Monthly Archives: March 2011

The Real Reason Women Love Mr. Darcy

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Whenever I engage in a discussion of the relative merits of Jane Austen as a writer, the conversation inevitably returns to the subject of Mr. Darcy. Even if I’m trying to talk about Sense and Sensibility or Persuasion – you know, one of Austen’s other novels – Mr. Darcy is always mentioned.  Usually, the person who brings up Mr. Darcy is the one who doesn’t like Austen, and his argument boils down to the same thing: “Austen is only popular because women think Mr. Darcy is hot.”

OF COURSE!  It all makes sense now!  Our admiration of Austen’s writing has nothing, nothing to do with the way she portrays a close, sisterly relationship in Sense and Sensibility, or the homage/satire on the Gothic novel in Northanger Abbey, or the mature story about love and forgiveness in Persuasion, or the hilarious original Mommie Dearest story in Lady Susan, or the pointed commentary on hypochondria and gossip in her unfinished Sanditon. It’s ALL ABOUT MR. DARCY.  “I watched Colin Firth crawl out of the lake and I jizzed! in! my pants!”

Right, okay.  I could – and possibly will – write an entire thesis praising the merits of Jane Austen, but that post is for another time.  For now, I’m going to entertain the idea that Mr. Darcy is the source of Austen’s popularity.

Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that Mr. Darcy is the main reason women love Pride and Prejudice. I counter with, “If that is the case, what’s wrong with that?” Continue reading →

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Jeff Winger’s Little Indian Girl Story: (Delayed) Thoughts on Community 2×19 – “Critical Film Studies”

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Last week on my favorite sitcom, Community fans tuned in to watch the Pulp Fiction-themed episode that NBC had been heavily promoting.  At the end of the half hour, the fans cried foul that they had been denied a real Pulp Fiction-themed episode while simultaneously adding My Dinner with Andre to their Netflix queues.

After NBC released a slew of promotional photographs with the gang as various Pulp Fiction characters, fans were likely expecting a campy, heavily referential episode along the lines of “Contemporary American Poultry” (the Goodfellas episode) and “Modern Warfare” (the action movie episode).  Instead, this was a more serious character study like “Abed’s Uncontrollable Christmas,” and I think the episode was stronger for it.

I feel like I could write an entire paper on the conversation Abed had with Jeff about movie references, and the amount of time people spend talking about fictional characters.  As a literary/television/movie nerd, I sometimes think that I would lose 90% of my conversation if I never made references to texts, and that thought scares me a little bit.  There’s a lot of meta genius in “Critical Film Studies” that I will have to talk about later.

For now, though, I want to talk about Jeff’s Halloween story. Continue reading →

Gender-Neutral Compliments: Look to the Yiddish

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It is common practice among us potty-mouthed people to describe a courageous man as having “balls.”  If a man’s courage comes into question, we wonder, “Does he have the balls to take this action?”

Sometimes we even compliment women by saying she has “balls,” e.g., “Lady T has a lot of balls.  She speaks her mind.”

Well, thank you.  I do speak (and write) my mind.  But, I would prefer that if you want to compliment me on my courage, you use the phrase, “She’s got a lot of ovaries.”

See, I object to the idea that courage = manhood, and cowardice = lack of manhood or womanhood.  I’m a woman. Don’t tell me that, by having courage, this makes me more masculine.  No.  Courage is not an inherently male trait, so don’t make it one.

But then I started thinking about people who don’t easily fall into the “man” or “woman” gender binary.

Continue reading →

I Like Andy Samberg

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I like Andy Samberg.

I didn’t always.  The SNL “Lazy Sunday” Digital Short, even five years later, still makes me laugh, but I attributed much of my enjoyment to Chris Parnell’s performance.  I wasn’t that impressed with Andy Samberg aside from “Lazy Sunday” because he seemed to play the same frat-boy dudebro in every sketch.  People I knew got excited for Samberg’s sketches, while I always thought, “Whatever, show me what Bill Hader’s up to this week and then we’ll talk.”

But as he made more and more rap videos with The Lonely Island, I started really liking him, and I’ve figured out why.  Andy Samberg is possibly one of the most feminist comedians working today.

Why?  Because his targets are always sexist men.

Exhibit A: “Dick in a Box”

In this video, Samberg and Justin Timberlake make fun of the sexist guys who act like their penises are God’s gift to women, by making their dicks a gift…literally.

Continue reading →

Female Character of the Week: Katniss Everdeen

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Given the recent hubbub concerning the casting of the film version of The Hunger Games, this seems as good a time as any to honor its protagonist, Katniss Everdeen.

Name: Katniss Everdeen

Why She Rocks: Katniss is a hunter in the dystopian world of Panem, living with her mother and her sister Prim.  Every year, Panem holds a competition called The Hunger Games to keep the different districts in line.  A girl and boy from each of the twelve districts are thrust into an arena to fight to the death until only one of them is left.  In the very beginning of The Hunger Games, Prim’s name is chosen from the drawing.  Katniss immediately steps forward and volunteers herself in her sister’s place.

Already, the reader is on her side.  How can anyone not root for a character who wants to fight in the place of her sweet little sister?  A big sister myself, I gravitated toward Katniss immediately, and I liked her more and more as I read about her.

