Category Archives: television

Shame Day II: ISPs and the Six Strike System

Posted on February 28, 2013 by | 2 comments

Normally, Thursdays here at Culture War Reporters is dedicated to “Fame Day,” in which Evan and I call attention to people, events, or trends we think aren’t getting the attention they deserve.

But not today.

Partly due to my illness, partly due to some unforeseen time constraints, and mostly because of the severity of the issue in question, today there will be no Fame Day.

Instead, we’ll be performing an emergency Shame Day on the subject of yesterday’s terrible news that five major internet service providers (ISPs) will be implementing a “six-strike” system on people suspected of copyright infringement.

Let me break it down for you.

Normally, when you sign up with an internet provider, exactly what you do or don’t do with your connection is entirely and exclusively your business. Whether it’s something as impressive as you doing an electric guitar cover of the hallelujah chorus or as lousy as writing a thousand comments calling that same YouTube video gay is all up to you. What you read, what you write, what you post, what you view- the ISP is simply there (as the name states) to provide internet.

But no longer.

Yesterday, five major ISPs (Verizon, Time Warner, Cablevision, Comcast, and AT&T) announced that they would be participating in this anti-piracy initiative spearheaded by the “Center for Copyright Information” or “CCI”- a lobbyist group for a number of media groups. Quite simply, individual users suspected of “copyright infringement” will be given five warnings, the sixth “strike” resulting in their internet speed being slashed to dial-up quality for an unspecified amount of time.

Now you’re probably thinking “Hey- just don’t pirate stuff and you’ll be fine!” and you know what?

You’re right. You don’t have to pirate.

I’m taking over from this point on for a number of reasons. For the most part because although Gordon had good things to say, he didn‘t necessarily say them well, and in some cases didn’t make very much sense; we’re going to chalk that up to his recent illness. I will be relating to you what points of his that I can, while adding my own.

-Evan.

Gordon’s next point is that for the most part, many people pirate because of time and money. Focusing on time, the truth is that we can’t always guarantee that we’ll be at home on a Thursday night to catch The Office. Maybe we’re working another job [many of us need to], or maybe we just forgot. What options does this leave us?

For those of us in America, Hulu is always an option. The on-demand streaming site once provided a very broad range of TV programming, and Gordon points out that it’s a fantastic resource, or at least used to be. Nowadays, however, it’s a lot more difficult to use than it used to be. Hulu Plus, which requires a subscription, is needed to watch a lot of older shows, sometimes even episodes that aired a month ago, if New Girl is any indication. With one of the most convenient resources made less so, is it any wonder that so many people simply turn to torrents?

Gordon’s next point, and a very valid one, is this issue of the Six Strike System and how it relates to piracy. There’s an issue of what exactly is at stake here. Gordon insists that the answer to that is everything, and while I’m not fully with him on that, there’s some sense to what he’s saying.

The thing is that almost anything can be considered copyright infringement. YouTube covers, memes [which often use screenshots of shows like Futurama {see: our Shame Day image}], Gordon’s beloved gifs, even many of the pictures of this blog, in spite of being Photoshopped, don’t technically belong to us.  Would we have our internet cut because we run this blog? [Answer: I wouldn’t, because I am Canadian.]

To finish off what Gordon wrote earlier today, the issue is that the people in question aren’t being penalized by an international agency, or even the state or federal government. The fact of the matter is that these ISPs are “using their lobbies to persecute and prosecute suspected users without due process” [quoting Gordon]. What truly incensed him more than anything, though, was the way they’re going about it. That they’re holding themselves up as Knights of Good when in reality they’re just proud that they’re “selectively picking off anyone their bosses deem a threat to their unending stream of profit.”

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Piracy is not a subject I agree with Gordon on, and in fact I had a very hard time letting his last piece on the subject be put up on the blog. If people really, truly love art, whether it take the form of television or movies or video games they need to vote with their wallets and know that what they love is worth spending money on.

That being said, I do believe that what these ISPs are doing is wrong, particularly in that they have no one to be accountable but themselves. No business or corporation should have that right. Shame on these ISPs, and shame on the Center for Copyright Information.

