Is the lack of a designated brainy girl a curse or a blessing?

OK, I promised myself I'd write every weekday (I would say for a month, but I won't during my vacation, I don't think), and even though I still am not feeling like it, I'm gonna do it anyhow. I do need to remember to post before I read commentary on my shows, as I have nothing new to say about Ugly Betty or The Fashion Show. It's tempting to totally detox from TV this summer, but aside from finishing my Rhoda DVD (one disk left with 5 episodes plus a special feature doc) and The Sopranos (I have four seasons left I'm just getting them through Netflix), I'm sure I'll end up watching the final season of Monk, Psych, the new Mark Feuerstein show on USA, the rest of In Plain Sight, Secret Life of the American Teenager, probably at least the pilot of 10 Things I Hate About You (sooner or later I'm going to have to draw the line and not watch every teen show), the rest of The Fashion Show, and Project Runway, which doesn't come back until August, plus of course Jeopardy, and the Daily Show/Colbert Report (which are both dark next week). In other words, nearly as much as I watch during the year, but nothing that isn't reaired 6-10 times a week, so I won't even care that my TiVo is on its last legs and frequently either freezes up in the middle of a show, or drops out the sound, or, a first the other day, freezes the picture but keeps the sound going (but I will replace it before September). I definitely will declare at least a few nights a week reading night, although I'm a little stimeyed in that as the library thinks I didn't return a book that I know I did.

So anyhow, the stealth smart girl idea. A friend and mentor (thanks Peggy!) had a sort of a different take on this idea than my initial thoughts. Is it a good thing or a bad thing that the geeky type brainy girl is gone, replaced by the girl who is simultaneously smart, beautiful, attractive to boys, and popular with other girls? Her take was that this puts a lot of pressure on girls, and that girls put pressure on each other, to be all of those things. Rather than thinking that smartness has been integrated and isn't something to be concealed and erased as the girl gets popular and loved, as in the older shows, it's something to be flaunted, but in equal measures to the other characteristics.

Certainly that was the case for Veronica Mars once she was done being the outcast--she was up for valedictorian, she had two rich boys, and every other boy in school (plus another guy in college), interested in her, and tons of tertiary characters praising her beauty, sexiness, niceness, and coolness.

It's definitely true of Blair Waldorf who, while one would never call her nice in general, is always there for her friends, ready to pull some elaborate scheme. No matter how often she and Serena stop speaking to each other, they always get back together with avowals of eternal friendship, and she and Chuck have followed a two season long come closer/go away/come closer pattern that I'm sure will continue into next season. She also demonstrates extreme power over the other girls, who want her approval, even as she treats them like dirt.

90210 is my problem. It's too muddy to even deal with yet, only I need to. The only attention we've seen paid to academics at all is Naomi trying to get out of writing papers (and having her parents back her up on this), and Silver going overboard with her assignment for the English teacher and making a borderline pornographic film. Annie and Adrianna seem only to care about drama class. Each girl is considered extremely desirable from the start. Part of the reason the original was good was that we had to see Brenda and Andrea learning to fit in with the rich and troubled crowd, while Annie just did, pretty much right away. Add to that, there being no "crowd as such"--the episode before the finale suddenly had all the girls at a baby shower, and all the boys at a bachelor party, seemingly having been best buddies forever, even though we never really saw Adrianna and Annie together much, and especially since we never even saw Liam and Naveed speak before--and it's just hard to read the interactions. Supposedly, Naomi, Silver, and Adrianna were all best friends at some point, hence the matching tattoos, but mostly we've seen every pair of characters off in their own storyline. It makes it easy to ask questions like what was up with Annie's totally non-promlike short ugly dress, and hard to ask who the stealth smart girl/perfect girl is in this scenario. Odd, as we've seen a lot more scenes in actually classrooms--given the co-star status of the principal, a teacher, and the guidance counselor--than we have on Gossip Girl, where all action happens in the hallways/courtyard/out in the city/in private homes, bars, or hotels.

The other way to look at it is that no one really cares if the girls are smart on these two shows because in this society, money talks. Naomi's dad tries to convince her teacher to change her grade due to his money and clout. Although no one in Blair's family seemingly can get her back into Yale once her detention for bad mouthing a teacher (who was sleeping with a student), gets her offer rescinded, Nate's grandfather offers to get her into Columbia if she will only convince Nate to go there, instead of Berkeley (I think--too lazy to look all this up for now), and her lawyer stepfather knows a friend on the board of NYU, which is how she gets acceptance there, despite not applying. Serena gets into Brown because she frequently appears on Page 6, with other socialites, and despite her mediocre grades, and apparent lack of concern about academics.

That might be why this show doesn't have smart girls, while Secret Life of the American Teenager does. Everyone on that show is similarly middle class, except possibly for Adrian who I guess is supposed to be poorer (but still has her own convertible). No one can pull strings because of all their money. Grace's dad is a doctor, and Lauren's dad is a psychologist, who you think would have more money than a furniture store owner, but it's hard to tell. It's a measure of how retro this show is that I do not know what either of the mothers do, and it's a plot point that Molly Ringwald's character Anne (this show is big on A names for women) dropped out of college to stay home and raise Amy and her sister Ashley and is only now trying to have a career. I believe Adrian's mother is a flight attendant. Other than 15 year olds getting pregnant, and plot points that sometimes revolve around cell phones, and a fixation with sex, for the most part this show could easily have taken place in pretty much any decade. There's absolutely nothing forward thinking here. Adrian is free with her sexuality, but is essentially punished for it by having the boys leave her for "nicer" girls. Minor character Alice can talk a good game about sex, but ends up having it and not much liking it.

