**Warning: This entry gets a bit triggery.**

I don't know if anyone else is a big TLC head, like I am, but I watched the most amazing and awe-inspiring and depressing program I have seen in forever tonight. It was called Growing up Old. It was about kids with Progeria, which is that disease which makes you age really fast. So these kids were from 6-14 and they looked like very small, very old people. And they had old people health problems (strokes, heart trouble, arthritis, etc.). It was so sad. One little boy was only 6 and already had two major strokes. All of the kids were bald, had vericose veins, swollen joints, wrinkled faces...

It gave me a lot to think about. Aging is one of the most difficult things that any of us go through--can you imagine going through it super fast? And at that age? How could you possibly understand it? I don't understand it, and I'm supposed to be an adult. The idea that my body is deteriorating, that my cells are dying faster than they are being born--that is nearly enough to make me cry. I look for wrinkles and try to pretend I don't have gray hair. How could I possibly have even wrapped my mind around these thoughts at six?

And even if the six year old doesn't understand that he's aging (the older kids most certainly did understand), he does understand that he's really really sick. I can't imagine that, either. Again, it's hard enough as an adult, or even as an elderly person--how can you be anything but permanently angry if you are a sick child? Or, maybe worse yet, if you have a sick child? That was the other thing this program really had me thinking about--how does one parent a child that is aging faster than you are? It kept showing these kids with their parents, and the parents all looked so young. I can't imagine the feeling of watching your child grow to old age in only a few years.

Mark and I were talking during the show, and one thing that came up was how some human disease just seems like a sick joke. This is one example of that. It's like a very vengeful god, who is very familiar with our culture and what hurts us the most, invents ways for death to be not only painful and dehabilitating, but also as horrifying and humiliating as possible. What other explanation can there be for having to watch yourslef grow to old age and die as a child? Isn't the one benefit of early death supposed to be avoiding old age? What other explanation can there be for Alzeimer's, turning people into something they never and torturing their families, often for years, before they finally die? What explanation for cancers that attack the parts of our body that society most expects us to display? What explanation can there possibly be besides a god who hates us and has a very sick sense of humor?

I should so not watch TV.

Last night I had the good fortune to run across an episode of My So-Called Life It was on Noggin, I think? Apparently they play it every Friday night. Anyway, I was thrilled to dig into the couch and reconnect with Angela and Rayanne and Rickie and (of course) Jordan Catalano.

As I was watching the espisode, though, something seemed strange and out of place to me. Almost...dated. At first I thought it was just that I am now a lot older than those characters were supposed to be (Claire Danes, who played Angela on the show, is the same age as I am in real life, so when I was 14 watching the show, she was 14 making it). Then I thought it must just be the age of the show--after all, it is ten years old.

The plot lines of high school dramas don't change all that much, though. Sure, MSCL was made before everyone had IM, so there is a fair amount of talking on the phone, but other than that the drama is pretty much the standard fare--sex, friendships, family, the future. So why did the characters on MSCL seem so archaic?

Then I figured it out. It was because they were covered up.

No, not their emotions. Those were pretty wide open. Their bodies. The difference was their clothes. Angela Chase almost never wore less than three layers, one of them generally being overalls and another nearly always made of flannel. And it wasn't just sexless Angela--the non-virginal characters weren't flaunting their stuff either. Rayanne, the supposed wild one, dressed in tights, boots, a big coat...even Sharon, the one who was actually supposed to be HAVING sex on the show, who had breasts, which much was made of in the first few epsiodes (if I remember correctly), never showed much skin. In fact, she sort of dressed like a kindergarden teacher.

If you compare this to current teen dramas--not just the shitty ones, but even endearing and offbeat ones like Joan of Arcadia, you will get an assault of midriffs, ass cracks, high heels and cleavage. Not to be a huge prude, but Angela looked a whole hell of a lot more comfortable in her overalls than Joan does in her lowriders.

It make me sad to think that there was a time only ten years ago where teenage girls on television weren't expected to be sexpots. Sure, part of it was the impervious nature of grunge culture at that time (thank you, thank you, THANK YOU Kurt Cobain), but I don't think that tells the whole story. After all, baggy "grungy" clothes stayed "in style" and available a lot longer for teenage guys than they did for girls. In fact, if I'm not mistaken, guys are still encouraged to wear baggy jeans and button-downs, even if they are supposed to be a little bit cleaner than Jordan Catalano's ever were. A teenage girl dressed like Angela Chase, though? There would be two names for her--dyke or bag lady.

For the first time, I realize that there was some luck in when I came of age. Sure, I'm part of the first generation who started having sex knowing about AIDS; sure, I graduated from high school into a dismal economy and graduated from college into a much worse one; I'll even admit that Converse All-Stars are not any more attractive than they were the first time around. But at least I had until my 20s before I had to start worrying about low-rise thongs and push-up bras. And at least, for that one sweet year, before Claire Daines got all sexxxeee and started dating Billy Crudup, I had Angela.

Why do you watch those shows? An answer for my critics.

I'll admit it--I love plastic surgery shows. Not that horrifying fictional one, but the real-life ones they have on the Discovery Health channel and stuff. I am enamored with surgery in general, and I am especially amused/horrified/conflicted about surgery for the sake of vanity. Plus the people crack my shit up. So I was mildly excited to see advertisements for the upcoming Miami Slice. Trailing five Miami plastic surgeons through their professional and personal lives for six episodes? What could be a guiltier pleasure?

Well, it is unmitigated awful. I really, really want to believe it's fiction, because the idea that these are real people is simply too disturbing for words. Not one of the plastic surgeons (all men, by the way) seems to have any identifiably good characteristics (except that one of them has a super-cute dog). Every single woman on the show, including one doc's 76 year-old mom, has fake boobs and an over-tightened face. The show is very big into Miami!. All the stars play in Miami!. If you live in Miami!, you have to have a tight face and big fake breasts (and lipo'd ass and an eye tuck and...). Everyone wears a bikini and listens to Latin music in Miami!. And on and on. It goes beyond enough to make you barf and moves right into enough to make you writhe on the ground in spasms of laughter and pain and humiliation at sharing a species with these people.

So why do I keep watching it? Well, for one thing they show some surgery, although it's not in as much detail as the much better programs on Discovery Health (to be fair, they did have an extensive liposuction scene last night). But it's something beyond that, something...sadistic? I find it oddly comforting that by the standards of these folks, I am not only obese, I am also too old, my nose is too long, my chin is too strong, etc. The fact that they have invented a standard for "beauty" that can be met only through invasive surgical means makes me feel all the more satiated about being middle-of-the-road, kinda-cute, a bit chunky, and 100% real. The more plastic breasts and plastic asses and ab implants and Botoxed faces I see waltz across my screen, the more in love I am with my cellulite, my glasses, my breasts that are going to sag, my unplucked eyebrows and belly roll. I don't know if that's a normal reaction, but it's the reaction I have. And that's why I watch these shows--they make me feel like shit about humanity, sometimes, but they also make me feel beautiful. And because I know their business is the opposite, I feel like I'm pulling one over on them.

None of this is to say that my reasons are unobjectionable. I mean, I've written many a rant against reality TV chastising people for this same thing--using the misfortunes of others to make themselves feel better/smarter/sexier/fill-in-your-needed-attribute-here. And I know that's exactly what I am doing. It's a habit I'd really prefer not to have. But at the same time, I feel like I am seeing something here that other people aren't. Watching a rhinoplasty performed makes me really, really happy with my nose. And that's a good thing, right?

All those plastic people
Got their plastic surgery
But we got a big, big beautiful
And we got it for free
-Ani, "Imperfectly"

So everyone has their celebrity crushes, right? I mean, everyone who will confess to actually watching TV and immersing herself in pop culture eventually winds up with a crush on some or other hottie. It's part for the course.

In my time, I've had a number of fairly sensible crushes. Benicio del Toro. Johnny Depp. Angelina Jolie. These things make sense.

Over the weekend, I watched Inside the Actor's Studio and realized, with a start, that I have a huge celebrity crush that I have had for years and never fully realized.

John Goodman.

Yes, that John Goodman.

So John Goodman is a hell of an actor, there is no denying that. But sex symbol? Hadn't heard that before.

It gets weirder. I realized, shortly after realizing that I have a celebrity crush on John Goodman, that John Goodman reminds me of my late grandfather (very similar build).

I so need a analyst.

I'll admit it, I'm in love.

Let's go back a bit. A few months ago, there was an Austin Real World. It sucked ass. One of the many reasons it sucked so much ass was that the Austin portrayed on it resembled the Austin in which I live in only the most vague terms. Another reason was that everyone on it was lame. Now, there is a new Austin-based reality show, Rollergirls.

And, having watched two episodes so far, I concur that Rollergirls is the bomb.

The show follows the players in Austin's locally grown Lonestar Roller Derby. It touches on their "real" lives (though so far not as much as I'd like), but is mainly focused on their involvement in roller derby and their matches, called "bouts." The show is over-the-top, resembling mockumentary as much as documentary, but it's in good fun and I'm an instant addict. So much so that I've already talked Mark into going to see a real bout in a couple of weeks.

