Bitch vs. Hawaii 5-0
03 Jan 2011 8 Comments
in Television
Hawaii 5-0, redux, appeals to three different demographics:
1. People who like to watch things blow up, get pumped when a show or movie does quick cuts between scenes, especially if it’s accompanied by a techno beat, and think guys patting each other on the ass is totally bromantic. What? Bros like to touch each other’s asses, it’s just factual.
2. People who miss the original. All two of them. My stepfather Ed is one of those people; I don’t know who the other one is.
3. People who enjoy fanfiction.
I’m not ashamed to say I fall into the third category, and while I know plenty of my colleagues will disagree with me, I have to say this: Hawaii 5-0, you are perched on the rocky precipice of fail.
Here is how a television show goes about getting a fandom (and television producers/writers/actors, you want a fandom of some kind, believe me, because these people will be loyal to your product long after you deserve it, Joe Mallozzi):
- create a fun new universe for the reader to poke around in. Think Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings, which are two of the biggest fandoms out there.
- populate that universe with attractive characters who
a. Don’t know they’re in love with each other;
b. Are best friends to the exclusion of everyone else, even significant others;
c. Don’t like each other at first and slowly become friends, bantering all the way; or
d. Hate each other’s guts, passionately, irrevocably, forever and ever.
- Don’t change it up. You’ll want to for artistic reasons, but have a conversation with Russell T. Davies before you do. He’ll tell you what’s what.
Presto chango alakazam, you’ve got a fandom, and if the characters are both male or both female, you’ve got a slash fandom. But there are a million ways to screw it up, starting with the classic blunder after you get involved in a land war in Asia: thinking your writing is the real reason people are watching or reading. Say you’ve got two lead characters with fantastic chemistry. They banter, they snark, they tease, they touch, they seem like they’re going to make out with each other as soon as the camera cuts away. The subtextual UST is off the charts, and the fandom goes wild for it, writing stories, drawing pictures, making videos invariably set to “If You Were Gay” or “I Won’t Say I’m in Love.” Somebody will make a tumblr entitled FUCKYEAH[insert the names of your lead characters]. Think of it as fantasy football, only instead of deciding who’s going to score which way, they’re deciding who’s going to score which way.
And that’s where we come in on Hawaii 5-0. We’re in the dating stage right now. It’s halfway through the first season, and Steve and Danno are still bitching their way from dislike to man-love. They smirk, they smolder, they look like they might fall into bed in just a second. And all that would be well and good if not for that thing we all know is coming next. You see, we’ve been here before. Right now, writers and producers, the viewership is much higher than projected for women between 18 and 45, isn’t it? You were expecting lots of dudes and for some reason all these women are watching, which is weird because police procedurals, they’re not exactly thin on the ground. Well, you’ll be thinking, clearly it’s because of our outstanding story-telling. Chicks dig that, right? They do, of course, everybody digs that, but believe me when I say that your story-telling is completely beside the point. This demographic, the one watching your show– they watched Starsky and Hutch. They watch Smallville. They watch Supernatural. They watched Stargate for god’s sake, and I’m not altogether certain those writers are literate. It’s not the writing, it’s the actors. Always remember that. You’ve accidentally lured a viewership into watching your show because your lead actors have great chemistry with one another. Your lines, which you think are incredibly witty and inspiring, are really just an excuse for the actors to be close to one another. As long as they’re staring into each other’s eyes, they could be reading a grocery list.
So here’s what’s going to happen: at some point you’re going to realize that your awesome dialogue is not the show-maker and that the stage directions and Alex O’Laughlin’s tendency to look like he’s slightly in love (or suffering from a concussion, or concentrating really hard on his American accent) are responsible for a sizable chunk of your audience. You’ll go out looking for reviews of the show and discover there are people out there who really want your lead dudes to hook up. Really, you’ll think, what is wrong with these basement-dwellers who think Steve and Danno are not out macking on the ladies as any studly young cop should be, but are instead banging each other in the precinct showers? And how exactly would that work anyway, given that Scott Caan looks like he could fit in Alex O’Laughlin’s pocket? You will be shocked, horrified, appalled! Although obviously you support gay rights, are pro-gay, love the gay, etc., etc., but you run a family show and gays do not have families! And you are very flattered that people can read subtext into your writing (because it is really about your writing, isn’t it? ISN’T IT?) but those people are clearly crazy! It’s just…what’s that word everybody uses now when guys act like they love each other but are unwilling to admit they might have sexy thoughts about dudes? Oh, right, bromance. It’s just a bromance!