Well, clearly this migraine isn't helping my thought process much. I'll think more about this next week.

Just to wrap up this little "photos from the upfronts" project, the CW photos are out. I'll actually include them this time, since I don't seem to be up to doing the real thinking required for what I planned today. Thank goodness we get Monday off.

A Beautiful Life has Corbin Bleu, who I assume is Black (I have yet to see one minute of any High School Musical movie, but eventually probably will), at far left, and Ashley Madekwe, who appears to be of color in some way, relatively central, but not as central as Mischa Barton (when will they ever learn?). Hopefully I won't get sucked into that.

Melrose Place includes Jessica Lucas, whose parents are Hatian and Pakistani, at the far end of the photo (and a photo of Laura Leighton's Sydney, who used to date Jake, making out with the character who I understand to be his son--eww--but hey getting Sydney and Michael is a decent way to secure my Tuesday nights again next season, no matter how dull, plus Michael Rady, who was awesome on Greek, but dull as dirt on Swingtown--the hat he is wearing in the photo does not give me hope).

The Vampire Diaries cast is only three people, and seems to be all white (pale, in fact), and continues the CW trend of casting Degrassi actresses which was such a good move on 90210. And I don't even think she's as good on Degrassi as I thought Shenae Grimes was, which wasn't very. I will not subject myself to that. Reaper is dead, which is OK with me, and Privileged, which I never saw either but probably need to.

I saw these photos on http://www.thefutoncritic.com/. Zap2it's photos cut all all of these except Corbin Bleu, so I guess that's just their style, to crop the photos down to 3-4 cast members, but having the people of color on the ends just makes that totally easy.

CBS still doesn't seem to have those "family photos" yet--they want me to watch previews, complete with commercials. I don't feel like doing that, as I have other things to do. (Yes, really, even if I'm doing this instead). For next season, there's a show called Trauma on NBC, and another called Miami Trauma (for mid season on CBS), but they're not spinoffs the way NCIS: Los Angeles is a spinoff of NCIS, which gives CBS a total of three shows with the semicolon, city formation, in addition to the originals of those shows. I simply don't understant why this is the #1 network, but I know I'm totally out of touch with "regular people" who watch TV. Given that pretty much all of my friends happily announce that they don't own a TV, or if they do they follow 1-2 shows per season, I'm the outlier there.

Well, I have several choices for research. I could beat my head against the wall and change my manuscript according to what one outside reader thought I should, but it's extremely unlikely that that publisher would publish it anyhow. I could develop six-ten new packets, and start again with the next "tier" of publishers. An advisor helped me a lot by giving me ideas about how I could "historicize" the subject. I could try to turn one of the middle chapters into an article. I could revise the conclusion with new shows and at the same time make that an article. I could start a new article. I could think about this after I take my vacation, which I clearly need a lot.

Identity through Identification

First of all, 90210. I thought parts of last night's episode were really laughable, and am quite relieved to have a reprieve until September. Yet the people on Television Without Pity seemed to like it. I'm guessing that's because most viewers, especially those who are older, bailed long ago, but as an academic doing TV, I am in for the duration. It's work, right? But several scenes made me giggle for about five minutes each. One--after Liam realizes that Naomi's sister lied to him to get him to sleep with her and just looks at her and announces "You are a bitch!" I don't know if it was the delivery or just how very "duh" that line was. It's not shocking anymore, even if it's un-PC. Then Annie screaming "Screw all of you" to the entire sophomore class. When she left the house, I seriously thought she was having an asthma attack and was expecting her to pull an inhaler out of her purse, not her phone she used to narc on the party (which indicated she was supposed to be playing anger). Add to that Lori Loughlin pretty clearly having never been stoned before (and Rob Estes seemingly having a better idea of how to play it, yet still not pulling it off) and Kelly, ex-drug addict with drug-addict mother, brother, and bipolar sister, being so nonchalant about the whole thing, that at least it has the makings of a train wreck, rather than the total bore it's been.

By the way, in the zap2itphotos, everyone on the new CBS shows is white except for LL Cool J of NCIS: Los Angeles, but they don't even have those big cast photos, they only have 1-2 people in each picture, and they've got Medium there which has been canceled, so it's not quite right, anyhow. Blows that theory, but I'll check the CBS site. Oh, wait, it's canceled on NBC, now alive on CBS. I've never seen it, and having it on CBS won't make that any likelier. Anyhow, the CBS site doesn't even have the new shows up. Maybe tomorrow (it was just announced this morning).

But what I'm thinking about/working on today is identity and identification. I am running a workshop for our Women's Studies Residency called "Rhoda Morgenstern Made Me What I am Today: What Television Characters Teach us about Ourselves" next Friday. So I need to plan that, and it seems like a good idea to start with a blog post and then make PowerPoint if need be. I know I'll start off with this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyaaSm-3G90&feature=related. Frankly, that's not even close to my story, but Rhoda's deadpan, self-deprecating sense of humor was influential, I think. I felt a huge sense of recognition when I watched the first four seasons of the MTM show again last summer, at least.

