computers

okay, so about a month ago a i bought a new mac. a macbook. i call it babymac. i bought it b/c my pc charger broke which was the last straw on the camel's back. i refused to buy anything else for my broken, slow, infuriating dell. i went to the mac store and walked out with a computer, and it was so satisfying.

i brought babymac home and was very impressed with fast Internet connection, zero wake up time, real dvd player, quick ipod connection, everything. then things got messy when i tried to install windows for the partition...yeah, it was confusing. called mac, was on hold, listened to crappy music (really, for a brand that prides itself on being young and cool, why are they playing squeaky eighties music on hold?). the mac guy was funny- i told him my computer said i could be causing irrevocable damage if i continued, and he said, go go go. it worked, so thanks. computer problems make me positively queasy. so then i had the dual windows/mac which is pretty awesome and really the reason i was so ready to buy a new computer. i mean, leopard lets you have the best of both worlds.

but then yesterday, after doing twenty hours of work stored in my computer, the mac part wouldn't open. the dell partition worked perfectly (take that mac!). so i called support again, got the same go go go, and everything was fine just a super pain.

it made me realize how like Marshall McLuhan says, electronics have become extensions of ourselves. unlike the older generation, i cant live without a laptop now. i need the internet, i need the media, its like a drug. omg, life must have been so boring before computers. back when i was playing barbies and climbing trees.

lets go literary

books and movies. movies and books. sometimes they fit together like double stuf and oreos; other times its like trying to get the square peg into the triangle- just not going to work. i've been thinking about this lately because i've been getting much more pleasure out of reading than watching tv. here's what i've been perusing with all my free subway time:

Motherless Brooklyn, Jonathon Lethem: about a petty mobster with tourettes- a guy with a heart of gold. well written, interesting viewpoint, brilliant language play. nothing makes you think more about words than a lead with tourettes. could never be a movie though b/c it so textually rich

The Lovely Bones, Alice Sebold: the absolute favorite of the books i've read this fall. very melancholy, rich with emotion, tender and brutally honest. very visual, and the kind of book that moves in the rhythm of the character's grief and growth, without restricting itself to the classical plodding forward action- circular, lovely

The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini: already a movie! i liked it for its Afghanistan subject. it doesn't hurt when a really good book also fills in some holes in my ignorant brain. it was also quite refreshing to focus the book on a male character who isn't alpha male. Instead, Amir is incredibly human, revealing all the strains of cowardice and guilt that everyone already feels and doesn't want to admit to. quite a page turner as well, although a little sagging in the middle (Amir might be too much to deal with in the same way no one wants to stare at their own flaws in the mirror for too long).

So what makes this a movie? Well, for one its about children and children are always easier to deal with when talking about a sensitive subject. it adds a dash of instant humanity. also, the US comes out looking pretty good, San Francisco the safe, regenerative harbor for the boys/men damaged by the "axis of evil."

I'm not going to read The Atonement. First of all, its a kiera knightly movie. so no. i enjoyed her in bend it like beckham...and that's about it. so many stupid books get made into movies! and the good ones are hard to transform on screen.

all i'm saying...

if you left the kid nation kids alone for a couple more years they would start having babies and that would be an interesting social experiment! or maybe im thinking of teen nation

The Projects

So...Project Runway scored big with the SJP episode. Her perfume commercials are scary but the new SITC movie is coming out, so she's cool. plus no doubt she is a fashion ICON. it was interesting. but the men's fashionware? not only was it not to the point, it was plain boring. c'mon, its the nth season, we need new innovative challenges and/or celeb cameos and whats-his-name football guy isn't it. so blah. at least hippie girl was still there spitting on things and refusing to "intimately" touch another man.

what else...oh right there isnt much else (darn you lost!). i watched kid nation. still entertaining. ANTM, not so much. did they contestants not even watch previous episodes????? always leave early for the go-sees. tila entertained as always- hey, giving grandma a booty lap dance works in my book.

yawn. need good fic on air again. i miss you veronica!

Grey's Anatomy, Darn it!

I got re-addicted and its a bad thing. I have to be in the mood for Grey's and the other day I just was, so I watched the most recent episode. Of course once I did that I had to watch all the other episodes posted.

Here's why i'm re-addicted, in one word: Bailey. They've started developing her and I really want to see where they go with this. We got a rare visit into Bailey's home, saw her hubby and baby, saw her regress and giggle, saw her fight honorably to be chief and then cry. I like Bailey. I feel for her, I root for her, I want to see more of her. So darn you Grey's! You're finally developing the most nuanced character and best actor.

It's also not bad to revisit with Izzy, Calli, Cristina; that incredible trio of women's differing personality types. And Alex and George are still mildly intriguing. But I'm still stuck on T.R. Knight trying to play it straight. Not going to work, not ever (hint the zip chemistry episode).

But the show is so draining! Every episode tugs on my heart strings, so I either have to binge on watch them all in a row or step far away for a long time. Right now I'm binging.

Turkey TV

The holidays always generate interesting viewing patterns. For Halloween, there are the special Simpsons episodes, the Charlie Brown pumpkin movie, and a few weak plotlines based on corny costumes. For thanksgiving, there's the essential Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade broadcast which most people prefer to turn on as non-controversial background for their thanksgiving preparations. i however, am preparing to go see it in person. i know this will be a pain on a a cold and drizzly november morning when i could be warm and near a warm turkey. but the draw of seeing something live that i've only ever seen through the TV screen is irresistible. and that's what is so interesting about tv. you want to verify- you want to see with your own eyes, and somehow claim the magic of TV, transcend that barrier. 
it's like when I saw Kristin Davis. She actually exists as a real person!

now to the heroes review. the only reason im still watching is KB. she also seems to be the only one having any fun at all. everyone stumbles around over acting and dripping with melodrama. and why doesnt anyone ever die!?!?

Is it Write?

I saw the writers on strike a few days ago, marching around in circles next to a big rat. I'm sympathetic to their plight- of course, writers should get a share of the profits of their own work and that profit is going to come more and more from new media. on the other hand, everything in Hollywood is already inflated and this seems like the successful wanting more money like when the cast of Friends wanted higher paychecks. it's hard to make a living in the entertainment industry, and they want more? i feel more sympathy for the stage hand strike, but still...these are fun, cultural jobs not manual labor or hard, necessary work, so call me again when nurses or teachers go on strike and I'll be out there to support them.

as for TV this week...starting to enjoy KB on Heroes. Her character is so naughty and starting to emerge. She's the only breath of fresh air on the tiresome flashback episodes. heroes is dying slowly, but at least KB makes it somewhat worth watching the death throes.

and project runway starts tomorrow! can't wait. at least its dependably the same. carry on!

spooky tv

ah, Halloween specials. don't you just love when tv aligns with the calendar and you feel like Hollywood is reflecting you, your real life, what goes on in the everyday! hah.
maybe at Christmas, but not at Halloween. the last thing i need is one bum dress up plot after another where lazy sitcoms and reality shows extra-slutify their actors and use up entire
stocks of fake blood and bad jokes. 

and then you get to enjoy the reruns in July and laugh at TV for its attempt to make the "live" 
connection permanent. and for the record, Food Network, do not dress Emiril up as a vampire.
it does not work. and it makes the food look gross. the only good Halloween tv is the simpsons specials, which are like old teddy bears worn thin but you love them because they are echoes of your childhood.

by the way, i couldn't even get through one episode of Moonlight. worst show ever! too bad for Jason Dohring (i heart Logan). maybe Jason and Kristin can start something on their own because their post VM appearances are reeking.

it all just makes me want to turn the tv off and watch Nightmare before Christmas

the trash i watch

ah cable. ever so addictive. i said i would turn the tv off but i just couldn't. after kid nation ended, another deliciously faked out dramatic attitude where Taylor got her set down, i drifted into the land of reality tv: i watched a shot of love with tila tequila, the real world, the hills, work out, etc...it just goes on and on.

and you know what the truly sad part is? i recognized one of the girls from shot of love, Amanda, because she had been in show called The Secret Lives of Women: Lipstick Lesbians. Either that's sad or I truly am meant to pursue media more as a watcher than producer. how do i remember all this stuff, make all these connections, but for the life of me can't remember my bank account number?

whatever. i like tila. she actually has a personality and its kind of refreshing to approach the reality dating show from a bi perspective, with a woman holding center court. she's right, its sort of like the real world on crack. but i watch the real world anyway, and find myself missing Trishelle and Stephen. boy, those were the days.

Evil Veronica

This is what EW said:
And, finally, the most familiar piece of this week's puzzle: Kristen Bell. Let's see...a little slip of a blond thing who talks like a sorority girl but turns deadly serious when its time to get down? Where have I seen this before? Buffy, perhaps? Or — wait for it — Veronica Mars. What's even more frustrating is that she didn't do anything.
http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20153633_2,00.html

And sadly, it's true. They tackled it exactly. That's what I loved and hated about the epsiode. The Heroes character was basically an evil Veronica Mars. She still played on the apparent fragility of the little blonde chick in order to kick ass, but in this case it was only to kick ass for the evil side. And of course, the anti-Veronica is totally controlled by a "Daddy" figure. she can't resist the patriarchy, she's evil! But this could be enjoyable. It could be great! We could see little VM shocking the hell out of people and developing a maniac laugh. but instead, as EW noted, she is severely underused. and its the writer's fault. they have everything in line- great actors, beautiful style, a treasure trove of comic history for plot fodder and this season just founders. please rescue KB!

