Understated and Underrated: forgotten performances of 2009

Oscar season is upon us, which means that awards are characteristically doled out to actors who have all given performances that fit neatly into a few narrow categories. First and most sickening, there’s the biopic role: this year, see Meryl Streep, Sandra Bullock, Morgan Freeman, Matt Damon, Christopher Plummer, and Helen Mirren. Then there’s the “showy villain” role, inhabited nicely by Mo’Nique, Christoph Waltz, and Stanley Tucci. Finally, we’re left with the ingénues (male and female), who play that complicated, usually beautiful person who seems too complicated and/or put upon, until it becomes clear to the audience that they’re simply human.  These roles often pop up opposite each other in romances, and this year’s crop of nominations belongs to George Clooney, Jeff Bridges, Colin Firth, Jeremy Renner, Carey Mulligan, Gabourey Sidibe, Vera Farmiga, and Maggie Gyllenhaal. Those who don’t quite fit in are typically a breath of fresh air. This year, it’s Penelope Cruz, Anna Kendrick, and Woody Harrelson (whose pure freakishness qualifies him).

Don’t get me wrong; I enjoyed quite a few of these performances very much, and no doubt they’re all talented actors. I mean, who doesn’t want to see Jeff Bridges honored, if not for puking in trash cans as Bad Blake, then for the everlasting genius of His Dudeness? (Though I would welcome a Harrelson upset.) Anyway, the Oscars never fail to fill me with a comforting disappointment and indignation. And who doesn’t enjoy that every once and a while? But back to the point of this post. I feel like this year there were so many satisfying, charming, impressively deft performances by actors in small, inconspicuous roles or films. Even if I can’t analyze the key to such performances, or parse the subtext behind every thespian’s eyes, here are six performances and characters who stayed with me this year (honorable mention goes to Michael Stuhlbarg for A Serious Man, who was robbed in terms of Oscars but who has gotten so much critical praise that I can’t think of new things to say…):

Martin Starr (Joel), Adventureland

Adventureland was probably my favorite film of the past year. Everything about it was right, from the period details and the music to the finely wrought characters. Though Jesse Eisenberg’s neurotic, romantic James was the film’s lead character, Martin Starr’s Joel was, for me, the most memorable. Joel is a Russian-lit loving hipster who smokes a pipe and is quick with a clever joke, yet is insecure and drifting in his life. While James finds himself in the midst of the all-American coming-of-age-summer we see so often in the movies, Joel represents what these listless summers spent in limbo usually, more realistically, entail: trying to keep your dignity in the face of a humiliating job and a group of shallow acquaintances. Starr plays Joel with a pitch-perfect mixture of confidence and insecurity, and his affectations mask a growing unhappiness and fear about the future. “Girls aren’t going to go near me when there’s all these fucking yuppies around,” he complains, “Look at me: I’m ugly and I’m poor.” Starr delivers the line with the perfect comic touch. Much like his work in Freaks and Geeks, Adventureland gives Starr a chance to tap into the misfit in all of us. Hopefully we’ll get to see him in more juicy roles like this.

Alia Shawkat (Pash), Whip It!

Allow me to quote Rochelle, Rochelle: The Musical: let the naysayers nay. I was quite fond of Drew Barrymore’s directorial debut about a high school misfit (notice a theme here?), played by Ellen Page, who discovers her calling in the hard-knock world of roller derby. What satisfied me most about this movie was its allegiance to female friendship, and gleeful willingness to abandon romance for the sake of it. Alia Shawkat, so wonderfully deadpan on Arrested Development, brings charm and sensitivity to her role as Pash, Bliss’s best friend and partner in crime. Despite the focus on the derby girls, this friendship stays at the core of the film. Shawkat captures her character’s conflicting feelings perfectly: the hurt, the jealousy, and the excitement. Even when Bliss has a dreamy romance with a rocker boy (the miscast and unfortunately named Landon Pigg), the audience is still thinking about the film’s more important relationship. Much like Joel in Adventureland, Pash is the character who doesn’t get to have that life-changing event; she helps us to see teenage friendship as it really is, with all the pain and frustration it can cause.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt (Tom Hansen), 500 Days of Summer

Ever since the middle of the last decade when he released the double whammy of Mysterious Skin and Brick, Joseph Gordon-Levitt has proven he won’t be another washed-up child actor. After a slew of offbeat performances, it’s refreshing to see him play something as straightforward as a love-struck twentysomething greeting card writer whose heart is broken by a flightly (and frankly, kind of heartless) girl named Summer (Zooey Deschanel).  Gordon-Levitt’s Tom is a prime example of how an actor doesn’t need a flashy role to show us their chops. Throughout the film, we see in Tom’s eyes his enchantment, insecurity, bewilderment and hurt and he embarks on a frustratingly unfulfilling romance. One of my favorite moments in the film is one of the simplest. Teasing Tom outside the bar, Summer asks, “Is it true? Do you like me?” Gordon-Levitt’s expression transitions from panicked to bravely embarrassed as he grins shyly: “Yeah, I like you,” he mutters.

