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precision you seem like an awful person and I think you should do some self-examination/improvement hth 
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Jan 13, 2014 01:30
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You are already missing some great stuff at the Golden Globes:
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Jan 13, 2014 01:34
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ufarn posted:You are already missing some great stuff at the Golden Globes:  Jesus Christ.
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Jan 13, 2014 01:36
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Hannah seems like an obnoxious human being who I would want to stab in the neck if I had to sit next to her at a party and listen to a lot of those words come out of a live human being. Lena Dunham also seems irritating and someone I would not be friends with based on her public persona and interviews. But there have been plenty of annoying entitled oblivious slacker difficult loser male characters on TV shows and rarely do they encounter the sort of intense distaste that is directed towards Hannah in Girls. If you don't think that's driven - not totally, but mainly - by the gender of the character then you live in a world that I do not think is the actual world.
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Jan 13, 2014 01:38
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ufarn posted:You are already missing some great stuff at the Golden Globes: Over on E, Jennifer Lawrence made funny faces behind Taylor Swift, and then told Ryan Seacrest that she wanted to push Taylor down the steps. Jennifer Lawrence is the best. 
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Jan 13, 2014 01:50
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No Globe thread this year? 
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Jan 13, 2014 01:59
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I feel like less history is going to be made and more I'm going to watch Amy Poehler and Tina Fey make jokes for 3 hours.
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Jan 13, 2014 01:59
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der juicen posted:No Globe thread this year? Just make it
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Jan 13, 2014 02:00
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No one is making it, the expectations for the OP are at zero. I love circlejerking about stupid award shows - and the half-time show at the NFL, whose threads literally make me cry with laughter - although I'm not going to be joining tonight. Goons are awesome at hating on things, and there'll be plenty to hate on tonight.
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Jan 13, 2014 02:02
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ufarn posted:I don't know, I think it's awesome it has a trans* person on the show, but it'd definitely be great to have a show of diverse women not set in a prison system. I meant progressive. As in having a cast made of 200 hundred women or so, and being entirely about their paths and tribilations. Thats pretty unique I think.
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Jan 13, 2014 02:04
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Sophia posted:Hannah seems like an obnoxious human being who I would want to stab in the neck if I had to sit next to her at a party and listen to a lot of those words come out of a live human being. Lena Dunham also seems irritating and someone I would not be friends with based on her public persona and interviews. But there have been plenty of annoying entitled oblivious slacker difficult loser male characters on TV shows and rarely do they encounter the sort of intense distaste that is directed towards Hannah in Girls. If you don't think that's driven - not totally, but mainly - by the gender of the character then you live in a world that I do not think is the actual world. I think you're missing what I'm saying, which is that I don't know who specifically these people are. Link to some major/important TV critics who you (or anyone) can coherently argue dislike Girls, Lena Dunham, or Hannah because they're misogynist and not for the many other reasons that people dislike things. Let me be crystal clear: I'm sure there are horrible people on the Internet with terrible opinions (misogynists, fascists, bronies) but I am not really sure that discussing "those people" without actually citing them is... well isn't that the definition of a "strawman"? And if they're just people ranting on Reddit (or on here!) it would probably be best to confront them or ignore them in discussion - if you can't define what specifically you're arguing against, if you're just saying "Oh, well, you know, THOSE PEOPLE that exist, they suck"... I'm just not seeing the value of that discussion. Which is fine, because I talk about totally worthless poo poo all the time. I'm not trying to argue or be contrary, it's just my opinion that discussing art criticism must necessarily involve actually referring to specific critics or criticisms. If nobody wants to do that, I'm OK with that too. It is, after all, just television. I hope that clears things up. Tollymain posted:precision you seem like an awful person and I think you should do some self-examination/improvement hth OK, serious question (for the mods): Does Couch Chat operate using "GBS 2.1 rules"? I've been probated for a harmless "lol" at the end of a post, I was under the impression that SA frowns upon lack of punctuation and Internet shorthand slang. If I'm mistaken in that, cool, good to know we can shitpost in here (that's sarcasm).