Girl Power

Cannot wait for Kristin Bell to appear on Heroes! cannot frakkin wait. the show desperately needs a kick up the arse, and I am so tired of Hayden/Claire. develop the character already! Kristin!

samantha, who? yes i loved it. christina applegate breaks free of the Bundys and takes center stage. her slightly aged face- with some wrinkles, gasp!- actually makes her a better actress. she may be overacting but that's the show. its a farce, and an enjoyable one. please don't get canceled!

bionic woman. snore.

and laurel continues to win my heart as the irish red head on Kid Nation.

dirty boring money

dirty sexy money. its like ugly betty without whimsy: the same clash between classes, a fight between personal life and work. but what do i care about the minor difference between the extremely rich and the mildly rich (a mega mansion or a three story brownstone). and to boot, the show was so incredibly predictable. it's drivel. flashy, empty drivel without soul.

and just as a side note, can i say i HATE West from Heroes. What are the writers thinking-
"Shut up, Claire," he says as he kisses her and sweeps her off her feet. Did they actually let the monkeys write that episode?

ANTM

why is it still so fascinating? maybe b/c models always have and always will be strange foreign creatures to the average Joella. i'm looking forward to America's Most Smartest Model (no joke, folks) because it finally makes explicit what ANTM mocks behind the models' backs- their stupidity. this season is full of the good ol' stereotypes, compelte with a couple of biatches, a stripped, disability and a "borderline" plus model. but i'll still watch, but I like seeing tyra go crazy.

It's been a while

but the new fall season of TV is starting! here are some random notes

1. Heroes- I'm not falling for the new romance between Claire and what's-his-face. it stinks of Not Another Teen Movie. I'm waiting endlessly for Kristin Bell to make her appearance (sorry, the VO of Gossip Girl is just not enough). as always, the show moves with incredible slowness but I'm still hooked on the original concept. Peter's more like Superman these days but I like the Irish mob cliche- hey, whatever works

2. Moonlight- dying to see this "original" new series about a vampire that happens to be a private investigator. hmmm. Angel anyone? But it has Logan from VM, so of course I'm hooked and praying it will be good when I get around to watching it. Maybe I should hold out till makes it through a full season. no sense watching something if its cancelled three episodes later (although fans of My So Called Life would argue)

3. Grey's Anataomy. Yawn. I'm so over Meredith and the whole McEverything. And why can't George be gay? He has zip chemistry with any of the female leads. And Meredith's sister is completely average. For a show like Grey's that is based on interesting people with interesting looks (ie Addison, George, Sandra Oh) why did they pick the most America's Girl Next Door?

Angel- Billy Boy

I just watched a very interesting Angel where the villain, Billy, was evil b/c his touch transferred a very powerful feeling of misogyny. Whenever he touched a man, that man would be overcome with all this angst towards the nearest available woman. So the show made explicit the link between macho men and evil: violence toward women becomes this sort of other wordly demonesque thing, not attached to any social structure. It was almost like a masculine acceleration- Billy's touch was a drug.

cordelia's pov provided the opposition: her crusade against the helpless/powerless feeling of misogyny. cordy's expertise is in her beauty and knowledge of the beauty world- the culture of women. she tells Lila that if she's going to be an ultra-bitch, then she should help Cordy- a sort of women banding together thing over stopping men and buying shoes. if cordy is buffy's opposite, then cordy's power doesnt come from any physical ability to kick ass but rather, more VM like, from an ability to manipulate her image, activate a network of women and negotiate her way through popular culture and the fashion world.

i like the way she describes Angel as "melodramatic," (and the way the two men argue over the definition, after Angel bursts in declaring he's going to kill someone) a sort of purposeful declaration of Angel's alliance with the female network. as an anguished hero of eternal unrequited love, Angel is a fantasy but also an avenger. He's the rescuer feminism shouldn't have to give up. Angel, Wes and Gunn are the men feminism needs on its side, along with women like Cordy, who can change. she represents a sort of arc from post-fem to feminism i think. so its interesting to think of Angel's status as a spin-off in relation to the ultimate feminist figure of Buffy

and then Cordy tazers Billy in the groin!
and Wesley cries at the very end. :(

Out with a bang

I felt like tonight's VM was truly old school- even VM said so herself, when she remarked that it felt like she was back in high school

but it had that VM against the world vibe: she was vulnerable but still couldnt be disempowered, she still kicked major ass. interesting addition of the guy with "connections" who VM decides not to mess with but Logan attacks anyway

so they didn't wrap up LoVe of course, but they hinted that it could be possible. Logan was back to being his old misunderstood heroic self. and Lily and Duncan made some surprising returns. I also continue to like Dick and like the complicated way the show develops him but also keeps him the same.

so it was a stellar episode- Veronica marshalling her powers to bring down patriarchy, with complicated results. and in the end V walks down the street in the pouring rain and that scene echoes my own sadness.

this might be the end for this blog too, which was VM inspired. it will be truly hard to find a new TV show worth talking about.

here's to you, Veronica Mars!

sad sad day

Veronica Mars is cancelled

Why? Why do they cancel THE only show on television that is actually smart and progressive and youthful and interesting. WHY????

i hang my head and die

VM- Debasement tapes

1) love the film studies ref- yeah VM, change your major

2) loose Imus ref- dj swore on air, big trouble. like the keeping it current

3) PAUL RUDD. need i say more. be still my clueless heart

4) classic love triangle misunderstandings. almost shakespearean

5) VM and piz holding hands? umm no

6) Leo leo leo, i love me some leo. if logan deserves any competition its definitely leo

Smallville Vampire Episode

Ok, get this

Smallville gets James Marsters to play the villain (big bad) for season 5
Marsters was Spike on Buffy (a notorious campy vampire)
Smallville has a Vampire episode
Clark tells the Marsters character that Chloe was bitten by a Vampire; his response, "Clark, there are no such things as vampires"
later Chloe tries to sell the story a/b Buffy Sanders and vamp soroity but her editor says only tabloids buy stories about slaying Buffy the vampire

Wow
dont you love ficitonal incest?

The return of VM

So Veronica came on again for the first time after a while last night. I actually watched the whole thing- commercials and all.

Good points: All the side characters made apperances- glad to see Mac and Wallace finally in the same episode although they didnt actually manage to talk to each other. Keith as sheriff is great, it really changes the dynamic of the show but I still miss Lamb (i loved to hate him).

Veronica and Logan? Well Logan was sickly attached to Parker- I mean who puts a picture of yourself as a couple on the birthday cake??? So that almost made the Veronica and Piz hook up tolerable b/c it was so in Logan's face.

Politics: the feminists are MIA. Whatever happened? The new social drama was an odd commentary on the war. So yay for sympathizing with the soldier and sticking with the asswholeness of the soldier's uber-American brother. yes, we all were on the side of the nice "Arab" couple. But's what with Nassir being deported and turned into the INS? That was one step too far, and left me with big question marks as far as how the show is trying to set up its political alignment. I mean, its okay to have racial diversity as long as you are not an "illegal immigrant"? that's a rather contentious statement (especially with my background from Texas, where calling someone from Mexico an alien seems incredibly bizzare).

So over all, good Veronica. We had some LoVe drama, nice friend interaction, and problematic plot, which just makes you want to talk more about the show.

WELCOME BACK, old friend. :)

VERONICA MARS RETURNS

SWeet sweet life. I'll post a review as soon as I see the new episode. love the tag line: "someone will get hurt"- they are not desperate enough for a character death, lol.

cinephilia

Reading Response: Elsaesser Cinephilia

Elsaesser explores several different definitions of cinephilia. The broadest and most applicable definition for cinephilia was “deferral: a detour in place and space, a shift in register and a delay in time” (30). His example includes how, when and why films are watched- detours of city, language, and location. He also talks about detours of time. The first kind is “Oedipal time: the kind of temporal succession that joins and separates paternity and generational repetition in difference” (31). Considering that our other reading for this week was Laura Mulvey, I found Elsaesser’s recourse to psychoanalytic and masculine based film time an interesting choice. But I think it’s a very valid point about how cinephilia clusters around auteur, the fathers of cinema, and sets up (male) directors as the forbears of cinematic tradition. The second discourse was a “lover’s discourse” which structured desire through cinema, also coinciding rather well with Mulvey’s past and current work. Hmm…the father and desire in film? Who would’ve thought? Elsaesser makes this connection directly when he talks about how the love of cinema turned into a shamed gaze when Mulvey dissected cinephilia into voyeurism, fetishism and scopophilia (32). “Naming here is shaming,” Elsaesser writes. “Cinephilia had been dragged out of its closet, the darkened womblike auditorium, and revealed itself as a source of disappointment: the magic of the movies, in the cold light of day, had become a manipulation of regressive fantasies and the place of the big male escape from sexual difference” (32).

