SNL Gabourey Sidibe/MGMT

Last weeks SNL was a pretty typical bad SNL episode and par for the course from the rest of the season. Probably not any worse than the Blake Lively/Taylor Lautner or January Jones episodes. The only saving grace was Bill Hader and John Mulaney on weekend update. However there was something about this episode that really bothered me and that was that it seemed like everyone on the show/audience were Gabourey Sidibe's parents hoping she would do well. A disclaimer I have not seen Precious and don't plan on watching it, I am sure it is a very good movie, but I don't feel like watching a movie where the best case scenario is it succesfully tells a tragic story and makes me unbearably sad. My problem was not that the audience was behind Sidibe I am not such a cynic that I dislike the idea of a live audience supporting a green host. My problem is that it felt like most of the support came out of pity or guilt. During this episode I was reminded of all the pre-Oscar coverage, where everyone*kept saying how beautiful Sidibe is. When I saw Sidibe on SNL and talkshows I was surprised at how bubbly and charismatic she was and it is endearing, but she is not beautiful* by any stretch of the imagination.

*Everyone including reporters for shows like Access Hollywood who are possibly the most vain people in the world. As far as I can tell there job is too look pretty and read a teleprompter without shouting offensive statements.

*Yes I realize beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but a large percentage of both the population would not consider her beautiful. I also realize that beauty can be used to describe inner beauty, but there are several other adjectives that can be used to describe that and don't have the same connotation of aesthetic beauty.

This sentiment is such a bullshit Hollywood feel good thing where people with nice hair and fake smiles get to pretend that they aren't in an industry where aesthics superficiality is rewarded. It's almost as if Hollywood is surprised that someone who isn't a 9/10 can add value to society and Sidibe overcoming obesity is the equivalent of making the NFL with a fake leg. If Sidibe is truly as intelligent and grounded as people have said I am sure she is not delusional enough to sincerely believe the claims of her beauty. Patronizing someone doesn't change the truth. This brings me to this weeks SNL. Last week I watched the SNL in the 2000's documentary and one of the segments was about SNL's willingness to make fun of anything, because they are a comedy show and being as funny as possible should be the priority. Alec Baldwin joked about his divorce weeks after it happened, they have had a recurring joke making fun of David Patterson's blindness, etc. however when Sidibe hosted SNL they bent over backwards to not make any jokes at her expense and throughout the episode that was the elephant in the room. I am not suggesting that the episode should have turned into 90 minutes of fat jokes, but if you are trying to make a comedy show it might make sense to have some sketches where the host is the butt of some jokes. People may argue that she is an innocent child and making fun of her on national TV is cruel. That is a fair point, but that hasn't stopped SNL in the past. They made fun of Britney Spears claims of virginity when she was a teen sensation, but I guess questioning someone's fidelity is funny so long as they are sufficiently beautiful that people are jealous of you and won't feel guilty about it after the fact. Others may say they didn't have any good jokes or sketches that would acknowledge Sidibe's appearance, but given the quality of the episode a couple token fat jokes probably would have been a welcome addition. If people actually read this blog, I think some people would get up in arms about this post, but my primary contention is this. SNL you are a admittedly a comedy show first, so you should be willing to make fun of everyone and everything patronizing someone because she is one of the few people in Hollywood who isn't drop dead gorgeous is insulting to that person and a bane to your craft.

South Park "200"

When I saw my first episode of South Park I was so young that I needed to ask my parents what a dildo was. So if you had told me 13 years ago that it would evolve from a show about 2nd graders who swore a lot into a cultural institution, my first response would have been "What's a cultural institution?". However if an 8 year old version of me shared my critical thinking skills, I would have scoffed at that suggestion, thinking that South Park would be nothing more than a funny offensive cartoon that would attract a cult following.

South Park eventually evolved from a show about foul mouthed children into one of the best satires on TV. Some have correctly suggested that South Park satire is too overt. That they often pick at low hanging fruit or lack subversion. I think all those criticisms are fair, except they are missing the point of South Park's satire. The ethos of South Park is that 8 year olds kids (albeit incredibly precocious 8 year old kids) frequently notice how bullheaded adults are about important while ignoring common sense. That ethos requires overt satire. Satire that even an 8 year old could understand, which is why South Park doesn't attempt to be more subversive.

Like most shows that reach 200 episodes South Park has been slipping in the last couple of seasons. It has had a couple classic episodes (Super Fun Time), but recently the episodes have felt derivative and sloppy. For those who don't know every episode is written the week before it airs, which I think has led to some incomplete episodes. In recent seasons many episodes have had no real B plot and those episodes have been one or two jokes repeated for 22 minutes. South Park has ceased being much watch TV and has turned into a show that has 3/4 episodes a season worth watching.