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Jan 13, 2014 03:43
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precision posted:If I'm mistaken in that, cool, good to know we can shitpost in here (that's sarcasm). Your mouth says it's just a joke but your hips and eyes don't lie.
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Jan 13, 2014 04:08
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Sophia posted:
The problem here is that you're completely ignoring the function that those characters play in a show. Normally slacked characters aren't the protagonist and aren't who the audience are meant to identify with. If they are a side character then they are often goofy and sweet to give them redeeming qualities. You may say that Hannah and Joey share the same overly ambitious nature combined with a lack of self awareness but I'm also sure Joey never wished he had aids. If the slacker character is the protagonist then the narrative drive is about them bettering themselves and sorting out their lives, like Earl. Hannah meanwhile seems to be going nowhere fast; she isn't growing as a person and learning how destructive she is, just growing more destructive. This is devastating to the audience when Don Draper does it not because he has a penis but because the show has taken time to show us him as a happier, more comfortable person that we long for him to become. Hannah meanwhile already seems to be happy and comfortable being awful. When Judd Apatow ask why we're okay with a man cooking Meth and not a girl being mean in New York the answer isn't because Walter has a dick and Hannah has a vagina it's because Walter and his narrative are very clearly heading in a direction where all of his horrible acts will catch up with him, and that's interesting to watch. Walt choose to cook Meth. Hannah meanwhile didn't choose to be awful and a slacker; when the series starts she simply is and has been for a long time. When Vince Gilligan was asked if he liked Walt he'd say no, and explain that the series is about a character doing horrible things and eventually paying for them. The first moment of the first episode promises this to the viewer. When Dunham is asked if she likes Hannah she says yes, and the series has promised no such downfall. In fact, given the obvious comparison to Lena and Hannah and the book dealer that Hannah just got rewarded it seems like Girls is promising the exact opposite; an awful person does awful things and succeeds. A lot of people find that off putting, male or female.
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Jan 13, 2014 04:18
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Shageletic posted:Been trying to power through Maron and failing miserably. Any other Pete Holmes guest appearances? He was one of the few glimmers of humor that I've caught so far. In the another thread I called it "the Sam's Cola to Louie's Coke Classic" and I stand by that. They're superficially similar shows but Maron has almost none of the depth or nuance or humor; the episode of Louie where he goes on a date with Parker Posey was amazing in the way that is gradually showed that she was a woman with flaws and a history yet still walked a tightrope of making her an attractive and insightful person, whereas when Maron tackles the same concept it never rises above "bitches be crazy" where they're all psycho stalkers or manipulative dominatrixes or fame-hungry golddiggers.
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Jan 13, 2014 04:50
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Good Lord True Detective's opening credits may be among the best I've ever seen. EDIT: I'm actually rewinding to watch them again, that was amazing.
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Jan 13, 2014 05:03
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DivisionPost posted:Good Lord True Detective's opening credits may be among the best I've ever seen. drat creepy, appointment TV right here. What are there 10 episodes?
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Jan 13, 2014 05:08
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tomapot posted:drat creepy, appointment TV right here. What are there 10 episodes? 8 episodes
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Jan 13, 2014 05:14
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PriorMarcus posted:The problem here is that you're completely ignoring the function that those characters play in a show. Normally slacked characters aren't the protagonist and aren't who the audience are meant to identify with. If they are a side character then they are often goofy and sweet to give them redeeming qualities. You may say that Hannah and Joey share the same overly ambitious nature combined with a lack of self awareness but I'm also sure Joey never wished he had aids. A poo poo ton of people actively sided with Walt and wanted him to not have to face consequences so I am going to say that probably isn't too accurate. Hell people argued he wasn't even that bad a person.