As a feminist, there are lots of criticisms I could make about the show. There is definitely an oversexed element, woman-on-woman violence is par for the course, etc. But I'm not going to make them, because from what I see so far, the good outweighs the bad. The woman involved seem to honestly be having a good time, there is a comraderie in the sport along with the grudges and violence, and the league is player-owned and operated, which rocks. Also, I don't necessarily think women excercising some aggression for once is a bad thing. As for the sexiness part, it doesn't come off as demeaning, at least not to me. In part, this is likely because the women don't fit a narrow beauty stereotype. In part it's because it's not being forced on them from outside, at least not in any way I can see so far. They really honestly do seem to be doing it for themselves. I know that's what they always say, but in this case, I tentatively believe it.

My love for the show may wane as the season progresses--we'll see. For now, though, I am super jazzed about it. And if I could roller skate, I think I'd try out myself.

(Title courtesy of Ani.)

I just watched the other day's episode of Rollergirls. And suddenly I understand why I feel so terrible.

The espisode centered around Clownsnack. Clownsnack was a founder of the Lonestar Roller Derby, but she quit last season because her mom was sick. This season, she wanted to come back. Rather than welcoming her back, some of the current roller derby members (in positions of power) put her through the audition and hazing process of a new member, then they told her she didn't make a team. Ultimately, some of the TXRD's other members protest about Clownsnack's treatment and she's granted another audition and gets back on to her team.

The reasoning given for not wanting Clownsnack back by the women who are keeping her out varies, but it basically centers around her expecting special treatment because she's been in the league before, her being "flaky" for having quit (even though her reasons for quitting seemed very good to me), and the league being something different now than the it was when she was involved. Basically, they seemed to argue that they'd outgrown her and that they wanted their league to be something different than the one she was familiar with, so she wasn't welcome.

Ding ding ding.

It is incredibly painful to watch something you put your time and heart into be taken away from you, and that's how this had to feel. To have people for whom you have worked and to whom you have given decide they are beyond you, or they want different things than you do, so you should just go away quietly, please. On the show, Clownsnack and her supporters refuse to let her be shut out, and she ends up back on the team, but I can't help but think it must be a pretty hollow victory. After being humiliated and insulted like that, I don't see how she could go back at all. On the other hand, though, why let something she loves be taken from her just because a vocal minority are big assholes?

That is the question.

The bigger question, though, is why is it so impossible for a group of women to get together and do anything without these types of battles? Why does someone always have to be "out" in order for everyone else to feel secure being "in"? And why is the cruelty with which we perpetuate these crimes against each other necessary?

Honestly, it makes me want to give up. It makes me want to give up on the entire idea of a community of women. It makes me want to give up on believing that we deserve better than the treatment we give each other. It makes me want to give up and hide in my house and never try to be a part of anything again.

Because I can think of nothing better to do, I give you the Friday Five. Complete with pictures, even.

1) When you were little what was your favorite TV show?

Depends how little we're talking. I'm told I enjoyed The Smurfs as a small child, though I don't remember it. We didn't have a functioning television for quite a bit of my later childhood/preteen years, but I do remember watching The Wonder Years, Life Goes On, and Growing Pains some, probably mostly at other people's houses.

2) What was your favorite movie?

I tended to get obsessed with things and beg to rent them over and over as a kid. Goonies was a favorite, as was the early Julia Roberts movie Satisfaction. I wanted to be in a girl band. Still do, actually.

3) What is your favorite TV show currently?

I don't watch a lot of TV anymore, but I do really like Miami Ink. I watched Rollergirls when it was on. I'm a bit intrigued by Big Love right now.

4) What is the best movie you have seen so far this year?

Probably Brokeback Mountain. Capote was also excellent.

5) If someone was going to make a movie or TV show about your life, who would play you and why?

I'd want Laura Prepon from That 70's Show to play me. She's the only actress I can think of who is both tall enough and in the right age cohort, without being terrifyingly skinny or just bugging me. We don't particularly look alike, but something about her reminds me a bit of myself. I've been told Laura Dern would be a good choice, but she's quite a bit older than I am.

As promised, I am moving my reviews over to this blog, and I'm really going to write some. I swear. Due to my current lazy mindset, however, they are likely to all be for television shows. Oh well, we do what we can.

After watching "Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants" on a plane in October, I got interested in Amber Tamblyn (whom I remembered from "General Hospital") and thus in seeing "Joan of Arcadia." It had been recommended to me before, but I'd never bothered to check it out. So I Netflixed the first DVD, sat on it for several months, then finally watched it.

Wow. It's so good.

The story centers around (duh) Joan (Amber Tamblyn), a sixteen year-old girl who recently moved with her family to a new city, Arcadia (I don't think it specifies where Arcadia is, but something makes me think it's in Michigan).

Joan's family is comprised of her cop dad and teacher mom (brilliantly played by Joe Mantegna and Mary Steenburgen), dorky younger brother (Michael Welch) and newly paralyzed older brother (Jason Ritter, who is just fantastic). Not long after Joan starts school in Arcadia, God starts talking to her. God appears in the form of any of various humans, and s/he gives Joan tasks to do, most of which end up helping her family or other people around her. It's difficult to give a better explanation for the premise than that, but that really doesn't do it justice.

In the meantime, Joan makes friends with a couple of "social misfits" at her high school, Grace (Becky Wahlstrom, who is hilarious) and Adam (Christopher Marquette, who I now want to marry), whom she eventually dates.

The show moves fairly seemlessly between Joan's relationships with the people in her life and her relationship with God. The God thing isn't really all that strange. Rarely is the viewer compelled to question Joan's sanity, or wonder if she is really seeing God. She is, and it's just part of her life.

Which isn't to say that the show isn't tackling big issues, religion and faith being the biggest. It's rare that you see religion come up even peripherally on prime time network television, and I am really impressed that CBS had the backbone to play "Joan of Arcadia" for that reason. There had to have been backlash. And the issues taken up by the show that are not directly religious are no less serious--particularly Kevin's learning to deal with his paralysis.

The only thing that really disappointed me about the first season of the show was the season finale. In this episode, Joan is diagnosed with Lyme's Disease, and the doctor says that she may have been hallucinating for months. Handy way to explain God. There is, however, a second season (which I haven't been able to procure yet, but I will), so hopefully they'll make up for the lousy season finale with a good Season 2 opener.

Getting into this show reminded me that there are occaisonally good things on TV. I haven't really watched any network TV for several years, so this was heartening. I have Netflixed or requested from the library the first season of "The Gilmore Girls" (watched four episodes already, loving it), the first and only season of "My So-Called Life" (nostalgia...), "Wonderfalls," and "Freaks and Geeks." Maybe I should pay more attention to the stuff people recommend.

I finally finished watching the season of "Rollergirls" last night. And I loved that show all the way through.

Parts of it were really stupid, and obviously dramatized to a point that docu-drama may have been a better genre for it than reality show. But be that as it may, it was fun to watch (and not just because it's set here!) and it made me feel good about womankind.

In the season finale, one of the skaters (Sister Mary Jane, for those playing along at home) says something about roller derby teaching her to love women again. And you could see that, and I think that's a big part of what got me about the show. The women who created and participate in Lonestar Rollergirls really seem to love each other. They fought a lot, all season, and there was way, way more catty bullshit than I wanted there to be, but at the end of the day, they created something together, fought for it, worked for it, and loved each other. And I don't see much of that, in my real life, in my online life, or even on TV. Groups of women creating things that matter and that last and that are fun and benefit them is something I'd really love to see more of, everywhere.

Maybe it's stupid to get that serious about something like roller derby, but I honestly don't think it is. We are trained to take men's organizations and interests, including and especially their sports, seriously, but not women's. And make no mistake, these women are athletes. I can't even fucking stand up on skates, and I know they're athletes. And general badasses, too. What the group of women involved in TXRD have done, in terms of business, in terms of athletics, and in terms of building a truly woman-run organization, impresses the hell out of me.

And it helps that some of the women featured on the show resonated with me so much. Some (Catalac...) didn't, but that was more a function of reality TV always needing a bad guy than anything else, I think. Others, like Punky Bruiser, Lux, and SMJ, I really wish I knew in real life.

Which is another thing I loved about the show. For the first time since I watched Angela Chase in MSCL in 10th grade, I finally saw some women on TV who reminded me of me and my friends. Only more than Angela, because these are real (or at least mostly real) women, not the figment of a TV writer's imagination. Helps too, I guess, that they are women in my town, women near my age, etc. But it's more than that. These are women who wear the same clothes in multiple episodes, have jobs they really don't like, settle for only barely suitable men, and often throw up their hands at the whole damn thing and just have another drink. Just like the ones I know.

So yeah. "Rollergirls" was good fun to watch, and it gave me a lot of food for thought about women's organizations and the bullshit that they face both from without and from within (I think I blogged about the "Clownsnack" episode a bit back--that was a really good example). I recommend it.

So first, let me just agree with everyone else who watched or wrote about season 2 of Joan of Arcadia--it's not as good as the first season. Not near as good. And parts of it are just plain bad.

But it's still worth watching.

That being said, a run-down on what is good and what is not.

Good:

1. Judith. People disagree about Judith, Joan's friend from Crazy Acres summer camp, who comes into the show in the 2nd episode of the season and leaves in the 9th. Some people found their relationship unconvincing, or didn't think they were invested enough in Judith's character for her stabbing death to have meaning (that would be a spoiler). I diagree. I thought Judith, played by Sprague Grayden (who has a really, really cool name, and is also apparently in Over There and Six Feet Under), was a wonderful addition to the show, and when she died I bawled my eyes out. Besides, given the show's emphasis on questioning the nature of God, senseless death of a close friend was sort of necessary, wasn't it?