Going into the 200th episode I was very wary; anniversary shows need to strike a weird balance between not acknowledging the anniversary and turning into a clip show. I feel this show hit the sweet spot pretty well. It was not the funniest or most poignant episode they have ever done, but it was funny and brought back enough characters to make the fan boy in me ecstatic. While some jokes were gratingly meta, I think the premise of the episode worked a lot better than I would have initially guessed and they had a real B plot for the first time in weeks. Once you put yourself in this world everything that followed actually made a lot of sense and the show did a good job of using callback to make jokes instead of just having a carousel of former characters or celebrities appearing on screen. As for now I am really looking forward to the conclusion next week and hope it is as strong as this week.

Stray Thoughts

- Stone and Parker have both referenced showing Mohammed in "Super Best Friends" several times in interviews over the years, but it is nice that they mentioned it in the show. And while this satire is a rehash of what they have done before, I still think it is relevant.

- I never really liked Hennifer Lopez or Fat Butt and Pancake Head but I love Mitch Conner.

Treme "Do You Know What it Means?"

Despite or possibly because of its pedigree I was not particularly excited for Treme David Simon's HBO show that premiered tonight about post-Katrina New Orleans. After Season 5 of The Wire I read a lot of interviews with David Simon and one thing became abundantly clear; he wanted everyone to see his world view. The Wire's subtext was fairly overt, but as I read more interviews with Simon where he spelled out the show, I began to worry that he didn't think the subtext was overt enough. When I heard he would be doing a show about post-Katrina New Orleans I was very worried that he would rail against the incompetence of the managing of Katrina with the bitterness and bluntness of the newspaper arc in season 5 of The Wire.

Now that I have seen the pilot, I am able to reform my baseless speculation and I was very pleased with how it turned out. When reviewing Treme I will try to limit my Wire comparisons, but I am about to make one. Like The Wire Treme foregoes exposition in earlier episodes to maintain the shows verisimilitude. The lack of exposition did make the dialogue tough to follow at times, especially since the pilot was 90 minutes. It did require a lot of focus and it definitely could have been a little tighter. Given the depth of previous Simon shows it is possible that nothing was superflous, however right now we only know snippets about these characters and while longer arcs were set in motion to me the pilot felt a series of a vignettes. I doubt I would watch a series solely composed of vignettes in post-Katrina New Orleans, but I think it was a great idea for a pilot. The pilot felt like a series of urban legends and like all urban legends the truth is irrelevant. It doesn't matter if a DJ broke into Tower Records or an activist tried to throw a camera into the canal or a restaurant owner served a pre-packaged desert from her purse, what matters is we believe these things happened in this world. Once we believe the stories are true we are immersed into that world. Simon has once again managed to create a living breathing city and I trust that the rest will follow.

Stray Thoughts

- Tons of little stuff that was perfect or near perfect like having the characters speaking over the noise caused by passing-by helicopters as if they didn't' even notice it. This is especially jarring as an audience member who is accustomed to hearing the fluttering of helicopter blades almost solely in action movies.

- As someone who lives in a French speaking city I was very ashamed that I had been calling the show trem instead of tremay for the past 6 months.

-When season 5 of The Wire wasn't in HD I thought there was a chance it was because Simon was a luddite. I don't really care why Treme is in HD, but it is a welcome change.

-It was a shock to see Clarke Peters menacing scowl after growing so accustomed to the mild mannered Lester Freamon.

- Maybe the theme song will grow on me, but right now it feels like it would be more apt in Ethnic Mismatch Comedy 644.

Party Down Season 1

Eventhough Party Down was a critical darling and had a great cast of comics actors who I recognized from other projects I liked. I was still skeptical when I began the first season because it was on Starz!, a channel I didn't know existed. However after devouring the first season in a weekend and instantly watching the first two episodes of season 2 once they leaked online, I can confidently say the critical consensus was correct. Party Down is about a group of struggling actors/writers/comedians in LA who pay the bills working at a catering company. The characters all appear archetypal; the nerd, the pretty boy, the manic pixie dream girl, etc. Usually it takes a while for the audience to understand the nuances of these characters, however the characterization/acting/writing is so strong that it instantly becomes clear that these are not cliches. A good example of this is Roman on the exterior he is a typical sci-fi nerd writer in Hollywood trying to make it. What makes Martin Starr's performance as Roman so funny is that deep down he isn't a sympathetic nerd with a heart of gold he is a misanthrope who thinks he is smarter than everyone, while not being particularly smart himself. Similarly his nemesis Kyle is more than pretty boy actor who got through life with his good looks and charisma he actually has some acting chops and wit.

Every single episode follows the catering crew at a specific party and while this format may seem restrictive it actually gives them a lot of room to experiment and leads to some great guest spots. They can realistically change the setting from a sweet 16 party to the after party of the porn awards and explore a different subculture with new guest stars every week. Somehow they frequently manage to get well-established actors like JK Simmons, Kristen Bell and Rob Cordry to appear and the show and they all give great performances. Considering Adam Scott is heading to Parks and Recreation and Jane Lynch is on Glee it looks like the second season of Party Down will be it's last, but right now it is the sharpest comedy on TV .