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Jan 13, 2014 05:33
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CharlestheHammer posted:A poo poo ton of people actively sided with Walt and wanted him to not have to face consequences so I am going to say that probably isn't too accurate. Hell people argued he wasn't even that bad a person. I think it has to do with sympathy/likability for characters. Also, fans are sometimes stupid/ignorant. I mean, there are probably people glad that Dexter didn't die or suffer at all in the series finale.
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Jan 13, 2014 05:46
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Postal Parcel posted:I think it has to do with sympathy/likability for characters. Also, fans are sometimes stupid/ignorant. I mean, there are probably people glad that Dexter didn't die or suffer at all in the series finale. Well I thought his whole point was that Walter was unlikable or the comparison to work.
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Jan 13, 2014 05:47
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Why would you want Walter to be caught? The show would end.
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Jan 13, 2014 05:47
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precision posted:I think you're missing what I'm saying, which is that I don't know who specifically these people are. Link to some major/important TV critics who you (or anyone) can coherently argue dislike Girls, Lena Dunham, or Hannah because they're misogynist and not for the many other reasons that people dislike things. This is a thought experiment so just pretend Girls doesn't exist for now. Okay so given Spatula City was talking about a generalized undercurrent of misogyny in a lot of reactions to the show and compared that to the reactions to Skyler White, could you go ahead and apply this same standard you're proposing here to support the argument that perceptions of Skyler White were impacted by misogyny? Meaning show some links to critics, and present a coherent argument that their criticisms are unfounded outside of base misogynistic attitudes? I'm presuming you already agree about Skyler, but I'd just like to see this level of scrutiny in action here. Just seems a weirdly high standard imposed here on someone describing their generalized perception of part of the audience's perception here (not even a media one) in a two paragraph forum post. I mean I'm content with someone making a forums post suggesting these misogynistic attitudes and supporting with something as uncomplicated as how BB fans weigh Skyler's sins more heavily or similarly how the conversation about Girls is so heavily dominated by some fair criticism but that no one seems very interested in talking about in other shows guilty of the same things when those shows are being discussed independently. For a simple post that's enough for me to go "okay yeah I can see where that might be the case here" and move on.
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Jan 13, 2014 05:48
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Mu Zeta posted:Why would you want Walter to be caught? The show would end. You know a prison season would have been badass.
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Jan 13, 2014 05:48
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EvilTobaccoExec posted:You know a prison season would have been badass. Prison Breaking Bad
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Jan 13, 2014 05:59
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Spatula City posted:Lena Dunham and Skylar as played by Anna Gunn demonstrate that men are bothered by complicated women. I started Breaking Bad after its finale aired and watched it without reading about it on the internet. When I finished and later found out that there was so much hatred for Skyler, that bothered me so much that I realized television without internet commentary is the way to go from now on. But it pains me to see Skyler mentioned together with Girls. I think there's a lot more room there to dislike it without it needing to be explained by misogyny.
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Jan 13, 2014 06:04
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CAPTAIN CAPSLOCK posted:Prison Breaking Bad Prison breaking, bad?
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Jan 13, 2014 06:40
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CAPTAIN CAPSLOCK posted:Prison Breaking Bad Probably a better show than Better Call Saul will be. gently caress it, get Wentworth Miller on the line. We're gonna make this happen.
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Jan 13, 2014 06:46
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ChickenMedium posted:Probably a better show than Better Call Saul will be. Oh, God, I'm dreading that show's thread. With the act it has to follow that thread's going to be nothing but a cesspool of pithy hatred, deserved or otherwise.
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Jan 13, 2014 06:50
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Game of Thrones S4 trailer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZY43QSx3Fk
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Jan 13, 2014 07:38
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Mu Zeta posted:Game of Thrones S4 trailer. drat, that's an exciting way to start a Monday morning.