Et voilà! Next season, the lead characters will very carefully never touch each other, or if they do it will be super hetero– like hitting each other. What’s more hetero than a bro slapping another bro on the back of the head? NOTHING THAT’S WHAT. The banter will be less bantery and more mean, and one or both of them will probably gain a significant other, because that is how not gay they are– they have sex with women. Take that, Entertainment Weekly writers who think Steve and Danny are flirting with each other! Now everybody can just get back to liking the show for its awesome writing and original premise, and how well the secondary characters are fleshed out!
OH. WAIT.
You see, writers, this is not exactly our first time at the rodeo. We’ve watched this play out a few too many times. Here’s what you’re working with: leads whose chemistry is fantastic; Hawaii; Daniel Dae Kim and Grace Park, who should play the main characters because the force of their awesome could take out Manhattan; good will from forty years ago, back when people couldn’t go online to talk about the funny vibes they were getting between Steve and Danno. You are not working with: a fantastic script; a unique plot; artistic integrity. So I have some advice to ensure the enduring success of Hawaii 5-0, or of future endeavors when this one gets canceled.
1. Do not change the dynamic between your leads in any way, unless it is to improve upon what you already have. The relationship between them is the linchpin of your show. If you undercut that, everybody notices, even the people who don’t think they’re secretly having sex with each other. You started off with trope C, “don’t like each other at first and slowly become friends, bantering all the way,” you need to stick with it. Endgame for that is trope B, “are best friends to the exclusion of everyone else, even significant others.” Think Kirk and Spock. Those dudes are in it for life. That’s one of the most celebrated fictional friendship of all time right there, AND they were the first published slash fanfiction pairing. If you’ve got it, don’t mess it up just because you’re upset about the gay.
2. Seriously, Grace Park. Daniel Dae Kim. Do not under-utilize them. When you inevitably start to tone down the friendship between your two main characters, you’re going to need something to keep people watching. Somehow, you were lucky enough to catch them both just coming out of other shows that were actually good, so don’t shortchange them.
3. Steal plots from other shows and crime novels that know how to do it and make them look prettier. I’ll say it again– originality, not your strong suit. That wheel you’re trying to reinvent has been stolen from another car already.
But you’re not going to follow any of that advice. You’re going to go down the same path others have taken before you, and pretty soon Monday nights will be Hawaii Five-0-free once more. And I for one will be happy about that, even though I don’t wish unemployment on anybody, because the world does not need another “we love each other wait no not really the gay is too scary” television relationship from writers who don’t know what the hell they’re doing.
Carry on.
Bitch vs. The Walking Dead, Week 1
06 Nov 2010 3 Comments
in Characters Too Stupid to Live, Movies, Television
I’m not the biggest zombie freak in the universe. Actually I’m only saying that because whenever I say something ill-advised like “I am a zombie movie fanatic!” real fanatics invariably come up with zombie movies I haven’t seen***. So I am not really a fanatic, I’m just somebody who has constructed a somewhat elaborate zombie evacuation plan. I’ve seen all the Residents Evil, all the romcomzoms, all zombie movies with 28 in the title, and anything ending in “…of the dead.” I even watched Return of the Dead while bouncing around on an exercise trampoline, and let me tell you that is the only way to watch anything from the ’80s.
The point is, I’ve seen a lot of zombie movies, so anything new in this over-saturated genre needs to do something interesting to impress me. I wanted Walking Dead to be successful. I was all “Yeah, work it gurl” when I saw AMC was doing a miniseries based on graphic novels. Sadly, Walking Dead did not work it. It was the tiredest model on the runway, wishing the goddamn designer would stop using cork heels and wearing last season’s leggings. It relied on the viewer’s knowledge of the body of zombie fiction already out there, and didn’t say a damn thing new about it. I’m pretty sure there’s one person on the planet who’s never seen a movie before who was surprised when the little girl at the beginning was a zombie. Golly, do you think the cop with marital problems who gets shot and goes into a coma is going to wake up to zombies? Do you think his wife and kid are still alive and he’s going to find a way to get back to them, and his misogynistic best friend/partner who’s all “Apocalypse? BRB, tapping my partner’s wife!” is going to die in a horrible, painful way? Do you think we’ll get to see how zombies are not the real monsters, people are? IDK, person who’s never seen a movie before, maybe not! Maybe everybody will be nice to each other. Maybe the main character’s wife likes the partner better, and they’re perfect for each other because she knows how to use a light switch and likes to be called a dumb bitch. Maybe the main character’s going to die because he rode a horse into the middle of Atlanta and expected not to become zombie chum.