Then I'd like to show a scene between Mary and Rhoda on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, but I can only find one short one I don't like! They've all been pulled from YouTube, I guess. So I either have to get the DVD, or get there early and cue up a Hulu video (which is free but awkward). In fact, nearly any TV show I looked for simply didn't have a short or easily editable clip to go with it, which is a bummer, but it's easier to use photos anyhow. Anyway, I'll start off talking about what characters have influenced me, and what changes in thought or behavior they might (or might not) have given me. Then I'll talk about identity and the process of identification and how it relates to TV and feminism. Then I'll open it up to discussion. I might talk about my smart girl characters, but they really came about too late to have much impact on me as a teen.


I think maybe the first media character that I looked at and said "hey, she's like me" was Quinn Cummings of The Goodbye Girl. We were both 10 in 1977 when the movie came out. She also played Annie on the last two seasons of Family, from 1978-1980. She was a Jewish bookworm, very different from the tomboyish Buddy or the elegant Nancy on that show. These episodes are simply unavailable, and I don't remember if I watched regularly or not. It may have been on too late for me to stay up, which seems weird for a family show. Yup, according to a schedule on Wikipedia, it was on at 10PM, first on Tuesdays, then on Thursdays. So no, given an 8:30 bedtime on weekdays, I wouldn't have actually seen it much (though on school holidays and the summers I could and did stay up much later). And even the Library of Congress only has the first season or two, so unless hulu picks it up, there's not much chance.

I have seen the similar Danielle Brisbois character Stephanie on the latter seasons of All in the Family and spinoff Archie Bunker's Place, and she was annoying, but I suspect I identified back then. I remember she sang and danced a lot, which I also did whenever anyone would listen.



Being an actor was no doubt why I loved Gilda Radner





and Carol Burnett so much.





Other characters that I can say were influential in some way include Mallory Keaton of Family Ties--who is only influential because we were the same age, and looked a tiny bit alike (and she even had one of my sweaters). I know she's considered by some to be the anti-smart girl, and indeed she is, but I always watched.





Too bad Square Pegs couldn't have a. been better and b. stayed on.




Not all my influences have been TV related.



One thing that was really influential in 1980, when I was about 12, was a movie, not a TV show, Fame. Since I wanted to be an actor, and wanted to live in New York, and would have killed to go to the High School of Performing Arts, Fame looked just great to me, despite the trials and tribulations. There was a television show, but I guess I didn't care for it, because I didn't watch it much. Anyhow, Doris was probably the character I identified with most, as she was an actress (not a dancer or musician like most of the others), and Jewish to boot. I cannot explain by process of identification why I also saw Grease four times in the theater.


Barbie was important. I'm a feminist, and I love Barbie. I don't think any part of my body image comes from Barbie (though I could cite various other influences), and all of mine (I had 11, though a few were technically Skipper, PJ, or Kelley) were in hugely successful careers, went to a lot of balls, and had tons of cool clothes. I only had one Ken, though. He mostly wore a white tuxedo everywhere since his only other garment, a brown checked sports jacket was u-gly. I had at least two of these "Quick Curl" ones, but they rarely wore their gingham dresses as my grandmother made me ball gowns. I went to one formal, but I've still never been to a ball, and don't see it on the horizon. But I now have the original Barbie and box that lived at my grandmother's house through my whole childhood. They're in my office at work. Sometimes I get bored, you know.

Amy March of Little Women. Yes Amy. I know we're all supposed to want to be Jo, but I wanted to be Amy--successful artistically and gets the cute, rich guy. I've seen at least four versions of the movie and none of the actors cast look anything like the Laurie in my head (a very young Robert Downey Jr., before the drugs). I looked and looked for the cover of the copy I checked out of the library in second grade and wasn't quite ready for, and then again a year or two later when I was, but can't find that. This is one of the two copies I have now. I've read it at least ten times.

Later influences included Audrey Hepburn and Andy Warhol, but I was pretty old before I identified them. I'll also introduce my smart girl characters as part of the presentation, and show pictures of at least some of them, but this has literally taken hours (every time I put a photo in, the whole layout moves), and I've got photos of them in presentations already, so I can do some cutting and pasting there.

Picturing the Upfronts

OK, turns out Vanessa is going to college (see previous post), NYU, in fact, same as Blair, Dan, and evidently Georgina Sparks (who somehow looks wrong for this show to me. Not unattractive, but lacking the delicate prettiness of the other girls). I completely forgot Nate helping her to take the SATs, and still don't remember the circumstances. No news on Serena and I guess Chuck is a little busy running an entire multi-billion dollar empire to consider college, though he has time to galivant around Europe, buying Blair gifts. But for the absence of Dorota, (surely she'd be at Miss Blair's graduation--she's not just in it for the money, right?) and my total confusion about Hazel, Nelly Yuki and the other nameless drones, who were totally seniors, since they were at Blair's SAT pamper party and Nelly got into Yale, caring about who high school queen would be, and Jenny's hair, that was a pretty darn good episode. I knew who the mysterious new NYU student was as soon as they showed him, even to getting a shiver down my spine.

