Project Runway Looses its Way

Not since Jason Jones (now of the Daily show, husband of fellow corespondent the brilliantly ballsy Samantha Bee) and Craft Corner Death Match has there been a better opportunity on television to witness the artistic process, then on Bravo and now Lifetimes Project Runway(perhaps its tied with So You Think You Can Dance?).  I use to defend this "reality" TV valiantly.  No more, I say, no more.  It will switch over to that category and growing group of shows I watch out of idiotic tradition and mindless meditation (along with Survivor, Big Brother, The Real World, RW/RR Challenge, American Idol ect...).  I watch these in guilt and/or protest.

There have always been times where I have disagreed with the panel of judges.  I have often looked at the work being made and wondered, why is that person still around, or why isn't this person still here.  But there is almost always one or two contestants and at least one judge (the Simon) who I have faith in making sense.  Then the show moved to LA (I thought it would be refreshing) and the most talented designer won (but I hated her attitude).  Two of the regular judges were not regular do to scheduling (which I guess was the over all issue) and suddenly I found myself feeling like I did about the last season of So You Think You Can Dance? (which now hangs on as the only show worth watching for artistic process...but it to is frustratingly falling apart).

So the show regrouped and returned to NYC.  All the principle players were back and the schedule was working...but somehow the show had become a hot mess and even Tim Gunn (you have seen him in Marvel Comics Milly the Model) could not "Make it Work" (I use this phrasing with my students...it works).

In fact the show became offensive to artist/art teachers and to women, their principle audience out side of some gay circles (I would say they were sportive of our offense).

The most mind blowing example of stupidity on the shows part was airing a guest judge in critiquing an Designer from Oakland say, "I don't think orange and blue are very complimentary colors.  Do you?"  The other judges (all regulars) respond, "No," in unison.  Was this a case of east coast or cultural bias.? Well, NO.  This is a case of a judge of art and design not understanding color theory and the color wheel...something we learn in grad school, middle school, high school and college.  This is a basic lesson that illustrates how dumb these people are.  BLUE and ORANGE by definition ARE COMPLIMENTARY.  On top of it this palette and design which landed the designer in the bottom two was a very contemporary, palatable in almost all areas of the design world...apparently outside of fashion.

However intellectually offensive that was, it was nothing compared to the three-time champion (in other word at least in three different episodes this propaganda was spewed), the anti-big butt argument.  It culminated in last episode, with principle offender Micheal Corse (who I normally really admire) saying, "No women on the planet would want their butt to look bigger."  On a previous episode a designer actually went home for this offense specifically.  I am here to testify, Sir Mix A Lot is not the only one who likes big butts.  But more objectively Corse's statement is factually wrong.  Many women and many cultures value the naturally attractive female forms that are pear and hourglass (30% of women have these shapes).  Ironically, They are wonderfully support of the busty forms on the show; perhaps they learned to appreciate the female form "the Marvel Way."  This aesthetic perception is not only isolated and inaccurate, it comes with an air of elitism.  That the aesthetic cultivated in a small circle of aristocracy is projected, propagandized and marketed in order to keep women (the serfs) trapped in a cycle of dieting and self criticism.  It also encourages their partners and suitors to suppress their feelings of natural attraction and go underground in pursuit of their instinctual attractions...the results are health and psychological risks for both males and females in our society.  It really illustrates who bizarrely isolated these people are and how bigoted their aesthetics are.

Parenthood a Berkeley perspective?

In Parenthood we are presented with a transformed Berkeley, CA, in which due to trade mark law I guess, Pete's coffee becomes Berkeley Coffee and Berkeley High becomes Roosevelt.  My wife and I began watching it last night, seeing the 2nd and 3rd episodes.

From the age of almost 2 to the age of 12 I was a resident of Berkeley, CA.  Every summer of my childhood there after, having left my hart there, I would work there.  I still have an aunt who lives there, one of a myriad of excuses I have to go back and visit.  So I consider myself a reasonable judge (if not up to date and fully informed) of a show about raising kids in Berkeley.  First cautionary disclaimer would be, Berkeley is possibly the most diverse place on the planet...so no one story or one opinion will fill you in.  Still I find Parenthood to be an odd duck, even for Berkeley.

