Television (+ old Aussie comedy linkspam)
A critical response to the American adaptation of Kath & Kim. (The text is very much formal critical analysis - which I love doing - but there are also links! To brilliant comedy clips! Something for everybody.)
Well, the American Kath & Kim is finally here, and it's... well, it's different.
When it was announced that America were doing their own version, there was much bewilderment from fans. So much of K&K seems so intrinsically Australian - it's often been said that no other country could have produced it, and certainly no other country could ever really get it. And that argument is quite right, to an extent. K&K isn't so much something that only Australia could have produced, and it's humour is not only funny because of the cultural context behind the jokes, so much as it is something that only Jane Turner and Gina Riley could have produced, with the humour so very very funny because of how they, along with Magda Szubanski and other co- and guest stars, deliver it.
Australian jokes can be changed to suit a new audience, but the American version could never cast the way the original could. America doesn't have a series of experienced, familiar, and brilliant comedians to go into and behind their version - they just cast actors to play characters.
Riley, Turner, and Szubanski created Kim, Kath and Sharon years ago for their old sketch show, Big Girl's Blouse, and had been creating and playing many fantastic characters on other sketch shows for decades before that. They've had a long time to perfect parody, and elements of much of Kath & Kim can be seen in their earlier work. There's a history behind both the women themselves and the characters that brings an extra dimension to the show. We know that that's Gina Riley singing the theme (and some of us will remember the many pop singers and variety show hosts she played years ago on Fast Forward, with their tendency to burst into show tunes, and, on one memorable occasion, a hilariously inappropriate and horribly jazzed up version of "I was Only Nineteen"), we recognise the people playing other roles as other old Fast Forward performers, or other well-known Australians, and the variety characters played by Turner, Riley and Szubanski (Prue and Trude, Kim's mother in-law, Sharon's jockey boyfriend) are so much funnier because they are obviously played by Turner, Riley and Szubanski.
They play with the audience, the humour doesn't just come from what we see and hear on the surface, but from our knowledge of the background, from our ability to recognise who we are seeing and to derive humour from the fact that that person has been given a role like that. Kath & Kim isn't so much a sitcom, as it is a wonderfully affectionate but viciously acute and intelligent parody, with beautifully integrated sketch-show roots.
The American version, on the other hand, can never adequately do that. Even if it did use sketch comedians and have them playing multiple roles, the sheer amount of media produced by America means that there is no adequate alternative to the unified history of those comedians, nor is there enough of a connection with the audience as a culture to add the extra dimensions to the same extent. K&K works so very well because Riley and Turner get basic, widespread, Australian culture, and show us something that is both ridiculous and exaggerated, and familiar and honest.
The US K&K is a sitcom about a single mother with a new boyfriend and her bratty, spoiled twenty-something daughter with a husband desperate to get her back, despite how dreadful her personality is. The Aus version has the same premise, yes, but it's still very strange to see it played so straight.
Our Kim, as played by an actress in her late forties, is absurd dressed up in trendy-young-things outfits (which are often pretty ridiculous on anyone older than thirteen, anyway, let alone on a 47 year-old), with her tummy sticking out and wearing pink lip-gloss. She thinks she's God's gift - those looks she gets are because women are jealous of her and men are drooling over her, not because she simply looks ridiculous. Her perception of herself as gorgeous and the actual presentation of her, as played by an older woman breaking all rules of fashion sense, creates a contrast upon which much of the humour of her character sits. Selma Blair actually is a pretty-young-thing though. She's slim, her clothes suit (and fit) her, and the idea that she might still be a selfish, spoilt brat does not seem out of place.
It's not necessarily a bad thing that they've gone this way in adapting the text, but it is very very strange to watch. It's hard to link the two shows as they employ such different methods. In sensory terms too, it is a very different experience. The accents in the US version are so very American, and the lighting is so much darker, more orange and artificial. The Aus version has the stark, white light that feels so much more natural (although this may be a real-world discrepancy too - the strength of the sunlight in here is, I am told, very different to the way the sun hits other parts of the world. Though I would have thought a beach-y place like Florida would be much brighter than it is on the US K&K, the show may be an accurate depiction), and, in a country with very little variation in accents - despite considerable size - the exaggerated Aussie-ness of Kath, Kim, and Sharon's speech is another thing that sets them apart as parody and inspires much of the humour.
