayhem

This Thursday the finale of the initially controversial Season 6 of Project Runway will be on my TV on the Lifetime Network, but I will be watching it not with eager anticipation as I have runway shows in the past, but merely out of devotion to the concept of the show and the inspiration and art that I've seen it is capable of harnessing. This season though, has indisputably disappointed me and all runway viewers with whom I've discussed it, and I hope that, as promised by Nina Garcia, Season 7 will have rectified the errors that have made this season so dull and uninspiring.

To start, the most commonly noted shortcomings of this season have been the inconsistency of the judging panels and the lackluster results from challenges coming from the lackluster nature of the challenges themselves. Sensible explanations have been given for the issue of the judges but mostly the problem was the show's relocation to Los Angeles made it difficult for Michael Kors and Nina Garcia to regularly attend judging panels, as their primary businesses are located in New York. Frankly, I'm not sure why they moved the show in the first place. If we learned anything from the snooze-fest that was the 2008 VMA's, it's that things are always better in NY than in LA, and that goes for reality television both competition based and otherwise. Season 7's in NY, so check on that problem.

In terms of the challenges, to me, the only ones that demanded the exceptional creativity demonstrated in seasons past were the newspaper challenge and (MAYBE) the divorcee wedding dress challenge. Literally every other challenge could have been shortened to be, "Make a pretty dress," and then you through the Bob Mackie at them and tell them it has to be sequined and fabulously tacky, and you get that slick feathered black number that Carrol Hannah made, like, come on, to use the lexicon of the show, it felt a little safe for the challenge.

But that seemed to be what the producers and the judges were going for throughout the season. The designers who seemed to have a particularly innovative or experimental aesthetic were very quickly auf'ed and we were left with a bunch of vanilla collections you could most successfully market at Target.

Irina, Althea and Carol Hannah, what do they have in common? They're all designers who are going to Bryant Park who if cast in a different season never would have stood a chance. Irina at least gave the editors a storyline to work with by positioning her as the bitch. But that really got tired when you realized her bitchiness was generally harmless and reserved for the interview room. This feels a good place to transition from the mass market stylings of this season to the personalities and the judges' and editors' reactions to them.

Did anyone for a minute believe that there was any potential romance between Carol Hannah and "man's man" Logan? No. Didn't think so. Go out and change the tires on your pick-up man's man and stop making monstrously tasteless or inexpressibly bland looks that you somehow get away with even over more talented designers. Plus the fact that they played that up so much while having ignored homo-relationships in past seasons demonstrates the show's latent and perhaps unexpected heteronormativity.

Next thing, WHAT THE FUCK IS HEIDI'S BEEF WITH GORDANA?! Yeah, okay, what she made for the Christina Aguilera/Bob Mackie challenge was a bit of an embarrassment construction wise, but it was hardly the most mortifying of the season and did not warrant the berating she received from Frau Klum, plus the undercutting Gordana got when she was announced the winner of the divorcee challenge. Is it an ageism that makes Heidi harbor such resentment for Gordana? I don't know. But I enjoyed her perspective and appreciated her not beating us over the head with her humble upbringings a la Cry-stopher. Tom and Lorenzo at Project Rungay did a great interview with her you can read here. The episode where the judges' vendetta against Gordana was most apparent was in the final episode where they didn't even name a winner of the Getty Museum challenge, pretty clearly, because it would have been her but they couldn't justify awarding her with that and not sending her to Bryant Park. Whatever.

Their auf'ing of Gordana was one of several auf'ings that I was more than a little perturbed about. My fury has actually grown incrementally since their dismissal of Malvin, the soft-spoken, admittedly pretentious, but into conceptual andorogony New Yorker whose chicken egg was, truthfully, bizarre ad unflattering. But it only annoyed me so much because it was very evident at that point that Mitchell lacked the technical skill to succeed in the PR setting and was not watchable enough of a personality to justify their keeping him. I was also angered and saddened by their auf'ing of Epperson over pretty-boy man's man Logan, which was a poor decision I feel like, and perhaps again resultant from an ageist attitude, and I was really annoyed by their auf'ing of Ra'mon over Louise.

A lot of these annoyed me so much because of the aforementioned issue of the inconsistency on the judging panel. It puts the players at a clear disadvantage because it doesn't give them sufficient time to tailor their individual aesthetics to the judges' tastes, since those tastes are constantly changing, and it doesn't give them the benefit of the judges seeing week by week what the contestants are cumulatively capable of. Many of the blogs I read on the show are saying that these problems swayed the results towards a Real World demograph amongst the three finalists and I'd say that's an accurate assessment. You have three attractive, young girls who don't seem to push the envelope in their designs or their personalities but are generally likable but probably forgettable.

Lastly, and, maybe this should have been sooner because, this element was so endlessly irritating, was the overstatement of the models' significance throughout this season. The models' role in Project Runway was always an important one, but it's importance was anecdotal, circumstantial and tended to be arbitrary, just like the function of models in high fashion on a runway. To say that viewers and contestants did not take the models into consideration is certainly a fallacy but this season it was as if they were nearly as important as the designers themselves, having a challenge catered entirely towards their taste and a companion series following every episode. Maybe it was Lifetime trying to squeeze every second of lucrative ad time from the highly watched series, but I have yet to meet someone who is actually attached to any of the models or their personalities.

I do hope that Season 7 is less dissapointing because Project Runway does have an extremely entertaining formula that makes viewers feel like a part of an industrial sphere that has historically been regarded as distant and elite, but I think that if the show continues to cater towards the aesthetic tastes of the average American it'll lose a core of its viewership. Then again I'm no entertainment shaman. So I'll just say that if nothing else, I'd quit watching it!