Alec Baldwin (Jake), It’s Complicated

The rumors are true. It’s Complicated is one of those romantic comedies directed at Women of a Certain Age that features an attractive divorcee and a less attractive older gentleman falling in love, something they previously didn’t know was possible in their crusty, dried-up old lives. But I was shocked to discover that It’s Complicated was really fun, and funny, and actually even kind of ridiculous. And Meryl Streep blah-blah-blah best actress ever, blah blah beautiful and old, still marketable etc., etc., but much of the movie’s success is due to Alec Baldwin’s irresistibly goofy screen presence. Ex-husband Jake is set up to be your typical aging Lothario, a sarcastic good-life-livin’ Jack Nicholson type. But he’s not at all! As Baldwin plays him, Jake is a needy, good-natured teddy bear whose exuberance borders on the pathetic. He’s overweight and rarely shown onscreen not stuffing large amounts of pasta or other savory dishes into his impish face. Unlike, say, Jack Nicholson in Something’s Gotta Give, Jake (and Baldwin) has a sense of humor about himself and a willingness to admit that he’s a screw up and a baby and fat and kind of a dumbass. And it’s specifically this kind of lighthearted attitude that’s needed in romantic comedies these days.

Adam Brody & Amanda Seyfried (Nikolai & Needy), Jennifer’s Body

Jennifer’s Body was another underrated film of the past year. Sure, Diablo Cody can be annoying, but her brand of annoyingness is so well suited to tongue-in-cheek high school horror that I can forgive it in this case. Megan Fox got all the press, but it’s thanks to Seyfried, the movie’s real star, and Brody,  that it all came together. Seyfried’s performance had a great sense of momentum to it, as she built slowly from the almost comically bashful girl into a swaggering, aggressive juvenile delinquent. Megan Fox was good enough as the vacant Jennifer, but Seyfried was the one who really captured the movie’s twisted take on female friendship. Similarly, Brody was the film’s comic savior as a Wentz-ian emo rocker with a taste for success—and blood. His stage presence, demeanor and singing on mock-hit “Through the Trees” was spot on, and even made me forget about Seth Cohen for a while.

Vincent Gallo (Tetro), Tetro

Yes, I know what you’re thinking. Vincent Gallo?? THE Vincent Gallo? He of the conservative rants, the greasy-leather appearance, the onscreen fellatio, the offscreen self-obsession? Yes to all. So, yeah, Vincent Gallo is a ridiculous human.  He’s the kind of celebrity that is so distasteful we feel as though he’s putting us on. And maybe he is, but that’s beside the point here. I think I might be one of three people who saw Francis Ford Coppola’s Tetro (at least, that’s how many of us were in the theater), so you’ll have to take my word that it’s a crazy, quirky musical melodrama that’s at times absurd and surprisingly comical. I won’t try to explain the plot, because it tires me. I’ll just say that Gallo plays a character who is very much like his public persona, and like the latter, he plays it seamlessly. He’s an unreasonable, grouchy artistic genius who hobbles around on crutches with a demented, bug-eyed purpose. If you believe that some sense of humor lurks deep in the black heart of Gallo, you might even guess that he is poking fun at himself. Regardless, it’s an energetic and riveting performance worthy of unbiased attention.

Canadian time-travel soap ‘Being Erica’ returns. Don’t like the sound of that? Watch it anyway.

Canadian television has brought few imports to American over the years, though those that have made it across the border have developed surprising rabid followings, i.e. SCTV, The Kids in the Hall, and Degrassi. Though these few successes have not done much to whet the American appetite for Canadian shows, cable channel SoapNet has begun to add the occasional Canadian soap/drama to its lineup of American daytime soaps and reruns of Beverly Hills, 90210, One Tree Hill, and The O.C. They began by broadcasting  2008’s elaborately trashy MVP (basically Footballers’ Wives with hockey), and last year ran the first season of Being Erica, a dramedy which plays more like a combination of Ally McBeal and The X Files than SoapNet’s typical programming.

Erin Karpluk as Erica Strange

The premise is this: Erica Strange (Erin Karpluk), a single Jewish Torontonian in her early thirties, is not happy with her life. She gets fired from her job, has strained relations with her family, and carries a torch for her married best friend. This all leads her to Dr. Tom (Michael Riley), a mysterious therapist who sends her back in time to work through her regrets. Each episode finds Erica hitting another on her list, from her parents’ divorce to her sister’s wedding to, ultimately, her brother’s death. These trips to the past usually feature some 90’s related fashion faux pas and cringingly misplaced references to Chumbawumba and Britney Spears. But the surprise is that it’s still good. Somehow this ridiculous premise becomes not only extremely watchable, but emotionally resonant.

Part of this success is due to the carefully drawn characters and their relationships. Erica is not, as one might initially think, a dizzy-neurotic stereotype in the mold of Friends. Her relationships with her parents, sister, and friend Katie are complicated, and their realism makes the show so genuine that the audience isn’t as concerned with the logistics of time travel. It’s also worth noting that Erica is a practicing Jew (her father’s a Rabbi), a fact that blends seamlessly into the show (one episode revolves around Erica’s Bat Mitzvah), and something we rarely see represented fully on American television. The only character that’s not quite up to snuff is Ethan, Erica’s milquetoast love interest who generates about as much heat on-screen as the icy Canadian tundra. But it’s inspiring, in a way, that the strongest characters on the show (and the strongest actors, led by the endearing Karpluk) are female.

