The Horror

I'm not a massive TV fan, yet I've seen enough to have noticed that the UK we're used to being treated to a barrage of offensive advertising (apparently only women have digestive problems, all of which can be treated easily - and discreetly - by buying some tablets... rather than the glaringly obvious ploy of eating proper food. Except it's not really discreet because these ads lead one to assume that any woman you see on the street is silently suffering from either constipation, diarrhoea, or that good old fashioned 'bloated feeling'). We are also graced with some cheery awareness ads:

At present, there's a man who forgot to THINK! and is consequently being haunted by a ghoul-kid in the latest instalment of the consistently chilling 'kill your speed' series. Fair enough, he's earned it. Slick as these ads are, mostly you're left thinking 'ah, clever' and brush it off; they have yet to seep into my unconscious and into my dreams.

But guess what did? A dated-looking and decidedly non-slick Stroke (act FAST!) ad. It makes you squirm not only because it's nasty, but also because the NHS budget is clearly not as impressive as that of the DfT (or so they at least have to let us believe). Anyway, last night I had a truly heart-pounding nightmare where not only did my local cinema relocate itself, leaving me skulk along dark streets to find it, but once there my friend proceeded to emit strange sounds - I look to see what's going on only to be confronted with a whole new version of the Scary Face, as featured in aforementioned ad. Needless to say, the words 'must save as much as a person as I can' were spinning frantically through my mind, but alas, as in all dreams, not even a whimper could escape my lips. No one called 999, and I didn't even get a chance to fetch a glass of water (I know they don't mention it in the ad, but for some odd reason it seemed like a good idea in the dream). I then awoke, traumatised and scarred with a fear that everyone I have ever known is going to have a stroke every day and night for the rest of my life.

If nothing else, it's an interesting example of a not-so-well-put-together ad being more effective (by which I mean horrifying) than its more classically well made cousins. Maybe that's why it works?

The People Spoke...and We Listened

Last night, I was lucky enough to be part of the audience for a taping of a segment for "The People Speak," a new production based on historian and social activist Howard Zinn's classic A People's History of the United States. An impressive cast of actors, writers, and musicians are involved with the project, which takes various speeches, poems, songs, and articles written by ordinary people and historic figures, and gives them new life. The miniseries will be split into four parts, according to the themes of class, gender, war, and race.

The War portion of the series featured Josh Brolin reading from Dalton Trumbo's 1939 book Johnny Got His Gun, David Strathairn as Henry David Thoreau, the poet Staceyann Chin as a Hiroshima survivor, Viggo Mortenson singing a stirring a capella version of Bob Dylan's "Master's of War," and Danny Glover reading a Martin Luther King Jr. speech denouncing Vietnam. And those were just a part of the evening. Marisa Tomei gave one of the best performances, as a convincing and heartbreaking Cindy Sheehan, railing against her son's death in Iraq.

The night not only shed light on a less familiar side of historic icons (who knew Mark Twain was an outspoken opponent of war?), but spotlighted the entertainers on stage as something more than the roles they are best known for. Mike O'Malley, best known to my generation as the host of Nickelodeon's test of adolescent endurance GUTS, gave a rousing rendition of a speech Abbie Hoffman gave at UMass in 1986; Darryl McDaniels (he puts the DMC in Run DMC) enacted a Danny Glover diatribe against the war in Iraq; and Josh Brolin dispelled his image as the older brother in The Goonies by giving some of the most passionate readings I've ever seen live on stage. The night even included a performance of Marvin Gaye's "What's Goin On" by piano virtuoso John Legend.

Perhaps even more stirring than the performers' renderings of the pieces was the eerie commonalities that ran through history's greatest wars all the way to our current administration and war. It's chilling just how little the culture and policies of this country have changed, from the time of Columbus enslaving the Native Americans to Abu Gharib.

Though the project hasn't been officially picked up by any major network, the producer (Chris Moore, best known for his collaboration with Matt Damon and Ben Affleck on Project Greenlight) is optimistic that it will be broadcast in time for the election in November.