There have been hundreds of stories presented on San Francisco, you know, that city across the bay.  However, Berkeley seems to be lacking in the story department.  It is in this way, unfairly, unlike an equally unique place I have lived in and love, Savannah, GA.  Savannah has often now been the subject of plots in film and comics.  It is a dynamic character and has its share of storyteller.  Especially now with a school that houses some of the brightest new stars in comics and film.  Berkeley has its share of storytellers, Al Young, Robert Hass, Ayelet Weldman and her husband Micheal Chabon are all well respected local writers.  Two of America's greatest cartoonist, Dan Clowes and Adrian Tomine have spent a sizable portion of their carrier in Berkeley.  Sure I can flip through pages of Eightball or Optic Nerve and find moments where I feel homesick.  But I don't have the sense that Berkeley is explicitly a character.  It was more so, in my comic Ordinary Betty and Ted the Milkman (although I am no Clowes or Tomine).  Berkeley has been portrayed in a number of fine documentaries,  for the epicenter it was in American culture.   Iconic apearences for the city have come in the form of; driftwood art in Harold and Maude, a college scene in the Graduate, Multicultural family dynamics in Made in America, the ghetto in Spirit Link, the title and more in Berkeley (which I only heard of when researching this post), through the lives of students in Boys and Girls and a pool scene at the Claremont in Mrs. Doubtfire.

Parenthood is the first time I am aware of that a TV series (still the most accessible of mediums) specifically states it is taking place in Berkeley and attempts to present Berkeley through the eyes of a fictional family. I was surprised to find out it IS filmed in Berkeley...and Mill Valley (where I grew up after moving), and Oakland (right next door to Berkeley) and a Universal Studio lot.  So far I have not had that moment of..."oh, I know that place," but I do confess architecturally it obviously is constant.

The casting is really the most interesting part of the production to me, but the characters are perhaps the reason I am not ecstatic about it. "Six Feet Under's" Peter Krause gives the cast credibility. While Dax Shepard (from Punk'd) would seem to be the warning flag going in.  The dropping in of an ex-lover and Shepard's bi-racial 5 year old son is actually interesting and fun, although predictable.  Apparently they did not partake in the well publicized School Nurse condom campaign at Berkeley HS (We at Tam had one that made the news too...but because we had to fight for it).  In reality I find Shepard's performance and character far more palatable and believable, so far he may be the reason I am watching still.  Monica Potter from Boston Legal so far is constantly just as annoying as Krause, in their dealing with having potentially a child with Autism.  From the perspective of a teacher and a psychologists son, I just want to reach into the screen and shake some sense of reality into them and shake their self obsession out (which is the point of the character...but it falls short of me caring about them). I usually feel Erica Christensen's performances are competent, and unlike her broth and sister in law, I am pissed at what she is pissed at.  Perhaps, because I have this insane busy American life, and feel that is a reality for most competent parents.  We struggle to find time with our kids.  Her TV husband Sam Jeager on the other hand plays the nice home husband...but the character is far to naive and again I find myself reaching for the screen when he is on camera...I really do not want to see another infidelity story.  The main issue facing Jeager and Christensen is Erin Hayes's Buddhist, wealthy, white mother with Asian or half-Asian kid, super flirty, super obnoxious....just pile on the stereotypes of progressive women who annoy the crap out of you...I know this character is more accurate a stereotype then some...I also understand its association with Berkeley...but man, do I hate being hit over the head with it.  If she brakes up their marriage, I will be annoyed by the transparency. I have some close friends that fit the good part this couple dynamic, and I just don't think they would act with quite the same stupidity. Bonnie Bedelia so far plays a bland "progressive" mom.  Which is disappointing, because most mom's I know of in Berkeley are very dynamic figures.  Ironically she was in the film Berkeley. On a great note, Craig T. Nelson continues the role he played in The Family Stone (a film I love and identify as a very Berkeley type family story)...but he is not as pure of hart in Parenthood...which is a good thing.  Gone are the days of Coach.  Lauren Graham from the Gilmore Girls, seems to be predictable and is another character I could do without.  Which is shame, because she is the reason we are watching their lives at this point, she has just moved back into her parents with her two kids.  Believable is that she is a bar tender from Fresno (a lot of bars there in comparison to grocery stores).  Her daughter is struck with dilemma of being held back a year after transferring to "Roosevelt" (which is much whiter then Berkeley High)...(my sister would be the authority here having lived in Berkeley too and teaches in Fresno now)...but my sense of this student struggling at a Berkeley HS not being a stretch. Graham's job interview scene made me super frustrated with my own interview process...if I could act that lame and be as close to getting the position as her...well it just was not realistic in this market.  Her struggles with her car are authentically Berkeley (lot of old clunkers there).  But you would eventually just give up and take the abundance of public transports (buses, bikes, BART)....it is so easy to get around cheaply in Berkeley and with her family dynamics...she would be aware of this solution right off.  The plot use of a twin bed seemed really lame.  I actually looked at the screen as she and her daughter struggle over room on the mattress...I said, "get another mattress...there is space right there." These basic solutions that down on you constantly, make it hard to believe these people.  The kids seem OK, so far and I would prefer to give them time to get into the characters.  But who has time for the kids when you are so annoyed by their parents.

