General Television Thread

[hot rod]

I forgot how awesome the episode of Louie where he visits the soldiers was. Really was the best episode of any television I remember seeing last year.

[GoGo Yubari]

Yeah, I'm hard-pressed to think of a better single episode of TV from last year than "Duckling."

[Josh]

Yeah, "Duckling."

Tremendous, tremendous television.

[Benji]

Quite enjoyed the first episode of Once Upon a Time. Set up plenty of stories, not as cheesy as it initially looked like it'd be, and the characters seem intriguing enough. Definitely the best of the former LOST writers/producers' pilots.

[Thrilla]

You know what is awesome? The Thundercats prequel cartoon.

[Benji]

You just reminded me that Ultimate Spidey started in America last week

[thatshortguy]

You know what is awesome? The Thundercats prequel cartoon.

Now there is a modern cartoon series done well. I've never even been a huge Thundercats fan, but I was impressed by the art direction and pacing of that show.

[Benji]

Bah, this Ultimate Spidey is mediocre at best. They could have continued Spectacular and instead they went with this goofy tripe

[LittleDaniel]

I'll open this question to the Whedonites here. This week I'll be writing a paper where I examine an episode of Buffy through the eyes of a feminist psychoanalytic critic. I'll probably just go with the first episode so I don't have to deal with explaining any background of the characters/plotlines/what have you, but I figured I'd ask around if you can think of any particularly good episodes. In particular, I'll be looking for scopaphilia, sadistic voyeurism, a fear of castration, and anything and everything remotely phallic.

[Benji]

You're probably better off looking towards the end of the series for that subject, particularly any episodes with the misogynistic Caleb, and the entire empowerment of Slayers/women. The final two episodes are basically one big ridiculous feminist message.

[MalaCloudy Black]

Bah, this Ultimate Spidey is mediocre at best. They could have continued Spectacular and instead they went with this goofy tripe

Yeah, I found it pretty middling as well - which makes me sad, considering that Paul Dini's involved as a writer/creative consultant. Some of the humour really strikes me as characteristic of Spidey and I like that, but I really dislike the over-the-top cartoony bits of the show. I feel like that if they toned down that over-the-top cartoony shit it'd be a better show, and I hope that's what happens as the series progresses.

Do you watch Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes, Benji? It's part of the same Marvel block of programming, and it's a much better show right now.

[Kane's Mullet Slacker]

Bah, this Ultimate Spidey is mediocre at best. They could have continued Spectacular and instead they went with this goofy tripe

Yeah, I found it pretty middling as well - which makes me sad, considering that Paul Dini's involved as a writer/creative consultant. Some of the humour really strikes me as characteristic of Spidey and I like that, but I really dislike the over-the-top cartoony bits of the show. I feel like that if they toned down that over-the-top cartoony shit it'd be a better show, and I hope that's what happens as the series progresses.

Do you watch Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes, Benji? It's part of the same Marvel block of programming, and it's a much better show right now.

I watched the first season of this show on Netflix. Pretty good show, Season 2 sounds like it's going to be awesome. Especially since the Guardians of the Galaxy are going to make an appearance.

[Benji]

Bah, this Ultimate Spidey is mediocre at best. They could have continued Spectacular and instead they went with this goofy tripe

Yeah, I found it pretty middling as well - which makes me sad, considering that Paul Dini's involved as a writer/creative consultant. Some of the humour really strikes me as characteristic of Spidey and I like that, but I really dislike the over-the-top cartoony bits of the show. I feel like that if they toned down that over-the-top cartoony shit it'd be a better show, and I hope that's what happens as the series progresses.

Do you watch Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes, Benji? It's part of the same Marvel block of programming, and it's a much better show right now.

Yeah, I think that's probably the killer for me. The old school Disney style sound effects are just a little much. I'm hoping that they've changed the dynamic with Spidey/SHIELD group in order to tell some new stories, and if that's the case then fantastic. Only problem is, I feel like they're going to try and mix and match stories already told and the new stuff, and if so then I can't see it merging too well.