It will be interesting to see the American series progress, and, hopefully, it will be fun identifying how they have derived and adapted elements of Turner and Riley's work to the new context, but it's going to have to be judged on it's own merits as a new US sitcom. It simply is not the same thing as the original in any way, and so assessing it in the same terms simply does not work.
Bonus clip - I didn't have room for it above, but it's and old favourite. Marg Downey (as Janna Wendt), Magda Szubanski, and Peter Moon on Fast Forward. Watch it. You'll like it. It's terrifying.
An anecdote. Stella versus Australian Idol.
I'm not hugely into Australian Idol, but I've caught it quite regularly this year, including tonight.
I should preface this by informing you that I was a huge Linkin Park fan a few years ago. Like, enormously. I still love a lot of their stuff (though don't listen so much - I can't handle too much loud noise these days), and consider them a far more intriguing and dynamic group of musicians than they are often given credit for. Also, I am deeply, deeply in love with Chester Bennington's voice.
It's amazing, pure and clear and strong. It runs through and through you. It always makes me swoon. I just, I adore it. His voice is the reason why I started listening to them, and is the reason why I stay. It's so beautiful, and his enunciation is often very well judged, sung by someone else, I simply wouldn't care, but his voice makes even the most mediocre song a joy to listen to.
So, you can imagine my trepidation when Thanh, who isn't exactly terrible, but isn't particularly compelling or subtle either, announces that he's going to do "Shadow of the Day".
I gasped.
I whimpered.
I made a sort of outraged grunting noise.
I tried to be rational. He had, after all, done a pretty decent job of "Every Breath you Take" (he got the creepy intense kinda thing. Of course, had Cindy Lauper not told him that no, it's not a sweet love song at all, it's about stalking - creepy, creepy, obsessive stalky stalking - then he most certainly wouldn't have gotten there himself). Maybe he could handle this one. He just had to not push it too far, that was all.
So I says to him, I says, "Okay." I says, "Okay, kid. Just. Just don't ruin it, okay? Just, I don't expect you to be as good, and I don't expect you to do it exactly the same, but just. Don't do it horribly, alright? Do not suck up a Chester Bennington song. Alright?"
I'm just trying to show here, that I went into this thing with an open mind. I was calm, I was accepting, I was willing to be taken in, and I bloody warned him. SO, I think that my reaction when he did butcher it terribly was quite reasonable.
"Eeeeerrrr!!
"Awww!!
"Bloody hell, Jesus, feck - eeerrrgh!
"What did I say! Damn it!
"Aw, just, URGH. KILL HIM! Kill him with BRICKS!!"
I mean Jesus effing Christ what the hell is wrong with these twits who use a song, any song, as an excuse to just make horrible, overblown, completely not emotionally inspiring vocal gymnastics? It's called subtlety, kids. And it's not that hard.
And when it was (blessedly) over, and Marcia and the INXS guy had actually said positive things about it, I whimpered and then whined:
"Dicko, tell them, tell them! Please Dicko. Briiiicks! Oh, oh, Kyle, Kyle'll say something mean. Say something mean Kyle, you little beau-tay!" Dicko was my only hope that someone would understand why it was so very very wrong. He didn't, but nor did he say it was good, so I was happy with that. Good ol' Dicko and Kyle.
Although, I do have reinforcement for my fondness of Luke, a shearer (meaning that I warmed to him immediately. My actual response to him when his job was first revealed was "AHH! HE'S FAMILY!") with a good raspy voice and a great, authentic country-bloke way about him.
His response to Marcia and Dicko's responses to his performance: "Sweet, mate, nah - good on ya's."