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2 Broke Girls, S2E18 “And Not-So-Sweet Charity”: A TV Review

Posted on February 26, 2013 by | 3 comments

This is late because I work now, so sorry about that.

I feel like I have more to write about than usual this week [unfortunate, since I’m a little late to this review due to my having a job now], so let’s get right into it. To summarize this episode in a sentence, Max and Caroline have not been paying their rent and are being forced to sell their property to a real estate corporation; not wanting to do so the two go to Caroline’s makeup mogul Aunt Charity to ask for some . . . financial help.

The first topic I wanted to delve into a little bit was the show’s humour, not in how it chooses the easy route on almost every joke but how it seeks to push the bar in its content. For example: a semen joke eight seconds into the episode. Co-creator and executive producer Michael Patrick King said that he “[considers] our jokes really classy dirty [ . . . ] they’re high lowbrow.” While the show has largely steered away from the rampant rape jokes which cropped up multiple times per episode int he first season, they certainly haven’t stopped walking, and often crossing, the line between “classy dirty” and dirty.

Take Max’s joke about how bubblegum flavoured lip gloss [which was wearing when she had her first kiss] helped to get her an A in class. It’s no secret that her character has slept around a lot, for little to no reason, but hinting at a minor [I’m sure her first kiss was before the age of 18] locking lips with a teacher is uncomfortable at best. A few minutes later she likes a tube of lipstick to a dog penis.

“How much is too much?” is a question that Gordon and I discussed once in regards to stand-up comedy, and we came to the conclusion that edgy humour is only as good as what its meant to accomplish. In the case of 2 Broke Girls that’s apparently to elicit cheap laughter. As far as I can tell, I mean. This has never been a laugh-out-loud show, but it’s Max’s snarkiness [as overbearing as it is at times] and not her disregard in screening her sexual partners that drew me to her to begin with. 2 Broke Girls may be trying to brand itself as an edgy comedy à la Family Guy, but needs to ask itself if they can continue to counterbalance that with the heartfelt moments they’ve been trying to inject into the show.

As a final note on the show’s humour, Aunt Charity had the upper two layers of her skin removed to look two years younger, which actually made me queasy just looking at her. Physical gross-out humour may be something 2 Broke Girls is thinking about adding more regularly in stretching the limits, which is a decision I’m currently unsure about. After all, one of my favourite episodes was the eighth one of this season, where Caroline yanks a needle out of her arm and proceeds to spurt blood all over the walls of an egg donation clinic.

Finally on to what was the biggest moment for me. So I’ve been writing about what the point of the  “Current Total” and it’s accompanying ka-ching at the end of each episode for a while, so imagine my surprise when I saw it change so drastically in this episode.

Caroline coerces her aunt into signing over $25,000 to cover what the real estate corporation says they’ll need to keep the property, but finds out later that the cheque doesn’t clear because taking advantage of drug-addled relatives [Charity was on morphine lollipops to dull the pain of not having a face] isn’t exactly an ethical business practice. Then her and Max sign over the store.

All of the first season was leading up to “Max’s Homemade Cupcakes,” and suddenly we realize that the girls are starting over from scratch, especially since Max declares that they have just enough money to pay back everyone they’ve borrowed from. Soon after a little bit of curious greenscreen work in the windows behind Caroline’s head is explained when a car crashes through one of their walls. It looked pretty realistic, too.

The “New Total” leaves the girls with a single dollar to their names and us as an audienec wondering what exactly is next for them. This is a hard reboot of the status quo, though there are hints by both Charity and the real estate woman [who was deaf, by the way] that maybe starting out smaller is the way to go.

Whatever happens with the rest of this season, I have to give 2 Broke Girls my grudging respect for reigniting my interest and curiosity in the show.

onedolla

Stray Observations:

  • The audience was going bonkers over Sophie today, and she wasn’t even really doing anything. Maybe an exec decided to re-send the memo that she’s supposed to be this generation’s Kramer.
  • Han has been very into memes lately. “Ermahgerd!”
  • “It’s obvious! She’s obsessed with her brother and she saw your being born as his love being taken away from her.” Morphine lollipops make Max smarter. 
  • The greenscreening was particularly suspicious in that is showed an actual street outside their window, and was actually filmed against a wall I don’t think they ever showed prior to this episode. Which leads me to wonder if they’d planned a car crashing into it from the beginning, which I hesitate to believe if only because I don’t think they have that much foresight.
  • 2 Broke Girls Cheesecake Menu: I feel like CBS is forcing me to eat my words when I assumed that they were having the two girls show more skin to draw in viewers. Not much to report here, once again.