If You Liked It Then You Shoulda Put The Ring on It

I have a tendency around benchmark holidays (Christmas, 4th of July, in this case Halloween) to refer to roughly the three weeks prior to the actual calendar date of the holiday as "[Insert Holiday Name Here] Season." To honor the commencement of said season I love to engage in activities that are associated with said holiday. I don't think that this is such an unusual practice but after my 14-year-old sister responded dismissively about the cultural existence of "Halloween Season" I found it necessary to give a thorough explanation of how I conceptualize this three weeks. Because Halloween Season is upon us, I know have the insatiable urge to watch as many horror movies from my past as possible.

Furiously digging through the depths of my parents' VHS cabinet for relics from my former cinematic tastes which included leading ladies the likes of Neve Campbell and Jennifer Love Hewitt, I was disappointed to discover that most of my slasher collection hadn't survived the move south. But one lone soldier remained, 2002 classic The Ring. Generally I was (and still kind of am) too freaked out by movies whose scare center lies in demonic possessions or paranormal elements. I tended to prefer murders or things that were within human control when I would watch a horror movie. But last night I was feeling bold and wanted to share the primary viewing experience of this freaky flick with my 14-year-old sister, still perturbed by her dubious response to the existence of Halloween Season.

After a brief cajoling which included my selling this proposition to her by telling her that The Ring was actually a romantic comedy about a surprise engagement between two Midwestern Waffle House employees named Peggy and Bill, and that it was titled The Ring because of Peggy's surprise at the proposal and the beautiful engagement ring offered to her by Bill, (she obviously didn't buy it), my older sister insisted that the familial revisiting of The Ring was essential to our evening. Thanks Lauren!

I have to admit, moments before the movie began I was revisiting the same feelings that I had when I had first called my friend my sophomore year of high school and said, "Do you want to see The Ring tonight in Huntington at 7:30?" It was an immediate, "Oh shit" reaction, an, "I can't believe those words just came out of my mouth" kind of thing. I immediately regretted the suggestion and wanted more than anything to take it back. But my friends had been sold, as had my sisters. Again, thanks Lauren.

But this time rather than being terrified by the seemingly senseless inclusion of various neurosis and random assortment of freaky ass shit, I was just kind of annoyed by it. The construction of the narrative that's intended to weave together the fear factor elements is sloppy, inconsistent and at times borders on absurdity. Nothing in the movie tends to make sense. Nothing in the movie means anything. It's sole intention is to freak you out and it does, the first time, in theatres. After that it feels as though the movie itself is just a broader reflection of the video that the girl makes, a nonsensical threading together of hauntingly bizarre images and occurrences that maybe later lurk in your consciousness but don't directly infiltrate your way of thinking.

What I mean to say is that The Ring is a movie that once I knew what was coming, viewing it made it not mind blowingly frightening but more frustrating in its incongruencies and seeming lack of subversive message. What's also frustrating and could potentially be attributed to the lack of symbolism in the movie, is the lack of explanation given for a huge chunk of the plot. How did this girl get these images onto film? Why did she spare the life of Naomi Watts but not her husband Deadbeat Dad Noah? What's with the nose bleeds? Though metaphor is admittedly frustrating when heavy handed, to a thinking viewer it's more frustrating when it's understated or completely absent, and even more annoying when its absence causes a sloppily constructed storyline.

There were glimmers of messages about overstimulation from television as media when our female protagonist is out on her apartment porch, peering into the large windows of her neighbors and internally counting how many of them are watching television which seems like a subtle ode to Hitchcock but, again, that message is quickly dropped if intended at all. And there's also the stretch at saying the film deals with absentee fathers as the two characters whose deaths are most graphically included match that archetype. But, again, it's a stretch.

I'm not even sure what I'm trying to say on a greater level aside from the fact that The Ring, as an admittedly iconic horror movie, is one that is worthy of canonical status only because of its success gauged by box office revenue and ability to be so haunting, even if only the first time, while still maintaining a PG-13 rating. There are certainly films that I could revisit that I'm sure would still scare me as much as when I had seen them the first time, The Exorcist terrifies me every time I've seen it since the 7th grade. But I need more congruence and subversiveness in the film's metaphor for it to have a lasting fear factor for me as a viewer.

Maybe it's my own fault for not having taken the time to see The Ring 2. Maybe everything comes together in the unsuccessful sequel and my criticism is resultant from ignorance of the greater narrative at work here. Well at least my parents didn't get rid of the epic I Still Know What You Did Last Summer, Brandy and a dred-locked Jack Black really were the glue that held those flicks together.

She's Bringing Smizing Back

Tyra’s got a few more tricks up her sleeve, doing the same shit over and over again, cycle after cycle, but always finding innovative presentations for the same tired formula. And you know what? I love it. So I know I haven’t been super on top of my posting and for that I apologize. But I have been diligently following this cycle and did enjoy last Wednesday the deconstructive presentation of the brilliance of Tyra’s SMIZE! Look, she even taught Larry King to do it!



Early in last week’s episode the girls were shocked and appalled to find out that one of them would be eliminated after meeting with Nigel and the head of Wilhelmina Models, with whom they will be awarded a contract if they become America’s Next Top Model. So already, less than ten-minutes into the episode, Bambi-eyed Rachel got the ax for not being charismatic enough and was sent home without the standard shallow and cliché words of wisdom adieu bid from Tyra, their model mommy.