The most affecting episode thus far was Being Erica’s season one finale, in which Erica dealt with the death of her brother Leo. It’s these types of plotlines that give the show its weight. Leo’s death was there the whole season, rearing its ugly head just when we thought we could float away on a cloud of Ethan and Erica romance plots. Played by the expressive young (and might I say, dreamy, but ahem, young) actor Devon Bostick, Leo is a confused young man screwed up by his parents’ divorce. His death, though an accident, is the culmination of a year of discontent in the Strange household. So as not to ruin the dramatic heft of the episode for new viewers, I’ll just say that it’s a complicated plot that is somewhat resolved, but not as neatly as one might hope. Erica’s time travel is not supposed to change the events of her life; it’s supposed to change her perspective. It is, after all, therapy. It’s painful.

Which brings us to season two. Disappointingly, due to CBC budget cuts, this season will only feature twelve episodes. The first, “Being Dr. Tom” premiered last Wednesday and focused on the therapist’s mysterious past. It seems as though this season will go with a bit of a different angle (as many of Erica’s regrets have already been revisited), but hopefully it will keep showing the same warmth and commitment to character week after week. Not too shabby for a SoapNet show.

Being Erica season 2 airs Wednesdays at 10 p.m. on SoapNet.

Ode to Andy Richter, Antihero of Late Night

The Tonight Show controversy of late has audiences rallying around Conan O’Brien, that lanky redheaded purveyor of weirdness who spent years on the Late Show celebrating the absurd: the masturbating bear, Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, “Driving the Desk,” staring contests and “In the Year 2000″ were among the segments that lasted far longer and were way more memorable that even Conan himself would have predicted. His self-deprecating monologues and silly stunts with guests (like cutting Dave Foley’s hair) set him apart from the lame grandfatherly vibe of Jay Leno and Letterman’s biting sarcasm. Late Night with Conan O’Brien became one of my favorite shows in probably about 1997, when I was old enough to stay up that late and probably still not quite old enough to get all the jokes. I stopped watching it much in 2000, when the show lost some of its spark. The reason for this? The departure of Andy Richter.

A friend of SNL head writer and Conan producer (and voice of Triumph) Robert Smigel, Richter was originally hired as a writer for Late Night, but just before the show aired was brought on as an Ed McMahon-style sidekick. And the rest is history. Salon’s Heather Havrilesky wrote yesterday on Salon about how Conan has never been afraid to be weird, to trust that American audiences were not simply looking for a retread of Johnny Carson’s gentle schtick. But a lot of the time on Late Night, Conan played straight man to his growing cadre of weirdo sidekicks: first Andy, then Max, then Joel, the psychotic announcer. Andy Richter’s late night persona involved decidedly more than just supplying a “human laugh track,” a la McMahon. He wasn’t the best friend, guy-next-door kind of sidekick but rather an awkward, hapless eccentric who often became of the focus of a sketch’s humor (as in the classic staring contests).

Andy’s chubby, baby-faced appearance and Midwestern background made him the perfect Mutt and Jeff-style opposite to Conan’s gawky New Englander. During Conan and Andy’s nightly bull sessions, a conversation about Andy’s weekend, delivered with aw, shucks good humor, would typically spin into off-color stories that hinted at an odd and depraved lifestyle. Unlike Max Weinberg, who we want to love but who weirds us out, Andy’s weirdness is what makes him a lovable comedian and sidekick. It also makes him a gamble for a talk show. This is the joke that Andy’s best sketches are often built around: he’s not the kind of guy most people are dying to see on television. His persona makes Conan O’Brien look comparably suave and camera-ready.

In one of my favorite Late Night sketches ever (which doesn’t seem to be available online), Andy trains to become a weatherman, only to find that he lacks all the appropriate skills (charisma, self-confidence, an understanding of how television works) and even wears a bright blue suit that causes him to blend into the weather map. In another early segment, “Runaway with Andy” (a travel show spoof narrated by Robin Leach), he travels to Coney Island with Abe Vigoda, where they taunt guard dogs and wander aimlessly, unhappily, past rows of boarded up amusements. And who could forget his fake talk show, “Andi,” which fails to produce proper guests or any conflict? Andy Richter, antihero.

I don’t know what Andy plans to do now (from his statement though, I’d guess he’s pretty pissed), but I hope he gets another chance to work his queasy-awkward magic on television audiences. It seems his best foray into television, the short-lived Andy Richter Controls the Universe (great vid of highlights here), has developed enough of a cult following to warrant a DVD release. However, he’s had enough failed sitcoms that this slap in the face from NBC might be his last straw. I hope not!

The world of late night is better with Andy Richter in it.

