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Jun. 9th, 2008 06:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatIck...can't breath..or can breath, but feel like there's something sitting on my chest. Stupid allergies. Or it's in actuality a chest cold, in which case, I'm screwed either way.
The weather isn't any less oppressive, unfortunately. Leaving my air-conditioned, and somewhat cold office environment for the train station this afternoon felt a bit like stepping into a rice cooker or steamer. Not an oven, that would be a dry heat. This is a wet, dripping heat, the only breeze a bit like a blow-dryer at the medium setting. A better description would be a sauna. But it's dinner time, and I should be making it, so that's what I'm thinking about at the moment. I want rice. But I'll be good and make a tuna nicoise salad with the tuna steak I bought. Sure, it probably has a touch of mercury in it, but hardly enough to poison me, plus the antioxidants alone should help with whatever it is that is plaguing my body at the moment.
TV...is it even worth talking about it? I'm certainly no longer interested indebating discussing it. The truth is? By the time you find people who actually like/love the same tv shows you do, you discover that they don't like it or appreciate it for the same reasons and heaven forbid like the stuff that you are blatantly ignoring or rather attempting to ignore. Or vice versa. Highly annoying. Plus the discussions tend to be somewhat circular and unwinnable. Let's face it if you prefer skinny, thinning hair Fred Astair, to muscular, acrobatic, hairy Gene Kelly, who am I to dissuade you? And then there's the people who appear to project all their personal political issues on to whatever tv show they happen to be watching - so you end up with lengthy debates about colonization and racial profiling in regards to a tv show that is about someone killing vampires or hunting aliens or jumping about the galaxy in a space ship that looks like a blue phone booth. Why they don't target Jane Austen teleplays, Life on Mars, The Office, How I Met Your Mother, Desperate Housewives, and The West Wing, which actually do happen to take place in our universe and aren't filled with loads of metaphors, I've no idea. No more than I've any idea why any of us care that much about it. It's just TV after all. And there's so bloody much of it at the moment. Online television bloggers bewilder me. [ETA: In hindsight, Life on Mars may not have been the best example in the world for a whole host of reasons (see comments below for a few of them). So, substitute any of the CSI's, Friends, Sex in the City (which has gotten more criticism on this score oddly enough in the professional/mainstream press), Six Feet Under, and possibly The Sopranoes (which got a lot of criticism in mainstream press for its depiction of Italian Americans).]
I'm watching Weeds - the third Season, by the way. Which isn't as good as the first two. Although will state that the second disc, or middle group of episodes, have their moments. I particularly like Brook Smith's turn as the first Mrs. Scottson. And when did Mathew Modine get old??? He has not aged well. Unless that's makeup, but somehow I doubt it.
Doctor Who is boring me. We'll see how long I stick with it. The Planet of the OOD felt a bit predictable and incredibly derivative of other sci-fi shows I've seen. In fact, I'm positive I've either read or seen that story somewhere before, had an aura of deja-vu to it. The only good thing about Doctor Who is Donna, who may well be my favorite of the companions. My least favorite was Rose, just not a Billie Piper fan. If you like Rose, learn to live without her - the actress have moved on to greener and somewhat more risque pastures. She's the lead on Showtime's Secret Diary of A Call Girl - which they swiped from the BBC. Apparently it's more lucrative not to mention fun to play a call girl over a time traveling/world trotting companion to an intergalatic alien in a cheesy cult sci-fi kids show. I rather liked Martha Jones, in spite of Freema's incredibly stiff portrayal, which is saying something. Freema made Tennant look like a better actor than he actually is. Also I thought he had more chemistry with her than Piper, but that apparently is *just* me, because British fans for reasons I don't quite understand hated her with a vengeance and adored Rose. I'd say it was racist on the part of the fans, but I seriously doubt it. Freema is admittedly not as good or effective an actress as Piper, so can sort of see the fans pov on that one. (See case in point about how blogging on tv shows is relatively pointless...fans of Doctor Who could have lived without reading that little paragraph, I suspect. Flist is interesting on this one - 10% seems to adore Doctor Who to pieces, the rest don't appear to be watching it at all or just don't care. Which is probably why Doctor Who is considered a "cult" tv show. Much like DS9, and all the other ones..)
Ick. Dinner time. Then bed time shortly thereafter. Working gal, you know.
The weather isn't any less oppressive, unfortunately. Leaving my air-conditioned, and somewhat cold office environment for the train station this afternoon felt a bit like stepping into a rice cooker or steamer. Not an oven, that would be a dry heat. This is a wet, dripping heat, the only breeze a bit like a blow-dryer at the medium setting. A better description would be a sauna. But it's dinner time, and I should be making it, so that's what I'm thinking about at the moment. I want rice. But I'll be good and make a tuna nicoise salad with the tuna steak I bought. Sure, it probably has a touch of mercury in it, but hardly enough to poison me, plus the antioxidants alone should help with whatever it is that is plaguing my body at the moment.