Being a contestant in The Hunger Games is more about just physical prowess.  A tribute also needs to master the public relations aspect of the battle, and this is where Katniss fails miserably.  She’s a terrible liar, she speaks her mind, and she comes across as cold.  She refuses to play the Capitol’s games.  She doesn’t fit into the neat box that the Capitol wants from its tributes.  Even though this can cost her some support from the viewers of The Hunger Games, she still won’t completely play their game.  This only makes us want to root for her more.

Katniss is not without her flaws, of course.  If she were, she’d be a pretty boring heroine.  Sometimes her justifiable, righteous anger gets in the way of her thinking about her best interests.  She’s a bit clueless when it comes to understanding interpersonal relationships, and really thickheaded when it takes her forever and a day to figure out that Peeta Mellark is head-over-heels in love with her.  But she’s admirable, tough, a rebel, and deeply cares about people.

Final thought: Katniss Everdeen is described as olive-skinned with dark hair in the books, with a thin, hungry frame.  Suzanne Collins keeps her ethnicity vague, one aspect of the book that I really liked.  So, of course, the directors went and cast a blue-eyed blonde after putting out a casting call that SPECIFICALLY asked for white actresses.  Fail.

Community 2×18 – “Custody Law and Eastern European Diplomacy”

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This week, Community was renewed for a third season on NBC, and there was much rejoicing.  Also, Britta ruined a friend for Troy and Abed, and Jeff tried to get rid of Chang by convincing him to try to impress Shirley.

Summary: Britta began dating a new friend of Troy and Abed’s, Luka (Dollhouse’s Enver Gjojak), and then found out he committed genocide in the Balkans (ruh roh!)  She struggled to find a way to tell them without making them hate her for wrecking their friendship.  Shirley tried to get Jeff to serve Chang with papers forfeiting any custody rights if the baby turns out to be his.  Instead, Jeff tries to encourage Chang to act like a real, responsible father, all with the ulterior motive of getting Chang off of his sofa. Continue reading →

Quinn Fabray and the Prom Queen Endgame: Thoughts on Glee 2×16 – “Original Song”

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I have many thoughts about last night’s episode of Glee.

First, while the lyrics for the original songs “Trouty Mouth,” “Big Assed Heart,” and “Oh Hell to the No” fell into the “so-bad-it’s-hilarious” category, the melodies for said songs were quite catchy and interesting.  They were certainly much better than the songs they performed at Regionals, which sounded like they came from the first draft of High School Musical but were rejected for being too twee and robotic-sounding.

Second, Kurt and Blaine finally kissed and set the world afire.  I loved absolutely everything about that moment – the way Blaine just went for it, Kurt’s initial hesitation like he couldn’t really believe it was happening, then touching Blaine’s face, letting his hand fall with a thud once they pulled away like the kiss was so wonderful it almost bowled him over…and, most of all, I loved that they kissed a second time, the camera cutting away halfway through, hinting that those boys kissed for a long time.  (No, I haven’t watched that scene ten times already, why do you ask?)

Third, I was amused – and not in a good way – by the show acknowledging that Blaine gets all of the Warblers solos, while still giving all of the New Directions solos to Rachel and Finn.  *sigh*

But even though all of those issues deserve long, ranty posts of their own, I want to take some time to talk about Quinn. Continue reading →

March Movies I Won’t Be Seeing (And One I Might)

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It’s trailer review time again!  Let’s see what movies I can ignore in March.

First up is Sucker Punch, starring a bunch of life-sized Bratz dolls:

Summary: A group of girls escape from an insane asylum where they have been imprisoned against their will, kicking ass and taking names on the way!  They also happen to be wearing next to nothing while they do this, but I’m sure that’s just a coincidence, right?

Predicting the ending: The girls win!  They beat up a bunch of bad guys while wearing fishnet stockings and not looking at all like a masturbatory twelve-year-old boy’s fantasy!

The Verdict: Dressing up young women as sex toys is the very cornerstone of feminism, isn’t it?  Oh, wait.  No, it’s not.  I’ll miss this one twice.  Continue reading →

Female Character of the Week: Buffy Summers

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March 10, 2011 marked the 14th anniversary of the airing of the first episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. This seems as good a time as any to honor Buffy Summers as my Female Character of the Week.

Name: Buffy Anne Summers

Why She Rocks: I’ve held off on writing about Buffy for a long time because I have almost too much to say about her.  How can I even begin to describe one of the most memorable – if not the most memorable – female characters in TV history?  Buffy is a cultural icon and I don’t know how to sum up seven years of awesomeness that she gave us.  But I’ll give it a shot and talk about the five reasons why I love Buffy.  Continue reading →

An Open Letter to the Writers of Glee Re: Episode 2×15 – “Sexy”

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Dear Ryan Murphy, Ian Brennan, and Brad Falchuk,

I waited until now to review the latest episode of Glee because I needed two days to calm my seething rage.  This last episode made me angrier than any episode until this date – and not for the usual reasons.

I wasn’t angry that you finally, finally decided to feature three great songs from the 70s and 80s – “Do You Wanna Touch Me,” “Kiss,” and “Landslide,” – but gave them all to Gwyneth Paltrow and her aggressively average singing voice instead of your talented, neglected regular cast members like Amber Riley and Jenna Uskhowitz.  I wasn’t angry that you ripped off South Park‘s Jonas Brothers episode with the Warblers’ dance in “white foam” (*cough*).

No, I was angry with your portrayal of the romantic relationships on the show.  Continue reading →