And I leave you with some great links:

Andy’s POV (terrible quality, but classic Andy)

Andy performing Des’ree’s “You Gotta Be” (also bad quality recording)

Andy wiping the floor with Wolf Blitzer and Dana Delaney on Jeopardy

The Circle Line Show (Classic Late Night)

My Forgotten Blogspot Blog

I began a TV blog back in 2008 that the rigors of grad school forced me to abandon. However, I’m quite proud of my entries there on 90210 and The Biggest Loser: http://www.thingsiseedo.blogspot.com/

I’ll be back soon with another “TV of the aughts” post!

Aughts TV Revisited: The Magic of “The Office”

I must admit, the beginning of the aughts did not set my expectations high for television in the new millenium. Reality shows were in full controversial flux, with the likes of Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire? and Joe Millionaire making headlines for bringing out the worst in people. There was the influx of boring game shows with Matrix-like sets (Who Wants to be a Millionaire?, The Weakest Link), the growth of procedural dramas, and the quite decline of my favorite genre, the sitcom. The nineties seemed impossible to top, having given us the greatness of Seinfeld, Roseanne, and The Simpsons at its best. The networks tried to hang onto the genre with flat family centered fare like Yes, Dear and According to Jim. But in 2001, a BBC show called The Office came along that reinvented the sitcom and made the aughts bearable long after its short run. Its American version, along with newer hits Parks and Recreation, Modern Family, and even Arrested Development owe it a debt in terms of style and subtlety. The Office’s influence is more potent than ever six years after its series finale.

With the American Office currently surfing that same tide that compelled Fonzie to jump the shark, it becomes clear that one of the smartest decisions Gervais and Merchant made with the original was letting it go in its prime. Part of this was due to early struggles with ratings, but on American television it is unheard of for a show to complete two seasons and two specials, achieve massive international success and acclaim, and then go quietly into the night. This decision leaves the show fresh in our minds and joyfully re-watchable; it hangs together like a film, and its seriality is emphasized and clear. No plot becomes unwieldy or far-fetched as so many sitcom plots do. The first season is more lighthearted and comedic, with the second season twisting into drama and bringing us to an almost gut-wrenching low point in the first Christmas special.

What remains most influential about The Office as a sitcom is its documentary-style set up, with cameras catching what appear to be offhand exchanges and conducting confessional-style interviews with characters. The dialogue is tightly scripted, and it’s a tribute to great writing and acting that it appears so off-the-cuff.  It is through this innocuous lens that we meet David Brent, Gervais’s self-absorbed boss who tells juvenile jokes and talks in circles about his life and management philosophies (he’d like to be remembered as “the man who put a smile on the face of all who he met”). But he’s so much more than that. His childish jealousy and insecurity lead to a number of the show’s best moments (a singalong of his band, Foregone Conclusion’s, repertoire; a dance-off with Swindon boss Neil), and his personal experiences later in the series are the most affecting. We also have Gareth (Mackenzie Crook), a character who is at once a serious know-it-all and a childish naif; Tim (Martin Freeman), a witty average joe who still, at the age of 30, sleeps in his childhood bedroom and has no idea what to do with his life;  and Dawn (Lucy Davis), a bored receptionist set to marry a creep who won’t let her pursue her dream of being an artist.

We grow to love these characters despite the obvious flaws and poor decision-making of each, and in addition to laughing at and with them, we also feel wounded with Tim when he’s bullied by Chris Finch, trapped with Dawn when she moves to Florida with Lee, and rejected with David when he loses his job at Wernam-Hogg. We’ve all spent time in a place like Slough, less a town and more of a state of mind: bleak, confining, routine. The Office Christmas specials were the most impressive of the series because they weren’t afraid to dwell, to an uncomfortable extent, on the dark undertones of the show. The point of the Office, is seems to me, was to focus on the ways in which people get trapped in jobs and life, and how we cope with this by scaling our fantasies down and attempting to act them out within these confines. We see this in the way David slumps in his hotel after a degrading promotional appearance, and in the way Tim accepts David’s old position and begins adopting his own Brent-ish management speak.

The end of the series is, of course, some of the most satisfying television ever created (from Tim’s illustrated note to Dawn, ”Never give up,” to David’s long-awaited dressing-down of Chris Finch). The characters seem to finally have what they need to move forward in life. The series doesn’t push it, however, so once the euphoria wears off we won’t be stuck seeing the characters’ lives falter once again. What makes The Office so special, I think, is something its imitators can’t get a handle on: dynamics. Like great composers, Gervais and Merchant attuned the audience to subtle shifts in mood. They brought us down and back up again, the whole time laughing, squirming, and feeling.

I’m back!

I’ve decided to revisit this blog and get it going again, this time focusing more broadly on my thoughts about television, film, and music. More posts coming soon!

