Goodbye Parks and Rec!

It's over! So sad. Parks and Rec was always such a silly, uplifting show that always retained a refreshingly positive vibe. I will have to move on to re-watching it on Netflix from the start, and continue making my way through Amy's book which is on my night stand.

I think they did a great job with the last episode. They went out on a high note, without dragging the show on for two or three more awkwardly stretched out seasons. The flash forwards were funny and futuristic, and also such a gift to the fans. Parks never had a huge audience, but the fans were faithful.

So much to watch, not enough time! I have television guilt.

Ever been told by someone that you just have to watch the newest show? Or what about the look of show when you revealed you’ve never watched a single episode of an established hit? (cough cough The Sopranos) I feel this sense of television guilt all the time.

First, because I work in television, most people expect me to be hyper aware of all successful shows, and usually a fair amount of flops as well. And I want to, I try to! But it’s truly impossible. I have a life people! I do things other than watch television! I get sleepy! And what about one’s particular taste, or mood. After a long day at work and an hour or two at the gym, I want to be entertained. I really have to be in the right mood for serious drama that could possible bring on the emotions. I cry easily ie my recent full break down into wracking sobs while watching Cake in theater.

And second, friends and coworkers expect me to watch certain things because they know I am a Serious Feminist Media Scholar. Therefore I should be watching The Good Wife, Agent Carter, and that show with Katherine Heigl where she’s like Olivia Pope but white. I want to watch these but I don’t! Because I’m in my pajamas watching season eight of Friends and I can’t stop.

What I watch

·         Parks and Recreation- Leslie Knope ftw

·         The Mindy Project

·         New Girl- for Winston

·         Great British Baking Show

·         MasterChef: Junior

·         Girls

·         Outlander- currently on hiatus but I love dearly

·       

Snooki and JWOWW- just ended! I watched them starting with Jersey Shore

Bye girls!

Shows I have abandoned:

·         Scandal- the guilt is strong with that one

·         Revenge -is that still on?

·         Downton Abbey-also strong guilt but terrible things keep happening to good people!

·         How to Get Away with Murder -zero guilt

·         Brooklyn Nine Nine- Oh Andy Samberg you are adorable but no one else watches this show

·         Looking/Silicon Valley- maybe its cuz they are West Coast shows?

Shows I would like to start when I have the time and energy because I’ve been told they are good television:

·         Rectify

·         Black Mirror

·         The Fall

·         The Good Wife

Until then they sit in my Netflix queue taunting me every time I click over them to get

Before Olivia Pope, there was Christie Love...

Get Christie Love!, which only ran for one season from 1974-1975 on ABC, was a flop. Get Christie Love! featured Teresa Graves as a black undercover cop, and was the most similar in format to Police Woman as a police procedural. Get Christie Love! is an oft cited example of the failure of black television, especially shows anchored by black women. In a 1974 Washington Post article, Teresa Graves “emphasized the show will not make a big thing out of her being black” and said she thought the character was “too tough. She was too tough for me. We want her to be believable. She’s more Columbo than Mannix. She won’t do her her karate on 9-foot guys” (Base). Angie Dickinson said something similar of Pepper Anderson: “I’m kind of frail...It wouldn’t be believable, my being physical” (Kitman). But even a restrained Christie Love proved to be too much for network television of the time. Critics were also harsh concerning the low production values, cartoonish violence, and unpolished scripts. Police Woman, with its origins in the “realist” series Police Story, once again had a claim to quality.

Currently, Scandal (ABC, 2012-present) is the only show starring a black woman as the lead character on network television (and Deception, the NBC soap and crime drama slated to air January 2013). Scandal follows Olivia Pope’s (Kerry Washington) unofficial crisis management team as they ward off political disasters, in a formula inspired by the experience of White House press aide Judy Smith. In a review of Scandal, Get Christie Love! was explicitly referred to as a failure in representation: “Portrayals of black women have come a long way from the blaxploitation-inspired characters like Teresa Graves, the last black actress to play a lead on network television, in Get Christie Love!” (Springer). Get Christie Love! deserves its own thorough examination, but the comparison between its reception and Police Woman is a marker of what boundaries could be successfully and profitably crossed in 1970s representations of women. Get Christie Love! was troubled and confused about its own representation of race and gender. Police Woman was glaringly white (and blonde) and always a little softer and maternally mature, made familiar and less threatening through the well-known figure of Angie Dickinson. Get Christie Love! was a groundbreaking attempt at what remains a difficult task, even today. Scandal’s success is highly contingent on creator/writer/producer Shonda Rhimes’ proven profitability with hospital melodrama Grey’s Anatomy (ABC, 2005-present).

Golden Girls

What a great show! I should start watching more, it was so freakin' funny and ahead of its time.

Grad School breakdown

First semester is over and done! It was pretty hard, harder than I expected. There was a ton of readings- maybe 300 plus pages a week, plus writing, all with my 40 hours a week job. The classes were pretty quality, I think. Even though the same people talked every sessions (and yes, I was one of those talkers) each class seemed fairly lively and interesting.

Any problems I had seem to be with the pacing- sometimes I felt like we were going too fast, or too slow, over the material. Or I felt like what I wanted to talk about did not get addressed, or not in a helpful way to me. But this was the minority of the experience.

Writing my papers was also an interesting experience. One was fun, and flowed basically without much prompting- the challenge was editing for coherence. The other was very dry to me, but probably more logical and cohesive. I remembered how much I like to write. 

Downton Abbey meet & greet!

I had the great opportunity to go to the screening of the new season of Downton Abbey, a new Masterpiece show on PBS (and Thirteen :). Downton Abbey is sort of a brushed up and sexified version of Upstairs Downstairs, of the Jane Austen oeuvre. There's unrequited love, and awkward situations, and talk of women getting the vote!

The event was quite fun, as you got to see the cast in modern day attire. I got a few autographs and was pleasantly surprised by how nice (and good looking!) the cast was. Although they did seem smaller in person, which is always kind of funny. I can't wait to watch the next season, and enjoy the escapism.

Judith Butler at OWS

If you already have an established acronym, you are in good shape as a social movement! Last week I went to see Judith Butler down at Washington Square Park for an Occupy event. She spoke for about five minutes using the human mike, which gratefully limited the use of overly complex language. She made some good points about the "body" politic and asking for the impossible. I'm very interested in this academic trend where OWS uses theorists as their celebrity representation. It says a lot about ideas of "quality" and authenticity that Kanye just can't give to them.

Next week: Angela Davis!

3 classes in

So here's my preliminary evaluation of grad school so far

• The classes seem to be just as hard, but not harder than, Swarthmore. Basically, a lot of Swattie profs treated undergrads like grads, which is awesome. 
• there is a lot of reading, but I would not have any trouble with it if I was working 20 hours a week instead of 40, and trying to have a social life too
• NYU, just like Swarthmore, has those annoying people who have to overshare and connect everything to their lives. I've already learned about one student's love life and another cried when an article connected with their personal life. And all of this was in class. 
• grad school is awesome because you get lots of free booze and most of the socializing is in bars 
• my fellow grad students seem really smart, easy to talk to to, and very interesting.
• profs are good, seem passionate about what they are teaching
• I'm back to making bullet points!