2. Lily. Helen's confirmation coach, a former nun, played brilliantly by Constance Zimmer (also seen in Entourage, among other places), brings blessed sarcastic levity to a mostly really depressing season. Plus she's super cute.

3. Grace's Bat Mitzvah. First, I love Grace--she's my favorite character (especially since the anti-Adam took over, but I'll get there). I love that she got more to do this season, and I think putting her and Luke together was great, even if it is a littleweird to see Becky Wahlstrom, who was like 29 when the season was filmed, kissing Michael Welch, who was like 17).

And I love that we got to see more of Grace's family and understand her a bit better. But her Bat Mitzvah was the best. It made me all gooey inside. I love other people's religious ceremonies.

4. More Goth God. Jeffrey Licon's super-brilliant Goth God showed up a good bit in this season, and I'm 100% for that. He's my favorite God.

Now, the bad. There was a lot of bad in season. Annie Pott's insipid Lucy. The dumb lawsuit. The appearance by Haley Duff (WTF?). The very worst thing, however, was the disinegration of Adam Rove.

I love Adam Rove. Chris Marquette blew me away in the first season (and in the second as well, actually, given what he had to work with). And what the writers of JoA did to him in the second season was unforgiveable. First, he gets progressively whinier all season, always very busy, never very stoic. When did that happen? Secondly, the pressuring Joan for sex thing? What? Where did that come from? Their explanation, that he basically turned 17 and his hormones overtook his personality, was just plain stupid. The most amazingly terrible thing, though, was the decision to facilitate a break-up between Joan and Adam by having Adam have sex with Bonnie (Alexis Dziena, from Bringing Rain and Broken Flowers).

Yes. Adam cheating on Joan. Right. Personally, I find seeing God a lot more likely. It's mean, out of character, and just flat stupid. And it ruined the whole season for me. Truly. Even if they did have to break up (which I didn't think they did, but whatever), that was SO not the way to do it.

So yeah. I really wish they'd had a third season, because by the finale of this one I was ready to see where they would go with post-break-up Joan and Adam, as well as with the bizarre Ryan plot twist. But there wasn't. So I'm sad. Fear not, though. There are five seasons of Gilmore Girls I haven't seen yet.

Edited to add: Also, the absolute pain I felt in realizing that when I finished the second season finale of this show there would be no more reminded me of why I shouldn't be allowed to watch TV. I get too involved. It was My So-Called Life all over again.

I finished the first season of Gilmore Girls over the weekend. My biggest gripe? The last disc only has one episode on it. What kind of crap is that?

Other than that, though, I really liked it. It's not rocket science, but it's a fun show with really positive portrayals of women, which is something sorely lacking in most media, including TV. And it offered welcome levity when Joan of Arcadia was getting me down.

The best parts? Lorelai, in general. Rory, in general. Sookie. Lane. Luke. Definitely Luke.

Bad parts? I'm not much of a fan of Dean, which puts a damper on being excited about his and Rory's relationship. And the whole thing with the town troubador bugs me. But honestly, I mostly find it to be good fun.

Last evening, I was sucked into two hours of programming about the Duggar family. Jim Bob (nope, not kidding) and Michelle Duggar are an Arkansas couple in their late 30s who "decided to let God decide how many children they would have." So far, the count is 16--9 boys and 7 girls, ages 17 through newborn at the time the show was filmed. And they all have names that begin with a J. Seriously. Joshua, Jana, John-David, Jill, Jessa, Jinger, Joseph, Josiah, Joy-Anna, Jedidiah, Jeremiah, Jason, James, Justin, Jackson, and Johannah Faith.

At first, I was watching the show because the logistics of life with 16 children fascinates me. I mean, how do you cook for 18 every day? What about clothes? How much does this whole enterprise cost? And that part of it was interesting. I kept watching, though, because I was both intrigued and aghast and what wasn't being said about the family.

The Duggars are fundamentalist Christians. This was clear from the program, if you were paying any attention (the girls all have long hair and wear long dresses, the children are home schooled, Michelle's speech is interjected with claims that this or that is a miracle, etc.), and any lingering doubts are cleared up by the family's website. However, the two hours of programs I watched never mentioned the family's faith explicitly, either as a reason for their having so many children and living their lives the way that they do (which it is) or in passing.

The Duggars write this on their website:

When we are out together we get questions like… “Is this a school group?”, “Are they all yours?”, “Are you Catholic or Mormon?”, “Don’t you know what causes this?” These questions give us many opportunities to share with others the hope that is in us, that children are a gift from God. We did not always view children as a gift. Michelle & I did not have any children for the first 4 years of marriage.

We chose to use the birth control pill. After our first child was born, Michelle started back on the pill, shortly after, she miscarried. We found that sometimes the birth control pill will allow you to conceive, but then cause a miscarriage.

We then realized we had the same heart attitude about children as those willfully choosing abortion (wanting to make our own plans, live our own lives, children could be a bother or interruption).

We searched the scriptures & found that God says, “Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord: & the fruit of the womb is his reward. As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them” (Psalms 127:3-5).

They make it clear, when left to their own devices, that they have so many children because they believe that's the way God wants it--i.e. they believe birth control is wrong. They also make it clear that they are happy with the publicity their large family attracts, because it gives them the opportunity to prosthletize. Why, then, were the programs about them so devoid of clear references to their religious beliefs?

While watching the Duggars, I couldn't help but think of the DeBolt family. With a total of nineteen children, the majority of whom were adopted, and the majority of whom were also special needs, the logistics of the DeBolt household were even more impressive than the Duggar's. However, in the DeBolts case, their organization was fairly low on the list of things I found to admire about them while I watched their story. In the case of the Duggars, it was just about all I could come up with. Watching the Duggars gave me the creepy feeling of being trapped, as long-suffering Michelle gestated, birthed, fed, and raised one perfect blond Christian soldier after another, all under the watchful eye of her patriarchal politician (yep, that too) husband. Looking at the Duggar's pantry, stocked with more food than the general store in my hometown, I felt disgusted. Watching the construction on their new 7,000 square foot house (where there is still just one boys' bedroom and one girls'' bedroom) felt like watching a Wal-Mart go up.

The DeBolts adopted children from all over the world, many of whom had few other options save institutionalization. They opened their lives to these kids not because they were afraid their God would smite them otherwise, or because they were building an army of people to think just like them, but because they knew they were needed and that they could help. I suspect that there was some underlying Christianity in the DeBolt household as well, but it never forced girls to do girls' work while boys did boys'. Each child in the DeBolt household seemed clear in his or her role, not just as a member of the family, but also as an individual. The Duggar children, however, when asked about whether or not they felt their individuality was stifled, were hard-pressed to come up with something more than "some of us love pickles, some don't" to prove their senses of self.

Once I started poking around on the Internet, I saw that much has been written about the Duggars already. A lot of it is not very flattering, but makes a good point about the inherent selfishness in reproducing the way that the Duggars have, and the flawed Christian logic in their doing so. Much as I dislike the tone of some of these articles, as well as their focus on the kids and Michelle as the problem, rather than putting the blame with Jim Bob, where I'd bet it actually lies, I have to agree. What the Duggars have done isn't an example of Christianity the way I see it, no matter how they may be held up by Focus on the Family and the like as a beacon of hope. If the Duggars were truly in it for the good of the children, and of the world, and felt that they had infinite love and resources to give to kids, they would have done something much more like the DeBolts. If children are indeed the heritage of the Lord, that means all children, not just the ones in your own bloodline.

I've long been interested in the subject of female aggression, or, put simply, why women and girls are so damn mean to each other. This interest is largely personal, as I've been on the end of a quite a bit of female-to-female bullying, both as a child and as an adult, and I've been on the bully side more often than I'd care to admit as well. It's partially theoretical or academic, though, as the more involved I've become in feminist academic and social circles, the more sure I am that the biggest barricade in the way of real feminist change is, in fact, women's attitudes towards each other.

Which is a fairly controversial statement, really. A lot of feminists do not see it that way, and many are even insulted by the idea, as they think it implies that it's women’s own fault they are oppressed. Which isn't at all what I mean. I believe that the ways in which women abuse each other are highly patriarchally conditioned.

A lot of scholars on the subject of female bullying agree. There are several good books about this, the most famous and easily accessible of which is probably Rachel Simmons' Odd Girl Out: The Hidden Culture of Aggression in Girls (others worth checking out are Phyllis Chesler's groundbreaking Woman's Inhumanity to Woman and Leora Tanenbaum's Catfight: Rivalries Among Women--from Diets to Dating, from the Boardroom to the Delivery Room, which focuses on the competitive aspects of conflicts between girls and women). In her search for an explanation for the way she was treated and the way she treated others as a girl, Simmons interviews girls of various ages, races, classes, and backgrounds, as well as does significant secondary source research. She comes to the conclusion that the best explanation for the passive-aggressive nastiness young girls show each other (behavior including spreading rumors, exclusion, trying to turn others against someone, etc.) is that girls aren't taught any other way to express disagreement. In short, girls don't know how to fight in a healthy way, so they fight in a supremely unhealthy one.

Simmons and her theory make a guest appearance on the most recent piece I saw on this subject, the CBC/National Film Board of Canada Production It's a Girl's World. This short film alternates between interviews with and footage of a clique of 10 year-old girls in Montreal and their families and interviews with the family, friends, and tormentors of 14 year-old Dawn-Marie Wesley, a British Columbia girl who committed suicide after being bullied. Filmmaker Lynn Glazier simultaneously explores the most serious possible consequences of bullying, telling the story of the Wesley case, and the sources of bullying behavior and how it plays out, observing the Montreal girls.