Concluding Thoughts

The end of the semester is here, so it’s time for me to wrap up this project (at least for now). Though liveblogging is a very small component of what is happening today with television and online fan communities, I feel like it’s an important indicator of certain trends in both programming and audience participation. This project has really helped me to understand the state of television in our current culture of convergence, and, silly as it sounds, quelled any fears I may have had about television’s irrelevance or impending disappearance. I think the real gist of what I’ve been writing about in this blog goes back to Henry Jenkins’ statement that I quoted in my first post: “What we are now seeing is the hardware diverging while the content converges” (Jenkins 15). Of course it’s possible that someday we will all have one screen in each home, and that television will be completely programmable without even the option of spontaneous viewing. It’s even more possible that television will become like radio: background noise, occasionally tuned into but usually ignored in favor of more personalized viewing. Currently, though, I’m fascinated by the way that television programming and Internet fan communities are working together and influencing one another. I don’t doubt that we’ll continue to see new program formats and modes of audience participation in years to come.

Another interesting thing I’ve learned throughout this liveblogging investigation is how the Internet will affect the future of the field of audience reception studies. The reason I became interested in liveblogging was because while writing a paper on Mad Men audiences for another class, I discovered that liveblogs are a new way to get honest and spontaneous fan reactions to media. Where scholars used to have to mine archives and diaries for a single mention of a piece of media, now they can scroll through liveblogs for thousands of audience members’ reactions to television shows on their original air dates. Though audience reception scholars have already begun to use Internet forums and listserves in their studies, it’ll be interesting to see the influence liveblogs have. As I noted in a previous post, I see liveblogs (both single-blogger and live thread) as important because they are changing the way audiences and critics respond to television. We are no longer trying to stuff television into the same box as films. Liveblogging acknowledges that television is completely different due to its flow and open-ended nature. We now have a way to address that, and to me it makes the process of reading and writing about television that much more enjoyable.

In conclusion, then, I’m sure I’ll be reading and participating in liveblogs in the future, and I look forward to seeing the format evolve. Perhaps one day I’ll be approved by Jezebel, and then I’ll really get in the game.

Television, “Flow” and “Liveness”

Last Saturday evening, I attempted, yet again, to participate in a Saturday Night Live live thread offered by Jezebel.com, one of the few outlets for casual, adult fans of television shows to participate in. All I had to do was create a profile, and then I could join the group in discussing everything from Seth Rogen’s hosting abilities to ads airing on the commercial breaks. I was foiled again, however. It turns out that Jezebel requires “auditioning” to be a commenter on their site, which means that until I build up an impressive cache of witticisms, nothing I say will appear on the site. Unfortunately, this means the clever comment I attempted to post regarding Seth Rogen’s new “mall cop” film will not appear on the site until this week’s SNL liveblog is ancient history. Nervous as I was to enter this seemingly close-knit group of Jezebel and SNL devotees, it was even more ostracizing to learn that I was being screened as a potentially antagonistic, boring, or simple-minded commenter with nothing better to do than clog up their threads with my petty ramblings. I have yet to be approved, as there’s something pitiful about posting comments you know won’t show up soon, or possibly ever. This interesting turn of events, however, does relate to my post from two weeks ago on Gawker Media. Jezebel, as one of the Gawker sites, has a snarky-yet-sweet reputation to uphold. Much like Gawker’s “follow my example” Oscars liveblog, Jezebel’s commenting policy puts restrictions on participants in order to uphold a certain image and credibility. If they open up the live thread to just anyone, they fear they’ll become a site like Perez Hilton, whose commenters are known for their crude, expletive-laden and banal posts.

Despite this liveblogging roadblock, I was still able to follow along with the live thread while watching Saturday Night Live (despite the Beavis and Butthead reruns tempting me from MTV2). Trying to keep up with the comments on the live thread (which were on the whole witty and entertaining), and thinking up my own comments (which I couldn’t help but do though they wouldn’t be published) took a lot of my attention, an aspect of liveblogging I acknowledged a few weeks ago when I tried my hand at it. This led to me to reflect on Raymond Williams’ famous concept of “flow,” and how its definition is being altered in the digital age. In Television, Williams defines flow as a then-new way of thinking about television. Viewing, when controlled by an audience with multiple options, becomes not programming but flow, or the television sequences a viewer takes in in a single sitting. He writes, “It is evident that what is now called ‘an evening’s viewing’ is in some ways planned, by providers and then by viewers, as a whole; that it is in any event planned in discernible sequences which in this sense override particular programme units” (Williams 93). What happens, then, if flow starts to encompass more than what is on TV? With liveblogging, viewers are combining these online dialogue “sequences” with their regular television viewing, and because it’s directly related to the program, it seems to be part of flow. Even networks are picking up on this and scheduling “live chats” with various contestants, actors, creators, etc. for directly after the programs on which they’re featured. We might also consider American Idol’s voting process a part of its flow, meaning that “an evening’s viewing” constitutes not only a television, but a cell phone.

Henry Jenkins and others have written on the concept of “overflow,” a term derived from Williams that covers the process of one medium’s content (like a television show) spilling over into other media (like a video game or fan forum). However, I would argue that liveblogging and something like American Idol’s voting process are unique, and both fit into Williams’ definition of flow, as they are not just connected by content, but by simultaneous experience.