But what I'm really thinking of today, and this doesn't help me with my smart girl stuff but is still important, is the Upfronts. I was just looking at photos of the new shows on ABC, and decided to do a little count. For every one of the fictional new shows (I'm leaving out some reality show with Shark in the title) they have a photo. In every one of those photos a white person is in front, with a second white person slightly behind in the case of all but family shows (where the tall people ((i.e. the parents)) are in the back, and in two of those cases the family is white). I counted 12 people of color, although I'm basing this by mostlty knowing which actor's name went with each face (because there are a lot of familiar faces on their slate, and the few others can be determined by gender-specific process of elimination), and either knowing they were of color or guessing by looking--nearly always at the people on the periphery of the picture. I already know that Sofia Vergara and Lourdes Bendedicto (who cannot act and was just awful on both ER and Dawson's Creek) is Latina, and Rochelle Aytes, who I've never seen before, may be (or Black or mixed), and Ian Gomez (who is great, but is on Cougar Town, a show I wouldn't watch just on the basis of the name) Latino. Lindsay Price (who is one of the three leads on Eastwick) and John Cho (who is toward the front of the photo for Flash Forward, the only one of these shows that remotely appeals) are Asian (or at least partially so), and Reiko Aylesworth is 1/4 Japanese, so I guess she might count,, and Courtney B. Vance is Black, along with, I assume, someone named Robert Wisdom on the show Happy Town. In the show in which Ed O'Neill is married to Sofia Vergara, presumably the kid in between them, Rico Rodriguez, is either her kid from a prior marriage or is supposed to be the product of both of them. That's the show that also features what looks like a "normal" family (i.e. all white), and a gay couple with a baby. At the same time, Ugly Betty, the only Latina led show on the main networks, is moving to death slot Friday (which is good for me because then it won't be up against 30 Rock).

Who cares, right? Boring. But it strikes me that for every step forward characters from formerly disenfranchised groups take, they take a step back. The networks keep trying Black (male) leads, every few years, but when these shows don't work, they won't do it. It's pretty clear from this lineup that when there are black characters, they need to be in the background, and that the order of "threat" from least to most goes, Asian, Latina/Latino, Black. This way, the networks can say they are adding representation from non-white groups, without making any real social strides in terms of actual race-blind casting. But, although by now most Americans have no problem with an Asian kissing a Caucasian character, and they're getting used to Latina/white mixing, Latino/white or Black/white is still very controversial and they are much less likely to go there, and if you have a Black man or Latino man that means you have to add same raced women, and that tips the balance of the show and threatens your viewer base. Most of the Black men on the upcoming shows seem to be older "chief" types who will be less involved in all the mushy kissing and stuff.

Semiotically, the photos are very important. The makeup of the photos is a clear indicator, for the most part, of the actor's place in the pecking order. As far as I can tell, television shows are more hierarchical than the military, with everyone fully aware that they're the "first lead" or the "third female lead." It's obvious that whoever is in front is the first lead (which is why some shows have everyone lined up evenly like Modern Family). The first lead makes more money, and the top four to six may have contracts that say they are in "every known episode," while others may only be in some episodes, which is why Navid can disappear for episodes at a time on 90210. It used to be that actors would get paid even if they weren't on, but I think that changed a few years ago, at least on some networks. I guess I need to look into how that all works.

Maybe I'm reading this all wrong. I've heard no protests about Dixon (who is Black) and Silver (who is white) on 90210, yet they just broke up and it looks as if the goal was to put Silver and Ethan (a white guy) together--except that actor was fired so it won't actually happen. I don't think the CW has put out such a release with yet, though I know they are picking up Vampire Diaries and Melrose Place, but I'll look into it. I'm pretty sure Girlfriends and Everyone Hates Chris won't be on it, taking the last "black shows" off the major networks. I'll try to write about this in the next few days.

Anyhow, I won't do every network--personally the only thing I ever watch on Fox is the occasional Simpsons, though they have a decent slate for next year, and on CBS only How I Met Your Mother, (yes, a show with all white characters--they haven't even bothered to make Josh Radnor or Jason Siegel's characters Jewish), and nothing new they've signed indicates to me that next year will be any different. But I will do NBC.

NBC has always been the liberal network, the highbrow/sophisticated network, but I'm sure they're going to be upping their average age significantly when Jay Leno takes the 10PM hour five nights per week. Chuck is saved, so my venom isn't as strong as it could be for that decision, which I still hope fails miserably, but with the budget cuts on Chuck, if they get rid of characters, or use them less, who will they be? My guess would be the Asian Anna (who face it was on about four episodes anyhow, though she's a fan favorite), the Indian Lester, or the Latino Morgan. Let's hope it's Jeff, though, not because he's white but because he's unpleasant.

Anyhow, due to that, they've only picked up six new shows. The picture of 100 questions shows four white people but someone named Amir Talai is on the cast list and IMDB shows a picture of someone not in that photo. So someone presumably with Middle Eastern Ancestry (the only thing IMDB says is that he was born in San Francisco.) Since I was thinking the cutting of the picures was the fault of the site I was on, not NBC so I did a search. Strangely, the photo on the NBC site includes the Asian looking Elizabeth Ho, off to the right and hence cut off of the original, but not him but two people of color in a six person show is interesting. Community (with John Oliver, yay, but Chevy Chase, boo) has Black actress Yvette Nicole Brown (in back of photo). Trauma, a doctor show I'm not terribly likely to watch, has Black Derek Luke and Latina Aimee Garcia. Only Zap2it has cut Derek out (he's in the way back). I thought the rest were white until I looked up Cliff Curtis, the front man--he's from New Zealand and is of Maori descent, so there's some extreme minority action for you. Parenthood has an actress called Sarah Ramos, but since it's about a giant family, and she's a teenager, and the character has the same last name as the rest of the family, I'm guessing she's playing the Martha Plimpton role from the movie, or Peter Krause and Maura Tierney's kid, hence white.

