Slate's strong bisexual women are nothing of the sort

Lost Girl's Anna Silk and Ksenia Solo. Source.

A mere four days after I wrote a piece chastising Entertainment Weekly's Ken Tucker for reinforcing homosexual stereotypes and perpetuating the "no bisexuals" trope, Slate decided to up the ante with an analysis of a new trend: strong bisexual women on TV. (The article discusses three characters, which is apparently enough to constitute a "trend" these days. It's similar to the incest "trend" that was the talk of the TV world at the end of last year, which also consisted of... three whole examples.)

At first glance, these characters - Kalinda from The Good Wife, April from the new Showtime series House of Lies, and Bo, the protagonist of a Syfy show called Lost Girl, which is apparently a thing that exists - seem to call into question the "no bisexuals" trope. After all, these three women are tough characters who are open about their attraction to both men and women. This seems like an indication that even the most staid and old-fashioned TV networks - The Good Wife is on CBS, for god's sake! - are starting to recognize and legitimize the existence of bisexuality. Right?

Not so much. The article's starts out promisingly enough by talking about Kalinda (Archie Panjabi), who "doesn't identify as bisexual - or accept any other label, for that matter," and whose sexual preferences are "just one aspect of the air of mystery that surrounds her." The description is slightly in danger of crossing into femme fatale territory, but it generally makes Kalinda's bisexuality sound like a thoughtful character choice, rather than a ploy designed to titillate and increase ratings. Which is more than can be said for the other two characters. Here's the article's description of Bo:

She grew up believing herself to be a killer kisser - literally - so you can imagine the relief when she learns she isn't human. Instead, she's a supernatural seductress known as succubus, part of the Fae, who are divided into two clans, light and dark.

Here's a trailer for the return of Community, if you're interested

You may not have heard, but Community is coming back on March 15 at 8:00 pm. And because NBC knows that you probably aren't excited by that news, they have thoughtfully prepared this epically fantastic trailer to help get you in the right frame of mind. (Apologies for the lower-quality trailer, but the official one from E!'s website is permanently set on autoplay, and it's annoying.)

I don't currently have any coherent thoughts on this trailer, because there is too much awesome here for my brain to process. So I will simply provide a list of some of the amazing things that happen in the mind-blowing two minutes and thirty seconds.

• The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo-inspired font and structure. That trailer has been almost as good to the comedy business as the Republican primary.
• The look on Troy's face as the study group is told they've been expelled, because it promises Donald Glover crying.
• Annie suggesting that getting a C is the equivalent of getting pregnant at a bus station.
• Annie and Shirley's "awww" at the tiny riot gear, followed by their "aaah!" at a man getting pepper sprayed.

The Walking Dead is just talking about morality, not showing it

The Walking Dead's discussions of morality are as slow and stagnant as
this rotting zombie. Source.

A piece that ran yesterday on The Atlantic examines the "post-apocalyptic morality" of The Walking Dead, and gives the zombie series a lot of credit for its depiction of a world unmoored from traditional morality.

In a recent, revealing tweet, Walking Dead showrunner Glen Mazzara said that every writer on the series is required to read psychiatrist Viktor Frankl's legendary concentration camp narrative, Man's Search for Meaning. The connection between a true-life account of the Holocaust and a TV series about zombies may initially seem tenuous, or even crass. But it also shows that Mazzara and his writers are taking The Walking Dead's pulpy premise very, very seriously. Man's Search for Meaning chronicles Frankl's unimaginable philosophical journey: from shock, to apathy, to bitterness and despair, and eventually to purposefulness, after having survived one of the most dehumanizing experiences imaginable.

It's a real-life version of the despairing process that's beginning to happen to the protagonists on The Walking Dead, who have begun to confront how best to survive in a world of utter hopelessness. For the dearly departed, becoming a zombie is dehumanization in the most literal sense of the word. But The Walking Dead's subtler, more insidious dehumanization is what's happening to the still-human survivors.

The author of the piece, Scott Meslow, then goes on to detail the full spectrum of the group's moral decay with quotes from the more recent episode, "Judge, Jury, Executioner." Dale's fast grip on the morality of the old world is phrased as "Keeping our humanity - that's a choice." Rick's slow descent into a more pragmatic mindset is represented by "We have to eliminate the threat." Andrea's fatalism gets a "Who says we're civilized anymore?" while Shane doesn't get a quote, because everyone knows that Shane is evil (or so I assume).

My love for Arrested Westeros is all over the internet

Courtesy of Arrested Westeros.

I wrote a piece for Splitsider about the awesome Arrested Development/Game of Thrones mash-up Arrested Westeros. Go check it out! I promise, it's awesome.

TV Pundits, Slut Shaming and Community

Britta Perry is a sexual being, and she will not be shamed for it. And if you
try, she will shoot you in the face. Source.

