FtLoTV: The Half-Hour Comedy (Sitcom)

(I finally did it guys! First real post in the series. Better late than never right? LOL!)

Remember Friends? You know, the delightful, laugh-out-loud, ensemble-cast, scripted, situational comedy (sitcom) that aired for 10 years? I know you remember the back and forth of Ross & Rachel's romance, when Chandler & Monica finally came out of the closet, the realization that Phoebe might be normal once we met her twin sister Ursula, and the "How you doin'?" that was Joey's signature phrase. You know you know all the words to, "I'll Be There For You." You've even got the timing of the clap. You saw the series finale, the 236th episode, full of babies, laughter and a hint of sadness. I mean, how sad was it when they left Monica's apartment for the last time? And how relieved were you when you found out that Ross and Rachel finally got it right?

Yes, I am writing about these fictional characters as if they were real people, still living their lives, albeit without the camera lens, simultaneously the microscope and the window into their world, pointed in their direction. But that's the point isn't it? Sometimes television is SO GOOD that you get invested.

Friends is hands-down one of the most successful sitcoms in the history of television. Hell, each of the six main cast members were bringing in ONE MILLION DOLLARS PER EPSIODE in the final season. If you do a little math: 18 episodes x 6 million dollars = 108 million dollars paid in the final season for the principal cast ALONE--- and remember, this money is for 22 minutes of screen time.

Money aside, clearly both the network (NBC) and the viewers thought this was quality--- dare I say it?--- GREAT television. Nowadays, sitcoms seem few and far between, at least the good ones. The 80's, 90's and early 2000's were chock full.* There was:

Mad About You, Boy Meets World, 3rd Rock from the Sun, 8 Simple Rules, Cheers, Dougie Houser, Full House, Fresh Prince, The Parkers, The Steve Harvey Show, Golden Girls, Hanging with Mr. Cooper, Just Shoot Me, Better Off Ted, Living Single, Married With Children, The Nanny, Reba, Martin, My Name is Earl, Home Improvement, Becker, Girlfriends, Everybody Hates Chris, Dharma & Greg, The Cosby Show, A Different World, Scrubs, Sister Sister, Will & Grace, What I Like About You, Veronica's Closet, Frasier, etc.

... just to name a few. And all these shows ran for at least three seasons, something many shows these days are finding hard to do.

So what is it? Is the sitcom dying? I think not. There are some good sitcoms on TV, especially with the influx of new blood in the Fall 2011 season.

So here it is: the good, the bad, the ugly, and the GREAT.**

The GOOD

Raising Hope. I must admit, when I saw the write-up for this last year, I was not impressed. Considering the premise was that a serial killer got knocked up by an average 25 year-old Joe, who, when she was executed, had to take care of the baby, I did not see how the show could last. There are only so many episodes in that storyline. But all it took was one episode and I was hooked. And considering it's in it's second season, I guess a lot of other people were too.

Honorable Mentions: Whitney, The Big Bang Theory, New Girl

The BAD

Two and a Half Men. I never really watched it regularly before the Charlie Sheen fiasco, but I thought I'd give Ashton Kutcher a try. And while I admire the almost seamless replacement of the lead character, it's still not that funny. Perhaps it's like Seinfield and I just don't get it. And I guess sometimes, there's a joke in there that makes me say, "Ha. That was funny."*** But honestly, I just usually end up turning the channel.

Seriously sad: How To Be A Gentleman

THE UGLY

House of Payne. Though it does seem to be getting better, no one wants to watch someone make a complete ass of themselves EVERY EPISODE.**** It physically hurts. And immediately the viewer has to change the channel to something even SLIGHTLY less idiotic for fear of getting stupider.*****

Disgust: Meet the Browns (Really, Tyler Perry needs to do better.)

THE GREAT

If someone asked me, right now, what my favorite comedy on television was I'd have to say,

How I Met Your Mother

Why, you ask? Because not only is it GREAT television, (both the writing and the acting are superb!), but the lives of the characters are so outrageous, they are actually kind of relatable. And Neil Patrick Harris is so awesome in his role as Barney, sometimes I forget he's not actually his character. Plus, the writers weave in long-lasting storylines that sometime come up seasons later. LOVE IT!



Honorable Mentions: 2 Broke Girls, Happy Endings (it's the dialogue!), Cougar Town

Now, the two glaring omissions are Modern Family and It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia which apparently go into the GREAT category, but there isn't enough time in the day to watch the many, many seasons I'm behind. So I'll take the word of their many fans :)


Opinions? Agree or Disagree? Sound off in the comment section. 2000 points for anyone who responds with a TV show they'd like me to rate or a question to answer :)

TTFN!

