I’ll admit some of my reasons for writing this post are rather selfish. Parks & Recreation has quickly become my new favorite comedy (I’m sorry Community. I still love you), and I want others to understand its awesomeness (or at least give it a fair shot). Regardless, the show has a lot of good traits that I think are worth talking about. So here I give a few thoughts on what makes this show so fantastic.

Leslie Knope is Awesome!

I am not the first to fall in love with the charming, good-hearted, optimistic Deputy Parks Director. I could tell you what makes her so amazing, but others have said it so much better. Sady, over at Feministe.com, wrote a list of why she loves Leslie and it included things such as “You invented Galentine’s Day” (an annual celebration during which Leslie tells all the women in her life how much she loves and appreciates them), “you love your job without shame or reservation,” “you have a best friend, and she’s a GIRL!” and “you care.” Sady expands on all these ideas in her post, and she also takes some time to explore the differences between Leslie Knope and Liz Lemon.

Liz Lemon, the oft-discussed lead on 30 Rock has been the subject of much debate. Is she a feminist icon or not? What do we do with her? Sady suggests Leslie Knope may be a less frustrating alternative to serve as fictional feminist role model, and she offers a lot of convincing support. I recommend you read it if you haven’t. But then I recommend you read an article written by Kate Dailey on Newsweek.com. She echoes a lot of the same sentiments Sady expresses and offers some her own reasons for admiring Leslie. Dailey points out that Leslie is competent, and admired and supported by her colleagues. Leslie is also concerned with more than weddings and babies and the relationships she has are mature and genuine and they end just because they’re not right for each other, not because either party is crazy or neurotic. Many of these things are brought up specifically because they are the opposite of what we see from Liz Lemon, so Dailey takes things a step further and asks the question, “So what would Leslie Knope think about Liz Lemon?” and I think her answer is awesome;

That’s the best part, and the most telling: Leslie would be proud of Liz’s accomplishments. She would respect her desire for a husband and baby, and admire her career achievements. She’d encourage her efforts to get more respect as a female executive, while encouraging Lemon to reach out to the other women in her office. Leslie Knope understands that women’s advancement is about the advancement of all women, and that women need support from one another just as much—in fact, much more—than they need approval and access from the men that surround them. She might get frustrated with Liz; they may butt heads or disagree on certain points. But at the end of the day, Leslie realizes that she doesn’t need to compete with “Liz Lemonism,” and she’s not interested in besting Liz, shaming Liz, or proving Liz wrong. Instead, Leslie wants for Liz exactly what Liz wants for Liz: the freedom and confidence [to] make choices, the ability to command respect, and the opportunity to achieve all her goals.

Because Leslie Knope, overambitious dreamer that she is, believes that all women deserve those same advantages.

The other characters rock too Read the rest of this entry »

Back in high school I occasionally watched the first couple of seasons of Everwood on the WB. I found it enjoyable but when I moved away to college my tepid devotion to the show got lost in the transition. Due to a summer without work or school I’ve recently rediscovered the series, and I’ve found particular enjoyment in watching the relationship between bumbling but well-intentioned womanizer Bright Abbott and sweet, unassuming book worm Hannah Rogers. And lately with all the talk of body image on the site, I thought it would be interesting to take a closer look at an episode that deals specifically with that topic; the season 4 episode “Getting to Know You.”

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California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has recently appointed actress Geena Davis to a state commission aiming to promote women’s equality.  Sweet!

According to Wikipedia:

In 2004, while watching children’s television programs and videos with her daughter, Davis noticed what she thought was an imbalance in the ratio of male to female characters. From that starting point, Davis went on to sponsor the largest research project ever undertaken on gender in children’s entertainment (resulting in 4 discrete studies, including one on children’s television) at the Annenberg School for Communication of University of Southern California. The study, directed by Dr. Stacy Smith, shows that there are nearly 3 males to every 1 female character in the nearly 400 G, PG, PG-13, and R-Rated movies the undergraduate team of Annenberg students coded.

In 2005, Davis teamed up with the non-profit group Dads and Daughters to launch a venture dedicated to balancing the number of male and female characters in children’s TV and movie programming.