The remaining girls quickly got over the loss and were brought to their next challenge where they were introduced to Super Smize (which was really just Tyra in a silvery jumpsuit and cape glaring into the camera and calling it smiling of sorts.) They then were put into unflattering neon jumpsuits, reminiscent of those oompa loompa outfits from the Mike TV song, and challenged in Tyra’s Fortress of Fierceness in pairs over who had the best Smize. Of course that designation was determined by Tyra and was perceived by me to mostly be arbitrary, but really you don’t watch the show for the authenticity factor.

The winners of said challenge were treated to a fancy dinner with the CEO of Wilhelmina and the losers were their dishwashers, perhaps a reminder of the painful possibilities if they continue to fail in this competition, GASP, real people labor!

The next day they were told that their challenge would be posing nude on a horse with a jockey. Some of them, notably the sweetly southern simpleton Laura, were adorably delighted by this prospect, “I just like nudity!” (LOVE HER!!!). Bianca, who has been edited to play the role of the token bitch, was put into a blonde wig, obviously as an instigator for her volatile nature, and my sister compared her masculine bone-structure and full lips juxtaposed with the flowing blonde hair to Ru Paul, which apparently Jay realized to, as he referentially called her a tranny, comparing her photo to Isis, the trans contestant from Cycle 11.

Whatever though, at the end of the episode, Bianca was again in the bottom two with the gimpy Courtney who was sent home for having given up during her shoot but still given Tyra’s good blessing, “You have a lot of fight in you.” Other good things included LC as a guest judge, which I really didn’t hate, mostly because she really liked LuLu, who happens to be my fav (she referred to her photo as “sweet and natural”), we learned that Jennifer suffers from a ptosis of the eye, basically a lazy eye, which I anticipate will lead to her inevitable demise, and we learned that when models are told to think of something that gives them a strong emotional response and can motivate them to smize, answers are likely to include beef noodles, sheet cake, and pepperoni pizza. Way to shatter those preconceived notions Tyra.

Get High and Watch This

Not that I'm advocating the use of illegal substances, but I promise you, you won't regret it. Watch all five minutes of it, and keep an open mind.

See? Told you.

Ask and You Shall Receive

My prayers were answered last night at Radio City Music Hall. Any event that brings two of the most power American cultural figures together, Buzz Aldrin and Kermit the Frog, is an event well executed and certainly worth watching all three and a half hours of (gotta do the preshow).

My immediate reaction as the show began was, “Oh shit. Madonna’s here” and I knew right then, that MTV realized that if they were gonna make up for the snoozer of an award show they put on last year, they needed to pull out the big guns. Madonna proceeded to introduce an inexpressibly moving tribute to Michael Jackson, admittedly intertwined with the typical Madonna narcissism, but I’d say she was a most appropriate choice. Every time I watch any tribute to Michael Jackson I constantly find myself overwhelmed by the longevity and incomparable range of his career. It’s just something I’ll never get over.

Janet’s joining of the stage dancers when “Scream” came on and there was that great shot where him dancing was on the big screen behind her as she mimicked his moves in the lower right side of the shot, really touching stuff, Janet really did it, setting a precedent for the night that was met over and over again.

Then kill the lights, cue standing ovation, cue Katy Perry slaughtering another American classic as we introduce Russell Brand, our host for the evening, still sexy, still getting little to nothing from the crowd. What are you gonna do though? (Side note: The only host I really ever remember loving from the VMAs was Jimmy Fallon, who Brand later referred to as this generation’s David Letterman, I sure as hell hope not for the sake of our generation, love the guy, but his talk show sucks.) Whatever, he made some joke promoting public health care, wore unflattering pants and talked about his erections and being British all night, pretty much sums it up.

After that was the evening’s big shocker and, what I would say, the opening of the fairy tale narrative the VMA’s adopted. I’m gonna quit talking in a linear sequence now because, if I keep going I’ll never shut up, and this story really must be told as it would be told outside of a debriefing.

The first award given out of the evening was for Best Female Video, the presenters, if my notes serve me correctly, were Shakira and Taylor Lautner (werewolf dude from Twilight—SheWolf with a Werewolf, I don’t know, I loved it!). A dark horse in the race, Taylor Swift, took the moon man for “You Belong With Me” despite her stiff competition including Lady GaGa’s “Poker face” and Beyonce’s “Put a Ring on It.”

T. Swift, in her infinite adorable sincerity and humble nature, looks genuinely shocked as she covers her mouth in her long, silver, princess-y gown (she showed up in a pink horse-drawn carriage—Thanks MTV!) and goes up and gets all of like, fifteen words out about how happy she is to receive this “VMA award” because she’s a country singer and these things don’t usually happen to them…when Kanye, in his infinite and boundless arrogance, takes the mic from her and proclaims how he’ll let her finish, but that this was a sham because Beyonce made one of the best videos of all time.

All right, Kanye, duh. Everybody knows that. But do you really use MTV Video Music Awards as your pop cultural relevance barometer? Do you really think that Beyonce, who is a Grammy Award, Golden Globe nominated performer and superstar was really banking on putting that stainless steel astronaut above her fireplace in her palace with Jay-Z (I like to think of them as living in a palace but also hosting really fun barbacues—I actually often say that of any celebrity couple theirs is the barbecue I’d most want to be invited to…anyway).

The night goes on and not only did the event make little Taylor look like she was going to burst into tears, but it interrupted the opening of what I thought was a hilarious skit of Tracy Morgan and Eminem, Em training Tracy to become Best New Artist, “I could be Tracy GaGa,” hysterical. Thanks a lot Kanye for overshadowing that line. Come to think of it they would have been pretty adequate and hysterical hosts. Whatever. (Side note: My favorite part of that bit was the Cyndi Lauper cameo—now that’s a perfect reference MTV).