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Jan 13, 2014 08:19
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EvilTobaccoExec posted:This is a thought experiment so just pretend Girls doesn't exist for now. Okay so given Spatula City was talking about a generalized undercurrent of misogyny in a lot of reactions to the show and compared that to the reactions to Skyler White, could you go ahead and apply this same standard you're proposing here to support the argument that perceptions of Skyler White were impacted by misogyny? Meaning show some links to critics, and present a coherent argument that their criticisms are unfounded outside of base misogynistic attitudes? Nah, you have a point here. I think the only thing I would say to that is that I can't really think of anything Skyler did that was actually... bad? Hannah does terrible things, all the time. That's why it seems like a very strange comparison. I think that would be my entire "coherent argument", that if you look at Skyler and you look at Hannah, the former was quite clearly either trying to do the "right thing", or doing "bad" things only out of a lack of options. There is some nuance over the 5 seasons and I could fill this post up with black bars, but I think we can agree that Skyler was, for the most part, unselfish and caring, scared and anxious, whereas Hannah is, like Jerry, George and Elaine from Seinfeld, a kind of "evil by way of the petty". Now comparing her to Walt, that's more interesting. Sure, she hasn't yet gone to the lengths Walter White did, but they're both lovely people and I would even say that Walt was so well regarded because Cranston brought such heavy weight to the role and the writers did their best to make you constantly question when he really becomes "the bad guy". Hannah starts the show being a pretty bad person, and only gets worse. But you know, that's the beauty of media, you can like characters who do awful things, and you can intensely dislike characters who do good deeds. I would rather have a beer with Walt than Hannah, and would rather have a glass of wine with Skyler over either of them, and that has naught to do with the bits twixt their thighs, and everything to do with how they're written and acted. I feel like I'm being roundabout and not really answering you well, but to get back to your original point about how much people should cite sources, etc... my point with that was that I actually can't think of anyone I have personally heard talk about disliking Hannah/Girls where I thought "Eh, they're probably misogynists". That could be a reflection of the fact that I don't really read TV criticisms. And while I know women can be misogynists, the women I know who dislike Girls are not, in my estimation, misogynists - and I don't know any men who have talked about the show at all. Granted, hardly anyone I know watches television. My wife doesn't even watch what I do aside from special cases (RECTIFY RECTIFY RECTIFY), she sticks to the animes and horror/sci-fi films.
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Jan 13, 2014 10:23
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precision posted:That could be a reflection of the fact that I don't really read TV criticisms. And while I know women can be misogynists, the women I know who dislike Girls are not, in my estimation, misogynists - and I don't know any men who have talked about the show at all. Girls averages only about 800k viewers an episode (and down to like 600k for season 2), so that's not too surprising. There are literally more people commenting about the show on the internet than there are actually watching it.
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Jan 13, 2014 10:37
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Mu Zeta posted:Game of Thrones S4 trailer. Three months! 
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Jan 13, 2014 12:03
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Why do people insist that you should like a character on tv as much as you'd like them in real life? That is so crazy. It's the responsibility of the entertainment to make you feel the way about characters that it intends. There are supposed to be despicable people that you like, and well-meaning people that you hate.
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Jan 13, 2014 12:18
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I don't think comparing Hannah to Skyler is at all useful. Skyler's role in Breaking Bad is limited entirely to the way her actions play off Walt. How does she see herself? What does she want from life? What are her dreams? We can make conjectures on these points, but the narrative isn't really interested in these questions. The narrative is much more interested in exploring what factors - few of them relying on events before the pilot - affect the way Skyler sees Walt, or vice versa, and the way that their relationship affects the meth business. Girls, though, derives most of its comedy as well as its most interesting drama by contrasting the way characters see themselves and the way other characters perceive them. When Hannah makes rape jokes in a job interview or says "maybe I want AIDS," I don't think Lena Dunham is portraying the lead as entirely self-aware. What throws people off about the show is that the show goes to great lengths to show how characters justify their bad decisions to themselves. Hannah talks herself into circles as soon as she realizes she's said the wrong thing, like in the episode where she propositions her boss. Sometimes I get the impression that people who don't like the show read Hannah's monologues in these situations as Stuff Lena Dunham Literally Believes. You're allowed to dislike her character, certainly, as she does pretty horrible things to the people around her on a regular basis. But while (and this is entirely anecdotal) criticism of Don Draper or Walter White will mention their actions, more often than not, criticism of Hannah tends to just quote a line from the show without context. Or, you know, the body thing.