It’s nice to see someone with power, and with a background in the entertainment/film industry no less, acknowledging that this is a problem worthy of attention and taking steps towards change.  Let’s hope that Geena is able to really get the ball rolling and that change starts to happen!

(Check out Alethea Joy’s post on research inspired by Ms. Davis.)

I didn’t watch SNL last night, but got my recap today from Jezebel. As you know by now, I’m not sold on Tina Fey, and from what I gathered by the looks of last night’s skits, she’s not winning me over anytime soon. In fact, the more I pay attention to her, the worse my opinion seems to get.  Something in me really wanted Tina to be a super-feminist role model.  I wanted her to support other women and tackle the social structures that hold women down and pit them against one another - not rely on those structures to get a laugh.

The sketches from last night that I’ve seen capitalize on the following stereotypes:

• Single women need chocolate to fill the empty space in their lives left from the absence of a husband.
• Mistresses of married men are stupid, trashy, and immature (after all, they are the primary keepers of a husband’s fidelity, followed by the wife, and no responsibility whatsoever lies with the man himself).
• Relationships with parents are so uncool that even parents worry when their kids respect and admire them.
• Privileged white ladies are mean.  Actually, Tina is really giving this stereotype a leg to stand on.

Maybe it’s time for Tina to revisit that little movie she wrote a few years ago, you know, when she said: “You all have got to stop calling each other sluts and whores. It just makes it ok for guys to call you sluts and whores.”

Or maybe this is another one of those instances where feminism has cost me my sense of humor.  What did you think of Tina’s hosting job at SNL?

Friday Night Lights is an amazing TV show, and if you’re not watching it, you should be.

I’ve been in love with the show since about halfway through the first season. I, like many fans, grew a little concerned as the early part of second season brought in some elements that seemed out-of-place, but I chock that up to the network getting involved and since those few missteps the show has returned to being one of the most sweet, gut-wrenching, beautiful, raw, poignant and genuinely optimistic shows on television. While I can try to articulate its awesomeness, however, I know others have already said it so much better…

Read the rest of this entry »

My partner has really gotten into 30 Rock lately, but I’m still not sold.  I couldn’t bring myself to dedicate my time to watching the other seasons the way I did for season 1, and the snippets I’ve caught here and there of other episodes leave me grouchy much more often than smiling.

I still think Tina Fey is great – at least, I want to (check out this fantastic video of her discussing her daughter Alice).  But I can’t get on the Liz train.  Sady at Tiger Beatdown has a great rundown of the multitude of conflicts I experience with Liz:

Because if smart women who know how smart they are intimidate men (and they do), and beautiful women who know how beautiful they are intimidate men (and they do), there is, logically, nothing more intimidating than a woman who is fully aware that she is both smart and beautiful. I mean, maybe a room full of tigers with machine guns! That could be scarier! Or, a smart and beautiful lady who makes jokes.

Which isn’t to say she’s all bad, or isn’t likable, as she also addressed with Amanda at The Sexist:

She shares the sins of a certain privileged feminist lady, and that is why we love her, and that is why we sometimes want to throw things at her. She just means so well and often knows so little.

Beyond Tina/Liz, I just can’t get comfortable with Tracy/Tracy.  I recently watched the episode where Liz and Tracy each agree to give up their preferential treatment at work.  This results in Liz constantly making a fool of herself in trying to complete manual work, and Tracy being “good” at his job – showing up on time, knowing his lines, but lacking his trademark personality.  This could be used to illustrate that equality doesn’t mean equal treatment – that understanding diversity and recognizing the strengths and weaknesses of all people is what makes the world so rich.  Instead, it’s played for a laugh, the two cave and go back to the way they were.  Which is traditionally understood as Tracy is a big child. (More from that post at The Sexist: )

My understanding is that Tracy Jordan, the character, is very much like Tracy Morgan, the comedian. But the way plots are structured around him, as a crazy irresponsible childlike black man who these white people have to look after and keep on track, are just kind of . . . uncomfortable-making…  The whole “Tracy Jordan IS Tracy Morgan” thing kind of serves to strip the actor of any credit for this character he’s created. The idea is just that he’s SO WACKY and they somehow manage to capture his innate wackiness on film.