On Mercy, a show about nurses (which has Michelle Trachtenberg in it so I guess her tenure on Gossip Girl next year will be short), there seen to be three characters of color including Delroy Lindo, who is very cool. Jaime Lee Kirchner is new to me, and her ethnicity is unclear, but she's interesting looking, and Guillermo Diaz was very threatening on Weeds, so it'll be odd to see him on a medical show.

Oh, what do you know, despite the fact I am now officially in a hurry to get to other work, I decided to go ahead and look at Fox (the only other one that has photos yet) and Brothers is an all Black cast (in a sitcom, of course, not a drama), so I was wrong up above. I'm probably the only one who remembers that there already was a show called Brothers, about three white brothers, one of whom was gay. I just looked it up, and although I remember it coming and going, it was on for five years, from 1984-1989. It was not funny. Anyhow, The Cleveland Show (the spinoff of Family Guy) also shows an all black cast, though they are animated. Glee's photo shows a little bit of everyone, including a guy in a wheelchair, but that's no the photo I've seen before. Human Target has Chi McBride, who was so great on Pushing Daisies, (plus Mark Valley who is cool, and Jackie Earle Hailey who is good at being creepy) but no women? Past Life has Ravi Patel, cut off in Zap2it's photo, Sons of Tucson (which I definitely won't be watching) has a Latina woman, and some boys who could be. Wanda Sykes is getting her own late night show. So I guess Fox wins in this sweepstakes by far, which is appropriate as they started off serving "underserved audiences," but in the last few years have not been other than reality-wise. Maybe it's really just ABC that's falling down on the job.

Out of time to actually add the pictures, which wasn't the point anyhow. More tomorrow.

The Stealth Smart Girl

OK, so I've been very lax about keeping this blog, but now that it's summer (though you would never guess it since it's about 50 degrees outside), and I'm not teaching, I'm determined to do it more often. Not only can I get some thoughts out, but hopefully I can work on ideas that will become either an article or the revised conclusion of my book.



Normally I'd start out writing about last night's shows, but the less said about Desperate Housewives' season finale, the better. That was dead boring. Although yay, Chuck has been renewed! Only for 13 episodes, but hey, that has helped a lot of shows really focus, and I don't know what the budget cuts will do, but it's all better than not having the show.

I've written, as anyone reading this blog or who knows me in general may know about the Smart Girl character on television. I've tried to set a boundary between teen shows that took place between 1990 (when Beverly Hills, 90210 began) and 2006, when Gilmore Girls ended. In my dissertation I proclaimed the end of the teen show era after that, but I suppose I was premature.

What may have died out, however, was the brainy girl archetype. Neither Gossip Girl nor the revived 90210 has an Andrea Zuckerman, or even a Rory Gilmore type--driven, book obsessed, school oriented. Useless Vanessa on Gossip Girl is supposed to be a filmmaker, and is clearly intelligent, but is being home schooled (without actually living at home, so it's unclear how that works or actually where she lives at all) so definitely isn't the standard type. She's significantly less well fleshed out as a character than Blair, Serena, or even Jenny. Her job seems to be, for the most part, to be judgmental and to be "good" in the way Dan is. Unlike Blair and Serena, she hasn't mentioned college, so it's not even clear what year she would be if she were in school, or if she already graduated and just plans to make films or what (how's that for ringing academic prose?).














Blair, on the other hand, is what someone I know--and actually I'm sad to say I cannot recall who, so if you are reading this, please speak up,--called a "stealth smart girl." Although the most popular, best dressed, and one of the richer girls in school, she has had perfect grades (although I don't believe we've ever seen her study), and a high (if unmentioned) SAT score and earned entry into Yale. She isn't going to Yale, due to some bad actions on her part and because of ifwesendourcharactersawayhowwilltheshowcontinueitis, and may end up at NYU. Still a good school. Like Rory Gilmore, getting into the Ivy League (in the pilot Rory says Harvard, but later obsesses over Yale, which is much closer to Stars Hollow and from which she graduates), has been presented as Blair's be all and end all, along with becoming Audrey Hepburn (a goal after my own heart). It will remain to be seen how the story treats her at NYU, or whether it becomes Columbia after all (it would have made more sense to send Nate to NYU and Blair to Columbia), but it will be interesting to see if they have school challenge Blair.

The season finale is tonight and I'm "unspoiled" but I'm guessing Serena's recent arrest is what will torpedo her going to Brown. She's never been school oriented and it wouldn't be surprising or terrible if next year she didn't go to college but modelled or something instead. The final girl on that show is Jenny, who won't be ready for college for at least one more year (maybe two--these shows are so vague). As a fashion designer she is outside the realm of the "smart girl" no matter what her grades, which have never been mentioned--she is instead an artsy girl.

