Gleefully Cliche

I like the TV show "Glee." I often tell my students that they should not feel the need to leave high school to experience the "real" world. For better or worse high school is part of the real world and it's best not to delude oneself otherwise. (If anything college is not the real world, but that is for another post.)

Glee has proudly positioned itself as the champion of the outcast, the downtrodden, the bullied. But it is frustrating because its depiction of the different groups that fall within these categories is so uneven. Glee is rightfully admired for its compassionate, subtle, nuanced and bold depiction of the plight of the gay teenager. The character Kurt Hummel is arguably Glee's biggest breakout and best character. Episode after episode tackled issues rarely touched by network television: coming out to your parents, being bullied because of your sexual orientation or one's first romantic experience.

But when the show strays from this story line to tackle issues of other characters whether they be Asian or obese or pregnant the show stumbles in to cliche or delusion. The Asian characters Mike Chang and Tina Cohen-Chang get their turn in the spotlight in the episode "The Asian F." But the show turns on an old Asian stereotype; the overbearing Asian parent who considers anything other than A pluses and medical school to be self indulgent and trite. This storyline isn't even very original seeing as it was done with a WASP twist twenty years ago in "Dead Poets Society."

The depiction of the life of a pregnant teenager, as seen in the story of Quinn Fabray, also fails to illustrate anything remotely connected to reality. On this topic Glee can't hold a candle to MTV's "16 and Pregnant" or "Teen Mom." But not only does it not do a very good job of wrestling with the reality of being a teenager in high school and pregnant but it manages to paper over the issue like it was really no big deal since Quinn puts her baby up for adoption, and after a brief period of lame rebellion, returns to school with her position on the Cheerios and the Glee Club restored. The baby story line seemed like a plot device that had served its purpose, become inconvenient, and needed to be discarded. It seems a pregnancy story line is manna to writers throughout Hollywood who then seem incapable of dealing with the consequences of a baby in the subsequent plot. It's like these writers need a television writer's version of birth control.

Of course a newborn baby that can be written out of the script and ignored is about as far removed from reality as one could get. But Glee and Quinn Fabray's are not alone in their dalliance with a TV show pregnancy. They have joined legions of other network TV hits who found a pregnancy story line much more interesting that the baby it produces such as 80's classics Family Ties and Growing Pains. (Of course I'm a child of the 80's so I'm sure there are many more recent examples to choose from.) Having a baby might threaten Happy Days "jumping the shark" as the new sign of the impending decline of a once enjoyable series.

But no story line was as disconnected from reality or shallow as its portrayal of the obese student Lauren Zizes. Lauren was written as a sassy, overweight girl whose attitude would rival the most callous prom queen. And this attitude seemed to pay off as she eventually attracts the attention of Noah Puckerman, the show's resident not-so-bright jock, who eventually serenades her with Queen's "Fat Bottom Girls." But does Lauren's character ring true in any way as compared to the way Kurt Hummel's does?

There is certainly plenty of territory for Glee to explore concerning the plight of an overweight student in high school. The epidemic of eating disorders, cutting and depression testifies to this fact. It appears that Glee is either incapable or unwilling to go there. And not only does Glee not go there but they seem to have unceremoniously dumped the Lauren Zizes character for season three.

In the end the fat character was dumped just like the baby.

In a political debate, far, far away...

In preparation for taking my son to see the release of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace in 3D I was perusing the original reviews at Rotten Tomatoes to verify if my horrible reaction to that movie was shared by the critics at the time. Unfortunately it was as bad as I remembered, seeing as it garnered a 38% rating from top critics.

As I scanned the views I was particularly intrigued by critics who liked the film. Lo and behold one of the movies defenders was none other than neoconservative extraordinaire John Podhoretz of the vile "Weekly Standard."

Is it any surprise that anyone who can say this:

ENOUGH with the whiny movie critics complaining about the new 'Star Wars'' movie. Like them, I was fully prepared to hate the thing when I arrived at the screening, but that prejudice was overcome by the movie's wondrous look and by its fascinating, multilayered plot. 'The Phantom Menace'' takes twists and turns you don't expect.

Can also say this:

Nothing would both surprise me, please me, and make me revisit a great deal of my thinking over the last couple of years, than if Barack Obama chooses to strike the Iranian nuclear program. I would revisit most of what I think about his foreign policy and his approach to the world. But that the United States would take military action against Iran – that seems almost science fictional to me at this point.

All that being said I'm still taking Sammy to see the rerelease of The Phantom Menace in the theater. Count on me to resist war with Iran but please don't ask me not to take my son to see a rerelease of a Star Wars film, a man can fight only so many battles.

Demography is destiny, for better or worse.

