Yesterday

This is what I don't get: what's with the nostalgia for the 60's? You have all this hubbub over The Help and before that there was Mad Men. Now, the Fall TV line-up includes Pan Am and The Playboy Club. The Nationalist scholar in me says this might be a backlash against Obama as president--a longing for a time when there was absolutely no chance for a black man to be the head of the PTA let alone be the POTUS. The Feminist scholar in me is suspicious of these portrayals of women in subjugated positions. Stewardess? (And I meant to use that word.) Playboy bunny? Th Gen Xer in me is just annoyed.

I remember a few years ago there was a sketch on MadTV about this 50's restaurant that had opened up. Four friends went to dine there, a white couple and a black couple. They all thought it was great with its rock and roll jukebox and the waitresses in poodle skirts. It was great until the black couple couldn't be served. They were directed to a sign on the wall that read "No coloreds." The clamor for these 60s-inspired shows seems similar. Just what is the nostalgia for?

I am open to the idea that these shows are just the result of the TV& Film industry's total lack of originality. But even if the intent is innocent,what will be the outcome? How will this nostalgia for the 60s shape our 21st century world?

Words, Words, Words

Clearly words matter and they have a premium attached!

I am appalled that the NFL thinks it owns the rights to the phrase "Who Dat." Who is dat?

I'm nobody's football fan and quite frankly, this weekend, Mickey Mouse could emerge the champion and I would be just as happy or sad, but it is wrong for some behemoth corporation to lay claim to a phrase that people have been using for years and years. How do you just get to own it? Because you say so?

Apparently, the NFL has backtracked since they first sent out cease-and-desist letters to store owners who were selling products with "Who Dat" on it and now they say you cannot sell the phrase in conjunction with trademarked Saints logo. Whatever. I believe they clearly thought they would be able to bully people into thinking they owned those words.

And this, my dear students, is why giving people credit for their words/works is so important.

You Can't Go Home Again

I guess I'm stepping back onto my soap box. This fall's tv lineup will include the new 90210. The new 90210! Do we need another 90210? Do we even need another teen drama series? Isn't there enough sex and deception and angst on tv in the form of One Tree Hill, Gossip Girl and The Hills? On the promos the creators said that this 90210 will be edgier, sexier, more controversial than the first. How much edgier can you get it? Why is it entertaining to watch high schoolers sluttin' it up? Really, I find it a little disturbing that adults would be watching high scoolers sluttin' it up. I know you may say that adults are not the target demographic, but the creators did say that they expect the original show's fans to watch also. And the fact that they have Jennie Garth reprising her role as Kelly Taylor says that they are trying to pull in old fans (who are definitely no longer teenagers).

As I watched the cast members (only a few; I couldn't get through all of the intros) talk about their characters, I just didn't care. I did not care that Silver would be the atypical high schooler who is a free spirit type (sadly, she does not sound like an atypical high school tv character). I did not care that Naomi is the hot rich girl with the on-again/off again relationship with sexy Ethan and she gets whatever she wants. I just didn't care. As I watched, I was thinking, "Been there, done that."

I know the next generation has not been there, done that (actually they have--One Tree Hill, Gossip Girl, The Hills), but people, COME UP WITH NEW IDEAS! Stop trying to make us relive yesterday. 90210 is Generation X's memory; not Gen Yers'. Hollywood will suck the life out of anything, then revive it and suck the life back out. They didn't even bother to come up with a new premise--a wholsome, nuclear family with one boy, one girl (both teenagers) from the heart of America comes to rich, wild Beverly Hills and tries to adjust.

Okay, I am just venting. But we should demand more out of the film and tv industry. We're smarter; we deserve more. Steel Magnolia, you like to write letters. Write them a letter. I will do my part--I'm not going to watch. Do you think they'll get the message?

Not So Smurftastic

When I was a little girl, I used to get up on Saturday mornings around 7. (I should interject here that I chalk this up to the folly of youth and not craziness. As a kid, I apparently did not understand as I do now that sleep is too precious to regularly squander it on a Saturday morning.) Because my parents understood the value of sleep, they were not awake and therefore no breakfast would be ready for me. So, I would make myself a mustard sandwich (I have since realized that two pieces of white bread joined by a thin spread of mustard is disgusting!) and plop down in front of the tv to watch Alvin and the Chipmunks and my favorite show, The Smurfs.

I loved watching the adventures of the 100 little blue creatures as they moved in and out of their mushroom houses in the forest trying to get away from Gargamel and Azrael. I thought Brainy Smurf was annoying and Papa Smurf had all the answers and Smurfette was beautiful. I loved trying to figure out what "smurf" meant in their language as in "You look smurfy today" or "I'm going smurfing." Even today, when I go on a long road trip, I can't resist thinking about the journeys the Smurfs took and how they would always ask if they were there yet. Papa Smurf would tell them no, but it wouldn't be much further. Without variation, they would ask the same question again and again until eventually he would sigh and yell, "Yes, it is much further!" (Or something close to that.) That's classic for me. It all is.

So I am a little disappointed--no, I'm mad, that they are creating a Smurfs movie. It's not so much that a new generation should not be allowed the same joy I experienced. I am mad because this movie is one more in a long line of television show-turned-movie. Need I list them? Bewitched, Transformers, The Incredible Hulk, The Dukes of Hazzard, Sex and the City, Speed Racer, The Incredible Hulk again, Get Smart, Miami Vice, and Alvin & the Chipmunks. The list goes on and on and these debuted just in the last few years. I have seen many of the movies in this list and I must say that I was disappointed. They were not nearly as good as the original shows or at least not as good as I remember them. This makes me wish I had not sullied the memory of the show with the viewing of the film. (Not to give away anything about Sex and the City which I encourage you to go see if you want, but it ranks high on my list of tv-shows-into-movies that I wish I had avoided.) All of this brings me to my next and main point: What happened to the creativity and originality?

Can anyone write anymore? Does anyone have an original idea? It seems that almost every movie that comes out now is based on a television show or a video game or a novel, or heaven forbid, just a remake of another movie (I was floored when I sat down to watch Jimmy Stewart in a 1940 movie, The Shop Around the Corner, and realized half way into it that it was an earlier version of You've Got Mail. Really?!?). I know nothing is new under the sun, but people just don't even try anymore. Our music is not original, our television shows are not original. I've been watching coverage of the Democratic presidential race and it has become a game for me to turn back and forth between the networks to listen to the different pundits and surrogates say the same phrases in response to the same questions asked by the different interviewers. Even our thoughts are no longer original. What does this say for the future of our country when no one can think outside the box? (Look at that--I used a trite, unoriginal phrase). Everything is just a reproduction of some earlier product. When I think about jazz and hip hop, the notion of creating a country built on Democracy, I am saddened because we used to be original. Can we go on like this?

Needless to say, I won't be going to see the Smurfs movie. Hopefully, however, I won't have to keep repeating the same question about originality: Are we there yet?