OMFG BAD DECISION HAIR EVERYWHERRRRE
My boyfriend, Mr. B, sometimes hates watching movies with me because I get all huffy about things like riding A HORSE into ATLANTA during a ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE when the road going IN is empty and the road going OUT is bumper to bumper. He’s like “Why can’t you just enjoy this for what it is? Why do you have to get all Bill Nigh the Science Guy about it?” But like I said before, if you’re going to throw out yet another zombie movie, you need to do something different. You know what would be something different? Characters who are not fucking stupid. Explaining how dead people can moan when they don’t breathe. Female characters who don’t hook up with Butchy McHatestheladies, have to be rescued, get raped, or exist only to give birth to the Great White Hope. Nobody writing “the end is nigh” or “God help us” or anything similarly Jesus-y on a wall.
That said, there were some pretty creepy parts. The bit in the staircase, where the main character has to keep lighting matches to make his way down? —-> Me, hiding behind my couch. Actually, everything in the hospital. Hospitals are always creepy. So many fluorescent lights to flicker! And when he turned the corner on the horse and came face-to-face with everybody in Atlanta? Mr. B and I both went “Oh, zombie snap!” Also, this is only the first part of six and I’ve heard some interesting things about the rest of the series, so I’m going to hold out and watch the entire thing. But you’re on notice, Walking Dead. You are so on notice.
*** No, I do not want to see the one where the zombie fights the shark. Yes, I know that 28 Days Later and Walking Dead are derivative of Day of the Triffids. I PROMISE, I understand that the zombies in 28 Days Later are not really zombies. STOP SENDING ME THINGS, ZOMBIE MOVIE NERDS.
Bitch vs. Mark Zuckerberg
01 Nov 2010 Leave a Comment
in Movies
The first time I noticed Andrew Garfield– yeah, I know what the title says, just shush and let me talk about Andrew Garfield for a little while– the first time I noticed him was during one of my least favorite Doctor Who episodes ever. It was called ‘Daleks in Manhattan.’ I don’t really want to get into details because I’ll start ranting about Daleks (seriously, so much hate), but just picture it: the Doctor in 1930s Manhattan. Daleks (FFFFFFFUUU- ) are using the unfinished Empire State Building as a superconductor or some whack-ass thing to get power. There are random pig-face people, a showgirl from Long Island, and a Hooverville full of poor noble people, one of whom has hair as big as his entire body and a Southern accent faker than Ewan McGregor’s. It was pretty awful. But that dude with the bad Southern accent and the big hair caught my attention.
And here he is, two years later, getting all famous and shit. I’m not going to claim dibs on him or anything because that episode is really the only thing I ever saw him in, and I think Doctor Who fails the hipster ‘I knew him before he was popular’ test, but there’s always a level of sadness when somebody you like becomes somebody everyone likes. What we had, bad Southern accent big hair Doctor Who guy, was so personal and special. I hate having to share you now, but I will. Fly away little Andrew Garfield bird. Fly away.
So the cast of The Social Network is hot, the dialogue is hilariously unrealistic in its cleverness but whatever, it’s Aaron Sorkin and he has a lifetime pass for Sports Night, and the story is…timely? Mark Zuckerberg said he wished they hadn’t made a movie about him while he was alive. Right there with you, kid. It feels so awkward, like a Kitty Kelly royalty tell-all. You remember those? All about how Fergie likes to have her toes sucked and Prince Charles wants to be Camilla Parker Bowles’s tampon? This feels like a Kitty Kelly production.