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Fame Day: American Horror Story

Posted on February 21, 2013 by | 2 comments

americansdoghasdToday, I’d like to tip my hat to one of my favorite shows, a young series by the name of American Horror Story.

Now it’s no secret that the horror genre is universally despised, being seen by many as being lower on the totem pole than even toilet-humor comedies or the most saccharine romances out there. I could probably spend an entire post speculating on why exactly horror flicks are treated with such little respect (a lot of it is probably due to the genre’s inbred cousin, the “teen scream” flick), but that’s another topic for another time. I’m here to simply showcase the series and highlight a few of its key strengths and accomplishments that I think make it worthy of a Fame Day.

Each season of the show (the second has just concluded, and a third has been greenlit) is a separate story, made up of the horrific lives of the characters as they struggle with their pasts, their inner demons, and some ever-present terror always lurking just beyond the shadows. It essentially cashes in on the initial charm that LOST had before it jumped the polar bear.

Guilt and shame are themes that play heavily into the series as a whole (or at least, the past two “stories”), giving even the most heinous characters a degree of sympathy. Again, similar to LOST at its best, the constant shifting of the story from one perspective to the next prevents the series from ever being boring. Granted, the madcap pacing doesn’t always work (especially in the first story), but for the most part, the audience is always kept interested.

And that brings us to the first key accomplishment of the series:

Popularity

As I stated above, horror is simply not popular- at least, not in any mainstream way. Tim Burton’s lighter works are really the closest most people get to anything remotely macabre, and the fact that the series has continually drawn in high ratings (to say nothing of critical acclaim) is nothing short of amazing. And we’re not talking about a series that is eerie or has a handful of jump-scares, we’re talking about truly unsettling elements here. I’m certainly not alone in hoping that that AHS‘s continued success serves to begin building bridges between mainstream entertainment and horror subculture; heaven knows both could benefit from some fresh perspective.

And even in the subculture, AHS is playing a pretty major role. It’s…

Raising the Bar

As a result of the genre’s (comparative) isolation, quality in horror is typically pretty rare. When you can’t secure funding for special effects, good equipment, or even B-level actors, chances are your product isn’t going to be all that good. Of course, when you have a built in audience who would pay money to watch Dwayne Johnson protect an orphanage from chupacabras, why would you even bother trying?

I would actually probably watch that…

I’ve seen my fair share of (decent) horror movies, and I can count on one hand the films that had even passable cinematography. AHS, as a series that actually has some decent funding and actually puts effort into creating tense atmospheres and believable effects, is raising the bar for the entire industry. When AHS is the basis for most people’s experience with the genre, there’s going to be pressure on the rest of the industry to meet and excel the expectations the mainstream audience is going to have. Furthermore, AHS‘s star-studded cast (including Zachary Quinto, Ian McShane, James Cromwell, and, I kid you not, Adam Levine) is hopefully going to make the horror genre more inviting to high-caliber actors who can actually sell the audience on the direness of the situation and maintain interest without having to drag in a bunch of fornicating teenagers.

The series is actually one of the few I’ve ever seen that actually gives teens any credit or respect…

And perhaps most importantly, it comes down to this:

Depth

While the stories are good, as are the actors (Jessica Lange being easily more frightening than the goriest bits of the series), it’s some of the basic discussions held during the stories that really hit home. Oppression of women and the dark history of psychology are topics repeatedly brought up, and dealt with both in a historically accurate and totally visceral manner. Perhaps the most disturbing thing I’ve yet seen in the series hasn’t been any of the monsters or murders- it’s been a demonstration (scaled back for TV, even) of the psychological “treatment” given to people “suffering from homosexuality,” seen at the time as a mental disease. Those five minutes alone were more frightening than anything else in the story- and it was amazing. Amazing to see some serious and deep social commentary made, and to see the brutality and insanity some people had to undergo actually presented in a way that’s going to resonate with the audience. You will be a better human being for having watched that scene.