90210 also didn't include such a character. Andrea Zuckerman's daughter Hannah was introduced in the pilot as the anchor for the school TV news show Navid runs, but was barely seen and has never been mentioned again. Annie is the good girl, and the actress, but is much more Brenda than Andrea, only tons more annoying. Even when the world hated Brenda, Shannen Doherty was tons more convincing and good in the role than Shenae Grimes. Anyhow, as PK (Principal's kid), it seems likely Annie gets good grades, but we've seen no evidence of her stressing over anything other than boys and whether she's the lead in the school show or not. Silver is the blogger (like all smart people are), but mostly the rebel with problems and actress and druggie Adrianna and popular/bitchy Naomi are far from school oriented. So far no one is a stealth smart girl, but any of them could turn out to be a genius.

Friday Night Lights also didn't have such a character. Coach's daughter Julie is shyer than the other girls, but not flamboyantly brainy. Lyla got into Duke, but was more into cheerleading, then Christianity, and later boyfriend Tim than school while Tyra was the classic underachiever who ultimately did get into college, but through a great deal of struggle.


Finally, there is The Secret Life of the American Teenager. Unfortunately for me, despite having just completed a season, this will be back in July and I'm sure I will watch every minute of the total train wreck this show is. This show alone might include the brainy girl in the lead, Amy. She plays the French horn and, until shortly before the show began was of the "never been kissed" variety of girl I discuss in my sex chapter. However, by the time the show starts, not only has she been kissed, she is pregnant. Although frequently referred to by the actual words "smart girl" we never see her do anything particularly brainy, and in fact she, and most of the cast, come off as quite dim. An interesting character, however, is Adrian, a very stealth smart girl. Although clearly the sex pot (she sleeps with the father of the baby, another girl's boyfriend, and her new stepbrother), she is also determined to do well in school. She will admit it, but even her friends (and she starts off wanting few) are surprised to discover her devotion to school.

So, what does the stealth smart girl mean? Does this mean that braininess is now a less outsider characteristic? Given that some of these shows actually have characters of color (though Gossip Girl only does as recurring characters, including an Asian girl with gigantic glasses, and 90210 and Friday Night Lights have had only boys of color), is that enough? Are we supposed to see all the characters as so well integrated that they don't need obvious signs of smartness as glasses or huge piles of books around them? I'm not sure, but it's something I want to think about this week.

Top Chef Spoiler ahead. Lost too.

I know, I've been neglecting this blog since the beginning of the year. I have real problems with February. It used to at least be sweeps month and so everyone on TV would be getting married or having babies or dying, but it isn't really working that way anymore (I read somewhere it's now in March but I suspect it will be applied inconsistently). I'm actually feeling a real deflation after the Oscars, too. Plus it snowed again last night, and it's cold, and I've had enough.

But I figured I would write anyhow because the whole point was to instill some writing discipline, and anyhow with February nearly over, Spring can't be too far behind. Right? So here are some tulips.

SPOILER ALERT IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN TOP CHEF

Carla didn't win Top Chef. She didn't even come close, since she took her "sous chef"'s (a past runner up, from a season I didn't watch) advice to turn a bleu cheese (the only grouping of cheese I've ever tried that I just don't like) custard into a souffle, and fried it by forgetting to turn the oven down. Something I would totally do, but I'm not in the running for Top Chef. Also she sous-vided her steak and made it too tough. I guess I won't be trying that as a good steak is among my favorite things. Stephan also didn't win, and as much as I don't care for him, I like him much better than I like Hosea, who is boring and uncreative apparently, because I was let down. You'd think I'd want the Jewish guy to win if the woman didn't, which is my normal Jeopardy selection method, but not so.

Lost was interesting, though I'm not sure what we learned. We were pretty sure Ben was evil, and now we know at least at minimum he'd kill a man in cold blood (but we knew that from "the purge" and his general attitude towards anyone who isn't a main character). What we don't really know is why just the mention of Eloise Hawking made him turn from begging Locke not to kill himself, to finishing the job himself. Widmore came off as a good guy, but we still don't know. We do have confirmation that that space in Tunisia is "the exit." How'd they get rid of the polar bear skeleton? Did the sand eat it away? I don't know how you'd dispose of such a thing. A museum? I guess that was three years prior to Locke popping out there.

New characters seem OK--at least one new woman who is probably Israeli, or at least Jewish since her name is Ilana (the name of one of my cousins) an ethnicity sorely lacking on this show so far, and a man named Caesar who seems Middle Eastern, but who knows? They saw Hurley and others "disappear" yet landed on the island and found Locke, who was flying in cargo in a coffin (an un-nailed shut coffin, which bothered me at the butcher shop, and on the plane--wouldn't it just fly open?), but is clearly alive again.

I've given up on Heroes and Life on Mars since I last wrote, Monk and Psych are done for the season, and Top Chef has only next week's reunion. Reaper will be back, in 90210's slot (I think that may be moving to 9, but not for at least three weeks), so I guess I'll watch it but don't really care. Big Love has gotten excellent, United States of Tara is intriguing enough and I'm caught up "On Demand"-wise with Six Feet Under (I guess I'm through season 3) and The Sopranos (through episode 7--shows I already saw years ago but forgot). I could rent either on Netflix, and just might, but I'm kind of enjoying doling them out slowly. The Wire is back with episode 1, too, and I could watch that too. We'll see how much snow there is and how bored I get.

So realistic

Girl Who (Doesn't) Wear Glasses of the day/week/month

Gossip Girl's Nelly Yuki.