Taylor went on to perform her hit via a subway car, an admittedly nauseating performance where her vocals were proven to be way weak live, but I was so in camp T. Swift that even I cheered from here in Cackalack. Every mention of Kanye is met with wild boos and chants of “Taylor! Taylor!” from the audience, loves it. And Beyonce goes on, to KILL, KIIIIIIIIILLLLLLL in her performance of Single Ladies, starting with the bridge, which was smart, cause that part of the song is HOT, looking great, despite what some have said, and, whatever, I can’t even, I was in tears. If you didn’t see it YouTube it now. Loves it beyond expression. I can’t even.

Anyway the really good part of this story comes as Andy Samberg and Jimmy Fallon present the award for Video of the Year, which went to, what do you know, Beyonce. Girl goes up there, looking fucking fabulous in that short, pocketed low cut red dress, presumably from House of Dereon, and says about how she remembers her first VMA and how it was when she was 17 and it was with Destiny’s Child and what a special moment, and how she wants Taylor to come out here and have that moment.

I, died. Couldn’t even handle it. All right cynics, I know that it was very ostensibly a premeditated move and probably mandated by the producers of the show. But the way that she did it with such grace and humility and understanding, and then Taylor Swift comes out and is just, again, adorable, thanking her brother’s high school which Beyonce got a cute chuckle out of.

You know what it reminded me of so much? Dream Girls enthusiasts will get this. It was like that moment in the end of Dream Girls when Deena Jones (Beyonce) says at their farewell concert, “But you know there aren’t three Dreamettes, there are four…” and introduces, “Effie!” and Jennifer Hudson comes out in that ridiculously sparkly gown and the crowd goes wild and she proceeds to kill that song with Deena doing back up, pleased with her good deed and justice having been served. I like to think that Beyonce took a page out of Deena Jones’s book there After all, it was the film of her life.

Then Jay-Z came out and performed with Alicia Keys and it settled it for me. I need to go to a Jay-Z and Beyonce barbecue. They’re my America’s Sweethearts. (Side note again: what the fuck was with Lil Mama jumping on the stage at the end of that shit? Please, you’re the Paula Abdul of America's Best Dance Crew, you carry no social capital, knock it off.)

Other highlights included Lady GaGa looking like a lunatic in the periphery of every shot of Beyonce as she was sitting right behind her and wore outfits including a feathered neck corset, red lace jumpsuit that covered her face, and an Eskimo/sea anemone beard. My friend Lindsay made the best comment about GaGa: “The only thing I like about Lady GaGa is that she makes Katy Perry look like a total amateur.” Amen. The only two things I can say about her performance, because this is long already, is that number one, I completely forgot how musically capable she really is, and number two, I completely underestimated her limits (she basically mock hung herself on stage as the finale of her performance of “Paparazzi”—now MJ didn’t off himself, but I still found it tasteless in light of recent events.) I also have to say I did love that in her acceptance speech she yelled in between obscenities, “This is for God! And for the gays!”

Love a good shout out, especially when delivered next to a visibly uncomfortable Eminem.

Love that there was still love for Brit Brit, winning best pop video for that absurdly sexy masterpiece “Womanizer.” As she’s on tour now she accepted via somewhere with her band of dancers and also, did anyone else notice that Max, as in the magician-waiter from The Max in Saved By the Bell, was on tour with Britney? Apparently his name’s Ed Alonzo. Who knew?

Final thoughts:

Why did Eminem win Best Rap Video for that dreadful song proclaiming insults and slurs about pop cultural happenings that we had long stopped caring about, what, do only twelve-year-old white kids vote for that category?

Love that Serena Williams, a. was there and b. made a joke about crossing the line.

And lastly, Who the fuck is Muse?

In closing, Kanye, way to leave yourself open to shameless parody:

Congrats Bey

For the record, I'm going to post more on the VMAs later. However, I wanted to give a shoutout to the gracious Beyonce, the evening's true heroine, and say Congratulations on her winning Video of the Year for Put a Ring on It, which, yes Kanye, is a well executed video that has earned an honored position in the pop cultural canon.

What's hilarious, I think, is the video is Fosse inspired from a choreographed routine he made starring his dancer lover Gwen Verdon called "Mexican Breakfast" which birthed the brilliantly in sync adaptation shown below. Enjoy.

Remember When the VMA's Didn't Suck?

There are certain evolutions in popular culture that I've totally gotten myself onto the band wagon for, many, in fact. I'm not the type to bitch about reality t.v. or the media's changing of landscape increasing subjectivity over hard facts or celebrity over talent (celebrity is a talent in by its own merit, media manipulation is a lucrative and challenging skill to develop). But the VMA's is a tradition in entertainment that I feel has shifted its appeal to be one that is, well, really unappealing.

The VMA's were always to me pop culture's shameless mockery of itself. It was like the night where everyone that had been feature in an issue of US Weekly throughout the curse of that calendar year could show up and act as complete caricatures of themselves and the identities that the had guided the media in having constructed for them. It was like a costume party where every celebrity in attendance went as themselves. For example:



Do you think that Geri Halliwell would ever wear that nauseatingly patriotic, leather bathing suit thing with a faux-fur coat unless she wanted to be self referential in that she, and her group, has become a commodity for the American public? Absolutely not. But the VMA's provided celebrities and viewers with circus style exaggerations of entertainers' personal brands.

