Women, Romantic Comedies, and the Grand Romantic Gesture

Last week on Glee, Blaine and the Warblers performed their rendition of “When I Get You Alone” to serenade an employee at the GAP.

I loved this scene for two reasons.

One, despite Glee’s many, many problems, I will be eternally grateful to the show for putting Darren Criss on my TV screen and giving him a song with the lyrics, “Keep your toys in the drawer tonight.”  Hot damn.

Two, this scene is brilliant because Blaine’s behavior is as brave as it was stupid.  It was stupid because serenading someone at hir workplace is almost always a bad idea, especially with a song that has highly suggestive lyrics.  (Kurt’s expression throughout the fiasco was perfect – he was heartbroken that he wasn’t the object of Blaine’s affection, but also embarrassed as hell for Blaine).  It was brave because he’s a young gay man in a homophobic society who’s declaring his affection in public.  This was the first time I really loved Blaine in his own right, and not just because he made Kurt happy and Darren Criss is supermegafoxyawesomehot.  Continue reading

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2/13/11 – Links I Like

I didn’t bother posting links I liked last week (hi, alliteration!) because I figured everyone would be watching the Superbowl and not paying attention.  Here are new links I’ve enjoyed.

Red Eye: A Contemporary Feminist Classic? - from Shameless.  This blog post is several years old, but I’m re-posting it because I watched Red Eye this weekend.  It’s a great thriller and one of the most feminist movies I’ve seen in a long time, and was going to write a review until I found this, which sums up everything I want to say about this exciting, challenging movie.

Radical feminism: What it Is and Why We’re Afraid of It – from The Guardian.  Jonathan Dean writes about the prosecutor in the Julian Assange case, who was accused of being a “radical feminist” by a retired judge, and exactly what radical feminism is and why we need it.  The article is interesting in of itself, but many of the comments prove why such an article is needed in the first place, as many readers are refusing to Get the Point.  “Of course there are women who hate men as a group.  Just as there are men who hate all women” – because institutional misogyny and the occasional misandry are totes the same thing, y’all! “I have no problem with feminism seeking equality of gender, but that has been mostly (if not entirely) achieved in this country and most western countries. Feminism is necessary in places where women continue to be oppressed.” – LOLLOLLOL.  Oh, wow.  Listen, I won’t deny that American and British women, as a whole, are better off than, say, Middle Eastern women or women in countries that support institutional genital mutilation, but saying gender equality has been “mostly (if not entirely) achieved in this country” is like saying that racism doesn’t exit anymore just because we have a black president.

Of Course – from Shakesville.  Josh Jasper, director of the Riverview Center, which serves survivors of sexual and domestic violence, created a Superbowl ad that challenged the way we as a culture raise our male children.  In response, he’s had a lot of death threats, in addition to more calls for help from survivors.  What kind of a world do we live in when a person receives death threats for saying, “Rape is bad and we need to raise our male children differently?”  But I thought “everyone” agreed that rape was bad, no? 

I Used to be a Pro-Life Republican – from Hay Ladies! A woman describes her conversion from being pro-life to pro-choice.  I don’t think everyone who is against abortion is necessarily anti-feminist – in fact, I find that an overly simplistic generalization – but I do strongly believe that the elected officials who keep trying to take our abortion rights away don’t really give a fairy’s fart about babies and are only afraid of female sexuality.  That’s why I enjoyed this.

Hello, I Am Fat.  A woman writes about the radical notion that she doesn’t have to be ashamed of her body just because she’s fat.

February Movies I Won’t Be Seeing (and One I Might)

Sometimes I bemoan the fact that I have very little time to go to the movies.  Then I look at what’s out there, and I start to think that I’m not missing out on much.  Some of the February movies that have just been released, or will soon be released, look entirely skippable and make me feel justified in getting most of my audiovisual entertainment from television.

First up is Just Go With It, with Jennifer Aniston and Adam Sandler.

Summary: Adam Sandler is a “lovable” rake who has a “perfect” system for seducing young women into having one-night stands: he wears a wedding ring and tells the women in question that he’s in an unhappy marriage with a wife who beats him (HAHA DOMESTIC VIOLENCE LOL!)  Then, he meets the woman of his dreams, and you can tell she’s the woman of his dreams because she’s blonder and with more boobage than the other women he sleeps with.  She is unimpressed when she finds his fake wedding ring.  He convinces his boss to pretend to be his soon-to-be ex-wife so that his Dream Girl (Brooklyn Decker) is satisfied.  The boss is played by Jennifer Aniston, who is playing a wildly different role than she normally does.  Instead of being The Girlfriend, she’s the Fake Wife.

Predicting the ending: In pretending to be a couple, Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston fall in love for real. Brooklyn Decker probably turns out to be a bitch. 

Verdict: I will forgive Adam Sandler an awful lot of stupid, predictable movies, because I adored Punch-Drunk Love just that much.  But forgiving him doesn’t mean I have to see this.  I’ll miss it. Continue reading

Community 2×15 – “Early 21st Century Romanticism”

In this week’s Community, Jeff takes a break from the group after an angry disagreement about the Barenaked Ladies, Britta becomes friends with a woman she thinks is a lesbian and rubs it in the face of everyone who is less open-minded than she, Troy and Abed like the same woman, and Pierce hallucinates about Andy Dick.