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Jan 13, 2014 12:45
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PriorMarcus posted:If the slacker character is the protagonist then the narrative drive is about them bettering themselves and sorting out their lives, like Earl. Hannah meanwhile seems to be going nowhere fast; she isn't growing as a person and learning how destructive she is, just growing more destructive. This is devastating to the audience when Don Draper does it not because he has a penis but because the show has taken time to show us him as a happier, more comfortable person that we long for him to become. Hannah meanwhile already seems to be happy and comfortable being awful. So what about say, House? Or the characters on Raising Hope? Or Barney from HIMYM? Or Nick / Schmidt from New Girl? Or early-flavor Crosby from Parenthood? All of these characters are men who could be considered protagonists (or at least the show has no clear one protagonist), say horrible things on occasion, are very immature and are in general pretty unrepentant about their assholishness. In most cases I would also say the audience is not necessarily led to the desire for them to grow into a significantly happier person (except romantically because shipping is the way we go). In particular we are not looking for any of them to be punished for their behavior. We don't want their horrible acts to 'catch up to them' in any significant way. Sure maybe a dressing down or a plan not working out every once in awhile or taking a little more responsibility but we're not looking to throw them in character jail where they have to sit down and really THINK about their actions and make restitution to the world. Or to us. Whereas that seems to be what people want Hannah to do - apologize to us, the viewer, for being such a terrible person. I maintain that while some of this does come from the fact that entitlement annoys the larger audience regardless of who it is, the strength of those desires, the fervor for her to get what's coming to her is because she is a girl. Men can be spoiled manbabies and it's maybe eyerolling but we're indulgent. They're just taking awhile to grow up and also they make up for it by being funny / brilliant / adorable! Women characters who are "womanbabies" are expected to pay for that crime, to us. Immaturity and callousness is unforgivable. I also was thinking about this on my drive into work and - though I definitely understand that Apatow was the one who brought the comparison up and not you so this is not directed towards anyone here in particular - it really bothers me that when we look for comparison points to Hannah, a young girl who says stupid poo poo and isn't always a nice person, to find the male equivalent of that level of "badness" for a male character we go to Walter White. A guy who cooked meth, risked the lives of his family, and killed people. Or Don Draper, a guy who's committed fraud for much of his life. In order for us to contextualize how bad Hannah is in guy terms, he has to be a criminal. Really disturbing to me.
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Jan 13, 2014 15:12
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So on Intelligence, how come in once scene Sawyer is in constant contact, yet when he is kidnapped, he isn't? You'd think he could upload everything he sees, or at least a voice comm? Also, at the end, they just let everyone else in that complex go and just kept wounded Chinese leader guy? Why would they do that? So basically, they now have to assume everyone knows about their super agent (since that rogue enemy knew all about it), how the hell can they use him undercover anymore?