Elsaesser then goes on to explain how disenchantment is a useful way to restructure cinephilia. Disenchantment offers distance and self-consciousness: “it is a form of individuation because it rescues the spectator’s sense of self from being engulfed by the totalizing repleteness, the self-sufficiency and always already complete there-ness that especially classic American cinema tries to convey” (33). The spectator becomes more critical as she gains awareness of her own place in the theater, her implication in all the gazes of the viewing space. This also corresponds to Mulvey’s article which tries to negotiate different temporalities- the here, the now-ness, the then. The cinephiliac is on a never-ending quest to find the best films, but the best films are always in the past, wrapped up in nostalgia and memory. Elsaesser’s metaphor of “cinephilia-as-unrequited love” addresses the bittersweet feeling of the cinephiliac, who knows even as she is watching the ultimate film of films that it will soon be over and nothing can ever recreate that same first time feeling- and that the film does not answer back to the viewer, that it is there to be worshipped in the darkened theater.

The next step after disenchantment is the “post” stage of post-auteur, post-theory cinephilia that embraces new media and involves “re-mastering, re-purposing, and re-framing” (36). This leads into sticky issues of fan power, re-readings, fancy new boxes, etc. Elsaesser compares stage one to “trepidation in anticipation” and stage two “stressed/distressed.” Take two cinephilia is “a search for lost time, and thus the acknowledgement that the singular moment stands under the regime of repetition, of the re-take, of the iterative, the compulsively serial, the fetishistic, the fragmented and the fractal” (39). This reminds me of Mulvey’s search in the freeze frame for the secret, hidden, ignored image that somehow reveals the uncanny deadness of the entire film- its actual existence of separate frames on film stock that disappears with new digital media.

Melodrama- Sirk and Fassbinder

Melodrama Response: Color and Space in Sirk and Fassbinder

I love melodrama. Watching this set of films in particular was a rewarding experience because they are so richly entangled. In his discussion of epic theater, Benjamin discusses the “quotable gesture” which is an interruption within a text. Melodrama is full of these interruptive, quotable gestures; it draws on endless circles of representations, moments of nostalgic homage that interrupt and reframe previous incarnations. I also noticed that these three directors were involved in an indirect conversation, talking about each other’s films and deliberately (mis)quoting the other’s style (Sirk could be problematically placed as the “origin” of this discourse). I want to think about the aesthetic quotations of color and space between Ali Fear Eats the Soul (Fassbinder, 1974) and All That Heaven Allows (Sirk, 1955).

Both films are saturated with color. The predominant colors in Ali are associated with the 70s- bright red, yellow and blue, lime/chartreuse green. When Emmi first walks into the bar, the red brick paint, the red boots, the red tablecloths- it was quite stunning. And when she dances with Ali, a red light comes on over their bodies. The 70s color schemes also come through in the character’s clothes as quite garish attempts at life, as if by wearing such bright and bold patterns the characters can prove they are alive, when in reality they are consumed by fear. I am thinking of Emmi’s green and brown patterned dress and her three inch yellow pumps- a bit “old” for her? The colors seem out of place, especially when she takes off her boring black coat (revealing her often hidden desires). I was always waiting to see what the waitress was wearing, because her clothes were simultaneously attractive and not flattering. The red boots were great, but the orange zip down dress? The bubblegum pink and black glitter outfit? The camera gave a lot of time to the waitress, following her from the bar over to Emmi’s table and back, often turning for a silhouette which outlined the waitress’ generous bust. The waitress was supposed to be Emmi’s competition- after all, she was young, blonde, pretty and could provide couscous and beer. Yet there was something so desperately unhappy about her that the outrageous clothes seemed to hint at.

Carrie also “reveals” herself through clothing. The night of the country club party she wears a red dress which prompts comments from nearly everyone. The red dress signals her availability as a woman and the official end of her “widow” status- she is now a single woman instead of a mourning wife. Rock Hudson is almost always dressed as a rugged outdoorsman with the plaid shirt and the work boots. His wardrobe is coded through the autumn motif of the rest of the movie- the sets of ambers, reds, yellows and browns. Ali is also dressed as a worker; both he and Rock shared the “working man” muscled kind of look that implies their sexuality is not straight jacketed by a suit and tie. In a disturbing scene from Ali, Emmi’s coworkers even fondle Ali’s muscles.

The spaces of the two films are also very evocative. Ali is full of twisting staircases, doorways, windows, and bars which always divide spaces into hierarchies of knowledge. When Emmi and her coworkers sit on the stairs, she is trapped between all of them, surrounded as they unsympathetically dismiss her compassion toward foreigners. Later, when the “foreigner” Yolanda arrives, she is excluded from the group and divided from them by the staircase banisters which become jail like. The neighbor in the apartment is always visually restricted- seen through the mesh of her screen, behind the stairs, from a window above. Sirk also creates this restricting space, but his is almost more nostalgic and dangerously friendly. It is Small Town America that entraps Carrie, from the huge suburban house to the country club to the town itself and the clock tower. These spaces are inundated with power dynamics, as in Ali. The country club is off-limits and guarded by pompous gossips; Rock’s friend’s house is perched up like a treehouse and open to all the eccentrics. Rock’s home is excessively picturesque- he’s got a greenhouse, a cabin, a river, a bridge, even an old mill! The loss of autumn and the deadness of winter surrounds the whole story. The snow seals the two lovers away but also troubles the ultimate productivity of their relationship. A gardener should know how difficult it is for “love to grow” in the autumn of life.

Oh Angel

Blood Money: Random character asks other random character who happens to be a TV star:

So what's with your charachter turning gay? Was it just for ratings because I don't get it?

I love it!

Film Festival

Bryn Mawr Film Festival

Last weekend I volunteered at the Bryn Mawr Film Institute Festival. The Bryn Mawr theater is being renovated back to its full formal glory. They knocked out the first story roof to revive the two story gallery- and found that the glass paneled ceiling had been sealed over! Right now I think it’s a perfect mix of old and new. I don’t think they should completely modernize the theater. Leaving it in sort of a middle state evokes the nostalgia of the old one instead of designing a simulacrum of the old. Now it’s definitely an alternative film venue playing the independent and foreign films (like Volver and Pan’s Labyrinth).

The guest of honor at the BMFI Festival was Robert Osborne. Who? Oh, the Turner Classic Movies host. It was interesting to see people get so excited over a D-list celebrity, but if you consider that it’s his job to chronicle film history, the association with BMFI fits. He brought his huge “75 Years of the Oscar” books and signed them, posed for pictures, gave little speeches, etc. I thought he was actually pretty interesting, especially when he talked about his experience with Lucille Ball and Desilu Studios. He just happened to be working near her, she liked him and hired him. Before he knew it he was eating dinner at her house. She told them weren’t enough people writing about Hollywood and that’s where his strength was. The film festival showed films that Osborne picked including The Maltese Falcon (1941) and The More the Merrier (1943).

The Gala was also an interesting event. It featured two celebrity impersonators, a red carpet, paid paparazzi to photograph the guests, and a photo booth where they photo-shopped your face onto a movie cover. It was supposed to be an event where one could be a celebrity for an evening- at $500 a pop. The website reads:

“Experience Hollywood glamour as you arrive for your walk down the red carpet (a vintage gown or tuxedo is de rigueur) and pose for fans and the paparazzi. Then spend the evening among the “stars” from the golden age of cinema, enjoying food, wine and vodka tasting bars, jazz, dancing, film clips, and cinematic surprises. The highlight of the evening will be the presentation of the 2007 Silver Screen Inspiration Award to our Guest of Honor, Robert Osborne.”

Cinematic surprises? I don’t know about that. But the gala was very snazzy- the raffle featured a Tiffany diamond star necklace- so you can always feel like a star! It was definitely about the dream idea of Hollywood, the romanticized ideal that comes with party themes. But the theater is about that idea of “quality” harkening back the days of palace theaters and fur coats.

The Marilyn Monroe impersonator was just scary. That breathy voice coupled with a fifty year old actress- just didn’t work for me. But I did like the Groucho impersonator. First of all, I love the Marx Brothers. I considered their films to a series of the best comedies EVER. True comedic genius. And this guy knew his stuff. We gave him random quotes and he told us what movies they were from. He carried around a big cigar and had the perfect hunch and walk. My favorite Marx Brothers movies are Duck Soup and Horse Feathers (no, not A Night at the Opera). Besides Pride and Prejudice, those are probably the only movies I can quote from beginning to end. I can also watch them over and over and over again, although distractedly. Why are they so good? First, the Marx Brothers never care about the straight plot. There’s always some couple facing an obstacle, and the details change very little. It’s more of an obligatory nod to the film industry than anything else. Second, they balance slapstick with wit. Harpo does the physical humor and Grouch does the verbal; Chico plays off the two of them. Third, they sing. What happened to the days when comedians sang songs? It’s amazing. I love “Whatever It Is, I’m Against It”- I still randomly burst out with that. So, if any of you are not up on your Marx Bros now is the time! (or maybe after finals).