In his essay “Television’s Next Generation,” William Oricchio states that the concept of flow has changed because “the agency of the television programmer has been displaced by the RCD-equipped viewer, who in turn has been displaced by metadata programmers and adaptive agent designers” (Oricchio 178). He also foresees that “the liveness and pseduo-liveness that Williams described as a characteristic of the medium will be dropped for the virtuality and omnipresence offered by filters and adaptive agents in combination with digital video recorders” (Oricchio 179). It’s true that DVRs, TIVO and online streaming of television have changed the way we think of flow, how sequences and disruptions are structured, and who has a stake in planned flow (now more people than ever). However, Oricchio’s argument about the liveness of television overlooks the very practices I’ve been discussing. Due to the aggressiveness of the online “spoiling” community, pseudo-liveness has become almost as important to popular television today as pseudo-realness. Reality shows, especially American Idol, thrive on liveness. It’s what makes them relevant and important to their audiences. The incorporation of other media into television flow is a product of this “liveness.” Viewers need to vote directly after an Idol broadcast by texting with their phones. Saturday Night Live viewers rate good and bad sketches on Jezebel’s live thread while they’re watching them.

Sure, because of DVRs, VCRs, online streaming, syndication, etc., viewers no longer have to turn on the television at a certain time to see a certain show. However, the fast-paced Internet television fan community (as well as the structure of reality shows like Idol) make it desirable for viewers to be there the first time around. The pseudo-liveness that might have begun as simply a “characteristic of the medium” has actually become an important selling point for television, perhaps the key to its relevance. Like radio, it offers spontaneity and a refreshingly limited number of options. As I noted in my last post on liveblogging the real, we want to feel present in our own culture; to be there to respond, document, and remember. Convergence culture supports this desire, which in turn supports television’s place in our lives.

Works Cited

Oricchio, William. “Television’s Next Generation.” Television After TV: Essays on a Medium in Transition. Eds. Lynn Spigel and Jan Olsson. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2004.

Williams, Raymond. Television: Technology and Cultural Form. New York: Routledge, 1974.

Liveblogging the Real

So far on this blog, I’ve discussed liveblogging and television viewing mostly as it relates to narrative television shows and reality shows. There’s another area in which liveblogging is becoming more popular, however, and that’s news and real media events. CNN has led the pack on the news/liveblog pairing by offering open threads during two of their most popular programs, Larry King Live (which is more of an entertainment program) and Anderson Cooper 360. Yesterday’s edition of the latter featured fans first commenting about the show and Cooper himself (“Wow Anderson…what an introduction,” “Anderson’s back! Loved the live broadcasts from London”), then turning to discussing the news of the day. What is interesting (though not surprising) about these news-show liveblogs is that there is not a lot of commentary about the program itself and the way its presenting the news. Like most people watching a news program, they are simply looking for others to discuss the events of the world with as they hear about them. On this particular evening, the main subjects were the Binghamton, NY shootings and Iowa’s court decision upholding same-sex marriage rights. Some sample comments:

Maren in Oregon: [on Binghamton] The circumstances of the killings are all different, but the story of the killers seems always the same: loner, collect or buy serious weapons; silent, anti-social, depressed.

Barbara in Boston: [on Iowa] I think this is a civil rights issue and that rulings like this are progress towards greater civil liberties for all.

More on Binghamton:

Isabel: What traumatic situation for the mother of this lady …

Emma: Unbelievable…….I wonder if they’ll ever find out what set him off.

The comments proceed like this throughout the thread. There is not a lot of argument on this particular evening, but a lot of support: when commenters respond to each other, they tend to make remarks like “Good point!” and then add to or answer another commenter’s question. The tone here is obviously quite different from that of the snarky responses to narrative television. There is the sober recognition that this is real, and there’s no joking around.

One benefit some might see to liveblogs of this nature would be the possibility of a critical close reading in the vein of The Daily Show or The Colbert Report. Viewers watching have the chance to analyze and respond to the way the news media spins narratives, reveals its biases, and manipulates the audience. There has been some of this cropping up on the web, mostly related to Fox News, but these are all separate blog: this kind of analysis rarely takes place in the liveblogs offered by the networks themselves.

Liveblogging is also part and parcel of the age in which newsworthy events unfold before us in real time, via the media. In his book The Gulf War Did Not Take Place, Jean Baudrillard writes about how the media build up to certain events, like wars, and subsequent media “coverage” of them is no longer war at all, but becomes pure illusion. He writes, “We are no longer in a logic of the passage from virtual to actual but in a hyperrealist logic of the deterrence of the real by the virtual” (Baudrillard 27). He goes on to state that it is precisely the “real time” nature of media coverage of war that caused this shift: ” ‘real time’ information loses itself in a completely unreal space, finally furnishing the images of pure, useless, instantaneous television where its primordial function interrupts, namely that of filling a vacuum, blocking up the screen hole through which escapes the substance of events” (Baudrillard 31). He discusses the Gulf War coverage and its predilection for extensive focus on planning, strategy, speculation, and buildup, and notes Saddam Hussein (and others’) awareness of the performative and narrative aspects of this television war.