I want this man to win. (Although, also love Sophie for, you know, actual singing related reasons)
Although, bugger. I just realised I missed David Tennant on Who Do You Think You Are?
Well, the American Kath & Kim is finally here, and it's... well, it's different.
When it was announced that America were doing their own version, there was much bewilderment from fans. So much of K&K seems so intrinsically Australian - it's often been said that no other country could have produced it, and certainly no other country could ever really get it. And that argument is quite right, to an extent. K&K isn't so much something that only Australia could have produced, and it's humour is not only funny because of the cultural context behind the jokes, so much as it is something that only Jane Turner and Gina Riley could have produced, with the humour so very very funny because of how they, along with Magda Szubanski and other co- and guest stars, deliver it.
Australian jokes can be changed to suit a new audience, but the American version could never cast the way the original could. America doesn't have a series of experienced, familiar, and brilliant comedians to go into and behind their version - they just cast actors to play characters.
Riley, Turner, and Szubanski created Kim, Kath and Sharon years ago for their old sketch show, Big Girl's Blouse, and had been creating and playing many fantastic characters on other sketch shows for decades before that. They've had a long time to perfect parody, and elements of much of Kath & Kim can be seen in their earlier work. There's a history behind both the women themselves and the characters that brings an extra dimension to the show. We know that that's Gina Riley singing the theme (and some of us will remember the many pop singers and variety show hosts she played years ago on Fast Forward, with their tendency to burst into show tunes, and, on one memorable occasion, a hilariously inappropriate and horribly jazzed up version of "I was Only Nineteen"), we recognise the people playing other roles as other old Fast Forward performers, or other well-known Australians, and the variety characters played by Turner, Riley and Szubanski (Prue and Trude, Kim's mother in-law, Sharon's jockey boyfriend) are so much funnier because they are obviously played by Turner, Riley and Szubanski.
They play with the audience, the humour doesn't just come from what we see and hear on the surface, but from our knowledge of the background, from our ability to recognise who we are seeing and to derive humour from the fact that that person has been given a role like that. Kath & Kim isn't so much a sitcom, as it is a wonderfully affectionate but viciously acute and intelligent parody, with beautifully integrated sketch-show roots.
The American version, on the other hand, can never adequately do that. Even if it did use sketch comedians and have them playing multiple roles, the sheer amount of media produced by America means that there is no adequate alternative to the unified history of those comedians, nor is there enough of a connection with the audience as a culture to add the extra dimensions to the same extent. K&K works so very well because Riley and Turner get basic, widespread, Australian culture, and show us something that is both ridiculous and exaggerated, and familiar and honest.
The US K&K is a sitcom about a single mother with a new boyfriend and her bratty, spoiled twenty-something daughter with a husband desperate to get her back, despite how dreadful her personality is. The Aus version has the same premise, yes, but it's still very strange to see it played so straight.
Our Kim, as played by an actress in her late forties, is absurd dressed up in trendy-young-things outfits (which are often pretty ridiculous on anyone older than thirteen, anyway, let alone on a 47 year-old), with her tummy sticking out and wearing pink lip-gloss. She thinks she's God's gift - those looks she gets are because women are jealous of her and men are drooling over her, not because she simply looks ridiculous. Her perception of herself as gorgeous and the actual presentation of her, as played by an older woman breaking all rules of fashion sense, creates a contrast upon which much of the humour of her character sits. Selma Blair actually is a pretty-young-thing though. She's slim, her clothes suit (and fit) her, and the idea that she might still be a selfish, spoilt brat does not seem out of place.
It's not necessarily a bad thing that they've gone this way in adapting the text, but it is very very strange to watch. It's hard to link the two shows as they employ such different methods. In sensory terms too, it is a very different experience. The accents in the US version are so very American, and the lighting is so much darker, more orange and artificial. The Aus version has the stark, white light that feels so much more natural (although this may be a real-world discrepancy too - the strength of the sunlight in here is, I am told, very different to the way the sun hits other parts of the world. Though I would have thought a beach-y place like Florida would be much brighter than it is on the US K&K, the show may be an accurate depiction), and, in a country with very little variation in accents - despite considerable size - the exaggerated Aussie-ness of Kath, Kim, and Sharon's speech is another thing that sets them apart as parody and inspires much of the humour.