FYI, there’s a Swat T-shirt that quotes Groucho: Outside of a dog, a book is
man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read.

OMG! Little Veronica? Or did Nancy come first?

I'm having a total women studies/film nerd moment. breathe. breathe.

NANCY DREW movie. OMG.

its probably gonna totally suck- ie very teenie bopper, but hello, am I not forever talking about the re-emergence of the heroine mystery girl? i did notice they de-blonded her, so i wonder what else of the original nancy they kept. the trailer seems to include the ditzy jock boyfriend who is always worried for Nancy's safety.

interesting quote- "Nancy's my best man. Well, she would be if she were on the force."- police

OMG!!!!! im reduced to pre-teen exclamations

Veronica: From Buffy to Alias

'Veronica' toys with time warp

March 16, 2007 at 11:02:00 AM

If picked up, Mars might see action at the FBI Academy.

Veronica Mars might be looking at a quick graduation from Hearst College.

The fate of the CW's cult favorite remains uncertain, but if the show returns for a fourth season in the fall, it might find the young sleuth in a different setting.

Veronica Mars creator Rob Thomas has come up with an idea to fast-forward a couple of years and have Mars studying at the FBI Academy. (As a freshman at Hearst College, Kristen Bell's title character has been taking criminology classes looking to do an internship at the FBI.)

Thomas is filming a trailer for an alternative fourth season, which will be submitted to the CW. The network's executives ultimately will decide whether to pick up the series for another season and, if they do, whether to stick to the drama's current plot line or go with the new version. If Mars goes to the FBI Academy next season, it will be a third backdrop for the character, who began her PI adventures while in high school.

Riley on House

I love convergence! Who shows up on House but Buffy's ex, Riley, as a soldier with a mysterious condition? The Buffy x-ers are taking over the world muahaha

Buffy Lovers

EEK! Spike and the annoying doctor from Grey's Anatomy? and he was a poet before being a vamp, how cute. :)

her name is Kali Rocha and she's in Grey's as the ultra perky and annoying Dr. Sydney Heron. She's also been in Bones, which is an interesting Joss Whedon line to follow (with David Boreanaz).

Ha ha, from Spike to Angel through one degree. nice.

st. paddys

Rumors that VM wont be cancelled but have a leap forward in time to Veronica as a FBI agent in training. I like it- as long as they dont cancel my show!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOMMY :)

Random thought blobs

While I was watching VM this week (which was a fragmented experience) I saw a CW add. It was mixed clips of VM and Gilmore Girls and at the end it said "Spread the word for your favorite CW shows." I thought this was an interesting way of advertising. The CW seems to capitalize on its niche appeal and the fact that the fans are definintely subcultures spread by mutual fandom and word of mouth. It was also introducing Veronica and the Gilmore Girls (rory and somebody?) as old friends and putting the two shows in dialogue with each other. Very emotional branding.

I also wanted to talk about the game room as a site specific media place. It is interesting to me that the tvs in Swat are in designated lounge-relaxing areas. After, this tv is the "game" room, specifically designated for fun. The tvs in the libraries are in very dark uncomfortable rooms- after all, these are for academics. Last semester someone stole the remote so now the new remote is chained to a desk in the gameroom, which I think is funny and always requires me to manuever my chair over to that spot during my shift. As the gameroom attendent I usually get priority in picking the channel but I can and have been overruled by sporting events. Apparently, there is nothing more culturally sacred than a sports game. But I do try to temper my choices to something that the guys will stand for. I don't dare to do lifetime or soap or even Disney- but I can usually do an eighties movie and Southpark always works.

Lost- did anyone else think the "mark" on Juliet's back was very similar to the creepy plugs in eXistenZ? and the way Jack touched it, uck.

the oscars

Yay for Ellen. Her little skits were hilarious.
Yay for Little Miss Sunshine's Abigail Breslin. She and Jayden Smith were the cutest thing ever.
Yay for Al Gore.
Boo for stupid The Departed. Soooo not interested.
Boo for Nicole Kidman's huge red bow.
Boo for Clint Eastwood. Will he not die yet?
Yay for Melissa Ethridge making sure to mention Tammy as her wife.
Yay for Robert Downey Jr. making fun of himself.

Bai Ling

okay, how goes the role of exotic Asian?
first she shows up on Angel as a demon fighting to free the women from her world. they have these cords on their neck that literally glow red when they are sexually aroused and the men from their dimension cut it out/lobotomize them.
anyway, nows she's on Lost as Jack's playmate, mysterious and dangerous and exotic.
and im just like, anyone offended much? even notice?

Identity TV

In response to my previous post and the comments, I want to try and pick at the idea of pleasure and academics. The "guilt" aspect of watching certain shows always seems to coincide with a personal sense of fandom- an almost illogical sense that this show, this representation and set of images, somehow connects with you in your gut and therefore you have to justify the link to your head. So not everyone is going to like Buffy or Veronica Mars- and they don't have to and they probably shouldn't. I might never like 24, or have more than a passing acquaintance with the X-files or Starwars or the Matrix. But what is important about these shows is how they create counter(is that the right word?) cultures or subcultures maybe. Narrowcasting makes sure one audience or another is addressed and that audience feels compelled to undestand why these shows are aimed at them and how they work- how do you identify a niche, sell it and compel it. As the media side of Film and Media grows, more and more people will come into conflict with the cannon of film and the postmodern chaos of television. b/c TV is so fast, so fleeting, it often captures the identity of a moment in a way films cannot.

So this is a Flow article on VM and discusses how identity and the self are captured by these narrowcast shows like Battlestar Galactica, etc. :

http://jot.communication.utexas.edu/flow/?jot=view&id=2074

and for true convergence check out this fan remix of VM and Battlestar explaining the origin of the word "Frak.":

Frakking frakkingfrak! Battlestar Galactica, Veronica Mars!

http://youtube.com/watch?v=j7NlRxY4OoM&mode=related&search=

Buffy lives

One of the podcasts this week was about the website Flow and about how one of the posters said she couldn't teach an episode of Buffy b/c it made her weep. Peters makes three points "1. These people enjoy Buffy a lot. 2. They may like Buffy too much and 3. Its a shame most contemporary media scholars don't practice some self indulgence and simply forget McLuhan and move on to Buffy in their actual classes. It
would be much more interesting."

Now, here's what I think (thanks for asking):
*Before anyone gets in a huff, if anyone even reads this, I am playing devil's advocate to Johnathon's devil's advocate. plus i just like to talk about Buffy.

Point one assumes that first and foremost, its wrong to enjoy Buffy. This could be because Buffy is gendered female due to its lead character being a woman, the soap/melodrama/emotional elements or because it is classified as teen age drama and therefore not serious enough or because it was on the WB, a more marginal network. All of these reasons endanger Buffy's status as "quality" television and therefore make it wrong to like the show.

Point two assumes that such liking is bordering on a scary kind of teen girl screaming fandom that has lost rationality. Buffy becomes an excess, something liked "too much." Heaven forbid an academic critique a show that is pleasurable and blatant about its lack of pretension- or a show that embraces cheesy sci fi effects and fights are always accompanied by snappy one-liners.

point three assumes that one cannot actually link mcluhan (the stand in for Academia with a capital A, although Mcluhuan's Wake may disprove that point) and Buffy, that to do so would be an allowance, another indulgence- you are doing it b/c the students like it rather than its relevance in one authorized cannon or the other. the contrast again marginalizes Buffy as a show that girls/teens/fans watch and therefore it cant be taken seriously.

Well, Buffy is taken seriously and should be. and so should Veronica Mars. I've read books and books (and more coming out) by academics on Buffy. These two shows are rare shows that engage with academic, film and feminists texts/theories. but more than that, there is something to their pleasure- pleasure can be academic, it can be productive, and it is NECESSARY for work. i am so tired of people automatically dismissing television in the old tired thread of the "vast wasteland"; of defending soaps because they are taking over tv (aren't soaps just the purest form of television, always have been, and everything else is diluted?); or people who dismiss "girly" shows as unimportant fluff. this is most definitely a rant, and perhaps not all that logical, but there you go.

my point is you can't just throw around the B-word or an angry feminist will go after you. if that isn't unpc, i dont know what is.

Oh no they didn't

The Simpsons just aired a show where Nelson and Bart become best friends and then their friendhsip ends. Bart goes home, opens his closet and hugs to his chest the vest Nelson gave him. The Brokeback music plays in the back and Nelson rides past the window shouting

"Ha Ha! I touched your heart."

Wow.

Angel

"It was a seminal show owned by an idiot network. And then they canceled it. I was going to picket them but I didn't have any comfortable shoes"- Cordy

oh self reflixivity

podcast

I tried to post a link to my podcast on Jenkin's Spoling Survivor but i dont think it worked. still trying to figure out technology

Why?