The feature of this type of coverage that is most relevant here, however, is the cavalcade of “experts” and “specialists” trotted out to analyze each situation as it unfolds before our eyes. This is a feature that has become ubiquitous on cable (and network) television news, and the news event liveblog has, in many ways, become an extension of it. The liveblog allows us not only to register our reactions to certain events, but to take part in what we think might just be an important historical event. We want to saturate ourselves in this event, feel a part of it, predict it, and perhaps (especially in the case of 9/11) help others solve or make sense of it. Baudrillard writes, “The war, along with the fake and presumptive warriors, generals, experts, and television presenters we see speculating about it all through the day, watches itself in a mirror: am I pretty enough, am I operational enough, am I spectacular enough, am I sophisticated enough to make an entry onto the historical stage?” (Baudrillard 31-32)

At this point, media coverage of September 11th is the most interesting evidence we have of the way real time media changes the way we view the world. Though there were no liveblogs (that I could locate) of the event, regular people participated in the coverage by photographing, videotaping, and later recounting their versions of events to various news outlets. Television coverage of the event (available via youtube) demonstrates exactly what makes real time media participation so irresistable: the “narrative” is still coming together, and we have the power to shape it. Many conspiracy theories have come from the fact that there were so many conflicting eye witness accounts thrown around in the media immediately following the attacks. Awestruck bystanders reported seeing military planes, exploding bombs, and many other things that were later discounted, but they remained in the minds of those of us watching. The real time coverage in this case seemed to be the opposite of the Gulf War coverage as characterized by Baudrillard: there was no buildup, just event and aftermath, and an atmosphere of unpredictability and panic exuded from our TV sets. It was only in the coverage following the initial hysteria that the narrative began to come together, leading to the intensely manipulated media coverage of the “war on terror” and the Iraq War to follow.

It is this type of spontaneity, then, that I think today’s livebloggers wish to capture when they chronicle news events. We want to capture a historical event before it becomes history, but most of the time, as in the case of Obama’s inaguration, the events and public reaction to them have been predetermined. We hope, through liveblogging, to capture an honest moment of history-in-the-making, like the Zapruder film or NBC’s live shot of tower two being struck.

Liveblogging Exp. #1, and the Heart Beneath the Snark

I’ve been looking for forums in which I can try out liveblogging myself, but so far I’ve had trouble finding reliable live threads for the shows I follow. I’ve been doing research, and am confident I’ll get the chance to liveblog with my peers. However, in the meantime, I thought I’d blog tonight’s episode of America’s Next Top Model here, Television Without Pity style. Since my last post focused on the popular practice of one blogger producing a “critical” liveblog on his/her own for fans to read (and comment on), I decided to follow that trend myself. On WordPress, I’m unable to publish the blog in real time, but, more importantly, I’ll be blogging live while I’m watching the show. This will help me to see how my own television viewership, and reaction to what I’m viewing, changes when I’ve liveblogging. I will also be able to analyze how traditional television criticism changes when the observations are being made, written, and published without a second thought. Though I’m not able to interact with other livebloggers just yet, this will be a great way for me to try my hand at snarky, Gawker-style live television response.

So here we go (I’ll limit it to the first 30 minutes or so, as this experiment does not necessitate an epic episode recap):

The models await their fate.

8:00 p.m. The episode is starting! I’ve been watching this show for years, even though it’s always the same and no one from it ever gets famous. I feel old because I can’t even remember every season.

8:04 p.m. Commercial for the new 90210, which is horrible, and Tori Spelling seems to be an even less convincing Donna Martin now!

8:04 p.m. Back from commercial. This episode is going to be about Tahlia. She is talking about how she needs to “step it up” and it’s “a competition.” Duh.

8:05 p.m. Tocarra is back! And shrill! One girl says Tocarra is “an inspiration to every girl.” Every girl who remembers who Tocarra is.

8:06 p.m. Tocarra wants the girls to tell her about their “personalities.”

8:06 p.m. Tocarra just finished “doing a workout DVD.” Career death-knell.

8:07 p.m. Everyone hates Sandra, who is this season’s Transparently Insecure Contestant .

8:08 p.m. Tocarra tells them not to just rely on their looks. Cut to a shot of Cecilia looking like Jerri Blank. Hope she’s got a good personality!

8:09 p.m. Holy crap it’s Benny Ninja! This man POSES FOR A LIVING. His title is actually “posing instructor.”

8:10 p.m. I do not understand Benny Ninja. I’m just going to say that now.

8:10 p.m. Posing challenge. Sandra blows it. Most of them blow it, actually. Kortney gets in trouble with the Ninja.

8:12 p.m. Uh-oh. Tahlia the burn victim has once again been accused of not having confidence.

8:16 p.m. Local news aside: A woman STOLE breast implants. Presumably in Pittsburgh…what a town!

8:17 p.m. I am really disturbed by that Soft Scrub commercial in which the stove talks back to the woman cleaning it in a racially coded voice like Chester Cheetah. Inexplicable.

8:18 p.m. The girls are headlining an event “for the fashion elite of New York City.” Mmm hmm.