One very genuine and accurate feature was Krause's battle with a possum.  They are common pests or neighbors (depending on your politics) in Berkeley.  That brought back "real" childhood memories for me.

The Media Arts Hights of this 21st Century's First Decade

The first Decade of the 21st Century was SO 21st Century.  While this dismal decade stood in stark contrast to the roaring '90's it improved in one small area.  The Aesthetics, Form, and Function of arts and popular culture.  The cyclical point of art brought us a less ambiguous next step after Post-Modernism.  While no broad term has stuck, I would define it as a nostalgic collage of juxtaposed and mashed pieces that serve a narrative.  Which reflect post-modernist sentiment with a reduction in resurrection and experimentation; so what comics have been doing all along. This increase in quality is as much a reflection on the 90's, as being perpetuated by dogged corporate and political misreading, the narcissism generation, and a culmination of unprecedented events almost entirely to blame on poor planning and slow policy change.

Without consuming everything and with my own beaten path, the following are what I would call the highlights of Media Arts of this the first decade of the 21st Century.  There are a number of easy explanations for art not seen here...I did not see it.  Nevertheless, there is plenty scrutinizing opportunities available.  So, let the fun begin.

Note: the bold items are from 2009 (some include other years).

1.    Big Book of Frank, Jim Woodring (comic)
2.    The Acme Novelty Library, Chris Ware (comic)
3.    Queens Of The Stone Age-Rated R (album)
4.    Love & Rockets, Los Hernandez Bro. (comic)
5.    The Venture Bros. (tv)
6.    Eightball: The Death Ray, Ice Haven, and David Boring by Daniel Clowes (comic)
7.    Lost in Translation (film)
8.    Teaching Visual Culture: Curriculum, Aesthetics, and the Social Life of Art by Kerry Freedman (text)
9.    Asterios Polyp, David Mazzucchelli (comic)
10.    Eagles Of Death Metal-Peace Love Death Metal (album)
11.    The Royal Tenenbaums (film)
12.    iPod/iPhone (tec)
13.    Takashi Murakami ("fine art")
14.    Jason’s Hey Wait!, Why are you Doing This?, I Killed Adolf Hitler (comic)
15.    Pixar (films)
16.    Shag ("fine art")
17.    Freaks and Geeks (tv)
18.    The Daily Show with John Stewart (tv)
19.    Mad Men (tv)
20.    The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (novel)
21.    Mario Galaxy (video game)
22.    The Complete Calvin and Hobbs-Bill Watterson (comic)
23.    From the Lower East Side to Hollywood: Jews in American Popular Culture by Paul Buhle (text)
24.    The Comics Journal (magazine)
25.    White with Foam, Mad Love (album)
26.    Optic Nerve, Adrian Tomine (comic)
27.    The Cheese Monkey-Chip Kidd (novel)
28.    Krazy & Ignatz, George Herriman (comic)
29.    Interpol-Our Love to Admire (album)
30.    Facebook (tec)
31.    Pixies (Live Music)
32.    Humbug, Harvey Kurtzman et al. (comic)
33.    Juno (film)
34.    DC: The New Frontier, Darwyn Cooke (comic)
35.    America’s Best Comics-Edited by Matt Madden and Jessica Able (comic)