The most interesting part of the film for me was Glazier's footage of the Montreal girls' parents (mostly their mothers, as (tellingly?) only one father seemed to be involved). Their reactions went from taking the situation very seriously to completely avoiding reality and brushing everything off with "they'll outgrow it." Especially interesting were the very different reactions of the parents of the two biggest bullies in the group. One set of parents was very pro-active, talking at length with their daughter about her behavior, keeping her home from activities if she did not socialize nicely, etc. The other mother denied that her daughter would have anything to do with bullying behavior until very late in the game.

The parents of all of the girls in the group got together on several occasions to discuss the issue, at one point bringing Simmons in as an "expert." In what I found to be the film's most telling scene, the girls' parents sit around a table, watching footage of the group of girls having a discussion about bullying with Simmons. In the discussion, the girls display typical behavior--one whispers to another behind her hand, several gang up on another and tell her she should be talking, one belittles another for not speaking up. Then the mothers display very similar behavior, one brushing off another's concerns, a second drilling a clearly upset woman about her parenting tactics, and several sitting quietly, looking as if they wished they were anywhere else.

To me, it was that scene, more than anything else in the film, which really drove the point home. Not only is bullying a dangerous, extremely harmful force in childhood, but we don't necessarily outgrow it. This is bad for us, individually and collectively, and bad for our kids. How can we expect a group of 10 year-olds to learn to disagree constructively and treat each other with respect when their mothers can't do it either? And who polices the mommies? Where does it end?

The same thought entered my mind watching an interview with one Dawn-Marie Wesley's bullies and her grandmother. Both the teenage girl and her grandmother did little but make excuses, saying that Dawn-Marie engaged in the same behavior, it was normal, doing everything but calling her suicide an overreaction to a completely average situation. With an attitude like that coming from the adult in her life (her grandmother), how could the teenage bully ever expect to be any different?

I don't completely agree with Simmons' bullying theories. Or, I agree with them, but think they are only part of a very complicated picture. I can certainly see her argument for girls' passive-aggressive behavior being largely due to not being socially able to be out-and-out aggressive, but even if girls were to be more "masculine" in their behavior towards each other, to bully with fists and punches more than glares and whispered rumors, we'd still have a problem, you know? And I believe a lot of that problem comes from the massive unresolved anger many woman and girls carry around with them. We're right to be angry--we live in a world that systematically devalues us at ever turn. The problem is that we turn that anger on each other, because we're too afraid to band together and turn it on those who really deserve it. The boys. We spend so much energy attacking each other, standing in our own and each other's way, and it's time and energy we could spend attacking them. But keeping us at each other's throats is all part of the plan, isn't it? It's much easier to dominate a population hell-bent on dominating each other.

The answers the film suggested were ultimately unsatisfying, at least to me. While I was glad to see the Montreal girls' parents taking bullying seriously and talking to their children about it, I don't much think it's going to help, even in their specific cases, much less overall. Forcing a girl to apologize for her past behavior, or encouraging her to make other friends if the ones she has are mean to her, don't really address the issue. I never heard any mother tell her daughter she was right to be mad, or offer to help her figure out who she was really mad at. And I'm not surprised. I've spent a good deal of time thinking about this stuff-more than most, probably-and I still can't figure out who to be mad at most of the time. I only pray that if I ever have a daughter, she and I can both learn.

After several weeks' hiatus, Mark and I eagerly tuned in to Fox (which I would watch for no other reason) for last night's episode of House. We are both big fans of the show, Mark for the medical stuff (even if it is pretty far from believable) and House's sarcastic wit, and me for the same wit and because I've developed a big fat crush on Hugh Laurie (who hasn't, really?). I realized last night, though, that there is something else I really like about the show.

It deals with pain. And not just the transient pain of patients who have specific, curable or treatable illnesses, but the chronic, never-ending pain House himself is in. The topic of this pain doesn't go away. It peaks and wanes, but it's always there, and not just as a reason for House's drug addiction, but as a topic in and of itself. In last night's episode, when House apologized to Tritter, he explained his behavior with something along the lines of "I am in constant pain. Pain that, on a good day, is just unbearable."

As a society, we don't know how to deal with chronic pain or illness. We have a decent idea of how to wrap our minds around illnesses and pains that are temporary, that can either be fixed or lead to a fairly rapid death, but the idea of chronic pain and illness eludes us. I think this may account for part of our appalling treatment of the disabled, though that's just a guess. We seem to only be able to conceptualize "sick" and "better," and have no idea how to deal with the idea that sometimes functioning in pain or sickness for the rest of one's life is just the way it is.

I am close to two people who are in chronic pain. Though neither of them is a Vicodin addict like House, they both manage their pain pharmaceutically, to a greater or lesser degree. Also unlike House, neither of them has an external manifestation of the pain (House walks with a limp and uses a cane, for those who don't watch the show). Both of them have reached a point with the causes of their pain where they more or less know it's permanent. And I don't necessarily know how each of them feels about it, but I know that from the perspective of someone who loves them, it is infuriating to watch them have to deal not only with the physical and emotional consequences of constantly hurting, but also with living in a society that has no place for that, no idea how to deal with it, and no vocabulary with which to talk about it.

One of the most frustrating things, at least from what I have observed, is having people ask how you are and knowing that their question is much less "how are you coping?" and much more "are you getting better?" People who should know that better isn't really on the table. It begins to seem almost accusatory, as if people are thinking that it must really be your fault you're in pain if you haven't gotten better after this long. As if righteous diseases and disorders have timelines, but chronic ones are somehow unworthy of sympathy.

I know from firsthand experience that there is a lot of guilt surrounding being a chronically sick person, even if your illnesses, like mine, are, in the grand scheme of things, minor. I feel guilty every time I get sick and have to miss work, or miss another commitment, or slow down in any way. I feel like if I just got sick once in awhile, it would be OK, but since I get sick so often, people are inevitably going to blame me for it and begrudge me the down time (and, to be honest, sometimes they do). I would imagine this to be even worse for someone in chronic pain, whose condition exists not annoyingly often, like mine, but constantly. We all know, from whatever experience of pain we've had, that pain limits you. It limits you physically, and it limits you mentally and emotionally. Just being in pain is tiring, a drain on your resources. Not only does House's addiction to pain killers make sense, if one imagines a bad pain they've had and having to carry that pain around constantly forever, but his personality makes sense as well. Pain cuts through the bullshit and leaves you with what's real, and that's not always polite, or pretty.

We should have room in our society to talk about pain, and to accept that people who are in chronic pain have a burden to bear that cannot even be imagined by those of us who go through the majority of our days pain-free. This isn't to say that we should have more sympathy, or that actions should be excuse from people in pain that would not be excused from others, but I think these people deserve to have their pain acknowledged as a circumstance of their lives that must be realized and taken into account. When you know someone is never going to "feel better," it is unbelievably selfish to continue to ask him or her if they do. It's not for them, it's for you, so you can feel like things are progressing the way that they should be, so you don't have to face the fact that sometimes it doesn't get better. Certainly the person who is living with that fact has already faced it.

It's probably part and parcel of the quick-fix society in which we live that we don't know how to respond to each other when something is wrong that is never going to be right. We specialize in correcting problems, not in living with them. But the truth of it is that most of us are not going to be so lucky as to have solutions for everything, long-term. Though we may never have the kind of chronic pain conditions that House has, or that the two people in my life have, we are going to age, and there's likely to be pain with that. There is a lot of room between what we think of as sick and what we think of as well, and a lot of people spend the majority of their lives in that space--it is ridiculous and embarrassing that we as a society want so badly to overlook those people, place blame on them, or try to fit them into categories where they don't belong. House may just be a stupid TV show, but it is one doing something I've not seen much before--placing it's central character directly in that gray zone, between the "healthy" people around him and the "sick" patients he treats. He moves within that zone, but he's not going to get out of it. And that's something we need to see, to accept. Only when we face that pain is not always a transitory state, that there are people for whom it is part of the fabric of daily life, and that those people can and do go on living and living well, will we be able to deal honestly and compassionately with those people, and with the fear of pain in ourselves.

Here is a list of some of my favorite things in 2006.

Top 5 Books
5. I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence by Amy Sedaris
4. My Life in France by Julia Child
3. The Class Castle: A Memoir by Jeanette Walls
2. The Mercy of Thin Air by Ronlyn Domingue
1. Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen

Top 5 Movies
5. Wordplay
4. The Science of Sleep
3. V for Vendetta
2. Little Miss Sunshine
1. Kinky Boots

Top 2 TV
2. House, Season 3
1. The Wire, Season 4

Top 5 CDs
5. The Be Good Tanyas, Hello Love
4. The Little Willies, The Little Willies
3. Bruce Springsteen, We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions
2. The Dixie Chicks, Taking the Long Way
1. Roseanne Cash, Black Cadillac

What'd I miss?

As you may or may not know (depending on whether you are a dog dork like me), last night was the first night of the annual Westminster Kennel Club dog show. Even though I am (some would say nastily) against purebred registered dogs, I love watching dog shows, and this is one of the biggies. So Mark and I plopped ourselves in front of the TV for multiple hours last night and watched the dogs, making predictions, naming our favorites, and making fun of the truly funny-looking breeds.