8:19 p.m. Alison feels “horrible” and is “scared.” Don’t, Alison! You’re freaky and you should stay on the show!

8:20 p.m. Benny Ninja is the host. Obviously this is not a prestigious event.

8:21 p.m. Alison looks good, but the crowd is booing! No!

8:21 p.m. Sandra is a fool. What is she doing? More boos.

8:22 p.m. Celia does well, but her makeup makes her look like a wax figure.

8:23 p.m. Natalie and Celia face off, and Natalie almost falls so Celia wins. In your smug face, Natalie!

8:24 p.m. Tahlia is complaining again about her low self-esteem, and Alison is talking about her behind her back.

8:25 p.m. Commercials. With all the top model winners that get Cover Girl contracts, why is Queen Latifah always hogging all the ads?

8:28 p.m. The Tyra mail was talking about “migrating.” That means birds! BIRDS!

8:28 p.m. Ugg, Tahlia’s a sad sack. I would probably react the same way to being on Top Model, but even so. Celia wants her to leave.

8:29 p.m. Ok, so the shoot is not about birds. Jay Manuel is waxing all historical about immigrants. He must have been cramming all night for that speech.

OK…I’ll stop here. Liveblogging is exhausting! I’ll be back to analyze this on Friday.

So I’m back to analyze! Looking over this liveblog days later, I’m amazed that it seems so slight. I felt like I was spending every spare moment writing comments, and yet it doesn’t really show. A solo critical liveblog is typically more work than participating in a liveblog thread, but even that would be something to get used to. Interestingly enough, later the same night that I liveblogged Top Model, I tuned in to a reality show on which a friend of mine was going to be featured. Another friend and I facebook chatted throughout the program, which was itself a lot like commenting in a liveblog thread. This was easier and more fun than the solo liveblog, but still involved a lot of work and drew my attention away from the television screen for probably almost 50% of the broadcast. In sum, I would say that to me, liveblogging was a lot more work than, say, watching TV with a group of actual friends in my living room. Especially with a show like Top Model, which is mostly interesting because of the visual elements (listen to the dialogue sometime and you’ll hear what I mean), I found I was frustrated that my attention was being drawn away from the TV.

I also felt slightly overwhelmed by the process because of the genre constraints of liveblogging, which I instinctually followed due to my experience reading them. Whenever something important (or comment-worthy) happened on the show, I felt that I must comment on it, as to miss it would be to misrepresent it. This brings me back to the discussion of Television Without Pity that I began in the last post: they’ve mastered the art of the almost obnoxiously complete recap/real-time review. I consider this type of liveblogging a new strain of television criticism, popularized by the introduction of the DVR and Tivo. It is obvious that TWoP reviewers use this technology to pause and rewind, thus enabling them to see and hear every moment of the show, despite the task of commenting. This produces a type of criticism that actually seems to suit television as a medium better than traditional, film-style criticism. It’s always been a problem for reviewers to write about television, since it is not a complete, succinct text that can be viewed and considered as a whole (look at The Simpsons). Liveblogging takes the film-style review, which condenses a television season into one pithy interpretation, and does the complete opposite: it blows the minutiae of a single episode up into a review-length (and often longer) close reading that resists categorization, allowing the reader to watch, read, and develop a sense of the show for themselves.

Idol's Adam Lambert

For example, Television Without Pity’s recap of Tuesday’s American Idol (by Jacob) is thirteen standard web pages long, and covers everything from disparaging the judges’ clothing (Simon in “high-rise jeans” and Randy in a “mathlete cardigan”) to speculating about the contestants’ dispositions (on Kris Allen: “I can’t imagine him writing a song unless it was like one of those Edie Brickell songs about sitting on a porch and eating a burrito”). The reviewers take liberties with the liveblog format, of course. Though their main responsibility is to document an episode, these recaps are filled with tangents and asides about personal experiences, other pop culture texts, and even conversations happening between the writers’ friends in the room while the episode is airing. This is a genre of review that fits perfectly with reality TV, as the enjoyment (for most people over the age of say, 13) of these flashy, synthetic shows is usually found in the absurd blink-and-you-miss-them details, like Ryan Seacrest’s sexual innuendos, a contestant flashing a “weird muppet smile,” and a small moment when a contestant “giggles” at Smokey Robinson. As I noted in my previous posts, Television Without Pity’s most popular recaps are of shows with which the writers themselves have a “love/hate relationship.” The in-depth recap seems to be the only type of review that truly allows for a demonstration of such a relationship. The joy of writing and reading recap-liveblogs comes from the snark, but also the heart underneath the snark. This comes through in Jacob’s reaction to Idol contestant Adam’s performance of “Tracks of my Tears,” which left Smokey Robinson teary-eyed: “Adam Lambert sings like an angel! Damn. That was amazing.” This is the kind of moment that has the maximum emotional impact upon first viewing. Television brings us moments like these all the time, when the shallowest, cheesiest of shows inexplicably bring us to tears. Liveblogging can capture these feelings before embarrassment takes over, and gives us a true picture of why we watch television.