Though in the spirit of honesty, your view of nuns will probably diminish a bit…

When’s the last time you could say that about a rom-com?

American Horror Story, keep up the good work.

A final note. I would’ve included more gifs, but (1) I didn’t want to spoil anything and (2) easily 90% of all AHS images are of Evan Peters, who is apparently just the bee’s knee’, if the series’ female fans are to be believed.

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Posted in Fame Day, feminism, film, lgbt, media, television

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2 Broke Girls, S2E17 “And the Broken Hip”: A TV Review

Posted on February 19, 2013 by | 3 comments

brokenhidphgas

I finished writing my last review with sort of a bad taste in my mouth, so I decided to try approaching this episode with the same curious naivete with which I viewed Season 1.  

It’s a tried and true television trope to have the characters of your sitcom blackmailed, and in this case that takes the form of an actual lawsuit. Caroline and Max have recently started making big bucks with their cupcake shop [more on that later] when street performer/puppeteer J. Petto [played by Andy Dick] starts scaring off their customers by setting up out front. After they’ve told him to get out he storms into the storm, only to have him slip on a doughnut and fall and break a hip.

The hip, of course, belongs to his puppet, Charming Pierre. The two girls are sued, but agree to pay him $1000 to avoid going to court [they obviously have no insurance on their cupcake shop]. After they’ve paid the man he demands more, which leads to Max kidnapping Pierre. When Petto shows up he’s forced to watch his beloved marionette forced into compromising situations involving two naked Barbie dolls [one male, one female], and promises to call off the lawsuit. That just about sums up the entire episode.

At this point in time, the primary cast of 2 Broke Girls can arguably be boiled down to just Max and Caroline. Sure, the gang back at the diner are close second-stringers [Han, Oleg, Earl, and Sophie], but there’s no way they’re ever going to dominate an episode. The camera will never pan back and forth between Max and Caroline running the shop while Oleg and Earl figure play pranks on Han; this is a one-plot show. And that singular plot had better be amusing, because we’re not allowed the distraction of another to take us away from it. With a title like 2 Broke Girls it’s unlikely that the format will change, but it’s sincerely got me wondering how much depth breaking away from that would give the show, and how much more characterization we’d be able to get out of the rest of the cast.

This episode is also a reminder of how dated the references on the show can be. Once again hipsters are a topic, since they are the ones flocking to the shop due to its new 90s celebrity menu [cupcakes refer to Beavis and Butthead, Dennis Rodman, and David Hasselhoff]. While this is nothing new, it got me thinking about what demographic the show is trying to target. I was born in 1990, and there’s some pretty explicit reference to pro figure skater Nancy Kerrigan and her being attacked in 1994. With that in mind, most people in their early to mid twenties are not going to get these jokes, so is it the thirty-somethings they’re going for?

At the end of the day, this episode was just another 2 Broke Girls Episode. It relied too heavily on put-down humour [this guy is too into puppets let’s mock him mercilessly] and too-easy jokes [“. . . I’m pretty sure you’d go from J. Petto to J. Pedophile], and was ultimately only sort of funny. That seems to be what audiences are eating up, though, so you almost can’t blame them for sticking with what works.

As a final note, their “Current Total” of $4800 drops down to the “New Total” of $3800, due to them crumbling to J. Petto’s demands. It’s still not really explained what the point of the total is, but I suppose through this episode it can be viewed as emergency bail-out money. Expect someone [Caroline, in all likelihood] to get thrown in jail at some point this season.

Stray Observations:

  • It’s nice to note that this show has some form of continuity- Candy Andy’s storefront is currently for lease.
  • Not really any quotes or exchanges that stood out to me this episode. Just a pretty meh episode, though definitely not as offensive as last week’s.
  • I will admit that Max straight-facedly ramming a naked Barbie onto a puppet was very funny. I expect to see gifs of it on tumblr by the end of the week.
  • 2 Broke Girls Cheesecake Menu: Even Sophie’s cleavage was generally kept tightly under wraps this week. Not much to report here.

