Rocky and Bullwinkle Celebrate their 50th Anniversary

Posted on November 20, 2009 at 8:54 am

My friend Bob Elisberg has a marvelous salute to the sensational Rocky and Bullwinkle, “from the maniacally clever mind of Jay Ward,” who yesterday celebrated the 50th anniversary of their first broadcast.

My parents were very strict about television, but this was one of the few shows they let us watch. They not only let us — they watched with us. It was one of the first television shows for children to have jokes for adults. As I grew up, there were innumerable times when I would learn something new and suddenly have the retroactive pleasure of understanding some past Rocky and Bullwinkle joke. There’s an opera called “Boris Godunov?” Aha! That explains the name of R&B bad guy Boris Badanov! And remember the name of their alma mater? Wassamata U? Remember “fan mail from some flounders?” And “watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat?” (“That trick never works!”)

Few people today will get the joke about the Kerward Derby (a play on the name of then-minor-celebrity Durward Kirby), but this is still purely delightful.

And of course I always had a special fondness for Dudley Do-Right because his leading lady was named Nell.

Wait, Women Go to Movies?

Posted on November 19, 2009 at 8:00 am

MaryAnn Johanson has a great piece in her series on the website of the Association of Women Film Journalists in response to the Hollywood conventional wisdom that movies need to be directed at boys and men to make money. Noting that the advance sales for “New Moon” are ahead of “Transformers” at this stage, she says:

If the boys can be targeted by Hollywood with movies that pander to their basest instincts — toys! explosions! Megan Fox! — then I suppose we must see it as a sign of progress that girl audiences are getting the same treatment: sighing! moon eyes! Robert Pattinson!

And speaking of Megan Fox, Johanson skewers Lynn Hirschberg’s profile in the New York Times Magazine.

Later, noting that the TV in the hotel room was on and tuned to some girly reality show about wedding dresses or somesuch, and that Fox said she watches these things because she doesn’t understand them and is trying to figure them out, Hirschberg characterizes Fox thusly:

Fox said this as if she were contemplating an alien species.

Because, you see, reality shows about wedding dresses represent the actual actuality of all women, and a woman who doesn’t comprehend why anyone would collapse into fits of tears over a wedding dress must be an alien. Because no real women would need to study such a reality show, as Fox indicates she does — a real woman would just understand.

I like to read Johanson’s summary of the way women are portrayed in current releases. Here’s what she had to say last week:

OPENING THIS WEEK. Women are there to be rescued in 2012, whether it’s the Mona Lisa or Amanda Peet as John Cusack’s ex-wife, who does literally nothing but scream for two and a half hours while the world ends around her. Good riddance to this world. Women — or females, at least — are all but absent from Fantastic Mr. Fox, except Meryl Streep as the alternately scolding and praising wife to the titular character; the male animals are the ones who get to have all the adventure and all the fun, and they’re the ones who get to learn things about themselves and grow as people. And forget Pirate Radio: the boat HQ of the illegal broadcaster is boys only — well, there’s one girl present, to cook, but she’s a lesbian, so she doesn’t really count.

On the indie side, things aren’t much better. Women in Trouble does feature an ensemble cast of terrific actresses, but it’s all in service of writer-director Sebastian Gutierrez’s fantasies about what women are really like (hint: it frequently involved lingerie). The Messenger, a drama about the soldiers who notify families that their loved one has been killed overseas, does at least feature Samantha Morton in a powerful and unexpected role as a new widow.

Another Word Goes Mainstream?

Posted on November 18, 2009 at 8:00 am

In my concern for the continuing coarsening of language, I last wrote about whether the term “pimp” had become acceptable for children after it was used in the PG film “G-Force.”
The New York Times writes about another word that has crossed into the mainstream and has become a go-to insult on television and in movies.

On many nights this fall, it has been possible to tune in to broadcast network television during prime time and hear a character call someone else a “douche.”

In just the last several weeks, it has happened on CBS’s “The New Adventures of Old Christine” and the CW’s “The Vampire Diaries,” which are broadcast at 8 p.m., during what used to be known as the family hour. It has been heard this fall on Fox’s new series “The Cleveland Show,” which begins at 8:30, and on ABC’s “Grey’s Anatomy.” On NBC, its use has spanned the old and the new, blurted out on the freshman comedy “Community” and the seasoned drama “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.”

In total, the word has surfaced at least 76 times already this year on 26 prime-time network series, according to research by the Parents Television Council, which compiled the statistics at the request of The New York Times. That is up from 30 uses on 15 shows in all of 2007 and just six instances on four programs in 2005….And while the word “douche” is neither obscene nor profane — although this usage is certainly offensive to many people — it seems to represent the latest of broadcast television’s continuing efforts to expand the boundaries of taste, in part to stem the tide of defections by its audience to largely unregulated cable television….”As a writer, you’re always reaching for a more potent way to call somebody a jerk,” Dan Harmon, the creator of “Community,” said about the word “douche.” “This is a word that has evolved in the last couple of years — a thing that sounds like a thing you can’t say.”

Unquestionably, the language on television has become more vulgar. And the argument that this is acceptable because it can be limited to a particular time slot has become less supportable. When television programs like “Law and Order” and “CSI” (and their variations and spin-offs) seem to be on 24/7 and raunchy sit-coms like “Two and a Half Men” run in syndication in the early evening. I find this word particularly ugly and misogynistic and am sorry to see it become mainstream.

‘Idols’ Around the World

Posted on November 16, 2009 at 3:46 pm

Cynthia Schneider, former US Ambassador to the Netherlands and specialist in international culture, tells the TED audience about the impact of “Idol”-style television programs around the world. We know how winning can transform the lives of the performers. She helps us understand how watching these shows can transform the lives of the audience.

Gabourey Sidibe of ‘Precious’

Posted on November 16, 2009 at 12:00 pm

I love Ellen’s interview with Gabourey Sidibe, who plays the title character in “Precious.” Director Lee Daniels told the New York Times he knew it would be difficult to find an actress to play the role of an abused pregnant teenager who weighed 350 pounds.

“I couldn’t call Hollywood and say, ‘Send over all your 300-pound black girls,’ ” Daniels explained. “They’d laugh”….Daniels saw 500 girls, including one of his nieces. Ten finalists, none of whom had ever acted before, were put through an aspiring-thespian “boot camp.” “It was kind of like ‘American Idol,’ ” Daniels said. “But I still wasn’t happy. We were weeks away from filming, and I still hadn’t found Precious.”

But when he met Sidibe, he knew he’d found his star.

Unlike Precious, Sidibe is well spoken and cheerful. “I’m not her,” Sidibe said emphatically. “But, when I was 14 or 15, I saw myself in a different way. Back then, I envied a life that I’d made up in my mind. I broke free of that unhappiness and I decided to change — I was going to be happy with myself. No matter what I look like, no matter what people think.” Daniels realized that Sidibe’s attitude was crucial to playing Precious.

In this interview, Sidibe talks about how the love she shared with Mo’Nique helped them get through the most brutal of the movie’s abuse scenes. It is a thrill to witness this talented young woman’s confidence and joy. Like Ellen, I want her to stay just who she is.

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