I wondered why that was the case when this should have felt like a straight-up documentary, and I realized it’s because this not a movie about redeeming Mark Zuckerberg as a character. We all kind of know he’s a douchebag, or at least someone who doesn’t allow people to preserve the illusion that what they’re doing online is actually private, which is almost worse. The movie begins with him being a douche and ends with him still being a douche and sadly hitting F5 (or maybe he’s happy, who knows, the dude is like level 5000 Aspbergers), but we all know the truth: this is Eduardo Saverin’s story. After I saw the movie, I came home and read the book it was based on, The Accidental Billionaires, and it was the same thing. This is the story of how Eduardo Saverin slowly realized Mark Zuckerberg was never going to love him like he needed to be loved. We all saw it coming. We were shouting “Don’t do it Eduardo, it will only lead to you eating your weight in Doritos while you listen to Ingrid Michaelson!” from the beginning. And then– ooooh. Oh, Eduardo. Pumpkin, you’re better than that. Actually we’re sort of…confused as to what you saw in him in the first place but hey, don’t mind us, you go ahead and cry. Do you want us to tell all our friends he has a little dick? Done.
So yes, it did seem a lot like one side of a break-up story, except in this case the other side is Mark Zuckerberg and the entire world is already predisposed to think he is an asshole, so it’s a bit stacked against him. And boo-hoo, he can cry into his solid gold Corn Flakes, right, but the truth is nobody really envies Mark Zuckerberg. You might envy his billions, or his brilliance, but do you want to be him? I don’t. I recognized the touch of Aaron Sorkin early on because I’ve seen videos of Zuckerberg speaking and it does not sound like that dialogue. He’s awkward and twitchy and weird, and he doesn’t understand how to not be that guy who stops conversations with non-sequiturs and sweat. He doesn’t get his comeuppance in the movie because even if he’s a dodecahedrabillionaire, he’s still Mark Zuckerberg. That’s probably comeuppance enough.
Bro-fist to:
1. The casting department, not just for Andrew Garfield and Jesse Eisenberg (most people seem to have The Michael Cera problem with him because he plays the same monotone character in every movie, but it works here), but also for Armie Hammer as the Winkelvoss twins. The characters were largely unimportant in the movie, but entertaining enough that I didn’t really care. Also: hot.
2. Justin Timberlake. If I had a time machine and could go back to talk to myself ten years ago, and we were talking about Justin Timberlake, 19-year-old me would be aghast and probably disown 29-year-old me for saying this, but Justin Timberlake, kind of like Aaron Sorkin, has a lifetime pass as long as he doesn’t turn into Mel Gibson. “Listen,” I would say to 19-year-old me. “He’s going to cut off his hair soon and get all confusingly hot. And you’re going to play the crap out of Justified. Yeah, you look all horrified, but you’re talking to someone who knows exactly how many Now! CDs you have, so shut up. So then he’s going to be really good in Alpha Dogs, and THEN he’s going to do a bunch of songs with The Lonely Island and they will be awesome. Also, please stop dating guys who think watching Cheech and Chong: Up in Smoke on their laptop is the perfect date.”
Major side-eye to:
1. Whoever failed to point out along the movie-making process that the script is basically dry-humping Harvard University. Harvard is super nice, we get it, there are lots of smart people there and lots of those smart people are from really rich and famous families. This version of Harvard is like some weirdo 1900 one where the dudes all have to wear suits and ties and call each other splendid chaps and there are no co-eds present except when somebody needs a reason to be bitter over a breakup and start a billion-dollar internet company to stalk her (note: the book doesn’t mention the girl in the movie at all, and in fact Mark Zuckerberg has apparently had the same girlfriend for a really long time).
2. The “moving from a flashback to present time where one character is saying “[Character name]?” like he’s so lost in thought about the flashback that he’s totally forgotten where he is” trope.
3. The score. Part of me (probably still the 19-year-old) was like NINE INCH FUCKING NAILS SOUNDTRACK YES but honestly? This is not a movie that needs Trent Reznor music. It’s about Facebook, not the end of the world. Granted, his version of In the Hall of the Mountain King is incredibly awesome, and it made the scene it was used in very tense by virtue of being ‘In the Hall of the Mountain King,’ but on reflection, that scene was kind of silly and unnecessary. Or maybe it’s just because I always tend to associate that song with Ren & Stimpy.
Final thoughts: I have no idea what this movie’s point actually was, but it was very enjoyable nonetheless, if only because I got to see Andrew Garfield in a suit in the rain. I was going to say it takes very little to please me, but that’s not true at all– that would be why this blog is not called “Things I ♥ That Are Great!” But if it WAS, Andrew Garfield in a suit in the rain would be one of those things.
