Lena Dunham/"Girls"
This was the year in which an uber-privileged white girl wrote a show called "Girls" in which the people of color that populate New York City became a backdrop upon which to paint a portrait of said privilege. The fact that Dunham knew exactly what she was doing and made a conscious decision to NOT include any queers or POC in significant roles on her show makes it all so much worse. And yet, even after a brutal take-down by critics, blogs, and viewers, white people's love of watching neurotic white people won out. The AV Club, which is my go-to place for online TV criticism, wrote this and I died a little inside:
Our choice for the best new show of 2012, the HBO dramedy Girls provoked intense controversies of varying degrees of legitimacy—the supposed nepotism afforded to creator Lena Dunham, the cast’s lack of non-white actors, the dogged obnoxiousness of most of the show’s characters—that initially overshadowed the fact that the first season turned out to be one of the most assured, well-drawn debut seasons of television ever.Like, those controversies SHOULD overshadow anything else (and I've watched the show, and I disagree heartily with their ending statement)! Just because you think we need to examine the horrible garbage lives of rich white girls in Brooklyn or think Brian William's daughter is hot should not mean that the show gets a pass for its blatantly racist and pointedly obnoxious behavior. And they listed it above both Community and Game Of Thrones, which just proves how stupid they are.
Anyway, then Lena Dunham continued to prove that she is and will forever be The Worst when her book proposal got leaked to Gawker and exposed for the pretentious, sheltered, worthless nonsense that is is. "Once I had a vegan dinner party that was chronicled for the style section of the New York Times", she muses. OH PLEASE Lena Dunham, share with me all your secrets so that I, TOO can become this paragon of the American woman that you so grandly represent. Many a girl has dreamed of having her catered vegan dinner party written up in the NYT, but you have achieved it (because your mother is super wealthy and well-connected and YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND WHAT REAL LIFE IS LIKE). I really hope that 2013 is the year of the anti-Dunham, because we desperately, desperately need one. Women of color with real life experience - make me a TV show!
Also, the outfit in the above picture was dubbed The No. 1 Worst Dressed over at TLo, which makes me very happy because it is definitely the worst outfit I've ever seen. Dunham so obviously goes out of her way to look unattractive because she thinks it adds to her quirkiness, but really it just makes her look like a tool, desperate for some kind of hook that will keep her from being the boring rich girl we all know her to be.
You can tell I really don't like anything about her. And when people tell me they enjoy "Girls"...I understand. It's not the worst written show on television. But Dunham's blind, one-dimensional attitude and unstoppable perpetuation of the hegemony of rich white culture make it not only unwatchable, but just plain offensive. She's all over 2012 Best Of lists...which I hope will mean that next year everyone will be sick of her shit and she'll fade into a semi-obscurity of making bad narcissistic "art". A girl can dream, can't she?
Chevy Chase (and NBC/Sony)
"Fuck you, Chevy" - Dan Harmon
Do I really need to get into this again? I've written about it here and here and Chevy was finally let go from Community last week. He's a huge asshole. He basically put into motion the events that got Dan Harmon fired. He's stuck in a '70s mindset about what comedy is because that's what his ego is based upon, and if he can't recognize the artistic and cultural power that sitcoms have today it's because he's an out-of-touch old man. Fuck him.
The Newsroom
The Newsroom Is Bad and has only gotten worse and the fact that it is nominated for a Golden Globe only proves what frittataed nonsense the Golden Globes are.
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I've been wracking my brain trying to find other things that deserve a spot on this list...and can't really find any. I mean, Mitt Romney, definitely, but I don't need to write a paragraph about why he's The Worst because we all know why and he's become a powerless ghost anyhow so let's not waste any more space on him. Even I have to admit that Seth MacFarlane was pretty good in that SNL Gangnam Style skit. I didn't get into an uproar over Honey Boo Boo, and most of the new fall shows have been boring retreads at worst. But Lena Dunham obviously wins The Sacko for Worst Pop Culture Thing 2012. I just wish I could send Ruxin and Pete to dole out her Sacko penalties.
The Best list, which will be much longer because thankfully this year has brought more love than hate, will be up before the new year since I am housesitting and have become ensconced in a triple layer of goose down on a giant couch with plenty of dog cuddles which as it turns out are ideal conditions for blogging.
Almost as obnoxious and racist as that terrible show about affluent white New Yorkers... Friends! Where is the social justice in television these days? Have they no white guilt?
ReplyDeleteYou haven't seen enough Friends. I've written before about Friends' whiteness, but it was never racist. There were people of color populating the show from the very beginning - Ross dates a Chinese woman in the 2nd season - and Aisha Tyler in the 8th or 9th. There were characters who were Latino and Black but also Italian, British, Jewish, Dutch, etc. Much like Seinfeld, it made an effort to represent New York as a multicultural city, which it obviously is. Girls, on the other hand, uses people of color as hollow props for the white characters. In the pilot the only POC who has a speaking line is an old black homeless man who shouts at Dunham's character in the final scene. Friends had a homeless main character.
ReplyDeleteYou also have to remember that Friends did not exist in a world where we have a black president and Twitter and Trayvon Martin and a much more developed cultural consciousness about white privilege and the ways it is expressed through the media and the resulting social repercussions. Girls, as a result, must be held to a higher level of expectation.
Thanks for the comment, dude. :)