Here's how the first night went:

The Working Group was the first in the ring. This is both Mark's and my favorite group (unsurprisingly, given the dogs we live with). From the minute she entered the ring, my money was on the Akita to win. A 3-year old female, called Macey, she's one of the best looking Akitas I've ever seen, and I've seen quite a number of them (my aunt bred and raised them for years). Her coat is phenomenal and her movement is beautiful. How surprised was I when the judge agreed with me!?

The second night was just as exciting as the first!

The first group of the night was the Sporting dogs. So a very long parade of spaniels. I was very fond of the Golden Retriever, but he didn't place. The other dogs that stood out to me were the Brittany, James, who took first, and the Irish Setter, Fonzie, who took fourth.

Yes, that was a hiatus. I have no particular need or wish to explain it, so we'll just move right along.

I'm the obsessive type. When I get into something--be it a person, an idea, a television show, whatever--I'm all in. I think about nothing else for days or weeks or months. I annoy those around me by talking about whatever the obsession is non-stop. That's just the kind of person I am.

For several weeks now, I've been obsessed with having a baby. And I will remain so, I'm afraid, but as that's not in the cards in the near future, I'm moving on to greener, less fraught obsession pastures. These currently include Jon Bon Jovi and The Gilmore Girls. Which sucks, because I have only two episodes of Season 6 left, then I have to wait for Season 7 to be released on DVD, and then it's all over. It breaks my heart that these things--TV shows and novels most especially--end. It is, I think, quite unhealthy.

As for the Jon Bon Jovi thing, what can I say? I saw him on an Unplugged thing (on CMT, oddly) and my love for him has been re-invigorated. He even did "Hallelujah," and it wasn't half bad. I'm not actually old enough to be an original Bon Jovi fan (I'm just a few years too young to have enjoyed hair metal in its prime, though I made up for that with an unrelenting love of Guns N' Roses well after they stopped deserving it), but I have to tell you, Jon looks better now than he ever did in his heyday. He's way more pretty boy, but he's got a great mouth. Reminds me of Ami from Miami Ink, actually. Only slightly more sincere-seeming.

And so life blathers on. Not all that inspired, I know, but this is the beauty of media--distraction.

I know I have mentioned here before that I tend to be a bit slow on the uptake when it comes to pop cultural phenomena. Basically, I ignore things or am irritated by them while they are the rage, and then get into them later and figure out what people were so excited about. This is problematic only because by the time I am all up into something, usually everyone else has moved on and nobody wants to talk to me about it anymore. Well, also because I get made fun of for it.

And so is the case this time. Finally, after literally years of recommendations by a couple of my friends, I watched Buffy.

It is unsurprising, I'm sure, for those readers who didn't know me in my sulky adolescence (circa 1992-2000), that I was, for a spell, a bit of a vampire dork. I loved me some Anne Rice (back when she wrote steamy New Orleans-based vampire books and not scary pseudo-Christian crap). I could, at one point, recite long passages from Interview with the Vampire. I burned through two paperback copies. I'm not bragging, here, just giving you the necessary history. I was never really goth (though there is a period in my photographic history that would force me to qualify that statement), but I got heavily into the vampire mythology and hell-to-high school metaphors. I was miserable, the world was miserable, add hormones and stir. You know the drill. I'm too young for The Cure (sadly), but I listen to an awful lot of Concrete Blonde (still do, actually).

It may well have been fear of reverting back to my cuter but far less pleasant adolescent self that kept me from watching Buffy for so long. After all, angst that's annoying-but-understandable on a teenager is just kind of pathetic on a woman pushing 30. Be that as it may, though, I gave in and started watching, and I am so right back there.

Unless you want to read my expositions on the brilliance of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and how I think Season Six is particularly amazing, or hear about how I am so depressed I can barely hold up my head, I really don't have much to say.

I am still at BlogHer, but I'm not so much digging it at the moment, so here's something else:

I'm crazy in love with James Marsters right now.

Which is hysterical, frankly--I haven't had a real celebrity crush since I was like 14. But it's nice. From interviews and stuff, he seems like a good guy and an actual actor, rather than pretty boy celebrity, which is cool. I mean, I guess it wouldn't matter, since I don't actually know him or anything, but it makes me feel slightly less stupid about having a big ole crush.

I've been watching Angel, and the second season is definitely a big improvement over the first. I am no longer just trying to get through it until season five (when Spike comes on the show), but am actually enjoying watching it. It's got a very noir feel that I'm enjoying, and I am starting to actually like Charisma Carpenter. Julie Benz is good, too. It's not Buffy, but it's certainly not bad.

I plan to write more about BlogHer once I have been back a few days and have my head screwed on a bit straighter, but in the meantime, I'd like to re-commit to daily blogging. I talked a couple of times at BlogHer about why I do this blogging thing and what it means to me, and it got me to thinking a bit more about how neglectful I've been of this blog of late and how that seems to have had a negative effect on how I'm doing in general. I think I need to get back to a philosophy of writing every day. So I'm going to try to get that going again.

I'm back at work today (took yesterday off due to post-trip ick feeling) and am surrounded by small fires. Nothing that can't be dealt with, but not as relaxed as I'd like. I finished the second season of Angel yesterday, and wow did that turn out weird. The medieval alternate dimension featured in the last three eps was not at all where I thought the season would end up. I'm excited for season three now--waiting on it from the library. I also have a disc of Veronica Mars at home to get started on, but I'm hoping to be capable of doing a few non-TV-watching things when I get home from work this week. We shall see.

The other thing BlogHer made me want to re-commit to, besides daily blog writing, is more blog reading. I've been very lax in my reading ever since I started using a feed reader. I think I just got overwhelmed. So I'm going to try to clean it out, remove the ones I didn't end up interested in, and add some new ones I now know about due to having met so many great folks at BlogHer. And I'm challenging myself to actually comment more and not just read in silence. So we'll see how that goes.

Hollywood is full of women named Mary who have three names. These women often confuse me. Perhaps they confuse you as well. In case they do, I present a handy primer.

1. Mary Stuart Masterson is a blonde actress, best known for playing Idgie in Fried Green Tomatoes and Joon in Benny & Joon. She is not Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, with whom I confuse her due their names.

2. Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio is an actress with dark curly hair. She is best known for playing Maid Marian in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (she was also in Scarface, for the more cinematically pure-hearted). She is neither Mary Stuart Masterson nor Mary Steenburgen, who also has dark curly hair but does not have three names, and played the mom on Joan of Arcadia.

3. Mary-Louise Parker is a dark-haired actress who plays Nancy on Weeds and previously was Amy on The West Wing. She is none of the Mary's above, nor is she Lauren Graham, who played Lorelai on The Gilmore Girls and is not a Mary, but does resemble Mary-Louise Parker. She's also not Julia Louie-Dreyfus, who played Elaine on Seinfeld and looks nothing like her, but as a Louie in her name.

4. Mary-Kate Olsen is one of the Olsen twins. Clearly, she is not her sister, Ashley Olsen. She is the Olsen twin who had the anorexia issues a few years back, who sometimes does not have blonde hair. She is also the Olsen twin who did a guest appearance on Weeds.

5. Mary Tyler Moore is the iconic star of The Mary Tyler Moore Show in the 1970s. Yep, the one who threw her hat up in the air. I don't get her mixed up with anybody.

6. Mary Kay Place is the actress who plays Adaleen on Big Love. She's been around a long time, and was on Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman in the 70s. I don't mix her up with any of the other Marys, but do sometimes get her confused with Debra Jo Rupp, who played Kitty on That 70's Show.

7. Mary Beth Evans is a long time soap opera actress. She's played Kayla on Days of Our Lives since 1986 and has simultaneously been on As The World Turns, Port Charles, and General Hospital. She is sort of the epitome of soap actress (besides Her Highness Susan Lucci, of course).

There are, of course, countless other three-named Marys. However, these are the best-known ones, and the ones I am mostly likely to confuse. I hope this has been edifying.

It may or may not be a surprise to readers of WINOW to learn that I am a fan of TLC's What Not to Wear. I have a love-hate relationship with the show--while on one hand I think they give quite a bit of good advice and I like that they are focused on looking the best you can without changing your body, on the other hand it's pretty clear that they are narrow-minded, shallow, and have no concept of trying to dress oneself on an actual budget. Still, I can't help but watch it, and I'll confess that I really have taken some of the advice they give on the show and worked it in to my own wardrobe.

Some examples:

Trouser jeans. I never would have considered trouser jeans before Clinton and Stacy, and honestly, they're a godsend. I feel way more professional at work in them than in "regular" jeans, they look great, and they are just as comfortable as their more casual alternative. I've got two pairs, this one from New York and Company and this one from Nine West, and both are wardrobe regulars.

Layers. I am a product of my generation. To me, "layers" is when you put a hoodie on over your t-shirt, which is in turn on over your thermal. But I'm trying to get out of that mindset, at least some of the time, and think a bit more about layering when I'm dressing for work or something nicer. I've picked up a few super cute cardigans to aid me in this effort (given my climate, a cardigan is often all you need for a top layer) and am realizing that a hint of camisole shown under a sweater or scoop neck shirt is nice.

Trench coat. It may have taken me nearly 30 years, but I've finally come around to the position that no, not all trench coats make you look like Inspector Gadget. I bought a classic, tan, unbelted London Fog trench in a waterproof fabric last year and I wear it all the time. Unlike my jean jacket, it makes me appear to be a grown up.

Colored shoes. It's hard for me to buy shoes, and I tend to want the ones I do buy to go with everything. To that end, I've traditionally purchased any and all shoes in black. Slowly, however, I'm working towards my color in my shoes, most recently these adorable "sunglow" flats by Red Wing. And, surprise! They work with just as many outfits as a "neutral" would.