Last year, when I watched the VMA's with a room full of friends who were, like me, expecting the typical freak show of celebrity that we look forward to each year, we were at the very least disappointed in what we saw. It was as if everyone had pre-partied for the award show by having a group bible study and moving furniture around for the post-party hoe down they were planning. I mean, when the most highly antcipated appearance at an event is the Jonas Brothers, you hafta just expect cold oatmeal. When was the VMA's anything more than a mildly pathetic obligation on your social calendar and guarantee that something excusably inappropriate and outlandish might occur? Why do these nit-wit baby tween idols take al this so seriously?

Wwhen watching the low brow cultural enthusiast's event of the year, I don't want Jordin Sparks lecturing me about sexual habits weaing an unflattering strapless dress. I want something harmlessly riskier. I want Vanessa Hudgeons out there in a nude suit making jokes about how the only way she can get press is if she keeps "accidentally" showing up naked all over the internet. I want celebrities spitting back in the faces of the American public trying to police their behavior, not trying to further their appeal and make themselves accessible to the straight laced, midwestern twelve-year-old girl.

Bring back the absurdity MTV! It's just not a sufficient amount of absurdity that you're hosting an award show based on music videos when you don't even show them anymore. I want shameless self-mockery! I want you to show me just how self aware you are of the product that you and the media and their interactons with the public have helped to shape! Just do eaxctly what you used to do, have britney and Christina present an award together, have Mariah and Whitney do it wearing the same dress! Have a mob of Eminem look alikes swarm Radio City. Something that will regain my faith in your programming.

You could start with bringing back a hell of a lot more performances like this:











And a lot less of anything involving Katy Perry or anyone who got their start on the Disney Channel post Mickey Mouse Club. Thanks, good luck tonight, I'll be watching.

Saturday Morning Cartoons: The Flintstones

Happy Saturday Morning to Everyone (even though I know it's Saturday afternoon that I'm posting this-- I like to sleep in!) and hope you're ready for this week's Saturday Morning Cartoon profiling of THE FLINTSTONES. Admittedly a cartoon series more of our parents' generations, having originally run in the early 60's, but one I feel had a resounding impact on popular culture and entertainment.



A premise we are all very familiar with, The Flintstones took the day to day happenings of 1960's everyday life and translated it as to fit within a Stone Age structure, adapting technological features of modernity to exist through various prehistoric vehicles. Something I always notice about The Flintstones if I watch it now is their wild manipulation of the environment and their shameless exploitation of animals to serve their utilitarian purposes.

The two families profiled through the cartoon series are the title family of The Flintstones, comprised of blue-collar working everyman Fred, his disproportionately attractive wife Wilma (more on that later), their canine companion Dino, and their precocious strawberry blonde daughter Pebbles, who inspired a trend in female American toddlers' hair stylings with her signature ponytail. Fred's endearingly dopey best friend is Barney Rubble who has a wife named Betty and a son Bamm-Bamm, constantly carrying a turkey-leg shaped wooden club. Interesting side-note, Bamm-Bamm is not in fact the biological child of Barney and Betty but was abandoned on the family's doorstep and then taken in and cared for by them.

What both Fred and Wilma as well as Barney and Betty's marriages reflect is the commonly noted patriarchal precedent in many American sitcoms, animated and live action, of hot wife with overweight, incompetent and obviously less attractive husband. Examples of this just fly through your mind right when you realize it, Homer and Marge Simpson (The Simpsons), Doug and Carrie Heffernan (King of Queens), Peter and Lois Griffin (Family Guy), pretty much any Judd Apatow movie. I can't pretend to be profound about this, it's really talked about a lot, and is hardly anything new. The Flintstones were conceived by Hanna Barbera to be a paleazoic animated representation of The Honeymooners, who absolutely fit that mold, as Alice was certainly more attractive than Ralph.



Deconstruction aside, The Flintstones' presence in our generation's life was certainly rooted in the reruns of the original series, but was hardly limited to that. Their family became the face of their own line of children's vitamins, and of gluten-free breakfast delicacy Fruity Pebbles, and the chocolatey counterpart, Cocoa Pebbles.

They then went on to be represented in the live action movie in 1994 starring John Goodman as Fred, and Elizabeth Perkins as Wilma (Celia of Weeds--thought don't you think Kathy Griffin could have done this?). Funnier casting went to children-shrinkin 90's icon Rick Moranis as Barney, and professional lunatic lesbian Rosie O'Donnell as Betty. There was even a follow-up cinematic gem in 2000 with the prequel The Flinstones in Viva Rock Vegas, but that's just too pathetic to even yabba dabba get into.

It's Been Awhile

Recently been behind on my posting but I think that the wait is all worthwhile with big things having recently happened like, oh, I don't know, THE TWO FUCKIN HOUR PREMIERE OF ANTM CYCLE 13!



Tyra Tyra, you've gone and done it again, manipulated feminist discourse to appear to be pushing the envelope and redefining what conventional beauty is when really you just are investing in smaller envelopes by only letting girls 5'7 and under audition (le petit cycle). Oh, and eliminating any already limited space for plus sized contestants (cause are you really gonna want a 2x4 waddling down the runway--let's be real).

Last night's premiere was, well, two hours of Tyra, so I'm mostly gonna talk about the competition as it stands and mostly the second half of the premiere, because honestly aside for Jaslene no girls ever called for casting and sent home without living in the house goes on to do much of anything with the show or the biz, which Tyra made particularly clear sending them off basically telling them, "Well this sucks 'cause next cycle were going back to the leggy ladies and no agency will bother with you, so, I don't know, go try and be in a commercial or something, SEE YA!"