Flannery O'Connor and Heroes

So this is my first blog attempt and I'm assuming it's going to suck, but stick with me. Good intro, right? Now I'll talk about what kind of food got stuck in my teeth this morning (cinnamon apple sauce) and my favorite kind of toilet paper (whatever that commercial is with those red bears!).... I thought that was how blogs worked? You see, I did a little research. Dwight Schrute's blog is about a time capsule he sent to himself. No, really. I'm actually getting to something literary. Seems to me time's a pretty mysterious mofo. Heard about this study about how people like to see, in their movie trailers, everything that's going to happen in the movie? Not original. Flannery was doing that stuff ages ago. See "A Good Man is Hard to Find." You know damn well they're going to meet the misfit the moment the grandmother, and then the storeowner, mentions it. Or "A Circle in the Fire." Fire's in the title, even, and it's the protagonist's greatest fear. What she really pulled off is making us pant with anticipation (that's right, like a dog) until we get there. Why don't we see this in a lot of writing today (though, yes, there are exceptions like Jeffrey Eugenides's Middlesex--on our Best Books List)?

Actually, this isn't what I wanted to talk about at all. What I wanted to talk about was dialogue subtext. In "A Circle in the Fire" (really one of O'Connor's fastest moving stories) we've got this woman who's convincing herself the invading boys are only hungry and will soon leave vs. the boys who know exactly what they are doing but pretend to speak politely. The suspense is in waiting for the subtext to come to the surface, for the woman to realize (or let herself realize) what exactly is going on, in opposition to what is being said. That's a whole lot of suspense, a whole lot more than just wondering what physical action will play out. If you look back at pop culture, you'll see this at work in shows like Heroes, where characters will have whole conversations full of disparate subtexts, disparate levels of knowledge (though this is probably easier to do when your characters' identities/super powers are secret). Too heavy? My time capsule would include gay Albus Dumbledore, embryonic research, global warming in a tube, a copy of James Scott's OneStory, an issue of the latest Redivider, my upcoming issue of Mid-American Review, other shameless plugs, etc. And yours?

The Girls Next Door, A Guilty Pleasure

In general, I'm not susceptible to reality TV (unless it involves cooking), but I have to admit that even though I don't make a point of watching E!'s show The Girls Next Door, I find myself flipping to it during commercials with shocking frequency.

The show is "reality" fare that follows Hugh Heffner's three girlfriends' lives in the Playboy mansion. Of course the reality presented does not resemble the reality I live in, but is strangely compelling nonetheless.

So why do I, a self-proclaimed strident feminist, get sucked in?

In a certain way, the very substance-less nature of the program appeals to me -- Kendra, Holly, and Bridget are doing exactly what popular culture tells our women to do:

• Define their value in relation to men;
• Consume, consume, consume;
• Spend a lot of time exercising, waxing bikini lines, putting on makeup, and vamping for men.

To watch the girls on screen is to see my psyche as I might be if I bought in to the standards of beauty and consumption that our culture elevates. For this reason, the show both fascinates me and sickens me.

On the other hand, the girls have each made shrewd calculations and sacrifices to get where she they are -- these are not ditzy girls who lucked into the gig. In the episode "My Bare Lady", Kendra goes out to buy real estate, talking about how her boob job was her "first investment", noting that it's paid off. Holly starts an internship with Playboy, and we see her willingness to be involved in the production of porn, which she views as a creative act that finally puts her where she wants to be: in the director's seat, while Bridget uses the show's fame to jump start her second career as a voice actress.

I don't mean to suggest that the series' approach is either degrading or empowering -- it seems as though both sensibilities are mixed together. The girls are the perfect product of our consumer-oriented and sex-obsessed culture, but they are also real women trying to make money and build names for themselves.. This paradox is what makes me watch.

Kwik-E-Mart

As a promotion for the Simpsons Movie, 7-11s around the country have been turned into Kwik-E-Marts. My first thought was "how cool," but after reading both Angry Asian Man's and Ultrabrown's blogs about the promotion, I'm not so sure. Both bloggers think the character of Apu is racist, or at least that the promotion focuses on the racist aspects of his character (Too Sense applauded the Simpsons for complicating Apu's character, but noted that the Kwik-E-Mart promotion included none of this complexity). One particular objection was that actual desi owners of stores participating in the promotion are having this racist caricature thrown in their faces -- they have to dress up in a uniform modeled after Apu's.

Well, color-me educated! As a clueless white chick, I didn't realize that many South Asian folks were offended by Apu. For all the other clueless white folks, here's why Apu is/might be racist(please add reasons I may have missed in the comments):

• He has a poorly done Hindi accent, and is voiced by a white dude. Some have likened this to white dudes who put on blackface for minstral shows. Desidreaming has an interesting post on this -- the discussion in the comments is also intriguing.
  