All that being said, there are some tips from Clinton and Stacy that I am never, ever going to take. Pointy heels aren't ever going to be a party of my daily wardrobe. I see what they mean, and even agree, about how jackets pull things together, especially on larger women, but I still can't make them work for me. And it will be a sad sad day if I ever stop going to the grocery store in my pajama pants.

That last list got me thinking about great songs featured on TV shows I love. Here's a list of a few. Do you know what shows they are/were from? Put guesses in the comments. Shouldn't be too hard to guess--there aren't/haven't been all that many shows I like.

1. "Way Down in the Hole" by Steve Earle (originally Tom Waits) Theme song from The Wire, last season's version (Kelly Cat)
2. "L.A. Song" by Christian Kane
3. "Goodbye to You" by Michelle Branch Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Tabula Rosa episode (Amanda)
4. "Keep Me in Your Heart" by Warron Zevon
5. "Woke Up This Morning" by A3 Theme song from The Sopranos (Melinda)
6. "Out Of This World" by Bush
7. "I Wanna Be Sedated" by The Ramones My So-Called Life (Kasia)
8. "Hallelujah" by Jeff Buckley (originally Leonard Cohen) The West Wing, the episode when Simon dies (Frog)
9. "Teardrop" by Massive Attack Theme song from House, M.D. (Melinda)
10. "Have a Little Faith in Me" by John Haitt

So I think I'm entering a depressed period. Well, I don't think I am--it's clear I am. And I have a telltale sign now, too--when I start watching lots of Buffy, I'm depressed. There are worse ways to deal.

Anyway, even though I missed yesterday and am now out of NaBloPoMo for this month, I thought I'd favor the three readers I still have with a list of my favorite Buffy episodes. These are the ones I re-watch at random.

I have come to redefine the words pain and suffering since I fell in love with you. Spike, Never Leave Me

So I've been re-watching some season five and six episodes, and thinking about Buffy and Spike. And I noticed something I hadn't noticed before.

In Smashed (6.09), before Buffy and Spike get it on, when they're fighting, he says he's in love with her. She responds with "You're in love with pain. Admit it. You like me ... because you enjoy getting beat down."

It was clear I was going to do this, right?
10. Fool For Love (5.07)
9. Becoming, Part II (2.22)
8. Out Of Mind Out of Sight (1.11)
7. Normal Again (6.17)
6. Graduation Day, Part II (3.22)
5. Lovers Walk (3.08)
4. Hush (4.10)
3. I Only Have Eyes for You (2.19)
2. Restless (4.22)
1. Once More With Feeling (6.07)

I am working on compiling a list of critical work on Buffy. It's definitely in-progress. Leave suggestions in the comments?

So I was just reading this entry by Emilin at Name That Mama, and of course, it got me to thinking. The tangent it sends me on to isn't really all that connected to the original issue Em was talking about, which has to do with her family's decision not to expose their daughter to television, but that's where I started thinking about it.

So I grew up more or less without TV. My parents weren't/aren't "against" TV, but we didn't have any capacity for television reception where we lived for most of my "developing" years. My folks have digital satellite now, which I think they got when I was about halfway through high school, but between three and fifteen, say, there wasn't much TV at my house, and what there was was viewed through a pretty thick static reception haze. We got "one channel and not well." I did have exposure through friends and family and stuff, and we watched videos fairly regularly.

I received a small TV as a gift before I went to college. I was one of the few (only?) people in my dorm with a television, and it was a bit looked down upon among the Reedie intellectual snobs (unless they wanted to watch The Simpsons, that is). But I watched quite a bit of television in college. I recorded General Hospital every day for years. I marathoned Roseanne reruns. I rented movies. I could make an argument (and it would probably have validity) that I numbed myself with TV in college, but mostly it was used for brainless entertainment purposes. I worked hard in college, read for hours a day, and thought so hard my brain hurt. TV was a reprieve.

Since college I haven't ever lived without a TV, and for the last several years Mark and I have willingly paid through the nose for extended cable programming. We watch a lot of TV at my house. Mark watches more than I do, for sure, and is much more likely to just "watch whatever is on," but I am, without a doubt, a TV-watching person.

There is still a fair amount of anti-TV sentiment around me. Of my close friends, I'd say probably half live in TV-free or nearly TV-free households. Many, though by no means all, of my parent friends are choosing to raise their children without TV, as discussed in Em's post. I have been privy to many, many discussions about about the evil influence of television.

And, bottom line, I don't buy it (surprise!). Television is a medium. It's an empty vessel, with it's own strengths and weaknesses as a vessel. It's morally neutral. It is not inherently better or worse than film, or radio, or (and I feel the flames at my toes already when I type this) books. It serves a difference (and, to my mind, complimentary in many ways) purpose, but to think it is somehow inherently sub-par is ludicrous.

First, there is good TV and bad TV, just like there are good and bad examples of any other form of media. Yes, I absolutely agree that most of what shows on the modern American television set is crap. However, I also think what is played on most modern American radio, shown in most most modern American movie theaters, and shelves in most modern American bookstores is crap. And the argument that it is somehow better, more involved, more active, to read a bad book than it is to watch bad TV just doesn't work for me. Which brings me to point two.

Clearly, from my posts about Buffy and other shows, I see TV as an active medium with which you can interact. You can, as is argued in this great book, "read" television the same way you do with a book, not just passively watching it, but thinking about it, analyzing it, connecting it to other stories in your mind, rewriting it in your head, imagining about it. Rhonda Wilcox (the book's author, if you didn't click on the link) makes an argument not only for the importance of her subject (Buffy) and its legitimacy as a text worthy of literary analysis, but of the legitimacy of television as literature in general. Certainly not all television, but good television, she argues (and I agree) can engage and stimulate you the same way good books can.

If this is true, if the importance is not what the vessel is (book, radio, film, TV, etc.) but what you put in it, then how can it possibly make sense to restrict the medium?

What do you think? Those out there who are pro- OR anti-TV, I wanna hear from you!

So inevitably, when I go on that rant about how great TV is, someone asks me what I mean about quality television. No, I'm not talking about Discovery and the History channel (though you can find quality shows on both of those networks). I mean that there is quality fiction on television. Television literature. It's even on the networks occasionally. And so, yet another list. These are only shows I have personally experienced as "television literature" at some point--I'm sure there are others.

1. Buffy the Vampire Slayer (duh)
2. Joan of Arcadia
3. The Wire
4. Gilmore Girls
5. M*A*S*H
6. My So-Called Life
7. Roseanne
8. The Shield
9. The Sopranos
10. The West Wing

I'm thinking about how much effect the non-Joss writers of Buffy had on its awesomeness. Obviously, Joss is a genius. That's not under discussion. But what about the other writers, directors, and producers? What can I discover by looking at their eps?

Marti Noxon is first, because Marti Noxon got so much grief for season six. Fans all over fandom either blamed or credited Marti with the darkness, the SM overtones, etc. They even said Marti had the hots for James Marsters and that why Spike was so naked. Was it really her? Was it good or bad?

A bit back, I wrote this entry sticking up for TV. I argued that TV is a morally-neutral medium like any other, and it is how you interact with it, what you choose to watch and how actively you watch it, that makes watching it better or worse than any other use of your leisure time. I have been thinking more about that since I wrote it, and last night I came across something in a book that I thought spoke to my point very well.

In Undead TV: Essays on Buffy the Vampire Slayer there is an essay by Mary Celeste Kearney (a faculty member right here at UT!) about Sarah Michelle Gellar as a teen "cross-over" star and what that means in the late 90s, when the teen market demographic is huge and when a star's presence is not limited to television or movies, but television and movies and the Internet (and music and video games and...). In the essay, Kearney mentions that when the WB started showing Dawson's Creek, they also opened up an online space where viewers were encouraged to go after each episode and fill out private or public diaries about how they felt about the episode, their thoughts, etc. Folks, in my liberal arts education, we called that a reading journal. You know, to encourage active reading? Sure, 90% of those Dawson diaries were probably full of comments like "Dawson iz so hawt! OMG!" but just the fact that kids were logging on and writing anything is a start. After all, do you really think there is nobody who was hooked on Pride & Prejudice because they had Darcy-lust? Come on.

I wrote what I think is probably my best Heroine Content piece yet this week, and it hasn't garnered a single comment. Which makes me sad. So I'm linking to it here in hopes someone will go and read it?

Firefly and Serenity.

Pardon the serial posting today. Lots going on in the noggin.

A bit back, a Buffy-loving friend and I were discussing our allegiance to the show, and what it provides to us. We're both a bit too old for it, really--we were already in college by the time it aired, just a bit out of its teen demographic, and neither of us actually watched it ourselves until our mid-20s (my late 20s, really). And yet we've continued to watch it over and over again, to buy comic books and read fan fiction and think about it and discuss it. Why? What does it provide?

Her take on it, which I believe was meant to be offhand but it actually the most incisive idea I've heard, is that basically we're in it for the pain.

Hear ye hear ye!

The 21st installment of the Carnival of Feminist Science Fiction and Fantasy Fans will be hosted by my other blog baby, Heroine Content. Co-parent Skye and I are super anxious to see what you've all got to add to the carnival, so please send in submissions ASAP. This carnival's specific topic suggestion is "Who Do You Love?" but anything blogged between February 7 and April 28 is game, as long as it is a feminist perspective on fantasy and/or science fiction.