She started off as the girl that was going to keep Blair from getting into Yale, because she was prepared to get perfect SAT's but Blair drafted her into her little mean girls group. Somehow this year she's on probation and we're supposed to see her as a wannabe. It's pretty sad because she seemed pretty cool--Lane Kim without the rock and roll, so not all that cool--but she's taking Jenny's place as the main wannabe. Anyhow, since Blair may get top grades but doesn't fit the smart girl paradigm, and Jenny is more the artist, and Serena just drifts through life and clearly doesn't care about much besides her family, friends, and love life, Nelly is the closest thing to a retro smart girl there is on this show. It would be nice to think she'll break out of her mold in a good way, but as a very minor character I think she's doomed to be the stereotype and eventually disappear as the gang goes off to college. She's got more personality than the original Asian girl on this show at least.

I really don't think the writers of The Secret Life of the American Teenager have never met any teenagers. Or any adults. Or anyone who has ever been to high school or might eventually go. No one on this show does anything at all that resembles anything I, personally have ever done in my life, or anything that anyone I've ever met, heard of, or read about has actually done. No one gets married at 15 using fake IDs to a boy who isn't even the father. No one moves into the garage when his wife kicks him out. No one starts off making pancakes and ends up in a queen-sized bed in said garage with his ex. No one has meetings between the police, the high school counselor, and students accused of making fake IDs, or between the counselor and not-really-married-students-because-it-isn't-really-legal-with-a-fake-ID with the door open, and the "wife" would never really walk past at the most inopportune moment. No one (at least no one sane) wants to be "the girl being cheated with, instead of cheated on." No one runs into your ex's ex's current husband at the divorce lawyer and has a lengthy conversation with him that is the first time she finds out her 15 year old daughter is "married."

The only thing that did ring slightly true was that when I faulted Josie Bissett last week for not calling her ex when she heard about the wedding, it turns out she hadn't bothered to ask whose wedding, so she didn't know it was Amy and Ben's. So I suppose she's slightly off the hook for that as she did pick up the phone as soon as she found out. And clearly Amy wanting to find a way out of having to go to school, work, and take care of a baby does make sense, but not this way. The really awful part is that apparently real tweens thing this show is "so realistic" and don't think Ben is a creepy stalker and for all I know probably think Ricky the sexually confused Lothario is "so cute!"

Of course, also, no one leaves their 17-year old son in charge of a multi-billion dollar company, especially their 17-year old son who has never worked a day in his life (I don't think running his burlesque club really counts), especially at said company and probably doesn't even know what the company does, since I don't, or with a planned mentoring/training system or anything like that, and no one is suprised when he fails spectacularly, but that's Gossip Girl and I doubt teens think that show is realistic. They all act like they're at least 30, and just happen to drop into school every once in a while to keep up with their social lives.

I also watched the end of Masterpiece Classic's "Tess of the D'urbervilles." Thomas Hardy sure seemed to hate men. There isn't a good one in the bunch. I'd be interested in reading about the various controversies, but don't have time at the moment. Too much TV to get to. Oh, and work, too.

Which one of you bitches is my father?

Girl Who Doesn't Wear Glasses of the Day/Week/Month (I haven't decided that yet)

This will be a new feature, in which each time I post (if I have time and can think of one), I come up with a smart girl or woman who embodies some of the characteristics of the brainy girls I discuss in my dissertation-cum-hopefully-to-be-a-book-someday. Everybody needs a gimmick, right?

Anyhow today's Girl is Rita, whose real name is Susan, from the movie Educating Rita, played by Julie Walters. I had ER, which I've seen about 10 times, on in the background while I read my Sunday New York Times and did the crossword, of course, in ink, and then later watched Mamma Mia, which I hadn't even realized co-starred Walters. I actually watched that twice, as I had to watch with the director's commentary. I always learn something from doing that.

Rita--a lower class hairdresser-- starts off simply wanting to learn, but is very unlike the "smart girl." By the end she has left her husband, turns down romantic offers from both her don and a good looking fellow students, and ends up passing her Oxford exams with high distinction. Evidently she analyzes works of literature very well, although I haven't read most of what she talks about, except for Rubyfruit Jungle, which is a pretty terrible book. It never occured to me in previous viewings (unless it did, and I forgot, which is likely) that her going back to the name Susan was because she realized, after reading everything else, that RJ is a terrible book. It's also a book about lesbianism, though, and it's interesting that that is not a theme at all in the movie.

In the end, she walks down an airport concourse alone, much as Jill Clayburgh walks alone in An Unmarried Woman and Goldie Hawn walks alone in Private Benjamin. I once wrote a paper in undergrad about those two films and how they were both stories of "JAPS" who became emancipated. Rita isn't Jewish, though, or princessy at all, so if I did write a paper about the three, it would have to be quite different. But I don't plan to. Hail Rita!

Desperate Housewives never seems to provide me with much to say. It's just sort of there, occasionally intriguing, but mostly comforting. There isn't a single girl without glasses on it now that Julie is gone, but I'll keep watching. It does mean I taped Tess of the D'urbervilles on Masterpiece Classic again, so I have both episodes on TiVo, but won't get to it for a while as it's Oscar season. Every year at this time I try to see most of the movies that will probably get nominated for an Oscar, but since I didn't see any on the holiday, it might be hard as I now have just over 2 months and most of them are only playing in Albany and won't be on DVD until after the ceremony.