TV...is it even worth talking about it? I'm certainly no longer interested in
I'm watching Weeds - the third Season, by the way. Which isn't as good as the first two. Although will state that the second disc, or middle group of episodes, have their moments. I particularly like Brook Smith's turn as the first Mrs. Scottson. And when did Mathew Modine get old??? He has not aged well. Unless that's makeup, but somehow I doubt it.
Doctor Who is boring me. We'll see how long I stick with it. The Planet of the OOD felt a bit predictable and incredibly derivative of other sci-fi shows I've seen. In fact, I'm positive I've either read or seen that story somewhere before, had an aura of deja-vu to it. The only good thing about Doctor Who is Donna, who may well be my favorite of the companions. My least favorite was Rose, just not a Billie Piper fan. If you like Rose, learn to live without her - the actress have moved on to greener and somewhat more risque pastures. She's the lead on Showtime's Secret Diary of A Call Girl - which they swiped from the BBC. Apparently it's more lucrative not to mention fun to play a call girl over a time traveling/world trotting companion to an intergalatic alien in a cheesy cult sci-fi kids show. I rather liked Martha Jones, in spite of Freema's incredibly stiff portrayal, which is saying something. Freema made Tennant look like a better actor than he actually is. Also I thought he had more chemistry with her than Piper, but that apparently is *just* me, because British fans for reasons I don't quite understand hated her with a vengeance and adored Rose. I'd say it was racist on the part of the fans, but I seriously doubt it. Freema is admittedly not as good or effective an actress as Piper, so can sort of see the fans pov on that one. (See case in point about how blogging on tv shows is relatively pointless...fans of Doctor Who could have lived without reading that little paragraph, I suspect. Flist is interesting on this one - 10% seems to adore Doctor Who to pieces, the rest don't appear to be watching it at all or just don't care. Which is probably why Doctor Who is considered a "cult" tv show. Much like DS9, and all the other ones..)
Ick. Dinner time. Then bed time shortly thereafter. Working gal, you know.
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Date: 2008-06-10 12:03 am (UTC)I can't speak for most of the shows you just listed, but there was a really FUN race "debate" (cuz I don't want to use the word "wank") in January in Life on Mars fandom, when danvers called a fic author on her use of "Paki" in a story. It got pretty ugly when the author and her friends basically went on the defensive, started calling danvers a troll, a bitch, a stupid cow, etc. They argued that they weren't racist, that we were because we kept noticing racism, and if only we would stop looking for racism everywhere, then racism wouldn't exist. (Wonderful logic, really.) And then they went back into their own journals and joked about how "porch monkey" was such a cute phrase, and that "black people eating fried chicken" was a perfectly okay stereotype.
It was awesome. *headdesk*
The funny thing is? Many of us, myself included, who supported danvers didn't actually have a problem with the author using "Paki" in her story -- it's canon that Gene Hunt has used that word, so it's not unreasonable he'd say it again in fic. But their behaviour. God, it was disgusting.
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Date: 2008-06-10 09:34 am (UTC)"Life on Mars" wasn't filled with loads of metaphors? Come on, it lived on metaphors, it's pure metaphor!
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Date: 2008-06-10 02:28 pm (UTC):fangirls Gene Kelly:
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Date: 2008-06-10 11:36 pm (UTC)I've got to admit I find the debates regarding racism in fanfic/tv fascinating - not for what the fanfic or tv show is demonstrating or not demonstrating regarding the subject, but for how the audience is relating/reacting to it. That kerfuffle is a great example - instead of apologizing for the usage, stating that was not their intent, or arguing that it was in character for "Gene" to use that word, the author of the piece got defensive and took the criticism personally and as result, ended up saying things that were actually "racist" and somewhat illogical and most likely stated in the heat of passion.
Has there been any discussion of how the show is somewhat racist in character? Or just the fanfic?
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Date: 2008-06-10 11:48 pm (UTC)Me? I can find metaphors in The West Wing and Sex in the City. Actually I can find metaphors in anything.
In retrospect, Life on Mars may not have been the best example.
Literary work? Interesting. I guess you could argue some tv shows are literary. Depends on your definition, I suppose. I admit that I have had loads of fun discussing tv shows, movies, and books - but I don't take it that seriously. Mostly because there's so many interpretations and the discussions tend to be circular in character, in that they are largely unwinnable and the subject matter is too open for subjective interpretation. In other words, how someone interprets the subject matter often tells us more about that person than it tells us much about the subject matter being discussed. Ex: IF you have Daddy issues, you will be focusing on that element of the text. If you feel disenfranchised because of your ethnicity, you may be focusing on that aspect. And so on... Most people, I've discovered, have difficulty seeing the entire picture, they tend to focus on a tiny corner of it, and as a result miss the context. (Or as that old saying goes, unable to see the forest for the trees.)
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Date: 2008-06-10 11:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-14 04:39 am (UTC)