hey gang, let's reclaim some shit!
A while back I did an anti-grammar pet peeve post where we all admitted our frequent grammar errors, and it was a snark free zone. I've inadvertently seen a good bit of ranting about things lately, and that always makes me sort of annoyed and want to fight back with THINGS THAT I LOVE.
So: What are the things that people frequently rant about that you actually rather like?
I'll start:
I love first person POV. I'm sad that some people refuse to read it. Three of the four books on my shortlist for Great American Novel are first person: Moby-Dick, Gatsby, and Huck Finn. (The fourth is Beloved.) Epistolary novels are sort of first person as well-how great is The Color Purple?
I love established relationship stories. Not just fic, but stories in which there is a strong romance but it isn't about their getting together: The Thin Man, the later Anne Shirley books. I love stories that are about how people in a relationship get through things and make them work.
I love the sitcom form. There's a reason that it's still with us after being declared dead several times-it works. I love that the three-camera situation comedy was invented by a woman and a nonwhite man (though you wouldn't know it looking at the writing rooms of most sitcoms). Some of the best shows of the past were really well executed sitcoms like The Dick Van Dyke Show, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Cheers, Family Ties, Murphy Brown, The Honeymooners, WKRP in Cincinnati. In fact, a few years ago at jumptheshark WKRP and MTM were two of the very few shows to be judged to have never jumped. Shitty sitcoms are shitty, but so are shitty dramas, and you don't see people saying things like, "everyone hates dramas."
What much-disparaged thing would you like to reclaim? Have at it!
So: What are the things that people frequently rant about that you actually rather like?
I'll start:
I love first person POV. I'm sad that some people refuse to read it. Three of the four books on my shortlist for Great American Novel are first person: Moby-Dick, Gatsby, and Huck Finn. (The fourth is Beloved.) Epistolary novels are sort of first person as well-how great is The Color Purple?
I love established relationship stories. Not just fic, but stories in which there is a strong romance but it isn't about their getting together: The Thin Man, the later Anne Shirley books. I love stories that are about how people in a relationship get through things and make them work.
I love the sitcom form. There's a reason that it's still with us after being declared dead several times-it works. I love that the three-camera situation comedy was invented by a woman and a nonwhite man (though you wouldn't know it looking at the writing rooms of most sitcoms). Some of the best shows of the past were really well executed sitcoms like The Dick Van Dyke Show, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Cheers, Family Ties, Murphy Brown, The Honeymooners, WKRP in Cincinnati. In fact, a few years ago at jumptheshark WKRP and MTM were two of the very few shows to be judged to have never jumped. Shitty sitcoms are shitty, but so are shitty dramas, and you don't see people saying things like, "everyone hates dramas."
What much-disparaged thing would you like to reclaim? Have at it!