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Fame Day: Geek Love

Posted on February 14, 2013 by | 1 comment

It took me some time to think of a Fame Day topic that also intersected with Valentine’s Day [which is today, if you didn’t know], but once I came up with it there was no doubt in my mind that it was the right one.

Featured on the IGN YouTube channel START, Geek Love tracks individuals as they take part in Sci-Fi Speed Dating at New York Comic-Con. The show originally aired in full-length episodes [focusing on more than one person] on TLC, but never got past the first two episodes.

In the pile-on of proper nouns that was that last paragraph, I’ve neglected to define what exactly Sci-Fi Speed Dating is. Sci-Fi Speed Dating is regular speed dating, but at a comic convention, meaning that most of the participants are cosplaying [in costume]. Everyone must involved must be single and interested in members of the opposite sex [they can be interested in the same sex as well, but it must be in addition to that], and, since I don’t want to go through every single rule, it’s hosted by a very large man dressed up as a Jedi; he is hilarious.

To give you a fuller understanding here’s the first episode, “Brony Friend Zone (Alex)”:


It paints a picture of the stereotypical nerd/geek, a bespectacled pudgy young man with chops who lives with his parents. A show’s got to have some variety, though, and Episode 3 stars a girl named Brittany:


For the record, I would go get coffee with this girl in a heartbeat. I don’t even like coffee, but I would order some and drink it if it was something she was into.

Brittany is a person who “likes video games, particularly BioWare, comic books, Marvel, [she likes] the shows Once Upon A Time, Lost, Doctor Who,” in case you missed that. She’s also, by most people’s standards, not a physical representation of what a nerd looks like. She’s also friendly and personable, exhibiting none of the tendencies we’ve been expected to observe thanks to shows like The Big Bang Theory.

The reason I’ve decided to spotlight Geek Love today is because it highlights the diversity within the growing community of people who identify themselves as “nerds” or “geeks.” Episode 4 features a guy who cosplays as Jimmy Olsen [“Superman’s Pal”], and basically no one he talks to recognizes him. As a comic-lover it was hard for me not to get upset at them and scream at the screen, “You call yourselves nerds?!” They were, though. They just like different things. Episode 6 follows Mary, who’s primarily a movie buff. That differentiates her from someone who is very into anime, but doesn’t discourage her from “looking for love” at this convention.

As a show Geek Love also serves as a means of discussing how important your personal likes, passions obsessions etc. are in finding a significant other. Over on his blog Mightygodking discussed this in reaction to a story arc of popular webcomic PvP, and while I may not agree with him 100% his discussion on the necessity of shared interests in a relationship is a good one [be sure to check the comments section, too!]. Clearly the people on this show are looking for potential girlfriends and boyfriends at Sci-Fi Speed Dating because finding another person who loves the same things you love is important to them. How high this should be on your personal compatibility list is up to you, but for them its rank is up there.

Geek Love is a pretty fantastic show for people who are interested in comic books, video games, science fiction, and finding a person to share all of that with. It’s also arguably a good show for anyone who wants their perceptions of that particular sub-culture to broaden their views.

YouTube Channel Playlist Page: Geek Love – YouTube
Updated Every Thursday

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Posted in comics, Fame Day, film, internet, sex, television, video games

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2 Broke Girls, S2E16 “And Just Plane Magic”: A TV Review

Posted on February 12, 2013 by | 10 comments

2chainzasdgaw

Now I normally don’t grade my reviews, but after watching this episode I wish I had started back with Episode 13. Without ratings there’s no way of indicating how huge the drop of quality is which occurred between last week and this week. What I am saying is that this was not a good 21 minutes of television. With that being said, this review will take place in the form of a bullet pointed list.