Demographic trends contain nothing but good news for those of us who are eager to see gay men and women have the right to marry whoever the hell they want. Additionally Democrats are eager to point to national demographic trends that identify hispanics, who overwhelmingly vote Democrat, as the fastest growing group in the country. It is hoped that they will soon help usher in a national Democratic governing coalition that will rival the FDR/New Deal coalition that dominated U.S. politics and policy from 1932 to 1980. These two charts summarize the demographic trends phenomenon nicely.

But sometimes when one lives by the sword one dies by the sword and there is an accompanying demographic trend that threatens liberal interests that is less talked about. While we may welcome the replacement of a generation of people who are homophobic and xenophobic we are simultaneously losing a generation who remembers an America before Social Security. Liberal or conservative, odds are if you are over the age of 65 you support the Social Security program.

One can argue that support for Social Security changes as an individual gets older but it is also plausible that support for Social Security falls as the country as a whole loses its collective memory of a country when intolerable numbers of seniors lived in poverty.

Our structural deficits are caused by three programs, Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid and the Military. For those of us who would like to see the lion's share of those cuts come from the defense sector we must remain vigilant that those who know best the critical importance of a strong social safety net are leaving us. It will be a tragedy if succeeding generations are allowed to forget this fact.

Watering the tree of liberty - War Room - Salon.com

Watering the tree of liberty - War Room - Salon.com: "The Tea Parties are based around the rhetoric of the American Revolution, which was a violent insurrection. It makes a sad sort of sense that a bunch of comfortable white reactionaries would dress up their childish tantrums with such grandiose language, because 'desperately protecting your privilege in the face of what appears to be the demise of the empire' sounds much less inspiring than 'defeating tyranny.'

As the Republican Party has become more homogeneous, more regional, and more reactionary, they have tended to make up for their growing demographic shortcomings by making sure their supporters are more motivated and energized -- and the most effective way to energize them has been to make sure they're constantly enraged."

Brawl in Beantown

My two favorite sports writers, and Boston natives to boot, Bill Simmons and Charles Pierce are in a nasty little spat. Given that I stumbled upon them independently of each other and enjoy both of their takes on sports I was saddened to learn of their animosity for one and other. Here is a summary from the Huffington Post about the most recent spat and here is Charles Pierces retort:

Quote from Huffington Post:

Author and ESPN writer Bill Simmons lashed out at writer Charles P. Pierce today on twitter, citing why he changed part of his book, "The Book of Basketball: The NBA According to The Sports Guy."

"Hey CPP: took you out of TBOB cuz you trashed it without ever mentioning that you used to email me all the time until I told you to eff off," Simmons tweeted.

Pierce wrote a review, which was posted on Deadspin, blasting Simmons' book in Nov. 2009.

Simmons also tweeted that he thought Pierce's review was dishonest and that he "came off like a spurned lover."

Pierce responded to the tweets in his blog, calling Simmons a "mendacious, whiny little thin-skinned bag of breeze."

Quote from Pierce:

We started an e-correspondence that was perfectly amiable. Then, at one point, right around Lebron's first year in the league, he fired off a pig-ignorant crack about Lebron's mother and the circumstances of Lebron's birth. This Blog sent him an e-mail saying, essentially, wow, that seemed a bit harsh. He replied with some snarkery and This Blog replied by telling him to "stay out of the deep end of the pool" until he'd actually learned how to report something. That was the last e-mail we ever exchanged.

Since then, he's been trafficking in the notion that he told This Blog to intercourse off because he was resisting its attempts to "mentor" him. (That's what he sold Whitlock. Pimp Hand, give us a call, man!) This is all my granny. This Blog had no intention of "mentoring" him because, to his credit, he was making his name in a new medium with which This Blog was not familiar, and because, if This Blog were going to mentor someone, it would pick someone with more intellectual integrity who was a helluva lot tougher. This Blog would be perfectly willing to explain this all to his face, including its genuine admiration for much of what he's accomplished, but, given his history in such matters, it fears it may die an unfulfilled blog in this regard.

I'm torn since I have affection for both but the giveaway is Bill Simmons' insult of Charles Pierce's career. Either Pierce doesn't care about how people perceive his career and Simmons' insult is futile and lame or he does care and Simmons' is gloating and being ungracious in light of his success. Either way Simmons is acting like a baby.

Lewinsky, Assange and Feminism

Feminist solidarity seems to be fracturing over the rape allegations against Julian Assange much the same way they did against Monica Lewinsky during the Clinton impeachment brouhaha. Writing in Salon.com, Kate Harding attempts to apply the brakes to the efforts to smear Assange's accusers:

Quote:

As of today, even Naomi Wolf -- Naomi Effin' Wolf! -- has taken a public swipe at Assange's accusers, using her status as a "longtime feminist" to underscore the absurdity of "the alleged victims ... using feminist-inspired rhetoric and law to assuage what appears to be personal injured feelings."