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* The late 90's, early 2000's were, in my opinion, the golden era for black sitcoms. We should simultaneously thank and kick the WB and the CW for this era and it's downfall. Way to sell out guys!)

** This list does not include: Premium channel sitcoms (which are more 'dramedy' anyway) or animated shows, like Futurama, Drawn Together or Allen Gregory which are all awesome, by the way.

*** If something's sort of funny, I usually just state it. If I actually laugh out loud, then it's either really corny, or extremely hilarious. Those around me can usually tell the difference.

**** Embarass him/herself? YES. We eat that -ish up and think 'oh, I'm so glad that would never happen to me.' But act like a buffoon? NO. When it becomes so dumb that it's painful to watch, I wanna throw up a little in my mouth.

***** Yes, I know "stupider" is not a real word.

READ IT.

So I've been getting The Huffington Post Daily Brief in my inbox since before I knew it was cool.
Some stuff I just skip over either because I don't have time to read it or already read a bunch of articles about the topic, but sometimes I break down read all of the emails that have collected in my inbox (yes, I do have a special Politics inbox-- I'm a nerd, what can I tell ya?) and really look at them for content if not a similar opinion.

Yesterday? (Or some other day this week!) I found an article which pretty much sums up the way I feel about money, opportunity and people when those three words are found in the same conversation.

Kelli Goff, whose op-ed pieces I find quite fascinating, wrote an article entitled,

"Gwyneth Paltrow is Right. We're All Jealous (of her and George W. Bush)."

which is pretty much fan-frickin'-tastic.

Her claim is this: We understand that some people are born into privilege and some aren't. We accept that. It's a fact of life. But what really get our goad is when a person born into privilege A) doesn't realize it and B) further ignores his privilege by defining his success as an achievement which came solely from his own hard work.

NOTE: It's important to define the two major words at work in this article.
Privilege: a right, immunity or benefit enjoyed by a person beyond the advantages of most.
Success: the attainment of wealth, position, honors, or the like.

The reason for this note is that often people get the two confused in conversations like these, i.e. proponents of the "Don't hate; you're just jealous" mentality.

BACK TO IT.

Goff writes, it better than I do:

Well if your last name is Bush (or McCain or Kennedy for that matter) you don't need affirmative action programs, or Pell grants for college or an extension of unemployment benefits if you find yourself out of work, and your kids won't either. Why? Because you had the privilege of being born into privilege. And this is ultimately the issue. People should not be punished for being privileged. They can't help that anymore than the rest of us can help NOT being born into privilege. But it would be nice if they would extend the rest of us the courtesy of acknowledging their privilege, and not simply pretend that their success is built solely on a combination of hard work and chutzpah. But it seems like increasingly all we get to hear -- from members of Congress and now Ms. Paltrow -- is that if we're just a bit more disciplined and willing to work a little bit harder, we can achieve the same Dream as the privileged classes."


Now, isn't that just AWESOME? I love when people tell it like it is.


:) Love!

Ok, so I know I'm a little late with this...

But I am wholeheartedly and irrevocably in love with Alicia Key's song, "Un-thinkable" (I'm Ready).

I mean, did you see CHAD MICHAEL MURRAY?!?!?!

And while I almost threw up a little when I saw the mullet (DISGUST), I would be ready to take a step of faith for CMM too, lol.

Plus wasn't Alicia looking AMAZING in the video? I mean, whew! She was freaking gorgeous!

Anyway, not only were the actors good, so was the theme. They couldn't have picked a better subject/storyline/plot. A White/black lovestory-- and not the kind you usually see.

Just amazing.

I want a CMM for my birthday, ya'll. Who can make it happen, lol?
August 23 is right around the corner!

P.S. For those who'll ready this tonight or sometime tomorrow: I'll be in E-town tomorrow afternoon, hanging around downtown. Come join me! Movies, B&N run, anyone? Give me a call!

Frogs and Apes: Representations of Blackness, Part One

I will admit that sometimes this blog seems to me a bit inconsequential. I doubt that many people read it and those who do, know me and all about my life anyway. However, sometimes I blog about things wholly outside of myself (well as much as can be done) and hope that people will be informed and/or inspired to reflect on what I've written. So here goes.

This week I have seen at least two movies that deal with representations of blackness: The Princess (2009) and the Frog and Planet of the Apes (2001). Both of these movies, whether subtly or deliberately, engaged in conversation about race and race relations, however it took me by surprise that the movie about which I held the most hope for commenting positively about blackness ended up being the most disappointing. Here's why.