Submissions should be sent to me or Skye before April 28. The carnival will be posted May 1.

For more general info on the Carnival, please go here.

Back when I used to watch Trading Spaces, Vern Yip was always my favorite designer. I liked his simple, non-silly designs, and he seemed like the closest thing the show's designers had to a real person. So, when I saw that he had another show, Deserving Design, I was all over it. Now that I've watched the show, I love it even more. The premise is simple--Vern goes into the home of "deserving" regular folks and redesigns two rooms--one that they know is going to be done, one that they don't. "Deserving," here, means people who have given of themselves in some way. The most recent episode I saw featured a family who had fostered 62 children, some of them very high needs, and adopted 6 of them (all of whom had to have been under 12). Vern's makeovers focus on what the families actually need and how they actually use their space (and he uses tons of photographs, which I think is great), which is fantastic. What really gets me about the show, though, are the families themselves. The things they give to their communities and the sacrifices they make are inspiring.

So I was thinking about that. And about how, not so long ago, I was more focused on how I could help other people (my monthly giving, among other things). Lately, though, my focus has gone inward in a way I'm not proud of. And while I was thinking, I was, like I often am, thrifiting. At the south bins. Where I came upon an entire table of new with tags Beanie Buddies. Clearly these are no longer collector's items, I said to myself, but couldn't you have donated them to a homeless shelter or something? Kids can still play with them if they don't get destroyed here! And then it occurred to me that I could make that happen.

And so I came, inspired by Vern Yip, to purchase 40 Beanie Buddies. I had no idea how cute these things were! A couple of them (the octopus, the ladybug, the moose...) might have to live at my house and become gently loved dog toys. The rest, though, can go to a local DV shelter, or be saved for Christmas-time toy drives. What toddler is going to care of his/her lovey is still in style?

It's nice to wake up and remember why I'm here.

As fits my trend of being at least a couple of years behind in all things pop culture, I am just now finishing up watching Deadwood. I hated the series at first (making fun of it when Mark watched it by coming into the room and yelling "COCKSUCKER!" at inopportune moments), but it grew on me, and frankly, now I think it's brilliant. The writing is great, the acting is phenomenal, and the show it just plain gripping. Also, surprisingly given the context, it treats its female characters better than most of the HBO shows I've watched (I'm looking at you, The Sopranos and The Wire!).

One of the things that really blows my mind about Deadwood, though, is Jewel. Jewel is the cook/maid at the Gem saloon, one of the central Deadwood locations. She is in the employee of Ian McShane's Al Swearengen, the show's most notorious character. Jewel is played by Geri Jewell, and actress/comedian with cerebral palsy.

According to an interview with Salon, Deadwood creator David Milch met Geri Jewell in a pharmacy while he was developing the show and offered her a part. He says he "thought it would be an interesting thing to have a character who was handicapped or whatever the goddamned expression is supposed to be. See how a person who was physically challenged would function in an atmosphere like this." This unsentimental attitude toward Jewel's character, and towards her handicap, permeates her appearances on the show. Al regularly yells at Jewel to "stop dragging that fucking leg!" She's referred to as "The Gimp" and "The Cripple" with regularity. There is no room, in a camp like Deadwood, for pity or special allowances.

There is no room for pity or special allowances in Jewel's treatment of herself, either. Jewel insists that she be taken seriously as a woman, not just as a character with a disability. In the same Salon article, Geri Jewell said "It's very fulfilling for me, having never been taken seriously as an actress. It's a wonderful opportunity to show what I can do besides having cerebral palsy." This gets at the heart of what is so wonderful about Jewel's character. Even when the story line centers on her mobility (as it does in episode 1.11, "Jewel's Boot Is Made For Walking"), it is Jewel's character, her stubbornness, independence, and fearlessness, that makes the story work. When Al asks Jewel why she has been visiting the doctor, she replies smartly, "I'm knocked up." In her delivery of the line, you see Geri Jewell the comedian, but you also see her Deadwood character's insistence that her prickly employer see her not as "The Gimp", but as a woman (and the only woman he spends any time around who is not a prostitute).

Thematically, Deadwood is, in part, about breaking new ground, and the spine and ruthlessness that is sometimes necessary to do so. The show takes place in a gold mining camp, and much of the political drama centers on the battle between the camp's pioneer settlers and the looming government and big business forces. Jewel's character adds a layer to this theme. Deadwood is filled with unconventional women, each breaking ground in her own way (former madam and lesbian Joanie, alcoholic and grieving gunslinger Jane, hard-edged prostitute-cum-accountant Trixie, steely cold widow Alma) and Jewel easily takes her place among them, a woman with a disability insisting on being taken seriously in her own right, outside of her relationship with her employer or her medical needs. Both the first and second seasons of the show end with Jewel dancing, insistent at the end of the first season that the camp's doctor, who has just fitted her with a brace that helps her walk without dragging her leg so much, come and dance with her. "Come on doc," she cajoles, "I'll teach you how!" Jewel insists on humor, on joy, and on being accepted in her hard world as just who she is. What more can you possibly ask of a character than that?

A long time ago, I wrote this post about my first experience watching a show about the Duggars. Many commenters were aghast at my judgments, others agreed with me. Since then, the Duggars have gotten much more popular and though I've entered discussions about them in other places, I've not posted about them again here.

Until now.

Last night, I watched "A Very Duggar Wedding," in which the eldest Duggar child, Josh, who is, I think, 20, got married. It was one of the most depressing and horrifying things I've seen lately.

Josh married a girl named Anna, who clearly came from folks of the same fundamentalist religious beliefs, or at least similar ones, to those the Duggars hold. Like Josh's sisters, his wife has long hair and longer skirts and is now expected to be under his leadership and control in her life as a baby-making machine.

Think I'm being facetious? I'm not. Josh and Anna not only didn't have sex before marriage, they "preserved their purity" by never kissing until they were on the alter. They were never alone unchaperoned. Josh made a phone call to Anna's father, asking him for her daughter's hand, before he ever mentioned the idea to her. Thus began their "courtship." See, according to their rules, dating is a no-go. You have to have a proposal of marriage before you "get to know each other" (and the getting to know seems pretty surface). Why? Because, as Jim Bob tells us happened to Michelle before she got with him, previous relationships leave you with "baggage."

When Josh and Anna said their vows, things got much, much worse. Love honor and obey wouldn't cut it here, Anna actually vowed to follow Josh as her priest and ruler, then they both vowed to have as many children as God saw fit. In an interview before the ceremony took place, Anna's father mused that he was thrilled that this ceremony was happening, in which Anna would be transferred from his authority to Josh's, as God intended. Could it be an clearer that Anna was property?

I know I'll get at least one comment here telling me that I am being insensitive to other people's religious beliefs. You know what? I am. I am not sensitive to these beliefs, and I have no problem with that. If you believe that women should naturally be under male authority, then no, I have no respect for your beliefs. If you believe that a woman should continue to have baby after baby, regardless of how she feels about it, then I have no respect for your beliefs.

The thing that turned my stomach the most, though, was the clear parallel between one generation and the next. Josh and Anna are clearly setting out to be Jim Bob and Michelle 2.0. I roll my eyes when Mark tells me that the Duggars and families like them are "building an army for Jesus," but honestly, it does seem that way. In one segment, Josh and three or four of his sisters go out to dinner, and they discuss what it will be like and how they'll see each other when they are all grown up and married and have kids. One sister points out that even if the only have 5 kids each (a relatively small number in their world, and one that probably wouldn't come about if they all devote themselves to birth control via God), they'll still have too many people to fit into a room. If we take the math to it's illogical conclusion, we see that the 18 current Duggar children, if they had 18 each, would make 324 more baby fundamentalist. If those had 18 each, that's 5,832 more. We're nearly army proportions in only three generations!

That, folks, is a lot of long dresses and matching polo shirts and bad hair.

I will admit it. I am a huge, huge sucker for TLC "family" shows. I've written before about the Duggars, but it's not just them. I've not watched a ton of the Gosslins (Jon & Kate Plus Eight), but I did spend most of one day watching a marathon of their second season. And I stop on that channel when they are on now. More than the others, though, I love, love, love the Roloffs (Little People, Big World).

Obviously, these are popular shows, so I'm not alone in watching them. The thing is, unlike much of the rest of the American viewing audience, I've never really been into reality television. I stopped watching Survivor after the first season (and I didn't like it all that much then), and never watched any of the similar shows. I recently saw my very first episode of American Idol (and I don't see myself watching another one). I just don't like those shows.

So what makes these family shows on TLC different? Why, when reality television has been irritating me for like ten years, can I not get enough of them?

I think it has a lot to do with the way TLC makes television versus the way the networks who have run the majority of the more popular reality shows do it. The TLC shows don't have a contest aspect. The folks featured are families, they aren't competitors. And that underlying feeling you have when watching shows like American Idol, that you are watching someone else's humiliation for entertainment, isn't there. Instead, you are watching people who, more or less, seem to be average.

Of course, they aren't average. If they were, they wouldn't be on TV. The Duggars have 18 kids. The Gosslins have eight, and six of them were born at the same time. And the Roloffs are little people, as is one of their four children. I think, actually, this is one of the reasons I like LPBW even more than the other shows--other than being little people, which isn't really the point of the show most of the time, the Roloffs are pretty normal. Partially they seem normal to me because they live near where I'm from, but it's something beyond that, as well. They aren't well-dressed, they have bad skin, they don't speak all that well--they fuck up and they talk about it and they fight and they laugh and they just seem like a really nice family to me.