I think that the element of their height will add significantly to ther perceived sense of agony come all of their elimination because like TLC famed Matt and Amy will tell you, they're little people in a big world (as a side note this short thing could yield some hilarious guest judges--I'm gonna think of that more)!

Tyra pissed me off when cutting down to the final 14 by casting Amber, straw-hatted Jesus freak, but who then mysteriously had to go home after a commercial break (bummer). I'm not sure about that girl, either she was a conspicuous plant who just couldn't make that bit funny, or she was a complete psychopath. Regardless, her departure gave Queens girl Lisa (who is too underwhelming to represent any burrough, even Queens--hell, especially Queens) a second chance.

The house itself, like the first photo shoot, plays up the idea of their petit-statures, looking like its designers drew inspiration from Candy Land, the set of Care Bears and Gymboree. The dynamic within the house seems a little premature to judge, though some girls have steaked types for themselves.

Bloody eye-ball chick, aka Nicole, is a heady outsider with a quiet edge on the competition with her sharp facial angles and confidence in front of the camera. But her pseudo Emersonian demeanor comes across as unjustifiable elitism and apathy. I reasonably forsee a "You have got to make us know you want this" moment with Tyra at panel.

Bianca is a contestant who I initially loved and actually made me tear up during her initial panel with Tyra, Jay and J, talking about reclaiming her identity from an abusive relationship by cutting her hair off and being more true to herself. Loves it. Obvi. But then when they moved in and throughout their Ty-overs (what make overs are now called) and their first shoot she came across as arrogant and ungrateful. Her being in the bottom two with the personality-less Lisa I imagine shot her back into shape and let her know just how much it'd fucking suck to peace.

I was pissed when Lisa went home strictly because I didn't consider her a legitimate contestant to begin with. When the men i white coats came for Amber they snatched Lisa back in and Tyra's acting all as if she was the first one on her mind. Whatever. She sucked, she's gone now.

Girls I love, Laura, a real freagin country girl with the twang and to match and tales of her Grandma sewing her clothes and her days of castrating cows, bah, such a type this one, I love it, so endearing and I can't even stand it, plus she's got waterworks, she cries everytime Tyra opens her mouth, I donno, I like that, it's like a testament to her simplicity.

I also way into Kara for some eason, I do tend to favor the androgynous types and that might be it, but there's totally something about her not all who wander are lost, but I totally know that I can afford that attitude attitude is drawing me to her, who knows.

Then my obvious favorite LuLu, Brooklynite lesbian of color, an ANTM first, I seriously felt a little embarassed, though mostly a little delighted, when I had the same queened-out reaction as Miss J to her coming-out to the panel.

I could go on for more but the important things to take home from the premiere are as follows: shorty fire burning on the runway, recurring conversations about elongating your body, the usual talk of having overcome obstacles, a note absence of a supermodel judge aside from Tyra, and the usual lunacy that is ANTM---just with a few inches shaved off (we ARE in a RECESSION people!).

Saturday Morning Cartoons: Susie Carmichael

I'm constantly nostalgic for Saturday Morning Cartoons as an institution. I'm not around kids who would engage in such a Saturday morning activity anymore so I don't even know if TV milestones from my youth such as TGIF or One Saturday Morning even have any cultural relevance anymore. Regardless, I've decided to turn said nostalgia into a weekly segment deconstructing cartoon characters from my childhood each Saturday morning to take care of that jones and to revisit fond figures from years past.

Who better to start with than feminist of color and egalitarian Susie Carmichael?






Susie Carmichael played a pivotal role in the Nickelodeon series Rugrats, which originally aired from 1991-1994. Susie's introduction came in 1993 and she served as a foil character to the relentlessly tyrannical and manipulative Angelica. Angelica and Susie were older than the babies and were able to articulate themselves to the adults. However unlike Angelica, Susie used her postion of privilege in a kind and inclusive way, always looking out for the well-being of the babies and for the completion of whatever task was at hand.

Susie was the only primary character of color on the show, and was the youngest of four children in the Carmichael family. Her father was a head writer of one of the babies' favorite television programs, "Dummi Bears," and her mother was represented as having filled multiple career roles, including chef, pilot, and doctor. Perhaps this caree range is far-fetched, but it is still depicting women as beng capable of succeeding in male dominated work spheres. So it makes sense that Susie would have such an empowered and inclusive perspective and approach on life.

Thinking back Susie is the only black cartoon character I can really remember from my own childhood. Since then there have been more animated representations of African Americans in both a mixed race and predominantly black environments (The Proud Family, Little Bill, Vince of Recess) but it's interesting to think of Susie as one of the premiere representations that American youth had exposure to through cartoons. Especially in light of Disney introducing its FIRST black princess in their upcoming "The Princess and the Frog."

The issue of progress aside, speaking from strictly an exposure standpoint, Susie Carmichael's influence and relevance seems to have been before its time, in a good way.

How Bout a Round of Applause?

Chris Brown appeared on Larry King last night in his first televised interview since the Feb. 8 incident where he assaulted girlfriend Rihanna and Breezy came across as, at least, a bit insincere, desperate to salvage his public image, and still unfortunately unaware of the greater implications of his actions or his motivations behind them.

First things first, Chris, I wouldn't exactly call this a sky blue, bow-tie occassion. Yes I understand you're sitting next to your mom and trying to stress your youth through this interview ("I'm only 20...I'm not a man fully yet") and trying to paint this all as some foolish "mistake". But that attitude already pisses me off. So why exacerbate with a questionably juvenile choice of apparel? Moving on to more substance...