The Feminist in Me Thinks… The writers continue to use Britta perfectly.  She hasn’t had a prominent storyline in her own in a long time and usually just exists to comment on the other characters, but here, she was so delightfully smug on her hipster pedestal, announcing to the entire study group that she had a lesbian friend.  The twist that her friend Paige was not, in fact, gay, but hanging out with Britta to further her own hipster credentials, was the icing on the cake, and I enjoyed watching Annie and Paige’s “Annie” friend looking on with horror and amusement.  Of course, the writers had to throw in a little fan-service there when Annie looked like she would have kissed Britta – not that that’s the first time they’ve dipped into that well (that’s what she said). Continue reading

Glee 2×12 – “Silly Love Songs”

In the Valentine’s Day episode of Glee, the writers began slowly developing one of the sweetest, most promising teen romances I’ve seen on television, and also introduced what has to be by far the dumbest storyline this show has ever done – and that’s saying a lot.

I’ll start with the bad: this Finn/Quinn reunion is needlessly stupid.  I don’t buy this story the writers are selling.  Heck, I wouldn’t even shoplift this story.  I almost can’t even describe the idiocy of reuniting two characters who have had nothing to say each other for an entire season.  But I’m going to try, using the tune of the South Park from the “All About Mormons” episode to help me:

Finn Hudson was a school athlete, dum-dum-dum-dum-dum

Whose girlfriend made him a big cuckold, dum-dum-dum-dum-dum

And said he was her baby daddy, dum-dum-dum-dum-dum

But now he wants to date her again, dum-dum-dum-dum-dum

Rachel now is independent, smart-smart-smart-smart-smart

Finn wants the girl who hurt him badly, dum-dum-dum-dum-dum

Rachel Berry smart-smart-smart, Finn and Quinn are DUMB Continue reading

How I Met Your Mother 6×15 – “Oh Honey”

I haven’t written about the last few episodes of How I Met Your Mother because I thought my comments would be redundant.  I was happy to see that Robin finally, finally getting some job satisfaction and upward mobility in her career, and felt sad for Marshall because he lost his father so suddenly, but didn’t have much else to say.  I have a few brief thoughts on last night’s “Oh Honey.”

The Feminist in Me Thinks… I am so beyond tired of the “Barney hits on dumb girls, manipulates them in their dumb dumb dumbness, and the hot dumb girls sleep with him in all their dumbosity” plots on this show.  The writers are enamored with womanizing Barney to the point where they ruined a very promising Barney/Robin romance last season.  I much prefer the Barney who concocts ridiculous schemes that have nothing to do with seducing dumb women, and are just ridiculous for absurdity’s sake.  So I was pleased to see him break down in front of “Honey” and cry about his daddy issues rather than actually sleep with her.  There are two reasons why Barney’s womanizing can still be funny on occasion: NPH’s talent as an actor, and the fact that Barney only succeeds about half of the time.  I’m enjoying the character much more than I did last season because they’re finding a decent balance.

The Comedian in Me Thinks… By far, the most amusing part of the episode was Marshall’s older brother Marcus recounting the Ted/Zoey story with overly flowery narration ripped out of the pages of a fairy tale romance, and then capping it off by tricking Marshall with the oh-so-old “Hertz Donuts” joke.  I also giggled when Robin wound up ruining the dinner party because she was thinking of the oven settings in Celsius – even though that would result in her UNDERcooking the meat, no?

My Verdict: Go away, Katy Perry.

Glee 2×11 – “The Sue Sylvester Bowl Shuffle”

On the very special Superbowl episode of Glee, Will and Coach Bieste force the Glee club and football team to join forces and get along so they can get rid of the enmity between the group, Sue Sylvester gets angry and throws a lot of things, the girls step up their game, a bully almost gets redeemed through song and dance, and Kurt and Blaine get precious little (but still precious) screen time. Continue reading

Bridesmaids Trailer: Initial Impressions

Oh, wow.  I am super conflicted about this:

This movie looks like it might entertain me and irritate me in equal measure.  It looks both feminist and anti-feminist, both stupid and smart, both original and cliched, all at once.

I could wait until the movie actually comes out to write a review…but where’s the fun in that?  I’d much prefer to analyze its worth based on the 2:21 minutes I’ve seen so far. Continue reading

Community 2×14 – “Advanced Dungeons and Dragons”

In this week’s Community, we have another bottle episode.  This time, instead of getting stuck in the library because they’re searching for Annie’s pen, they’re in the library all episode because they’re playing Dungeons and Dragons with their suicidal classmate, “Fat” Neil, trying to break him out of his depression and extend an olive branch of friendship.

This is the exact kind of premise that makes me love this show so, so hard.  One of the best things about Community is the way it will take a serious issue or a character’s internal dilemma and turn it into an incredibly silly episode without sacrificing the heart.

Was this episode successful on that front?  Yes and No. Continue reading

The Top 4 Reasons Why I Love and Hate Glee

After a painfully long two-month hiatus, Glee is finally returning to FOX next week with TWO episodes: one airing right after the Superbowl, and one during its regularly scheduled time on Tuesday.  Prepare for a Glee invasion on this blog (complete with Glee-related puns) because the thoughts I have about this show could probably fill a book.

The 2009-2010 TV season was good to me, as it introduced me to three new shows – The Vampire Diaries, Community, and Glee – to fall in love with.  But if shows were high school students, The Vampire Diaries and Community would be the naturally gifted and hard-working kids who aced every test, and Glee would be the kid with a ton of raw talent who never did any homework.  The show manages to fill me with delight and thoroughly irritate me in equal measure just about every episode.

Why?  Well, I’m sure I’ll have plenty of time and material to elaborate when the show returns for the second half of Season Two, but in brief, here are the Top 4 Reasons Why I Love and Hate Glee. Continue reading