Why has Britney gone crazy? Why did she shave her head?
Why does Charlie have to die?
Why was there no Sawyer in this week's episode?
Why was Desmond naked in the jungle?
WHY WHY WHY

VM

Logan says Amy's is the best ice cream place in Neptune. Yay Austin refs!

The ENTIRE Veronica Mars paper

Women are from Mars: Veronica Detects Gender

In a postfeminist culture, where feminism is “so yesterday,” a cultural text like Veronica Mars (CW, Rob Thomas) that deals explicitly with the “F” word is a rarity. The broadest definition of postfeminism is that feminism has accomplished its goals, is over, and that a new sort of feminism must be created to address what it means to be a woman in the ever changing now. The dichotomy is past/feminism and present/postfeminism needs to be expanded to address 1) “F”eminism’s association with the white middle class protesting academic, thus lacking diversity and the concepts of plural feminism(s) and 2) an exploration of cultural femininity, including media images; consumer culture; chic, chick and grrl feminisms. Even this extended definition is a simplified version of a contested category, which necessitates a definition of feminism that resists a homogenous label and has room within itself for multiple shades and identities.

Veronica Mars approaches feminism from a specific generic and historical background: the breakout of the little blonde girl from detective fiction to the Hell Mouth of high school. Veronica’s movement between hero and victim interacts with discourses of feminism, the body and crime noir. Veronica’s body becomes the site of discursive and representational tensions as she struggles against the threat of physical attack in the pursuit of truth. Veronica channels the ghosts of Nancy Drew, Buffy and Scully and foreshadows Claire Bennet’s appearance as the invulnerable blonde cheerleader in Heroes (NBC, Tim Kring). Although it condemns feminism for its excessiveness, Veronica Mars doesn’t embrace the defeatism of postfeminism either. Instead, like a shopper at mall, the show selects aspects of each complicated wave of feminism. It embraces the cultural history of ass kicking blondes, the idea of image as weapon, and the basic bond of feminine identity.

In the third season of the CW cult hit, Veronica finds herself embroiled in messy college politics. A rapist is on the loose at Hearst College and everyone is too busy pointing fingers to search for the truth, so Veronica takes the case to heart. As a private investigator, Veronica pieces together the truth and negotiates her way through antagonistic groups: the Feminists (Lilith House), the Frat boys, the Sorority girls, the Dean, and Veronica’s own group friends. Veronica herself is outside, lower class, disenfranchised, against the status quo and the social/government structure. Both Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Warner Brothers, Joss Whedon) and Sabrina the Teenage Witch (ABC, Hartbreak Films) privileged normalcy through white mid-upper class worlds that were invaded by “others.” The “girl” aspect of postfeminism, the eternal girl on the verge of womanhood, deals with power relations and female identity in a world after second and third wave feminism. Veronica’s wild, playful yet still kicking “grrrl” postfeminism derives from a problematic legacy of “white chick backlash that denies class, avoids race, ignores (older ) age, and ‘straight’-jackets sexuality” (Holmlund 9). Despite Veronica’s own outsider status, diversity in the fictional California town of Neptune consists of stereotypes: Wallace (aka Watson to Veronica’s Sherlock), the black basketball player; Jackie, the spoiled black girl, also a teen mother and the daughter of a famous basketball player; and Eli, the Latino gang leader/criminal/janitor. In high school, Veronica was outside the “haves” and associated with the “have-nots.” In college she is situated between gender extremes: the angry feminists and the sexist frat boys, neither of which can see the shades of gray that build Veronica’s world.

The members of Lilith House, the feminist student group, continue the trend of stereotyped diversity, but this time the feminists threaten Veronica’s gender status instead of her class status. The Lilith House girls are stereotypical versions of second wave feminists, marked as alternative and militant through multiple piercings, short masculine haircuts, different (read non-white) ethnicities, and abrasive political activities (spray painting "male chauvinist pig!"; throwing eggs). In one interesting conversation, Veronica begins to spout feminist ideology much to Logan’s disgust. “Oh boy, nudity,” Logan says when he sees the campus paper with a picture of the protesting Lilith girls. “If you have words written on yourself, it's not nudity, it's political speech. Taking control of one's body to turn the objectifying male gaze back on itself,” Veronica responds, only to have Logan interrupt: “Okay, no more college for you” (3.3, “Wichita Linebacker”). Logan clearly implies that Veronica’s political stance is not appealing, but they both agree to mock the pretentious academic talk. A clear feminist association is dangerous for Veronica, who has already assumed traditional roles of masculine power. After all, she is a private dick. Veronica’s heroic mission has caused tension with Logan before because of his inability to save, rescue and protect her- or Veronica’s failure to be a proper victim. One afternoon he even quips: “I really shouldn't have pushed for the Clint Eastwood marathon. Now I've ruined you. I didn't think it was possible to make you more butch. Stupid, stupid Logan” (3.1 “Welcome Wagon”).

When Veronica assumed the male role of the private investigator, it was an act of self-defense in the face of a corrupt world. The police are obviously biased, if not incompetent as well. Movie stars, politicians, police, sports stars, business men- all the rich white privileged men- abuse the system biased in their favor for sexual and financial gain. Veronica is sucked into case after case because of Neptune’s dishonest institutional system cannot address the personal injuries to her loved ones. Veronica’s life is constantly interrupted by violence, starting with the death of her best friend Lily in season one. The show contains nostalgic flashbacks to that period before Lily’s death, for the long blonde hair, the wide eyed innocence, the cheerleading uniform, and the football playing boyfriend. Veronica and her friends are denied access and are forced to seek their own resolution. Thus, Veronica helps people who are disenfranchised (cannot go to the police because they are gay, Hispanic, etc) or have a personal problem (a cheating spouse, a missing dog) that is deemed unworthy of the police. As an all too human and vulnerable vigilante, Veronica is compelled to expose corruption and injustices in a dark, unfair, noir world.

Crime noir uses the private investigator theme as a way to piece together clues about how a woman relates to society, what her sexuality means, how a girl becomes a woman, how a man fits into a woman’s life- as a vampire to be fought, a criminal to be caught, or a lover. Bobbie Ann Mason argues that for female detectives like Nancy Drew, “mysteries are a substitute for sex, since sex is the greatest mystery of all for adolescents” (84). Veronica sneaks into Mac’s dark room to get some tickets knowing that Mac’s roommate, Parker, is with a guy. Veronica leaves, interpreting the scene she just interrupted as consensual sex, but later realizes Parker was being raped at that very moment. What constitutes sex? In the context of the show, rape happens while women are unconscious. Sex becomes amnesia and passivity is horrifyingly re-invoked. After all, Veronica was drugged the night she lost her virginity and the “truth” of that night has been under question before. “You want to know how I lost my virginity?” asks Veronica, “So do I” (1.1 Pilot).

Veronica’s quest is to understand her own agency in the world, what she can and cannot change, the tension between her role as victim and hero. As a private dick, she lives in a world of violence; as an adolescent, she is a girl struggling to grow into womanhood. “The crime film is a genre in which violence is the central trope of relationships between the sexes and in which the transgressive woman, as femme fatale or female dick, has long served as a register for anxieties about female sexuality and power. It is the genre most likely to expose both the limitations of the postfeminist heroine and the nasty sex and gender issues that her presence supposedly precludes” (Mizejewski 15). The rapes at Hearst College are an obvious rupture in the postfeminist text that assumes gender equality has been achieved. But which role will win out as Veronica hunts the rapist: victim or hero? Veronica can help others, yet she can’t escape being the victim of a sex crime. Every man becomes a possible rapist (including boyfriends) and she must be rescued in the end by a boyfriend and the surrender (suicide) of her rapist, also a victim of sexual abuse (by the empowered white male, the common enemy). Veronica investigates the nuances of gender relations: “Always tenuous and often deadly, the quest of classical noir is twofold: to solve the mystery of the villain and of the woman” (Hibbs 51).

Veronica’s power as a feminist hero resides in her ability to maneuver within male dominated systems of power. In Kicking Ass is Comfort Food, Patricia Pender links the spectacle of female violence with a feminist agenda. She concentrates on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, arguing that “if one of the primary goals of third wave feminism is to question our inherited models of feminist agency and political efficacy, without acceding to the defeatism implicit in the notion of ‘postfeminism,’ then Buffy provides us with modes of oppositional praxis, of resistant femininity…” (164). Veronica Mars too resists defeatism and empowers Veronica as an independent and successful character. However, Veronica and Buffy as heroes present two different ideas. Buffy has an unapologetic feminist appeal: “for the feminist viewer, the spectacle of Buffy kicking ass is similarly comforting; equally, exhilarating and empowering, Buffy provides the compound pleasures of both the hot chick and her super powers” (Pender 167). Veronica, too, has “super powers”- her uncanny intelligence, endless bravery, and chameleon appearance. In a sense, being a “hot chick” is one of Veronica’s powers and thus makes it okay for her to be an object of desire because she is consciously manipulating the gaze. The viewer is waiting for this masquerade, to watch Veronica fool the gullible suspect, all the while knowing that the brilliant PI is hiding underneath the cheerleader getup. Veronica combines third wave resistance with a postfeminist emphasis on image as another tool in the feminist arsenal.

