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Thursday, May 21, 2009

the trouble with glee



I was so set to like Glee. Just like I was so set to like Mamma Mia and Rock of Ages. But they all suffered from the same problem: You can't be ironic and genuine at the same time. And when you try to convince your audience to like something un-ironically that everyone knows is, for all intents and purposes, terrible, you just end up forcing people to sit through crap.

Glee wants to be a lot of things: dark comedy like Weeds, commercially appealing like High School Musical, campy like John Waters, and a heartfelt embrace of the outsider like Ugly Betty. But in trying to appeal to teenyboppers, they lost any comedic edge they had going for them. The pilot felt more like Bring it On than Election. Is it really possible to be both?

What Glee should be is the original John Waters Hairspray. A good compromise that's network friendly but still hilarious would be the Harvey Feirstein Broadway update. But what it ends up being is the overproduced Zac Efron-vehicle devoid of any element of camp or irony. The problem is that over-the-top farcical comedy always has to make a choice between real, human moments and subverting those moments for comedic effect. Take Arrested Development. Any time it allowed you to feel for its characters, it quickly yanked the rug out from under you by reminding you that that kiss you wanted to happen was between cousins or between a man and a retarded woman. That's what makes it funny.

Maybe Glee will be the surprise hit of the fall. I'm willing to give it a shot, especially to see Kristin Chenoweth stop by in episode 4. But I'm hoping that they ditch some of the gloss in favor of the black comedy. Those moments were where I liked the pilot best and I'd be thrilled to see them pull this off.

vote for my mommy!



My mom entered this instructable contest with this great DIY Mother's Day gift. vote for her! voting closes on Sunday!!!!

Friday, May 15, 2009

Obsession timeline



I was thinking today of my general fandom and thought it might be useful to plot it out in terms of time. So here's a list of things I was obsessed with (not just things I liked, things I was like weirdly OBSESSED with). Maybe one day I will make a graphical representation of it (or more likely, ask Yoko to do it for me, jk jk). Also, I can't remember exactly when some of these things fell, so maybe my mom will correct me (look for mom-ments below). Also, AND MOST IMPORTANTLY, if you somehow managed to not know what a big nerd I am, you may not want to read this... sigh, this is probably a huge mistake.

1986-1987 breast milk
1988-1990 silky objects, Heart, Bert
1991-1994 I don't remember. Was I even a real person then?

1994-1997 The Disney Channel (mostly Mickey Mouse Club, Adventures in Wonderland, and Kids Incorporated), Babysitter's Club books, Ghostwriter, wearing a pen around my neck and pretending I was Harriet the Spy
1994-2006 hoarding large stashes of Japanese candy
1995-1997 All That
1996-1999 Weird Al, Spice Girls, Hard Candy nail polish
1996-2006 cutting pictures out of magazines, showtunes
1996-2003 Friends
1997-1999 Leonardo DiCaprio, Will Smith, Tyson Beckford (okay, this is really weird, but when i was like a LITTLE GIRL, i really liked big black guys. and then suddenly, that just reversed itself and i started liking really dorky skinny white guys. and that has continued to this day. explain that to me.)
1998-2002 Jelly Roll pens
1998-2003 Rent
1999-2001 2gether (specifically Jason "QT" McKnight, RIP)
1998-2001 Neopets

1999-2002 Snood
2001-2005 Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Seth Green
2001-present 80s music
2002-2006 Jimmy Fallon
2003-2006 The OC, Adam Brody
2003-present UCB Theater, Minesweeper

Friday, May 8, 2009

i love this picture



whoever took this should be very proud of themselves.
c/o NYTimes