Bust magazine recently announced that they will feature Tracy Morgan as the cover for their “Men We Love” issue.  I am always thrilled to pick Bust up in my mailbox, but I’m concerned about this one.  The clip that they link in their post about him starts out alright with a discussion of roller skating, but quickly dissolves into a mockery of “cripples.”  Yikes.  We’ll see what they have to say when the April/May issue hits stands.

However, in all the places that 30 Rock has been letting me down, Parks & Recreation is showing promise.  I’ve only seen season 1, and I’m waiting until I can watch season 2 in it’s entirety, but I’m impressed so far and hearing that it only gets better.  Where Liz talks the talk, Leslie walks the walk – confidently doing her best in a man’s world.  Check out Sady’s love-letter to Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler) at Feministe:

Since your life is about your work, and about feminism — not in the abstract, Liz Lemonist sense, either, but in terms of actually and truly connecting with and helping other girls — and about your ideals and your friends and your goals for the city of Pawnee and for yourself, and very definitively not about any one dude or dudes in general, having Your Life Minus That One Dude was simply not a very big deal.

My life needs more Leslie Knopes and less Liz Lemons.

I’m struggling with what to think of Lipstick Jungle, NBC’s failed primetime soap chronicling the lives of three of New York’s wealthiest women.

The show was based on a book by Candace Bushnell, the same author behind the book that inspired Sex and the City. The show is different from SATC, however, if only in the fact that it was produced for network television, limiting some of the content and requiring constant breaks for commercials.

The three women in the show are Wendy Healy, President of Parador Pictures; Nico Reilly, editor-in-chief of Bonfire magazine; and Victory Ford, fashion designer. Each of the women struggle with running their own companies, maintaining their friendships, and dealing with the men in their lives.

Where Sex and the City had a more revolving cast of love interests, each of the women of Lipstick Jungle has more-or-less one man. Shane is Wendy’s musician husband who was essentially a house-husband until Wendy’s professional situation changed. Joe Bennett is an incredibly wealthy businessman that pursues and financially invests in Victory Ford. And Kirby Atwood is Nico’s younger, poorer, flame who, despite being featured prominently in every episode, only joins the main cast in season 2 (methinks they weren’t expecting him to stick around so long).

Only 20 episodes were produced, so it didn’t take me too long to make it through the entire series, but I don’t know that I ever fell in love with it. I never outright hated it either. Read the rest of this entry »

If you’re a sci-fi geek like me, you probably know about io9 (my favorite sci-fi blog) already, but in case you don’t, check out these cool updates on women in the realm of science fiction.

Amanda Seyfried To Get Her Red Hood Symbolically Dirtied Up By A Werewolf [io9]
Amanda Seyfried (whom you probably know for her role as Sarah Hendricks on Big Love or as Needy, the heroine of Jennifer’s Body) is rumored to have landed the lead in a retelling of Little Red Riding Hood.

We’re not so sure how we feel about our favorite new actress, Amanda Seyfried, taking on a sex-tinged supernatural thriller with original Twilight director Catherine Hardwicke. But if the werewolf Red Riding Hood movie delivers a Gothic twist, we’re interested.

Syfy Puts Felicia Day In Her Own Fairy Tale [i09]
First Glimpse Of Felicia Day Fighting Werewolves In Syfy’s “Red” [io9]
In other Little Red Riding Hood news, Felicia Day also has a cool new project in the works.  Between my love for Felicia thanks to Buffy, Dollhouse, Dr. Horrible and The Guild (yeah, she’s awesome – and also a babe) and my love for SyFy originals, you can count me in.

Syfy announced today that Day will play “a werewolf-hunting descendant of Little Red Riding Hood” in Red, a Syfy Channel Original Movie scheduled to premiere next year. According to the press release, Day won’t be the only werewolf-hunter in the movie: “In the action-packed Red, Red (Day) brings her fiancé home, where he meets the family and learns about their business – hunting werewolves. He’s skeptical until bitten by a werewolf. When her family insists he must be killed, Red tries saving him.”