The feminine sneak manages to combine adventure and domesticity, masculinity and femininity. Veronica gets to be the daring, courageous sleuth (the masculine) because she is tiny blonde and dainty (the feminine). She can mock the Sorority Girl image at the same time that she is compelled by that inclusive, feminine realm. “Tasteful floral dresses?,” she reads off the rush invitation. “All my florals are trampy. Seriously, I don't have a thing with a flower that's not in the tube top or hot pant family” (3.2 “My Big Fat Greek Rush Week”). Veronica gains entrance to the sorority house by manipulating her blonde, beautiful, idealized body for the sake of “truth.”

Veronica plays with her ability to be the object, to attract and use the gaze for her own profit. Within the text of the show, posing as different personalities allows Veronica to gain information. Kristen Bell, the actress that plays Veronica, also makes a personal profit for her image, such as the lingerie shoot for Maxim. The contradictory combination of “female agency” and sex appeal is made into a profitable commodity, acknowledging the male voyeur/viewer. This is the double talk of postfeminism, where the male gaze is attracted and manipulated at the same time. But Veronica Mars consciously addresses a female audience and caters to their taste, which is reflected in Veronica’s clothing and appearance. After all, most female fans would acknowledge that “Buffy’s hair is part of the point…Buffy offers female bodies as spectacle, but their primacy and activity means that they are not simply passive objects” (Jowett 23) The play with image is as enticing as the play with power- image is power. The body can be an active tool, which is why the threat of rape is so potent. Rape forces passivity, it takes away agency, it nullifies the power of women to use their own bodies to evoke the kind of desire they want.

Veronica’s voice over frames a female and heterosexual point of view, allowing the female fan to identify with Veronica’s desire and denaturalize the male gaze as the viewer comes to see through Veronica’s eyes. Veronica is at liberty to desire a male body. In one episode, Veronica travels to a film set to interview a suspect who also happens to be an action star. Upon seeing him without his shirt, she drools, “I don't know if Connor's smile cost a million, but his six-pack abs are worth at least double that. Damn. I repeat, damn” (1.10, “An Echolls Family Christmas”). Veronica is aligned with the camera’s point of view. Her financial evaluation and admiring gaze are a shameless appreciation of assertive desire. The female fans are certainly not shy about what they want either. The websites are full of LoVe (Logan plus Veronica) supporters. Veronica Mars reflected their desire by banishing Duncan, Logan’s competition, to Mexico.

But Veronica lacks one obvious heroic ability: she cannot kick any ass. Cristina Stasia divides the hero into two categories: the private and the public. The private action hero, the crime noir investigator, takes on a subterranean role to gather knowledge and images- the watching eye, the huge camera, the ability to capture images from a distance.

Only when the body is threatened is direct involvement justified. The private hero responds to personal attacks from the outside world: “the private female action hero is a victim-hero. She is spurred into action because of personal harm and thus acts defensively” (Stasia 179). Borrowing from the 1970s rape-revenge plot, private action heroes act because violence has invaded their world and they have no choice- an inherent vulnerability demands a move for protection. This can be seen in Veronica’s remarkable anti-Buffy need for rescue. At the climax of every plot point, once her investigation has finally revealed the villain, Veronica becomes a cowering little girl in need of rescue. Her father jumps through fire to rescue her from Aaron Echols; Logan holds her in his arms as Cassidy first aims to kill and then commits suicide. The private female hero doesn’t attack. She searches for balance: her quest is to expose the truth, not to blame anyone. To protect her vulnerable body, Veronica must investigate, capture images, and re-pattern memories to include the “truth.”

Veronica's status as a victim constantly changes as her body, “the body of the investigator," becomes "not just the site of conflict and controversy but the topos where the narrative plays out” (Mizejewski 15). Veronica has to fight various bad guys because their public influence invades her private spheres. This "invasion" occurs on the most elemental level: the threat of rape. In the first season, Veronica is drugged and wakes up without her underwear. After a long investigation her, first love, Duncan, reveals that they had sex that night but it was consensual. In the second season, Veronica contracts syphilis and realizes that she was raped that fateful night. Her attacker was Cassidy, a troubled youth who had been molested as a child and commits suicide after holding Veronica hostage on the roof.

Veronica Mars privileges the individual private investigator over the public community and distances Veronica’s mission from a feminist agenda. The generic structure for a crime fiction requires an isolated hero learning to look through magnified eyes and see what others ignore. The “chosen one” complex prioritizes individual action over community, the organized base of feminist activism: “the emergence of a postfeminist culture has both depended on and contributed to the privatized, individualized frame of reference that has played a part in dismantling our sense of a shared academic/activist feminist community” (Tasker and Negra 3). Veronica Mars contrasts the effective postfeminist individual against the outdated, academic, and activist feminist community to solve a crime of female subjecthood: the status of the rape victim. But Veronica Mars doesn’t simply pick a side. Instead it tangles itself in a history of feminism in an attempt to work out Veronica’s place in the world.

In the third season, Veronica's individual investigation of the rapes is more accurate and effective than the feminists. Despite the feminist’s activist protests and marches, they continue to accuse (the frat boys) and defend (the girl who cried rape) the wrong people. Lilith House aims their criticism at the Dean's office, demanding the removal of the frats and threatening a law suit. Veronica is opposed to their methods and wishes only to find the truth. Thus, “self-defense does nothing to affect the institutional structures that maintain violence against women. As such, the private female action hero advocates individual battles instead of public action, self-defense instead of political agitation” (Stasia 181). Veronica helps her friends and family by working around the corrupt institutional systems rather than attempting any reform. Although she urges her father to run for sheriff, Keith refuses to fight dirty. The Mars sense of honor keeps them out of institutional power. The PI code details a distance, a surveillance, rather than participation. A million times Veronica responds by gathering leverage and power over the other person, settling through private means (the lecherous male teacher(s) are simply fired, not prosecuted).

The Lilith House attachment to feminism obscures their ability to see the truth. In fact, they go as far as faking rapes so that they can sue the school. This "fake" implies that women/feminists are not the victims they claim to be and that their political stance is inauthentic. The “fake rape” story line involves Veronica Mars in controversial debate about rape and feminism. In the book The Morning After: Sex, Fear and Feminism, Katie Roiphe “used the rape debate to posit a critique of feminism that she claimed celebrated women as victims” (Ullman 30). Roiphe argued that “campus feminists produce endless images of women as victims- women offended by a professor’s dirty joke, women pressured into sex by peers, women trying to say no but not managing to get it across” (quoted in Ullman 30). By faking rape, the Hearst feminists produce an image of women as deceptive victims, a dangerous metaphor linked to the old traitor Eve.

Veronica Mars contains within it the double consciousness that women are both victims and heroes at the same time. They can save others but there is always still someone else who needs saving Veronica’s personal vendetta is to solve the continuing sex crimes against women as a targeted group. By linking community, body and identity, Veronica Mars participates in a complicated “subgenre of popular feminism, the abuse survival narrative” which reflects the “four key tenets of liberal second wave feminism: (1) recognition of women as an oppressed group; (2) commitment to social and political change; (3) emphasis on sexual/body politics; and (4) a woman centered perspective” (Badley 66). Veronica Mars picks and chooses tools from among different feminisms. The show recognizes women as an oppressed group and emphasizes sexual/body politics, but contains a problematic female perspective and skims around commitment to social and political change. The campus rapes have to be solved through “grrrl” femininity, not political marching, activism, or capital F feminism. They are about looking, about bodies, about identity. The rapist attacks the female image as well: he shaves off his victim’s hair, fetishizing their femininity.

Veronica is compelled to protect the innocence of other girls, like herself, who face the ultimate abuse of femininity. She is called in to protect and serve: “romantic ruin evokes nostalgia for a past order and it whips up the tidying impulse. A girl sleuth is a kind of gardener for tragic victims” (Mason 80). Veronica both attempts to untangle and experiences “romantic ruin” herself. The rapist at Hearst leaves a whole slew of “tragic victims” in his wake and threatens to reduce Veronica to a victim yet again. However, the feminists on campus refuse to take on this status. In their opposition to victimhood, the feminist groups is loud and aggressive, and the sin of sins to Veronica, untruthful. The “fake” rape violates all detective codes- and it also creates a mess.

