Comments | amalnahurriyeh: Today's leakings from my brain, television & fandom edition.

amalnahurriyeh

Today's leakings from my brain, television & fandom edition.

Apr 14, 2010 17:20

Because no one wants to hear what's leaking from my brain about this chapter I'm finishing, or this chapter I'm converting into an article, or about how I want to punch my students with sporks. So moving on to television-fun-tiems.

1) I did not need this article. At all. No one needs to be encouraging my fantasy life in which I write XF3 and ( Read more... )

my imaginary bromance with dd, glee

Comments 22

themkshrine April 14 2010, 21:39:33 UTC

On the subject of #2: Exactly. And not only that, it dismays me that a show that *includes* a kid in a wheelchair uses awful, hurtful phrases like "short bus" and "special" to insult each other "good-naturedly". My kid is autistic and mentally retarded. She's in "special" ed, which has become a slur and was used on Glee as one. My partner and I quit watching. It just hurts too much and is incredibly disappointing. I wish they hadn't done that. I was really loving the show otherwise.

amalnahurriyeh April 14 2010, 22:18:43 UTC

I could handle them using the language if anyone challenged it, you know? Kids actually are a bunch of fucking assholes. But the show isn't set up in a way to allow the characters to challenge structural oppressions. It's just...argh. Frustrating.

Partial tangient: you know, I didn't hate everything about the disability focused episode. Artie got revealed as a reasonably complex character, I am so happy to see crippled kids get seen as sexual in pop culture (considering precisely how desexed I was when I was in a wheelchair), blah blah blah--there was a lot of bullshit in it, but I gave it a C+/B-, you know? And then the next episode they had the deaf choir come in and remind everyone to be grateful for their blessings and inspire everyone and I went into a rage. That was the moment at which I broke up with the show emotionally. I'm not invested anymore; I only show up for the absurd musical numbers, and for Sue Sylvester. Sigh.

maidenjedi April 14 2010, 21:43:49 UTC

That video was the most incredibly epic thing!!!

amalnahurriyeh April 14 2010, 22:22:30 UTC

Everything that involves Sue Sylvester is epic. She's basically the reason I'm still watching.

amyhit April 14 2010, 23:09:05 UTC

Fringe: I love you. A lot.

oh yeah. me too. it's taken me a bit by surprise, actually. but then these things always do. i seem to have some kind of sixth sense whereby i must dismissively trash talk something for anywhere from one to five years before discovering/deciding that i love it. Fringe is the latest turn-amyhit-into-the-biggest-hypocrite-ever subjects. I watched "Peter" last night and afterwards felt the need to sit around raving about it for an hour and a half. at 3 AM.

amalnahurriyeh April 15 2010, 00:02:51 UTC

Peter was an amazing episode. I'm really, really glad it turned out well, because it could have been debaculous (I know that's not a word, but that's never stopped me from saying it, and now will not stop me from typing it). But something about that whole "coherent mytharc" and "ability to write convincing MoTW episodes" thing--it just works, you know?

(The comment has been removed)

amalnahurriyeh April 15 2010, 04:02:14 UTC

it's like they're just trying to create the illusion of diversity.

Ohhhhh, this, this this. I also think (imho) there's some white gay boy "we're gonna be edgy! and hipster racist some! and i know all about everybody's oppression!" business going on in there, which is frustrating as all hell. I think I like Glee in *theory* so much more than in practice. I was so excited when all I'd seen was the pilot...and then in slowly ebbed away. Sigh.

I am a recent Doctor Who fan; I haven't seen any of Old Who, and haven't even seen all of the first season of the reboot. But it's just such as sweet show at heart, so hopeful and happy. It did not hurt that David Tennant as the last Doctor was a-maz-ing. I am...cautiously optimistic for the new guy; his thirty seconds at the end of the last David Tennant movie was good, I think.

cathexys April 15 2010, 00:37:43 UTC

OK, so I have to say...I really don't get the video. Or rather, I don't get its epic winness. I have problems with Glee in general, and i fully admit that it's my issues. I think the best way to explain it might be that I can't do tone mix very well, i.e., I can do bitter sarcasm (if it doesn't hit my embarrassment squick) and I can do melodrama and I can do comedy, but not all mixed and melded. And that is before we get to the isms :)

So, I'm watching this video, and i remember all the issues surrounding it, all the subversiveness and appropriation and...I don't get what the repetition with Sue at the center does. Like, i'm not trying to be provocative, but...you repeat to mock, right? But what is being mocked here? The source text? Glee? Sue? Madonna? I don't get it. *cries*

cathexys April 15 2010, 01:10:03 UTC

And I'm really not wanting to be all aggressive pissing into your glee/squee cereal. I'm just fascinated by the fannish embrace and the general liking of the video and think I may be missing sth? Or just coming from a different generational place?

amalnahurriyeh April 15 2010, 04:46:07 UTC

No worries--I am not one who minds picking things apart, and my squee is not easily harshed. :) And Glee isn't something I have that level of emotional attachment to, such that people disagreeing is in anyway annoying to me. It's a show I like much better in premise than in actual reality. Sadly ( ... )