36.    An Inconvenient Truth (film)
37.    Ghost World (film)
38.    Carnival (tv)
39.    Sabra Fields ("fine art")
40.    McSweeny’s Quarterly No. 13 –Edited by Chris Ware (comic)
41.    Blackalicious-Blazing Arrow (album)
42.    Elf (film)
43.    Justice League Unlimited (tv)
44.    Cirque De Sole (live performance)
45.    Wii (tec)
46.    Robert C. Jackson ("fine art")
47.    Tom Strong, Alan Moore & Chris Sprouse (comic)
48.    It's Blitz!, Yeah Yeah Yeahs (album)
49.    Weeds (tv)
50.    Fantômas-The Director's Cut (album)
51.    System Of A Down-Toxicity (album)
52.    NPR (radio)
53.    Tomahawk-Tomahawk (album)
54.    Lord of the Rings (films)
55.    MSNBC (tv)
56.    Dan in Real Life (film)
57.    Whip It! (film)
58.    Judd Apatow’s Films (films)
59.    The Complete Peanuts, Charles M. Schulz (comic)
60.    Spider-Man II (films)
61.    Jack Cole and Plastic Man –Art Spiegleman and Chipp Kidd (text)
62.    Dillinger Escape Plan-Irony Is A Dead Scene (album)
63.    O’Brother, Where Art Thou? (film)
64.    Simpsons (tv/film)
65.    Orbital-The Altogether (album)
66.    Lost (tv)
67.    Iron Man(film)
68.    Promethea, Alan Moore & J. H. Williams III (comic)
69.    Thursday Comedy Primetime on NBC (tv)
70.    X-Men II (film)
71.    Battlestar Galactica (tv)
72.    Everything is Illuminated (film)
73.    The Family Stone (film)
74.    The Great Women Cartoonists-Trina Robbins (text)
75.    Shepherd Farley ("fine art")
76.    Fair Weather, Joe Matt (comic)
77.    Gorillaz-Demon Days (album)
78.    Star Trek (film)
79.    George Sprott, 1894-1975, Seth (comic)
80.    Sponge Bob Square Pants (tv)
81.    Secret Chiefs 3-Book Of Horizons (album)
82.    Big Love (tv)
83.    Little Miss Sunshine (film)
84.    The Fog of War (film)
85.    Hellboy (film)
86.    Fantomas-Melvin’s Big Band(Patton), Kid 606, Lucky Stars (live performance)
87.    Doubt (film)
88.    The Authority, Warren Ellis & Bryan Hitch (comic)
89.    Milk (film)
90.    The Powerpuff Girls (tv)
91.    Avengers Forever, Kurt Busiek, Roger Sternand & Carlos Pacheco (comic)
92.    V for Vendetta (film)
93.    The Golem’s Mighty Swing, James Sturm (comic)
94.    Stranger then Fiction (film)
95.    Firecraker (film)
96.    Bjork, Yeah Yeah Yeah’s (live performance)
97.    Roketo (comic)
98.    SNL (tv)
99.    That ‘70’s Show (tv)
100.   Munich (film)

Review: Mad Men Season 3

Opening scene to AMC’s Episode Recap of Mad Men: Season One, Episode One, “Smoke Gets in Your Eye,” reads as follows:

Inside a swank New York City bar, men in suits sip martinis and throw their heads back in laughter. Don Draper,  however, sits alone at a booth and scribbles words on a cocktail napkin next to an ashtray of crumpled cigarettes. When a waiter comes by, Don - the creative director for Sterling Cooper ad agency - tries to convince him to convert from his choice of smokes, Old Gold, to his brand, Lucky Strikes.

"Reader's Digest says it will kill you," the waiter says.

"Yeah," Don pauses and looks around the room. Every hand at the bar holds a cigarette. "I heard about that."