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Jan 13, 2014 15:16
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Wasnt really expecting anyone to draw comparisons between Breaking Bad and Girls based on that. The point of mentioning Skyler in relation to Girls was to bring up a situation that most everyone agrees butted-heads with misogynistic attitudes so that we could see what the hypothetical well-argued claim of misogyny which meets the standards requested (misogyny traced to actual critics not audience/spectators, misogyny entirely isolated from anything based in a real complaint) would actually look like. And the whole point of that exercise was those standards were pretty much impossible even for a situation that pretty much everyone agrees involved misogyny. Just talking in general (always have been, like I said just forget Girls exists when thinking about this), but even without those standards its a pretty difficult argument to make convincingly in either direction since it relies on perception of perception. So its easier to just sort of go with the flow of possibility and ask for clarification where necessary. Also not really related at all.. more a random thought I had, but I bet for every major horror movie you could find both journal articles calling out misogynistic themes and articles hailing feminist themes. There's just so much history with both representations and loaded imagery that a lot of arguments can be paint-by-numbers applied even. This is totally unrelated to anything. Probably shouldn't have this paragraph. Eh. And a preemptive apology for any confusion in this post or the last one, when I get tired my brain-to-internet skills gets jumbled and expressing thoughts not so easy. EvilTobaccoExec fucked around with this message at 15:31 on Jan 13, 2014 |
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Jan 13, 2014 15:19
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EvilTobaccoExec posted:Also not really related at all.. more a random thought I had, but I bet for every major horror movie you could find both journal articles calling out misogynistic themes and articles hailing feminist themes. There's just so much history with both representations and loaded imagery that a lot of arguments can be paint-by-numbers applied even. This is totally unrelated to anything. Probably shouldn't have this paragraph. Eh. Speaking as someone who's researched and written on this in academia, while feminism in horror movies is a pretty rich field, they're generally a deeply problematic genre and pretty much every major piece of writing on them doesn't discuss them as feminist works but as compromised ones with a mixture of misogynist and feminist elements. A theorist writing on a horror movie about witches, to use a simple example, might analyse how the movie simultaneously portrays female power, and presents it as outside the realm of the safe, normal or licit. Horror is essentially about outsider power, which is potentially feminist, but it's also about how that outsider power threatens the status quo, which is a much more complicated proposition.
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Jan 13, 2014 18:12
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I have to admit, despite the fact that I want to be a good, progressive person, despite the fact that I'm aware of the concept of privilege and that I have it because by chance I was born a straight white male, despite the fact that I know I'll never truly fathom what life is like without that privilege and despite the fact that I'd love society to be a better place without these issues, even though I knew Skyler was being completely reasonable and acting in a way I would probably act if in her shoes, a part of me still loving cheered and fist-pumped when Walt asked Skyler to climb down out of his rear end. We're a product of our society, which, despite what the MRAs would have us believe, is a largely patriarchal one. That isn't any one individual's fault, and however aware we are of it, it is so ingrained that we sometimes can't escape it. I think a lot of people get defensive about this stuff because they perceive people pointing this sort of stuff out as a personal attack (and sometimes it is) but I think most people that draw attention to it, at least around here I hope, are in fact just trying to raise awareness and have intelligent discussions (like I perceive Sophia to be doing). Let's do a thought experiment. I know this is a movie and not a TV show, but lets take the ultimate deadbeat comedic character. Hypothetically if Jeff Lebowski's character had been written, all else remaining the same, as a female character, what do people guess the reception would have been? What would the nickname "The Dude" have been replaced with? Would it have been seen as being as funny? As critically acclaimed? As embraced as a cult classic? Does anyone here think they personally would have liked it more or less, if being completely honest with themselves (not asking anyone to post the answer here if they don't like the honest answer, just think about it), or would it have made no difference? Assume for the thought experiment that the actress chosen to play... Jane Lebowski was just as good at comedic acting as Jeff Bridges. I personally think the reviews we'd have read of the Big Lebowski would have been very different. If I'm brutally honest with myself, those reviews either would have coloured my perception of the film, or my inherent sexism might have done that all by itself (I was much younger back then, and I definitely had some very questionable outlooks on life) and I probably wouldn't have liked it as much. I believe this is what's happening with Girls, but of course that is an impossible claim to verify or prove in any way without access to multiple universes. This is a forum where we casually discuss stuff we watch on TV. It isn't D&D. Say for example if someone had said something like "in New Girl, I think Schmidt was generally disliked at first, but people seem to have since warmed to the character, despite him still being a massive dickhead at times". Most would probably voice agreement. One or two might have said they still dislike him as much now as they did back then. Some might even make the claim that the character is sexist. But would anyone have asked for specific citations from various critics? I very much doubt it. So why this higher standard with Girls?
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Jan 13, 2014 18:23
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