I've not watched it, been meaning to for absolutely ages. Getting round to it is something else, since I watch that many shows, and it's already about 40 episodes deep if you include the mini series.

[LittleDaniel]

You're probably better off looking towards the end of the series for that subject, particularly any episodes with the misogynistic Caleb, and the entire empowerment of Slayers/women. The final two episodes are basically one big ridiculous feminist message.

That's not really what I'm looking for; I probably didn't explain myself very well. Instead of looking for a feminist message, what I mean by "feminist psychoanalytic theory" is going through a film objectively, looking for phallic imagery, male gaze, objectification, fetishistic scopophilia, sadistic voyeurism, general objectification, etc. While I'm trying to go in objectively, what I think I'm going to find (based on watching the series non-critically a few times over) is that while the show is often championed as being "feminist," the directorial choices invoke scopophilia and the male characters can definitely be seen as voyeurists (hell, Giles's position is that of "the watcher"), thus objectifying female characters. However, I also plan to look at how men are also objectified in the show, with (fe)male gaze and so on and so forth.

Dammit, now I want to work on this essay instead of the silly grammar one I should be doing tonight.

(in case some of the words I used didn't make sense and you want them to make sense, take a look here. I am using Mulvey's model for my analysis.)

[KONGO]

LD, that topic is pretty interesting to me and always has been, but I've never really engaged it.

I'd be very interested to see a sort of shot-for-shot feminist remake of a movie. Not a movie like Porky's where it's very specifically objectifying women, but in a movie like Die Hard or... I wanna say Aliens here, but I haven't seen it, and I don't have any other female action hero movies in mind. Basically, I don't understand how women see men, if and how they objectify, and other things along those lines.

If you or anyone else has suggestions about some movies/shows I should watch for that, that would be great. I'm not interested in something with an explicitly feminist message because I think that's too far of a skew, I feel like such a film would take drastic steps to sort of say very loudly "this is WOMEN's cinema!", when I really just want to see how a normal woman tells her story.

[LittleDaniel]

A short little fun video about the problem of men-centered films is here:

Also interesting on that channel are her applications of the Bechdel Test (which I'll also be discussing in my examination of Buffy). And, while I was looking for this video, I noticed that she has a playlist of her recommended movies, all of which seem to be women's stories. Also, Feminist Frequency's channel as a whole is fun and informative, so if you're interested in women's portrayal in the media I'd suggest checking out her videos.

As for reading on the subject, check out Laura Mulvey's "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" for a pretty radfem but intriguing view on women's portrayal in movies.

[KONGO]

I've seen something from that channel before, but that's not really what I'm getting at. I get that there is a patriarchal hand there, I don't know that anyone sane would deny that. I'm not looking for criticism about patriarchy and male-centeredness in film. I want to see a movie from a woman's perspective by women so I can see how they go about it.

[LittleDaniel]

And one of the points of that video is that it's very, very hard to find that as only something like 7% (YouTube is loading slowly for me so I don't feel like going back to get the exact number) of directors are women. One that I would suggest that looks really entertaining (I haven't had the chance to see it yet, but I'm pretty sure it's on Netflix) is Winter's Bone, which was written and directed by a woman.

Oh! Also, Bridesmaids. While it was directed by a man, it was written by women and it's pretty damn funny.

[TGC]

I'm kinda sad The Fades won't be back for another series.

[RPS]

I've always found Pedro Almodóvar to have really interesting movies from a feminine and queer perspective. I've always found his perspective on woman (particularly feminine sexuality) to be very interesting. Talk to Her, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, Bad Education, Broken Embraces, and All About My Mother are all very interesting movies. Other recommendations for great feminist film studies: Catherine Breillat, Mira Nair, Kelly Reichardt, Todd Haynes, Lucrecia Martel.

Edited April 10, 2012 by RockPaperScissors