And so we are introduced to Mr. Draper or is it Dick Whitman and a tediously accurate and nostalgic recollection of his play world. Smartly executed in this scene are basic themes that carry through the series. How Draper refreshingly engages minority interests in his culture when he seeks the opinion of the waiter, a black man.  While at the same time indulges in the white mans privilege of being served by said minority. This paradox can easily be transcribed to the role he prays on women in his life. There is certainly a sense of mystery about the man, and this hint speaks little to the secret he holds that both birthed his empathy and his weaknesses, but one can sense there is more to him.  The scene certainly speaks to the tipping point in time.  We have entered the height of American Design and Advertising, the Golden Age and the crisp attention to detail in the scene only adds to this aesthetic authenticity of historical place. This a tipping point for man and his society.  We will see the shedding of hubris and the inclusion of people who have lived in the shadows.  The real question is which of these is Draper.

Season One introduces us to a cast of characters each paradoxical, pivoting and contrasting to Draper. As Don is reveled to be perhaps someone else and his roots formed in the poverty of the depression our distain is eroded and complicated. Betty Draper contrasts Don’s slowly unveiled secret past of poverty, entrapped in the times and a fantasy she disappoints and then surprises you as she waffles.  Roger Sterling has a flawed path built in the boys will be boys mold. You see Don follow and then try to steer his friend.  Both are shaken when mortality calls. Pete Campbell is a devil of a character that contrasts directly to Don, snotty, privileged, maniacal, week.  Joan Harris exemplifies an ideal of the time that is refreshing given post-80’s slim actress obsession. However, her form simply serves as metaphor to the strength she enacts daily running the office with knowledge, fire and tact, that makes plain how lost these men would be without her. Peggy Olson swiftly moves from naïve girl to symbol of opportunity for women, but in a mold that resembles Campbell with actual talent. The contemporary viewer can view her with pride and distain.  As she pries herself free of tradition she is anchored down by unwanted pregnancy and weight gain. The casts’ depth goes beyond this and each character plays into this paradoxical world highlighting pivotal changes in American cloture.  All this is set daftly overlaying the Nixon and Kennedy campaigns.

As the Civil Rights Movement presses on and the Cuban Missile Crises unfolds, Season Two in the wake of Roger’s mortality, Don is increasingly steered towards focusing on his own. This and his extramarital affairs lead him on a path outside his home.  Along the way we discover the truth about the “real” Don Draper culminating in Dick/Don going rogue (abandoning Pete) in California. He transforms or reverts we are caught off guard.  Betty continues to flirt with her own extramarital activities while having moments in the high life that illustrates the quality team she and Don have been.  Betty is simultaneously abandoned by don and rejects him. She is pregnant with a third of Don’s kids, but finally acts on her own impulses, just as Don returns from California.  Roger divorces and has a new committed relationship as his former lover Joan is engaged. Joan’s prince charming turns Joan into a shockingly vulnerable character as the seasons end approaches.

Season 3 opens with Don playing the role of a partner we envision contemporary and out of place for the time and the man; he is heating milk for his new born. This is naturally short lived and interrupted by memory and then actions of the present.  This season is splattered with long over due revelations: Don’s perhaps not surprisingly cool witnessing of Sal’s first male to male kiss (I think Sal is more surprised then Don…and sorry for not mentioning Sal earlier).  There are significant plot swings involving Don’s father-in-law, Betty finding love, and sales of Sterling Cooper.  There are some spectacular moments of guts on the part of production including the very Don Draper disapproving of Roger performs in black face and one of my all time favorite TV moments utilizing a party and John Deer.  Not to mention, the introduction of Conrad Hilton (yes…Paris’s great grandfather) borders on genius.  There are still hopeful moments in Italy between Don and Betty, teasing us with what might have been.  I was truly moved by the depiction of JFK’s assassination.  Despite all this my heightened expectations begin to get the best of me in part due to a predictable and simply the most annoying of affairs Don has had…but then Betty uncover something that saves the series just as it is beginning to disappoint.  This and a brilliant business maneuver save the day and pull a storytelling maneuver used in comics to soaps.  It allows them to cut the fat just in time for Season 4.  Expect a more efficient, more exacting execution next year.

On a personal note, the world depicted rings true to my deep and broad understanding of issues regarding this times before my time.  As it illustrates my notions of 1960’s Divorce, Psychology, Social Justice, War Veterans, Women’s Issues, Graphic Design, Media Arts, Politics, Family Dynamics, the Underground, Advertising and my Grandfather.  He was a fascinating bastard.