  • Caroline and Max are in the diner and Max snarks at Han.
  • Depressed by the fact that they’re spending their Friday night replacing ketchup bottles, they decide to go to a Ravonettes’ show.
  • [They don’t have tickets, but they feel like breasts should suffice]
  • They get in because Max jokes with a British guy about how a trash can is her boyfriend.
  • After sleeping with him she manages to snag a fancy high-class plane trip to the Grammys for both Caroline and herself.
  • On that plane is Grammy-nominated rapper 2 Chainz [as seen in the picture above].
  • Something about the plane they’re on being the Channings’ [Caroline’s family] old private jet. Also: Max has never been on a plane before.
  • Max somehow breaks the plane when visiting the cockpit and after a quick cut from the two strapping in their seatbelts we see them in a cheap motel.
  • They watch the Grammys while wearing pretty dresses though, so it’s okay. Also they’re taking an economy class flight back to NYC the next day.

And that’s it. That’s what happens. I mean, sure I could mention the fact that the captain of the plane [an old friend of Caroline’s] asks her out on a date which she accepts [at 2 Chainz’s insistence] to ensure their safety in the air. I could also mention that Caroline loves 2 Chainz’s track “Birthday Song” so much that she raps the chorus at least twice in this episode. That ultimately wouldn’t help, though.

I can’t tell, for the life of me, what this episode was supposed to be doing. Caroline mentions that she recently broke up with Andy [see previous reviews] and that Max is easy, so why not spend a night out on the town, and that makes perfect sense. At the end of the episode, however, we’re led to believe that Max’s boyfriend is the British guy [are we really supposed to believe she’s tying herself down?] and that Caroline’s is “Captain Facelift” [he got plastic surgery, ha ha ha]. Are we expected to take that seriously, or not?

Celebrity cameos aren’t a big deal [as it turns out, this week’s HIMYM also featured one by another famous African-American {hello, Black History Month}]; they can be pivotal to the plot of an episode or simply just there for audiences to get a kick out of. In this instance, I feel like CBS asked 2 Chainz if he wanted to be on their show and didn’t know what to do with him when he accepted. Apparently [and “Birthday Song” attests to this] he likes “big booty hos” and sleeping while flying, and that’s about all he really contributes.

Probably the biggest problem I had with this episode [and I echo the sentiments of past 2 Broke Girls reviewer Todd Van Der Werff] is that there was so much potential. Growing up as a poor girl Max never had the opportunity to even sit in a plane, and it’s an understandably foreign experience. Instead of feeling the discomfort of squeezing past your seatmate to visit the bathroom [which has a line outside] or choking down gross airplane food like the rest of us mere mortals she’s instead given hot towels by a French stewardess and eats prosciutto off of a reasonably sized refreshment table. This isn’t something that the show’s audience as a whole can relate with.

What I want now, more than ever, is for Max and Caroline to return to their wacky hijinks of finding ways to make/save money. I miss their adventures of signing up for drug trials and “extreme couponing” and donating their eggs. Most people don’t have great jobs or that much money, and while not [ever] being a great show it was at least relatable on some level. Now we have the two girls travelling on a private jet to the Grammys. 

Maybe this is just an indicator that an EVAN YEONG MADNESS WATCH would have been a good thing to institute after all. I’ve been willing to acknowledge this show’s failing from the start, but this week managed to find even my low expectations disappointed. From what I can tell next week Max and Caroline will break a street performer’s hip. I’m not sure what to expect, but I think doing worse would be a challenge; this was like the Aliens: Colonial Marines of 2 Broke Girls  episodes.

Stray Observations:

  • Outside the Ravonettes’ concert a scalper in a cow costume offers them free tickets if “the blonde one milks [him].” He was waiting all night to say that to someone.
  • On a positive note, Han keeps up the recent trend of having other characters snark back at Max. He nails the delivery, too.

Max: “But be careful, Han female-to-male [sex changes] can be tricky.”
Han: “Welllllllll. You would know.”

  • This was 2 Chainz’s acting debut, poor guy.
  • Caroline’s French accent is atrocious.
  • Much to my disdain, the whoops at Sophie’s entrance are back in full force. Guess CBS noticed how lacklustre they’ve been lately.
  • 2 Broke Girls Cheesecake Menu: While posing next to a sleeping 2 Chainz for a picture Max cups her breasts and pulls out a duckface. Later Caroline poses with her booty next to his head, but the two instances really aren’t comparable.

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