In the last episode of the fall season, “Spit and Eggs” (3.9), the rapist is finally revealed. Veronica hides in a room until the rapist, Mercer, arrives. Veronica attacks him with a plastic unicorn, plunging it into his thigh. This classic symbol of girlhood, the feminine fantasy, becomes a puncturing weapon reenacting the act of rape. However, in the end Veronica needs to be rescued. The long sequence of VM her running through dark alleys brings to mind the much repeated Joss Whedon quote where he describes his vision for Buffy the Vampire Slayer: “I would love to see a movie in which a blond wanders into a dark alley, takes care of herself and deploys her powers” (Jowett, 20). Veronica is somewhere between that stupid blonde (she did decide to corner a violent serial rapist by herself without telling anyone) and ass kicking Buffy. Buffy’s female fans enjoy the pleasurable spectacle of the little blonde girl “kicking ass” and dissolving evil with the plunge of the wooden stake (which Veronica mimics with the unicorn horn). Veronica’s power is not as clear: the show plays with the tension of her status as a hero or a victim, never quite coming down on one side or the other. This confusion is reflexively acknowledged when Fern, a member of the Lilith House group, asks: “What do you want, Buffy...Tiffany...whatever your name is?” (3.8, “Lord of the Pi’s”). A feminist representative questions Veronica’s identity as a hero (Buffy) or a victim (Tiffany, a typical “fluff” name). The ambiguous horror scene reinstates the blond girl running in horror motif that Buffy reacted against but also focuses on a “real” threat to girls (i.e. rape instead of the undead vampire, although it could be argued that sex/rape was always the underlying source of fear on Buffy) and proposes a real solution- an activation of the female network of other victims, a sort of sisterhood/agency as a last, desperate resort when male guardianship fails.

Veronica is the smart blonde who followed the clues to find the correct villain, but once she’s found him, she is not equipped to deal with the physicality of male violence. Such a confrontation has to be delayed and experienced vicariously through Veronica’s aggressive male counterpart, Logan. The police failed to respond to Veronica’s bomb alert from the dorm, her attempt to get the police to come and rescue her. So Logan takes a baseball bat, a big phallic symbol, and hits another symbol of masculinity: the police car. Through this violence, Logan works out the masculine inability to “rescue” the victimized women, who had to rescue each other. Logan deliberately puts himself in jail so that he can attack Mercer and Moe. His vigilante solution exposes the crisis of masculinity when the men in charge are the ones committing crimes. In the CW chat room, Danny 73 writes: “I've always loved Logan, but now I love him even more. Sweet! Come hell or high water, he'll find some way of taking care of Veronica. Now that's definitely what I'd call love. I want my own Logan! LOL.” This quote reveals a female viewer’s desire for an onscreen character but it also points to a troubling desire for a more traditional gender relationship between LoVe. Bugaboo 2 echoes the same uneasiness with Veronica’s domination of the narrative and her insistence on independence: “Tonight Logan made everyone understand why we love him so fraking much! He was amazing at the end! What a hero. Gosh he loves Veronica. NO matter what she thinks he is always there for her.” Even the fans are unsure whether Veronica should be the victim or the hero.

After running through the alley, Veronica makes it to Wallace’s dorm only to be invited into the accomplice’s room- Moe, the Resident Assistant who offers women soothing mugs of drug-laced tea. Once drugged, Veronica desperately tries to get help but no one answers her calls. As a last resort, she blows a rape whistle. The Lilith House group gave them out earlier in the day and although Veronica scorned their usefulness, she tucked one into her pocket. Parker, the girl who Veronica failed to rescue while she was being raped, is the one who hears the whistle and screams a warning. With the whistle, Veronica activates the victim network that she was so disdainful of, admitting her need for the female community. Mercer talks his way out of trouble but Parker’s scream (her voice, her primal shout, her agency) keeps him from victimizing Veronica.

In this scenario, the essence of feminism is recuperated as a valuable community of women offering support to each other. Veronica was still a victim in need of rescue, but this time a fellow victim came to her side. In the end, women discovered and defeated the men trying to make them vulnerable. The stories of girlhood focus on the struggle to interpret gendered body through genres focused on discovering “truth” and fighting “evil.” In Veronica Mars, the gendered body articulates the complications of postfeminism for the postmodern girl. In the dark world of film noir, where the battle between the sexes leaves a path of victims, gender equality is once again in danger. Veronica’s gonna have to save the day.

A lot of my old posts

Prime time soap - edithistorydelete
Created on Wednesday, 02/14/2007 8:58 PM by Willa Kramer
Updated on Thursday, 02/15/2007 7:19 PM by Willa Kramer

In "Soap Opera Survival Tactics" Seiter and Wilson explore the way soaps are perceived and incorporated by viewers and networks. They talk about how soap opera tactics have been used by other television genres such as reality and prime time. In class we came to the conclusion that a more useful way to think about this was through melodrama. Soap are an explicit and transparent form of melodrama- other genres mask/restrain melodrama through claims to “quality,” differing production values, auteur claims, or prime time association. Melodrama- or drama, “ the hour long episodic series, organized around a set of recurring characters who interact with one another and with occasional new characters in a recognizable, bounded social setting” (Anderson 78) - is inherent to the established patterns of network television, but there are levels of excess and restraint. Soap opera is often dismissed and associated with “trash” or low quality viewing because of its excess. One of its survival tactics is to acknowledge such excess in camp parodies like Passions.

The prime time teen soap is another survival tactic. Despite its young male protagonists, The OC is centered on emotional relationships and moral legibility- basic characteristics of melodrama. So, is VM a prime time soap? Well, it’s a melodrama drawing on the generic formats of crime noir and soap opera. It’s the juxtaposition of the two that makes the show interesting- the intense prolonged emotional conflicts interwoven with CSI like crime solving. And both VM and OC are self reflexive about the worlds they have created- their excesses are remarked upon and acknowledged through inside comments that reward faithful viewers (time for an OC moment- Seth walking into the pool house in a white wife beater trying his best to brood like Ryan). Its all about hybridism and convergence- a little bit of this, a little bit of that. I remember seeing some magazine in the grocery store with a Grisom (CSI Las Vegas) on the cover and the title was “Grisom and Sarah grow closer” or something like that. And I couldn’t help thinking, that was the exact same tension of the first season…and they are still working it for all its worth.

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I have no doubt that The OC will come back to haunt everyone on SoapNet. If Beverly Hills 90210 and Melrose Place have already made it to the cable network, then it seems the natural way to go to attract younger audiences.

Thursday, 02/15/2007 12:14 AM by Brandeise Monk-Payton

As long as somewhere along the line The Hills dies. no one should ever know it existed

Thursday, 02/15/2007 7:18 PM by Willa Kramer

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now I have a screen name - edithistorydelete
Created on Tuesday, 02/13/2007 1:22 AM by Willa Kramer
Updated on Tuesday, 02/13/2007 1:23 AM by Willa Kramer

which I am too embarrassed to share in public. Yeah so I took the final leap and created a CW account. I made my first post on the VM chat page on the topic "100 reasons why the CW should renew Veronica Mars." I stepped over the line into active fandom. I also signed the petition-

To: To The CW Executives and Producers

This petition relates to the great show "Veronica Mars" and it's known-to-be progressive future. "Veronica Mars" is a cult-hit that only gets good ratings and reviews, and a show whose audience is increasing with each episode. We, The Undersigned, would like to see "Veronica Mars" with a full 22-episode season and more seasons to follow, for that matter. CW Execs, I hope these signatures show the undying and proactive love many people have for "Veronica Mars"!

If you have any love for VM at all, you should sign too (wow that was a quick move from first time fan to VM pimp. also notice that its around 1 am).
http://www.petitiononline.com/vm4fulls/

This was an interesting comment: "Please don't cancel this.It's one of the most intelligent shows right now...I just wish it was marketed like LOST or Desperate Housewives." But isnt part of being a cult show fan that knowledge that only a select group know about it? The fans also talk about making an alliance with another show to boost ratings. One suggests Gilmore Girls or Supernatural but they seem to popular- they need a show that also needs better ratings.

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It is inherently contradictory, but I find that with any type of media where people want something to do well but also not to lose its cult exclusive following. I guess as long as VM isn't mainstreamed content-wise but advertised appropriately like a more widely popular show, this is seen as legitimate. I remember back when Angel was still up in the air about whether it would continue for another season, diehard fans made www.saveangel.org. It was this huge group of people that basically lobbied the network in a really grassroots activist manner and it gained a lot of attention. Too bad it didn't work.

Tuesday, 02/13/2007 12:12 PM by Brandeise Monk-Payton

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Greys and Girls - edithistorydelete
Created on Sunday, 02/11/2007 10:15 PM by Willa Kramer

I work in the game room on Thursday nights. Usually its pretty calm, not a lot of people. But last thursday, about 15 people came to watch Grey's Anatomy. They had been kicked out of Parrish parlours by two guys who wanted to watch a hockey game. Think about this- 15 (mostly girls) against 2, and the 2 guys won- because for some strange reason sports events trump all regularly scheduled programs or girls wont argue about television space with dedicated guys. Melodrama apparently didn't rate on their scale. So this huge group of people came to the grame room and we all watched Grey's together. And when Meredith fell over the dock and into the water, there were fifteen simulatenous gasps of disbeleif at the hutspa of the show to never cease its over dramatic machinations (plus I think some of us hoped Meredith would be okay).But about gender, genre and space...

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Thoughts on the Beeb - edithistorydelete
Created on Thursday, 02/08/2007 2:54 PM by Willa Kramer
Updated on Sunday, 02/11/2007 10:04 PM by Willa Kramer

Yay the BBC. So I started thinking about my experience working there and how the infrastructure of the television industry works with flow. During the Spring of 2006, the BBC had two hit shows- Dr. Who and the Catherine Tate Show.