CB appeared with his mother, Joyce Hawkins, a survivor of domestic abuse, and his lawyer, Mark Geragos, who did a little too much of the talking, naturally. Larry started the line of questioning by asking if whether or not the sentencing of five years probation and spend upwards of 1,400 hours doing community service was fair. Chris, eager to seem agreeable, said that it was the law and if the law saw fit then that would be a just punishment. Fair enough. Whatever.

Things got frustrating for me as a viewer when larry tried to drive the line of questioning away from the now and back to the then to try and understand and provide viewers and fans with a greater explanation for all of this than "Like...Wow" or "I made a mistake." Chris seemed persistent on keeping any and all information about the night itself private claiming not wanting to violate his or Rihanna's privacy.

I completely understand the mentality of not wanting to force a victim to relive the details of a horrific occurence, especially through the words of her assailant. But what Brown doesn't seem to understand is that he is not coming across as convincing in having come to terms wit what he did and why he did it. Not once during the interview did he verbalize aloud what he was guilty of in terms legal or otherwise. It seems obvious that he's in a rush to save his image and get back closer to where he was, rather than truly come to some sort of reconciliation and understanding to himself or his fanbase of the violent acts he committed.

Everybody saw those pictures. It is insulting and offensive to refer to whatever transpired that made those pictures a reality as a "mistake." It trivializes the incident and its greater implications. And unprofessional public announcements like this one, "I ain't a monster," challenging his fans and deeming others as haters who've always been haters, further demonstrates how he's trivialized the incident to himself and made it seem as though its severity is a construction of the media.

I work with a woman who is convinced that Breezy will be forgiven. "They forgave R. Kelly. They're forgiving Whitney right now." Though I'm not as sure (and those seem slightly irrelevant examples to cite...nobody forgave Bobby or Ike). Somebody's going to forgive him and I think that he is deserving of that forgiveness, that's on the terms that, once he can prove to the public that he does understand what he did and why he did it. I feel as though that's the only way to prevent violence like this is to understand its cause and alternatives for it.

Chris, not to belabor the point, really doesn't seem to get it. And as a side note, quit likening yourself to MJ. You may be a helluva dancer but Michael was nver as dependent on bullshit auto-tune and generic catchy hooks as you are. And just one last thing, your new single fucking blows, for reasons both listed in this post, and objectively.

"She's a Muppet Baby..."

I have a total confession that, honestly, I'm not even a little embarassed about making. I think that The Rachel Zoe Project is both entertaining and quality television. Rachel gallivanting around saying so much, while not really saying anything at all, and petrifying everyone that encounters her with her unintelligible barks of commands, it's quality, bananas, I'm telling you.

I totally admit though that Zoe as a media cultural driving force has questionable approaches and viewpoints, particularly dealing with the issue of weight, but really, it's reality tv, it's not like Tyra is as progressive and sensitive as she pretends to be. They're television characters. They're a reflection of the dominant values of the manstream media and its audience.

Most importantly, everyone knows, the best low brow reality television, births the best parodies:



She is shutting it down...like a rave.

This or That- Dedicated Divas

Welcome to a Monday Morning Segment called This or That! A simple premise, I pin two competitors together here of commonly, and not so commonly, disputed against binaries, renditions of the other, whatever, and let you all decide which one triumphs over the other in greatness, longevity, or any other standard you see fit. Just a way to pass time for those of you working mindless underpaid internships or jobs you hate but are grateful to have in this market.


We're gonna start things off right with two major players' renditions of the great American classic, "I Will Always Love You," but who has earned it more? The delightfully tacky yet unrefined Dolly Parton, or Whitney herself, proving to us all recently that it ain't over til the cracked lady sings (don't call it a comeback).





A true, or even casual really, fan knows that it was Dolly's song first and was written and recorded by her in 1973 for Porter Wagoner, a business partner . The song became the second hit off her album Jolene (the first being Jolene, the title track, which is really the anthem of my life if you think about it) and though Whitney rejuvenaed it on the bigscreen in 1992 in The Bodyguard, Dolly had already made a place for it in cinema in the 1982 flick The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (the film of my life). Both made the song huge hits in their respective communities, Dolly's being country Whitney's Top 40, and it is probably going to be the career hit for Houston (given the sounds of things off her latest tracks). But what say you? Whose song is it actually? Argue in the comments people. For your consideration:

A Story About Two Strangers, One a Little Stranger...

So after having seen the trailer for the new(ish) Fox Searchlight flick, Adam, I immediately thought "I have to see this movie," cute, atypical love story with a hot chick and a quirky guy, everything I ever wanted when I was straight. Though I'm starting to admit myself the realization that more often than not trailers turn out to be much more enthralling than the films they're advertising, and this was unfortunately not an exception.

Point of warning, there are plot spoilers in here, so if you intend to see this movie, I have two pieces of advice, one, don't read this, two, wait for the DVD.

The movie tracks the relationship of aspiring children's author and daughter of privilege Beth and Asperger's syndome sufferer Adam, who we learn from the film's opening scenes has just lost his father and works as an electrical engineer for a toy company, a job framed as unsuited for him because of his overzealousness about the technological capabilities of his creations and a lack of attention towards the necessity of efficient production.

Beth and Adam have a meet-cute in the laundry room of their building, where she has just moved into, and he loans her his laundry card as she unloads her clothes into the washing machine and her back story onto Adam. The film then tracks their interactions and illustrates Adam's bafflement about how to deal with his attraction to Beth, and Beth's underexplained attraction to Adam's eccentricities (which any viewer who saw the trailer knows all along is caused by his disability).