NBC’s Superhero Soap Wins Over Geek Blog Crowd In One Simple Move [io9]
Another Whedon alumn is in the news: Summer Glau (Firefly and Dollhouse).  I haven’t heard much about this new show The Cape, but might have to check it out eventually.

Glau will play Orwell – dig the subtle reference – a character described as “a cute and intrepid investigative blogger who fearlessly goes after corrupt cops and costumed bad guys” in the NBC pilot that centers around a former cop who becomes a superhero in order to clear his name and win back his estranged son.

Where Is Our Wonder Woman Smallville? [io9]
Smallville never did it for me, but Graeme makes a decent argument for letting Wonder Woman have a shot at a coming-of-age pre-teen CW series.  I’m in favor, but beware the grouchy haters in the comments.

Is the legacy of Buffy The Vampire Slayer so strong that it’s scared the CW off any new genre adventure shows centered around female leads, or is this just laziness (“Hey, Smallville is all about a guy…”) or nerd-stereotyping (“Only men read comic books…”) at work?

Molly Crabapple’s New Comic About Cyborgs In 18th Century France [io9]
Finally, for all the steampunk and/or comic book lovers out there, Molly Crabapple‘s got a new project in the works.

We’ve featured Molly Crabapple’s art on io9 before, so we were excited when Molly wrote and said she’d just inked a deal with DC imprint Zuda to do an alternate history comic book about the cyborgs of Versailles.  Molly, who is doing the comic The Puppet Makers with John Leavitt, describes it as “a Rococo steampunk murder mystery.”

All this news makes me wish I still had cable (or television services at all) so I could get back into the world of science fiction, where women typically have a fighting chance at character development, strength and some level of integrity (which is not to say that there aren’t problems in sci-fi, too).  I’ll have to settle for rewatching those that have made it into my permanent collection, including the fantastic Alice, which has been out on DVD since March 8th (check it out if you haven’t yet!).

Lately I’ve developed an affection for TV shows that aired on ABC between 1989 and 1993. Doogie Howser, and the Wonder Years have been faves for some time, and nostalgia has led me to add thirtysomething and Life Goes On to my Netflix queue. Most recently, however, I’ve fell in love with a show I’ve actually been hunting down for years: Homefront.

Homefront aired on ABC from 1991-1993. Its short run means it was rarely syndicated and no one has gone through the trouble to release it on DVD, so creative googling and luck are necessary to hunt down VHS recordings. It was rather critically acclaimed during its initial run but failed to pull in the ratings necessary to guarantee renewal. It seems a very similar story to my favorite show on TV these days, Friday Night Lights. Kyle Chandler stars in both, but whereas Homefront died due to lack of viewership, Friday Night Lights had the advantage of being produced in a more flexible era of television, allowing it to live 5 (short) seasons–for which I am eternally grateful.

But back to Homefront. It’s an evening soap that revolves around a town, River Run, Ohio, at the end of WWII. The first episode begins with the young soldiers returning home from overseas and begins to explore the early post-war era.

Read the rest of this entry »

Star Trek: Enterprise – the final episode “These are the Voyages…”

Original Airdate: May 13, 2005

The final episode of Enterprise doesn’t quite seem as epic as it could have. TNG and Voyager both ended with a look ahead to the future as well as a nod to the past. DS9 left everyone parting ways with a farewell that served the characters and audience equally well. Enterprise, however, falls flat.

The episode takes us 6 years into the future (from the perspective of the last episode, 10 years after the pilot). The Enterprise is returning to earth where it will be decommissioned as the new, faster fleet comes to take its place. Captain Archer will give a speech honoring a new charter between humans and a handful other alien races. A hitch in the trip home comes when a former acquaintance, Shran, shows up. Apparently Archer owes this guy a favor, so the Enterprise helps him get his kidnapped daughter back.

(Click the link to check out the rest of the entry, but I’m putting SPOILER ALERT on this post. If you ever plan on watching Enterprise you might want elements of this episode to remain a surprise. The episode itself actually spoils those moments early on, but, well… I’m warning you anyway.)

Read the rest of this entry »