Rush Limbaugh's stunningly offensive remarks to Georgetown law student Sandra Fluke have launched a thousand debates about sexism and slut shaming. (I'm not going to provide a link; if you haven't heard about this incident by now, you are clearly living under a rock without internet, and you therefore can't be reading this blog.) The conservative radio host's personal attack on Fluke - whose crime, apparently, was testifying before a senate committee about how birth control can, in some cases, be a medical necessity - was appalling and indefensible. And it wasn't an isolated incident; Kirsten Powers over at The Daily Beast wrote an excellent piece that contained far too many examples of slut-shaming by television personalities on the liberal side as well as the conservative side, and on tonight's Daily Show, Jon Stewart eviscerated Limbaugh and the conservatives who refuse to take him to task for his actions.

The thing is, though, that denunciations of the very deserving Limbaugh don't actually deal with the issue of slut shaming in our culture. Most people aren't Limbaugh or Bill Maher or Rick Santorum (offenders mentioned by Powers and Stewart, respectively). They're not stupid enough to come out and say that any woman who has sex is a slut. If you consume enough popular culture, however (which I do), you start to realize that implicit slut shaming is depressingly common.

Apparently, homosexual stereotypes will never die

Smash's Ellis Tancharoen, played by Jaime
Cepero. Photo courtesy of Yahoo! TV.

After last week's episode of Smash drew only 6.6 million viewers and a 2.3 rating - which are good numbers in the context of everything else on NBC, but show a drastic dropoff from the 11.5 million people who gave the premiere a 3.8 share in the all-important 18-34 demographic - Ken Tucker wrote a piece where he attempted to explain the ratings drop. His answers, unfortunately, both failed to account for the vast gulf between critical appreciation and audience interest, and also displayed some remarkably stereotyped notions about homosexuality.

The first problem is that, although Tucker frames the piece as an exploration of Smash's precipitous ratings decline, it really just turns into complaints about the show's direction from a TV critic's point of view. This would be totally fine - while I'm quite enjoying the show, the narrative and characterizations undoubtedly have their frustrating aspects - but for the fact that Tucker offers these criticisms as an explanation for viewers' wandering eyeballs. Apparently he's forgetting that, if critical love had anything to do with ratings, Fringe and Community would be drawing numbers not seen since the days of The Cosby Show, rather than attempting to scrape together enough viewers to stave of cancellation.

The bigger problem with the piece, however, is an unfortunate remark about the character of Ellis (Jaime Cepero), scheming assistant to Christian Borle's Tom. Tucker asserts that it's "slightly odd" that Ellis has a girlfriend, due to the fact that "he signifies, and is perceived by many in the show's enthusiastic fanbase, as gay in every other way." The piece continues,

What may factor into this is the theme of Ellis shaping up to be the series’ villain: the guy who’s going to gum up the Marilyn musical by claiming the idea was his (which it sorta was). Perhaps Smash and/or NBC wanted to avoid a gay bad guy in a way that Glee, for all its looniness, frequent narrative incoherence, and regular detachment from reality would never have had a qualm about.

Let it be said that I quite like Ken Tucker. I think his reviews are generally sharp and well-written, even when I don't agree with him. That doesn't change the fact that there are about a million things wrong with this analysis, the most egregious being the notion that Ellis has to be gay because he acts gay. Tucker claims that Ellis "signifies" as gay, but the only evidence I could find that points to the character's homosexuality is his dapper wardrobe, involvement in musical theater, and love of Marilyn Monroe. In the era of Happy Endings' football-loving, beer-drinking, slovenly Max Blum, is it really necessary to fall back on a stereotyped love of musical theater and designer fashions in order to determine whether a character is gay?

Shockingly enough, John McCain and Sarah Palin won't be watching Game Change

In the run-up to the March 10 premiere of HBO's original movie Game Change, directed by Jay Roach and written by Danny Strong, both Sarah Palin and John McCain have been giving the film some free publicity by talking about how much they hate it:

Current and former aides to Sarah Palin lashed out Wednesday at HBO's Game Change, describing the upcoming film's depictions of her on the 2008 campaign trail as "sick" and inaccurate. 

None of the aides said they have yet seen the movie, which debuts March 10, and some said they had asked for an opportunity to screen the film but had been denied. 

via USA Today

How these aides know what the film's portrayal of Palin, played by Julianne Moore, will look like, given that they haven't actually seen the movie, is a mystery. USA Today notes that the staffers are basing their claims on the trailer, an indication that none of them understand how marketing works. If movies actually resembled their trailers, Battle: Los Angeles would have been the best movie of 2011, and Aaron Eckhart would be getting the work that he deserves. (Seriously, watch the trailer for that movie, and tell me it isn't amazing.)