There's also a kind of cumbersome side plot of Beth involving her father, Peter Gallagher, who comes across as a Sandy Cohen but is really way more a Caleb Nichol, and legalities behind some business dealings...I don't know. I think that her dad was intended to act as a foil to Adam in that although Adam lacks tact and is a fountain of impulsive honesty, her dad's dishonesty was always cloaked in a manipulative masquerade of good intention. But this is really beside the point.

The point is that from the beginning Beth is a completely unsympathetic character who is too self-centered and unjustifiably perpetuating problems for herself with her own naivety. It is clear to the viewers from their initial interaction that there is something different about Adam that is rooted in more than nerves or a low level of social skills. His Asperger's, which is a form of autism characterized by difficulties in social interaction, is pretty ostensibly manifested in his interactions with her to the point that she comes across as oblivious and self-martyring for trying to maintain a romantic relationship with him.

I am definitely not saying that romantic relationships aren't possible for these people. However, the film doesn't realistically portray what motivates the development of Beth's attraction to Adam beyond the level of friendship. She just comes across as unjustifiably feeling sorry for herself for misalignments of their points of views and comes across as selfish and cruel at points in the way that she seems to set him and herself up for collective emotional instability.

The one good part is that they don't live happily ever after. But the film does take an equally formulaic approach of tying loose ends. Adam moves to California doing something with astronomy, which is a topic he is an idiot-savant for, after having been heavily prepped for the interview process by Beth. And Beth stays in New York, opting not to go with him and instead publish her children's book about a family of racoons living in Central Park that just didn't belong there (a reference to their first date of sorts).

Beth acts as, how Neil Morris puts it, "Adam's social guide dog" into the closing scene of the movie where it all becomes apparent that without all that heartache, Adam never would have ascertained his full potential. And neither would have she.

I will say that for an indie flick it did lack the typical overwhelming element of social commentary, aside from the obvious exposure of living with Asperger's (which I do think is important exposure) and one scene where an egregious arrest is attempted on Adam for looking for Beth at the school playground (damn the pigs), and it also lacked the excessive use of handheld camera (though it found its nauseating way into a couple scenes). Overall save yourself the eight bucks and ask an open-minded only child what they think it'd be like if they fell for an autistic guy in an apartment they probably don't deserve in Manhattan. You'll probably get a similar narrative as Beth's.

Little Boxes Made of Ticky Tacky

Of recent my pursuit of higher education has come to an unfortunate and unexpected halt temporarily, damn you recession, and I've been forced to relocate back home until further plans make themselves available to me. Catch is, home is new for me, as my family now lives in good 'ole Cary, North Carolina, a growing city that matches every suburban stereotype from gas-guzzling SUV's to gaudy homes with no yards, this means a whole new, not so pleasant adventure.

Cary is known to many North Carolinians as the Concentrated Area of Relocated Yankees. This is not an exaggeration. A typical response to this acronym is, "Well great James, your Drescherian style speech patterns must be no big thing to these people, right?" Wrong. What's unusual about Cary is although it is geographically located in the south and inhabited mostly by outsiders, they all seem to have adopted the stereo-typical southern attitude of shunning difference and encouraging conformity and old fashioned values. Low taxes. Focus on the Family. That kind of shit. This makes being a comfortably queer person with no pretense a little inhibiting to live in this setting.

On top of this, the city planners of this montrosity ought to be embarassed of themselves because the overwhelming absence of small businesses and the car-centric culture encouraged by the town's and surrounding towns' infrastructures is at the very least inefficient and sooo not green.

What I tell people to liken it to are the establishing shots of America Beauty and Weeds.

It's also worth noting Cary's proximity to an area of North Carolina known as Research Triangle Park. This attracts many people who work in the ITech industry, an industry that doesn't necessarily pride itself on social skills and sparkling personalities, moreso encourages efficiency, practicality and is generally attracts less than personable and interesting individuals. (All of this is SO not J-Wo). As a side note, this proximity also accounts for the very prevelant Indian presence in the area, because for one reason or another many Indian people get into this industry. That's really neither here nor there though.

Due to some sort of combination of the aforementioned attributes, Cary as a community becomes a community that is bound together not by common histories (as everyone comes from somewhere else) and not by common interests (because how many stimulating bar conversations have you had around the issues in ITech?) but primarily by the overwhelming consumer culture that has developed (strip malls and housing developments for as far as the eye can see) and by conversations revolving around heteronormative familial structures, i.e. WHOSE HAVING A BABY NOW?!* And as Cary was reported to be the 3rd fastest growing city in America in 2008, it shows little sign of slowing down.

The absence of a culturally rich environment is really the least of the detrimental affects of this rapid development in this area. Although, I'll admit, it's one that bothers me the most. In addition there are obvious environmental affects manifested on a large scale, and on a local scale with the overwhelming runoff expediting the destruction of Jordan Lake just west of Raleigh, not to mention, state legislation has gotten unjustifiably lenient on restrictions protecting the lake.

There's plenty more I could bitch about this personality-less wasteland of a city but really this was just intended to be an introduction explaining why I'm starting this blog. In sum, Cary's just not gonna cut it as a conversational lotus for my fabulosity so I'm doing what every good disgruntled twenty-something year old student aggrivated with the job market is doing, bringing it all to the internet.

And believe me you ain't seen nothing yet.

*said reasons for Cary's lack of charm are admittedly speculative, but believe me when I say it lacks charm!