First, watch this hilarious clip of "Bovvered" skit. Catherine Tate is the new Tracy Ullman. She does a skit show all about British culture. So this one is about school age kids who use elaborate slang language.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=ZyF-DsVCJOE

Dr. Who is also very culturally specific. Much of it takes place in London and involves revisiting the UK's past and imagining its future (ie spaceships hiding in Big Ben's clocktower). FYI, David Tennant is an awesome Dr. Who. Christopher Eccleston was okay, but I enjoy him more on Heroes as the crazy invisible man. Talk about transcontinental flow. The show also starts Billie Piper, a former British one hit wonder pop singer turned actress, which seems to me like a smart marketing move in a culture that loves their D-celebrities and makes Big Brother the number one show in the nation (the US market could definitely take this hint and kick up US Big Bro). Dr. Who also has a historical generic flow- the 1960s show was very successful and also generated a large fan base that can still be tapped into today.

The BBC constantly has big conferences and lectures on how to improve its services. One time they had a huge lecture series on how to make more BBC shows like Dr. WHo and Catherine Tate, both of which pull in large, dedicated, and multigenerational audiences. You could either 1) go to the live lecture at one of the BBC buildings 2) watch the live broadcast of the lectures on TVs in the BBC office or 3) stream the lectures online. So even within the BBC there was a convergence of information about television, and a flow of information that staff were supposed to absorb throughout the day one way or another.

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Flow - edithistorydelete
Created on Sunday, 02/04/2007 1:45 PM by Willa Kramer

Raymond Williams proposes the metaphor of “flow” to describe television as a sequence or set of images: “the replacement of a programme series of timed sequential units by a flow of differently related units in which the timing, though real, is undeclared, and in which the real internal organization is something other than the declared organization” (235). Television is organized around these flowing sequences that seek to balance commercialism and entertainment, to somehow maintain the viewer even between the interruptions and breaks of advertising and competition. There are two aspects of flow I want to explore: generic flow, or “content,” and convergence flow, or “form.” Although I’m already channeling McLuhan’s “the medium is the message” and expect to trace some of the connections.

What interests me is thinking about how flow is maintained once a viewer migrates to the internet. Because I don’t have access to a television during Veronica Mars (VM) I always watch the newest episode online. To do this I have to navigate the CW website, which directs me through a sequence of pages to the full episodes, where I can pick from a range of CW shows. Before I do that, Tyra Banks pops up and dances around, telling me “Welcome to the jungle, ladies.” Which has interesting connotations- does the WB assume everyone is a female fan? Is television a jungle? CW has seven select shows that offer their latest episodes. I don’t know what you do if your show isn’t one of those select. It also offers director’s cuts, sneak peaks, interviews, tests/quizzes and chat lounges- basically anything to keep you on the website once you have come. So I pick VM and start watching- and magically, there are no commercials and no blaring CW ads! It’s a miracle. I guess the website is banking on fans being sucked into the flow of the internet offerings just like a TV watcher would have a hard time turning the tube off. Okay, so maybe I did check out the director’s cut of VM, and maybe I did end up watching Beauty and the Geek. But oh well. I’m a sucker for flow.

My experience with flow supports Uricchio’s revised definition of flow “as a means of sketching out a series of fundamental shifts in the interface between viewer and television” (165). Uricchio’s concept of flow includes the idea of mediation by metadata programmers and filtering technology (search engines and adaptive interfaces). The internet as a filtering technology presents the viewer with a map of prescribed options meant to direct the user to other aspects of the website and to encourage an active (and controlled) fandom.

Now, on to genre. VM is situated in a historical progression of what I like to call “blonde chick saves the world.” You can trace it back to snotty Nancy Drew, who solved mysteries without messing up her hair, to Buffy, who kicked ass (in both film and television), and past VM to Claire from Heroes who inspired the “save the cheerleader save the world” catch phrase. So “blonde chick saves the world” has migrated through print, film and television. In a sense it has become a image-genre, a compelling iconic symbol that is filtered through various delivery systems, similar to how we positioned race as a genre/content in class on Thursday.

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Big Broadcasting - edithistorydelete
Created on Tuesday, 01/30/2007 1:15 PM by Willa Kramer

Gripsrud’s article in TATV was quite interesting. I did notice that he fell into the “black box fallacy” outlined by Jenkins. Despite Gripsrud’s belief that one day he would sit in awe before the box that does it all (anyone seen Batman Forever, ie the Riddler’s brain sucking TV?) both scholars share an interest in social/political “protocols”- perhaps software over hardware. Convergence is more about the viewer/consumer/producer relationship and the ways people access and interact with all forms of media.

Anyway, Gripsrud goes on to de-bug the “end of all media” argument that basically says convergence and digitalization will destroy the broadcast power centers, the consumer will get more power, and anarchy and chaos will reign forever and ever. I agree with his assessment that broadcast networks have a social role to connect and organize communities- and that hundredsof other channels cannot wean people away from the main staples they are used to. He sites three reasons why the big broadcasting networks shouldn’t panic: television has “simultaneity, liveness and ritualization of everyday life” (p 216). For an example, he talks about how the BBC (the beeb) moved Dr. Who to another night and was not well received. After living in London for the semester and working the BBC, I like to talk about them a lot, so bear with me. The new Dr. Who was just starting its second season when I was there. It was on a weekend afternoon and you HAD to watch it. It was just a cultural imperative. I think in part this was due to the Brits loyalty to BBC. They want their big channel to succeed but they also want quality programming that is up to date and not antiquated, so when the BBC offers them something good they are eager to snap it up. Dr. Who was a live event watched simultaneously by a large population in a ritual of Britishness going back decades that would also affect the rhythm of life the next day at the office.

The water cooler effect is not to be underestimated. In some ways I think that is the defining genius of Lost. Lost wooed viewers back to network television because it was high quality and it was completely baffling (questions about plot created even more fan involvement). It generated a fan subculture that didn’t have to be a subculture- because everyone could and did watch the show. New broadcast channels are also vitally important to keeping said broadcast networks in power. FOX did its part to woo the elusive young male viewer- as Family Guy and 24 attest. And when UPN and the WB merged to form the CW, they made a broadcast network out of niche interests such as teen drama. I know Veronica Mars fans were in a flurry of activity to guarantee that the show got picked up in one of the few slots the CW was offering. As long as minority/niche programming is included in some way in the broadcast networks, cable channels become less necessary and vital. Gripsrud’s article does suffer from his rather shallow analysis of American media trends. I think pay-for-channels such as HBO and to a lesser extent Showtime have also emerged as a must for many viewers. The Sopranos, Sex and the City, Six Feet Under and The L-Word all have reputations for being quality and boundary pushing television luring broadcast viewers away from the pitiful comedy line up on Thursday nights.

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Me & Media - edithistorydelete
Created on Monday, 01/29/2007 8:49 AM by Willa Kramer

I am a dedicated and distracted media consumer. By that I mean I go through large amounts of media- from television, movies, music, websites, magazines, blogs, radio, etc- every week but my interaction with most of it is on a cursory, browsing and distracted level. For instance, while I am writing this I am also watching American Idol and simultaneously enjoying it and feeling disgusted at its lack of sophistication. Why are Simon’s bored insults still entertaining? I think it must be the appeal of the American dream that one’s inflated sense of potential stardom will be reinforced- and for all those whose dreams have been crushed, it is satisfying to watch Simon crush others.

On the other hand there are a handful of television shows that I watch with the dedicated enthusiasm of a true fantastic and examine through a lens of television theory. Right now Lost and Veronica Mars top the list. You can’t distract me while I watch these shows- you can’t even talk. And I cannot start watching in the middle of the episode or stand to hear any spoilers. Can I just say that Veronica Mars is perhaps the best television show EVER. It has all these little references that are aimed at the academic circles and tv buffs and rewards the fans on a regular basis. And Veronica kicks some serious booty. I’m still riding high from the paper I wrote last semester on VM’s complicated interaction with ideas of feminism and the representation of femininity. Lost is just crazy. Every time I watch I wonder if the writers know what they are doing, if they can possibly contain and control their spiraling tale. But I don’t know how many more times I can watch tears well up in Matthew Fox’s eyes.

My sources of media are my television and my computer. Yes, I have a physical television and yes I watch it, although not a great deal. But I like to turn it on for background noise or a momentary distraction. My computer is by the far the greatest source of media. Especially now that the major networks are putting episodes up on their sites for afterwards, you don’t have to be chained to a certain date and time. But for some shows like Lost, I prefer a large screen and other people to digest the show afterwards. Part of being a film and media major is both defending your choice as academic and enjoying the excuse to watch a lot of TV. But television especially- because of its proliferation, the serial nature, the instant appeal, the domestic placement- reflects so many problems and issues of American society. What is at stake in the dominating and successful narratives? Why is Heroes so appealing in a time of war? How has Grey’s Anatomy revitalized the hospital/soap genre? It’s like linking into the image/consciousness of society- the images that are selling.