The three TLC families have quite a bit in common: though the difference between 18 and 4 is pretty large, they all have lots of kids; all three shows center around families and family life; etc. Another thing they all have in common, though, that is a bit (though only a bit...) less obvious is that all three families are Christian.

Obviously, the Duggars are Christian. Their fundamentalist Christianity is the force that shapes their lives, and nothing about their show ever gets far from that. The Gosslins and the Roloffs are less overt, but both shows feature the families going to church, both sets of parents mention God when they are interviewed, the Roloff kids go to Christian private school, etc. I wonder if that's not part of what I find so fascinating about these shows--the image they present of serious Christians, and the spectrum they represent (it's a long way from upstanding patriarch Jim Bob Duggar to hairbrained schemer Matt Roloff).

Sometimes, the TLC family shows take me back to the first reality show I remember watching--MTV's Real World. Not the later season, in which strange contests and challenged and plots were imposed, but the original New York season, where it was just divergent people living together and trying to get along. I loved that show, and I loved it mostly because it was about people I could both recognize as real and recognize as not a damn thing like me. The same is true of all of the TLC families. Whether I like them as the characters of theirselves they are playing or not, I can recognize them. And maybe that's part of what makes good TV, from family-friendly reality TV to sci-fi to cop dramas--being to recognize something familiar in characters who are living lives completely different that ours?

Last night, an advertisement came on the TV for some new logging show. This is, by my count, the third logging show in the last few years (preceded by Ax Men and Heli-Loggers), but there may be more. There are also, of course, the fishing shows (Deadliest Catch, Off the Hook, The Catch). Mark loves these shows. So, apparently, do a lot of people.

So what's the appeal? Well, at first blush, I'd say it's a danger thing--the shows purport to show the real world of dangerous occupations. But then I think about other programs, like Mike Rowe's long-standing and quite popular Dirty Jobs, which isn't about dangerous jobs, just about "dirty" ones.

It seems to be an idolization and romanticizing of physical labor. I imagine the audience, relaxing on their couches after they come home from their desk jobs, watching actual physical work on their screens, and feeling on one hand lucky not to have to do it themselves, and on the other hand jealous to not be part of the comradeship and the culture portrayed. Feeling, maybe, like something has been lost. Whether this rose-colored nostalgia is a good thing or not is really questionable, but that's not the issue I'm after here.

Me being me, I also have to notice that all of these romantic brute laborers are men. I've yet to see a reality show about women's work, be it blue collar or pink. Nobody comes home from the office and feels nostalgic while watching waitresses do their day-to-day thing, or catches up with their favorite personalities among the women on the assembly line. It's a long-standing complaint that women are rarely shown working in fictional shows, but the same is true in this new spate of reality programming. If anything, it's worse.

We really have no cultural idolization of the working woman. When we get all gooey and nostalgic about the working man, in the back of our minds isn't his wife at home, minding the hearth and the kids? Why, if we're using this financial crisis and the associated flagellation as an excuse to idolize previous hard-working generations and the few people in our own generation who still work like that, are women exempt?

I grew up in a culture in which hard physical work was valued for both genders. My stepfather is a timber faller, so he falls right into the current work-worshipping, but my mother works just as hard. I remember a summer she spent spending 1/2 days waiting tables and 1/2 days doing summer cleaning at the school--that was absolutely hard physical labor, for which she was paid remarkably little. My grandmother, until she was in her 60s, worked at a tree farm, planting and cultivating trees, every day. And the women I knew worked just as hard in their homes as outside them, not just keeping house and raising kids, but tending huge gardens, tending livestock. Taking care of their families in a way that is just as nostalgic to most now as the occupations portrayed on those shows.

My grandmother used to say that a man works 'til the day is done, but a woman's work is never done. Why, then, can't someone highlight the labor of women? Would anyone watch that show?

So being home by myself, especially being home by myself and not having to work, I'm watching a lot of TV. A lot. In fact, I have been watching a steady stream of TV all damn day long. I know that should embarrass me, but it doesn't. It has been quite a while since I've watched much TV at all, and this level of vegging is really relaxing. And it's not educational programming, either, folks.

So, since I know you're dying to know, this is my daily line-up:
10-11AM: Jon & Kate Plus Eight re-runs (TLC)
11AM-noon: What Not To Wear re-run (TLC)
Noon-3PM: Wife Swap re-runs (Lifetime)
3-4PM: General Hospital (ABC)
4-5PM: Little People, Big World re-runs (TLC)
5-7PM: Bones re-runs (TNT)

Don't you wish I had a Neilson box?

FX's Sons of Anarchy is not a show I would have picked out to watch from the description. From the website:

FX's original series, Sons of Anarchy, is an adrenalized drama with darkly comedic undertones that explores a notorious outlaw motorcycle club's (MC) desire to protect its livelihood while ensuring that their simple, sheltered town of Charming, California remains exactly that, Charming. The MC must confront threats from drug dealers, corporate developers, and overzealous law officers. Behind the MC's familial lifestyle and legally thriving automotive shop is a ruthless and illegally thriving arms business. The seduction of money, power, and blood.

Jackson 'Jax' Teller (Charlie Hunnam) is the MC's vice-president, whose loyalty to the club is tested by his growing apprehension for its lawlessness; Gemma Teller Morrow (Katey Sagal) is Jax's force-of-nature mother; and Clarence 'Clay' Morrow (Ron Perlman) is Jax's stepfather and MC president. The triangle of Mother, Son, and Stepfather will ultimately reveal the dark secrets in this family's past and the lengths they will go to protect their sins.

Outlaw motorcycle clubs are really not a big area of interest for me. And Ron Perlman pisses me off when he's not painted red. Wouldn't have given it a second look.

But, a couple of weeks ago, M. and I were watching a movie on FX (OK, so it was Ghost Rider--embarrassing to admit that, but there it is) and every single commercial break featured an ad for the Sons of Anarchy Season Two premiere. So we gave it a shot. I was hooked by the 15th minute. Now we're keeping up with this season as the episodes air while simultaneously catching up on the first season via Netflix. And I'm doing what I always do with shows I really like--thinking up alternate plot lines and characters in my head while I'm trying to go to sleep at night.

It's a good show. First of all, Katey Segal (remember her from Married...With Children?) is fantastic. Her character, Gemma, is a sort of Lady Macbeth matriarch, with that great vicious/conniving/caring combination, and she plays the hell out of it. Plus, she's admirably tough (I'm thinking about reviewing SOA for Heroine Content because of her, depending on what ends up happening this season). She's that rarest of TV gems--a well-written and well-acted female character. When I learned that the role was written specifically for Segal, by her husband, who produces the show, I was not at all surprised.

Ron Perlman's character, Clay, is also really interesting. I am still not a big fan of Perlman (I just can't see anything but Hellboy when I look at him), but I keep imagining the same character played by Ian McShane and that helps me appreciate the character more. He's a ruthless guy, but also one who is dedicated to his family--both Gemma and the club. And the underlying plot device of him dealing with the onset of age (he has arthritis and has increasing trouble with his hands as the show progresses) is a good one.

Mostly, though, as far as characters go, I'm watching the show for Jax. Jax is amazing. He's a motorcycle gang Hamlet (you knew you recognized this storyline from somewhere, right?), but with less whining and more ass-kicking. I know I should be over it by now, but that whole poet-barbarian thing still definitely awakens something in me. And Charlie Hunnam is just about perfect (which I never would have expected from his roles in Cold Mountain and Children of Men).

The motorcycle gang aspect of the show is really not important, at least not to me. It's about loyalty and family and growing up and all that jazz, and the backdrop to that really doesn't make that much difference. Though there is overlap between the world portrayed in SOA and the one portrayed in another FX show I used to like, The Shield, the two don't really relate in my mind. Sons of Anarchy reminds me more of two other shows--The Sopranos and Deadwood. Though the backdrops are obviously very different, it has the same kind of intense character development and the same almost-melodramatic Shakespearean undertones. I'm very excited to see what comes next.

On Joan of Arcadia, God appears to Joan in the guise of regular people. The people aren't delusions--everyone else can see them as well. It's unclear (to me, at least) whether they are people who exist when God is not speaking through them, or whether they exist only when God needs them as mouthpieces. Either way, though, every conversation Joan has with God is one with another person. My personal favorite God is Goth God (left), followed by Joan's original and probably most common God, Cute Guy God (right). Some of the God are irritating (Old Lady God and Little Kid God both bug me), some you forget as soon as you see them (the episodes are full of one-off Gods as delivery people, cafeteria workers, substitute teachers, etc.). Often, Joan mistakes people who are not God for God, based on what they say to her.

Maybe I'm dense, but I like a metaphor that hits me upside the head. I'm not sure I believe in God (nor am I sure I don't), but it's difficult not to believe in other people, given that they are overtaking the planet like cockroaches. On the show, God mostly gives Joan assignments, most of which are difficult for her to complete. God gives vague advice, rarely answers questions, and is generally kind of a pain in the ass. The non-God people she's surrounded by--her family and her friends--are usually more helpful to her than God, at least in seeing the results of her wacky actions. Yet she gives them none of the acquiescence she gives her many Gods.

Maybe that's the point. Maybe instead of looking for a higher power in a Church or even inside ourselves, we should look around us. I'm going to try to do a better job of listening and watching and paying attention to what other people are telling me. You never know, there might be God in there.