  
• His catchphrase, "Thank you, come again" has evidently been used to taunt Indian convenience store workers across America.
  
  
• The broken english on the signs in Kwik-E-Mart stores, or for that matter, on the show, is condescending and ignores the fact that many immigrants speak English well. In short, it's a cheap shot.
  
  
• Apu is the stereotype of the hardworking immigrant business owner.

The potential racism of the accent seems self-evident to me, but from reading the various blogs linked above, I'm seeing a subtler line emerge: some Indian folks think Apu is racist, some don't. Everyone agrees that he represents a stereotype, and it seems to me that there are a lot of racist folks out there who use the Apu stereotype to make racist comments to Indian-Americans. So the question becomes, "Is a stereotype that is sometimes used for racist purposes racist in and of itself?"

American Idol, you've got NOTHING on Eurovision!

I would like to extend an official congratulations on the part of Fringe to the Balkan nation of Serbia for their 2007 Eurovision win. Who knew that so much of Europe was into 1980's style KD Lang?

Not familiar with Eurovision? Oh-ho-ho...well. Each year, all members of the European Union have an opportunity to submit one song, sung by the group of their choosing, into the Eurovision challenge. The groups perform live and are voted on by country. Last night, Finland (last year's winner) hosted the contest from lovely Helsinki. Replete with a live Princess Barbie doll hostess who was more interested in being in the center of the camera than interviewing her guests, and a back-scratching voting system that rivals US Congress, I have to honestly say that this was one of the most entertaining events I have been privy to watch in a dog's age.

Some of the more amusing and original acts included:
...Ukraine's Boy-Scouts-in-tinfoil-by-way-of-Sun-Ra performance;
...the blatant advertising of British Airways by the UK (come on--dancing flight attendants?!? No, I don't want to come fly with you. Please, stop asking me.);
...Turkey's pop and belly dancers--watch out Justin Timberlake, Turkey's got your number;
...1980's Marilyn Manson clones from Sweden (which, frankly, I found very, very scary. I'm canceling my trip to Stockholm.);
...and, last but clearly not least, France's Scissor Sisters on crack. I'm still dizzy from watching the lead singer run round and round and round that stage like a gerbil.

It was all quite impressive, to say the least. Anyway, I'm looking forward to seeing next year's presentation, live from Belgrade. With a good couple pints of Guiness and a bag of spicy chili crisps, I'll settle in for another evening of spine-tingling entertainment, watching as for one night, all of Europe puts their disagreements aside and unites in the name of bad music. Sorry America, maybe you can catch it on YouTube?

The End of Xena (She has many skills)

For the last two years or so, I have been watching Xena: Warrior Princess with my fellow Fringe-editor Sarah. It all started for me when I had my first detached retina in August 2005. I was low on energy and had a dilated pupil for almost three weeks, so it felt good to watch the comforting first season in the dim light of my apartment. After that, I was hooked, scoring the remaining seasons off eBay.

When I learned that Sarah also loved Xena, it was a revelation. I am a geek for Xena, and it's rare to encounter others who share the mania. We love Xena for its strong women characters, positive portrayal of lesbians (there's a fun drinking game where you quaff for lesbian innuendo), and most of all for its feminist pastiche of myths and screwball plots. Did you know that Xena...

... invented CPR? And inspired Hippocrates to write the famous oath?
...tempted Lucifer from heaven?
...has returned from the dead three times?
...was besties with Cleopatra and Helen of Troy?
...was a Valkyrie? made Grendel and Grendel's mother?
...was responsible for David's victory over Goliath?
...helped an enfeebled Ulysses draw his bow?
...has three doppelgangers?
...can perform a field tracheotomy in about one minute?
The list goes on and on...

One year ago Monday, Sarah and I made it up to the very final double-episode of Xena -- A Friend in Need. But we couldn't bring ourselves to watch it. The thought of no-more-Xena was too terrible to bear. So we went back to the beginning and re-watched our favorite episodes from the series, and now we're up to the FINAL episode. On Tuesday, we're taking off work, steeling ourselves, and making a multi-course Asian style meal (reflecting the episode's Japanese setting) to celebrate. Since we have to part ways, we're sending Xena off with an Ay-yi-yi-yi!