It will be interesting to see the American series progress, and, hopefully, it will be fun identifying how they have derived and adapted elements of Turner and Riley's work to the new context, but it's going to have to be judged on it's own merits as a new US sitcom. It simply is not the same thing as the original in any way, and so assessing it in the same terms simply does not work.
Bonus clip - I didn't have room for it above, but it's and old favourite. Marg Downey (as Janna Wendt), Magda Szubanski, and Peter Moon on Fast Forward. Watch it. You'll like it. It's terrifying.
An anecdote. Stella versus Australian Idol.
I'm not hugely into Australian Idol, but I've caught it quite regularly this year, including tonight.
I should preface this by informing you that I was a huge Linkin Park fan a few years ago. Like, enormously. I still love a lot of their stuff (though don't listen so much - I can't handle too much loud noise these days), and consider them a far more intriguing and dynamic group of musicians than they are often given credit for. Also, I am deeply, deeply in love with Chester Bennington's voice.
It's amazing, pure and clear and strong. It runs through and through you. It always makes me swoon. I just, I adore it. His voice is the reason why I started listening to them, and is the reason why I stay. It's so beautiful, and his enunciation is often very well judged, sung by someone else, I simply wouldn't care, but his voice makes even the most mediocre song a joy to listen to.
So, you can imagine my trepidation when Thanh, who isn't exactly terrible, but isn't particularly compelling or subtle either, announces that he's going to do "Shadow of the Day".
I gasped.
I whimpered.
I made a sort of outraged grunting noise.
I tried to be rational. He had, after all, done a pretty decent job of "Every Breath you Take" (he got the creepy intense kinda thing. Of course, had Cindy Lauper not told him that no, it's not a sweet love song at all, it's about stalking - creepy, creepy, obsessive stalky stalking - then he most certainly wouldn't have gotten there himself). Maybe he could handle this one. He just had to not push it too far, that was all.
So I says to him, I says, "Okay." I says, "Okay, kid. Just. Just don't ruin it, okay? Just, I don't expect you to be as good, and I don't expect you to do it exactly the same, but just. Don't do it horribly, alright? Do not suck up a Chester Bennington song. Alright?"
I'm just trying to show here, that I went into this thing with an open mind. I was calm, I was accepting, I was willing to be taken in, and I bloody warned him. SO, I think that my reaction when he did butcher it terribly was quite reasonable.
"Eeeeerrrr!!
"Awww!!
"Bloody hell, Jesus, feck - eeerrrgh!
"What did I say! Damn it!
"Aw, just, URGH. KILL HIM! Kill him with BRICKS!!"
I mean Jesus effing Christ what the hell is wrong with these twits who use a song, any song, as an excuse to just make horrible, overblown, completely not emotionally inspiring vocal gymnastics? It's called subtlety, kids. And it's not that hard.
And when it was (blessedly) over, and Marcia and the INXS guy had actually said positive things about it, I whimpered and then whined:
"Dicko, tell them, tell them! Please Dicko. Briiiicks! Oh, oh, Kyle, Kyle'll say something mean. Say something mean Kyle, you little beau-tay!" Dicko was my only hope that someone would understand why it was so very very wrong. He didn't, but nor did he say it was good, so I was happy with that. Good ol' Dicko and Kyle.
Although, I do have reinforcement for my fondness of Luke, a shearer (meaning that I warmed to him immediately. My actual response to him when his job was first revealed was "AHH! HE'S FAMILY!") with a good raspy voice and a great, authentic country-bloke way about him.
His response to Marcia and Dicko's responses to his performance: "Sweet, mate, nah - good on ya's."
I want this man to win. (Although, also love Sophie for, you know, actual singing related reasons)
Although, bugger. I just realised I missed David Tennant on Who Do You Think You Are?