Wow. Admittedly, I don't have as much experience being a feminist as Wolf has, but when I see a swarm of people with exactly zero direct access to the facts of a rape case loudly insisting that the accusation has no merit, I usually start to wonder about their credibility. And their sources.

Why would a prominent feminist be leading the charge to discredit a potential victim of sexual abuse? Like Bill Clinton, Julian Assange's political activities are cheered by the left but when the champions of these leftist causes are accused of abusing women, feminists are put in an uncomfortable spot. Do they stand with the powerful man who has the opportunity to use his power to advance their political agenda or do they stand with the women who accuse them of sexual crimes?

This question was addressed by Professor Juliet A. Williams of the University of California at Santa Barbara in her paper The Personal is Political: Thinking Through the Clinton/Lewinsky/Starr Affair:

Quote:

Still, there is something to the point that feminists did not participate as fully in the public discourse on this issue as they might have. This reflects, in part, a self-conscious decision, made early on by organizations like NOW, the Black Leadership Forum, and many others, to treat the Clinton/Lewinsky/Starr matter as an inappropriate subject for public scrutiny given that the core concern was a private affair between two consenting adults. In other words, they concluded that as long as Clinton’s sexual dalliances fell short of the high legal standards set for showing sexual harassment or rape, the details of his social life should remain sheltered from public scrutiny. The general opinion seemed to be that real progress for women is best ensured by having a “pro-woman” president like Clinton in office, however disappointing his personal choices might be.

For reasons both principled and strategic, then, many feminists deemed it unwise to use the Clinton–Lewinsky affair as an occasion to push the feminist agenda forward on issues like workplace harassment and sex discrimination. But how wise was their retreat to the privacy defense of Clinton? More generally, what is lost when feminists abstain in principled silence from public discourse? Answers to these questions bears on the meaning of politics, the status of women, and the contribution feminism can make to people interested in transforming gender relations in this country.

Monica Lewinsky, unlike the women in the Julian Assange case, did not claim to be sexually assaulted or raped, but I find it hard to believe that if President Clinton had been a Republican feminist groups would not have led the charge down Pennsylvania Avenue and stormed the gates of the White House.

Returning to the Assange case, Harding concludes in her Salon.com article:

Quote:

Public evidence, as the Times noted, is scarce. So, it's heartening to see that in the absence of same, my fellow liberal bloggers are so eager to abandon any pretense of healthy skepticism and rush to discredit an alleged rape victim based on some tabloid articles and a feverish post by someone who is perhaps not the most trustworthy source. Well done, friends! What a fantastic show of research, critical thinking and, as always, respect for women.

Assange may or may not be guilty. There is plenty of reasons to be skeptical of the charges levied against him but do feminists really need to be leading the charge on his behalf against the women making the accusations? Feminists' default should always be to side with the women. Sexual assault and rape accusations are woefully underreported as is. It is likely that there is a recent victim of sexual assault or rape watching these events unfold and noting the fact that feminists like Wolf are trashing Assange's accusers. What conclusion should she reach when deciding whether or not to go to the police?

The defense of Assange would be best if it was left to others.

Massachusetts' Miracle?

Noam Sheiber at The New Republic identifies Governor Deval Patrick's 2010 campaign as the model Obama and his aides are hoping will lead to his re-election in 2012. Interesting:

Barack Obama, Tax Cuts, 2012, And David Axelrod: Inside A Divided White House | The New Republic

Quote:

Of all the historical analogies urged on Obama following November’s drubbing—Truman in ’48, Reagan after ’82, Clinton after ’94—the one the White House has opted for is easily the most obscure. That would be Patrick in ’10—as in Deval Patrick, the recently re-elected governor of Massachusetts. Months after Patrick signed the state’s first sales-tax hike in 33 years, political chatterers gave him little chance of surviving to a second term. Not only did he face the same foul, anti-incumbent mood that elected Scott Brown, he’d drawn an attractive GOP candidate in businessman Charlie Baker.

Patrick’s handlers recommended that he distance himself from liberals in the state legislature—and, above all, downplay the tax increase. The governor overruled them. His first commercialhighlighted the “combination of deep cuts and new revenue” he’d accepted to close the state’s budget shortfall. “He all but said, ‘I raised taxes.’ Jesus Christ,” recalls one still-traumatized adviser. “He thought the way to do it was to be true to what he ran on [in 2006]”—the belief that voters will support someone who levels with them, even if they don’t love every decision. In the end, Patrick and his “politics of conviction” won by a comfortable seven-point margin.