"The film, which began production under the working title The Frog Princess, is an American fairy tale, Broadway-style musical set in the French Quater of New Orleans at the height of the Roaring Twenties. A prince named Naveen (Bruno Campos) from the land of Maldonia is transformed into a frog by the evil scheming voodoo magician Dr. Facilier (Keith David). The frog prince mistakes a girl named Tiana (Anika Noni Rose) for a princess and has her kiss him to break the spell. The kiss does not break the spell, but instead turns Tiana into a frog as well. Together, the two of them must reach the good voodoo queen of the deepest, darkest part of the Bayou, Mama Odie (Jenifer Lewis), while befriending a trumpet-playing alligator Louis (Michael-Leon Wooley) and a hopelessly romantic Cajun firefly named Ray (Jim Cummings) along the way." (Wikipedia)

The Princess and the Frog seems an innocent enough movie. The main character, Tiana, is a hard working waitress who dreams of owning her own restaurant, a dream passed down by her father who died before it could be realized. However, the beginning of the movie, literally the first two minutes showed that this was not a movie by which long held beliefs about racial stereotypes would be challenged.

The opening scene reveals two little girls, one white and one black, listening intently as a black women reads them a story. She's accomplishing two tasks at once; she turns the pages even as she sews the little pink princess dress. This women is Eudora, the main character's mother who works as a seamstress for "Big Daddy" La Beouff, the wealthiest man in New Orleans. As she and Tiana board the bus for home after a long days work, the houses switch from styles grand and glorious to crumbling shacks. Years pass and we learn that as a young women Tiana works two waitress jobs and saves money so that she can open "Tiana's Place." (The viewer can already see that invisible "a" between the "P" and "l" when she, as all Princesses do, gets the happily ever after.) Lottie, who has heard that Prince Naveen from Maldonia is coming, hires Tiana to make her famous dessert and serve it at her impromptu ball, to help her win the prince's heart. Prince Naveen has come to win a rich lady's heart so that he may continue to play his music and "loaf,"but gets caught up in the Shadow Man's tricks and is turned into a frog while his valet masquerades as him so that they can split the money. It is at

I explain this in depth because all these scenes happen within the first half-hour of the movie and are the most problematic. First, the storyline is in no way based on the book, The Frog Princess or even the folktale "The Princess and the Frog. Tiana (whose name was supposed to be Maddy, but Disney quickly changed the name to something less "slave-like" to avoid controversy) is a waitress, not a princess. In the other two works, the Princess is a princess at the beginning of the story. I would have rather they left the title, the Frog Princess; it would have been less misleading. However, this can be overlooked since in other Disney stories, the girl starts out as little more than a nobody too.

However, the story is set in "real life"New Orleans. While I appreciate Disney's attempt to draw in history and place the story within a black context, why can't the black princess live in a land "far, far away"? The critics quoted by Wikipedia (who speak nothing of the controversy surrounding the movie) hail the movie as a Disney movie much like the old classics, but I disagree. I was expecting something more like a black Cinderella, but there were too many changes in the stock storyline for me to see it as anything but platitude.

Another problematic aspect is the voodoo aspect of the movie. This religion is most terribly represented. Too the movie makes it seem as if all black people in New Orleans believe and participate in this religion. One could argue that the focus of the movie blends in well with the settings history and culture--that New Orleans is a place where voodoo is practiced-- but even that argument fails because Princess movies aren't supposed to be specific (makes it harder for others to relate) but broad-cultured.

Lastly, there are three most devastating aspects which placed this movie forever into the "reject" pile. The first is that, for the most part, all the black people in this movie are the same color. HIGHLY problematic. Even allowing for the "sun" in New Orleans, there are ranges in color. Tied to this complaint is that the main character's skin tone changes. She is made to appear darker in her visions of the restaurant (perhaps to provide more contrast with her white dress). Apart from one mixed girl I knew in high school, people generally stay the same color from day to day (barring tanning of course). Secondly, the other black characters in this movie were portrayed negatively-- the cook who did not want Tiana to succeed and her "friends" who seemed unfazed that she was turning them down for dancing yet again. The other "black" characters, in contrast, were either animals or insects. Thirdly, the prince was not black. Ugh, while I appreciate the interracial aspect of the story, it would have been nice to see a black princess and a black prince live happily ever after, just like their white counterparts.

All in all, this movie was disappointing. It did nothing to further any helpful conversations about race and instead pandered to stereotypes which only further promote the view of "white as normal." Why else would the Prince not be black? (And if the Princess was the only thing Disney wanted to change, why is the Prince not white, but ambiguously raced?)

Somehow, this film seemed more about the "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" mentality, than the prince will rescue me storyline. Model minority propaganda, that's it. Plus, for over half of the movie, they're frogs. End of story.


* This post was too long, so I'll talk about the Planet of the Apes another day. Look for Part Two!