Colin Ferrell won a Golden Globe for In Bruges last night (I only saw the last 30 minutes of the show so I didn't see his speech), and I did see that, but that was "musical or comedy" which Oscar tends to ignore. I didn't much like that movie, but he was very good in it. I hope I don't have to see The Wrestler. Mickey Rourke won Best Actor in a Drama for that. The Globes are weird and fake, though. I'm seeing Synechdoche, NY on Friday, I'll get The Dark Knight from Netflix this week, and obviously Slumdog Millionaire is the one to see if I can only see a few.

I did see The Curious Case of Benjamin Button this weekend. Mostly it was long. Long and slow. I'm sure it will deservedly win a lot of technical awards, but I wasn't blown away by Brad Pitt's acting, even if he did play all the face roles (except at the end as a little kid) while CGI took care of the bodies. Frankly I was more impressed with Cate Blanchett's ability to make me believe she was 20.

Mamma Mia--well they could have saved themselves a lot of trouble and a lot of singing if Sophie had just asked "OK, which one of you bitches is my father." It was OK, but I've never cared much for ABBA and clearly no one could do any math at all when they wrote or cast this, as Meryl is way too old to be Amanda Seyfried's mom, especially if she was supposed to be young and naive when she got pregnant. It's one thing to sleep with three men when you're 20, another when you're around 40 as she, and most of the men would have been. I just looked it up. Meryl will be 60, Pierce Brosnan 56, Colin Firth 49, and Stellan Saarsgard 58 this year. Ah, fantasy. Anyhow Walters is an author in it, so she carries on the Girls Who Don't Wear Glasses tradition, except she actually wears them.

Deliciously random

Not a lot to say today.

Last night was Ugly Betty and 30 Rock. Ugly Betty was just learning a little sophistication at work, despite the protest of her family, but was wildly punished for it when her dad had a heart attack while she had her phone on mute at a party. I'm not sure what lesson she can learn here, and still actually move up. Is she supposed to decide to be happy to be an assistant? She did learn that schmoozing with a caterer has value, but that schmoozing with a fellow heavy girl did not and was in fact detrimental. While she wasn't dressed much better than she usually is, at least she didn't make my eyes bleed and her fucschia coat was actually cute and looked nice with the yellow bag. The blouse/dress with floppy bow was pretty bad, though.

30 Rock is just so deliciously random. I laughed out loud several times in a way I only seem to, when home alone, during 30 Rock and The Office, and even the latter hasn't caused that much lately. Can I recall any dialogue? No, except for Jenna singing "take a little bit of my lung" which wasn't too funny--it was just the delivery, and the fact that Jack said he wrote it. Salma Hayak seemed to fit right in, too.

I'm also halfway through a book, Girls Like Us: Carole King, Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon--And the Journey of a Generation by Sheila Weller. It's very interesting, though the writing style is a little breathless and the research seems kind of random--mostly she's interviewed old friends of the women who may or may not still be friends. She also repeats herself a lot and defines some stuff that I personally do not need defined, but most importantly it really needs to come with a soundtrack. So far I know most of the songs mentioned, either by these three or by their peers or inspirations, but soon I won't and I can't remember enough of the words. It's tempting to download some stuff, but first I'll see what friends of mine have. Someone's gotta have Tapestry. It's actually Carole King that interests me the most, as I just love the movie Grace of My Heart, which is loosely based on her life and includes great music not actually from the period, but similar by people like Elvis Costello. Evidently the main truly amazing song in the film, "God Give Me Strength" which I have on CD but by sung by Elvis, not the woman Illeana Douglas lip syncs to, is not even on the soundtrack, but only on an album that has a bunch of songs I don't want and costs $70. Some day I'll find it, though.

Something is Not Right

Ah, I've always looked better in black.

90210 was . . . itself last night, which was to say not at all very good and not even laughably bad, just sort of dull and pointless. Brenda and Kelly still look weird, though when I thought Brenda might be dying I'll admit to a pang (she wasn't), and announced to the cats that they couldn't kill off Brenda, of all people. Somehow that would ruin the canon of the original show. I've been having a lot of the reruns lately on in the background while I work at home, and it's funny how it just doesn't matter what season it is, I know what's happened and what's about to happen within minutes. But the weekday shows are in the 7th or 8th season when the show got really dark and sort of dull and Donna with the mocha colored hair and Kelly spent a lot of time bleating, so it's not as big a contrast between the original and the new as it could be. Anyhow on the new show Annie is still incredibly annoying and should probably switch places with the younger sister on Secret Life of the American Teenager, the only one on that show I actually like.

Annie had INTUITION, which they learned about in school (who needs to learn that in school?), and squinted, as Daniel Drennan, the original BH90210 recapper would have written, real hard, while figuring out ,and then letting her folks in on the fact that, "something is not right" (as Madeline's headmistress, Miss Clavel, would have said) with the mysterious new son her dad never knew he had who took off with $200,000 of Naomi's mom's money, which she can ill afford now that she's getting divorced. Adrianna might have gotten AIDS while she was using, but was given a clean bill of health--do they no longer tell you about the ten year incubation period, and retesting and all that? But she is pregnant--and Brenda can't have children and wants to adopt . . . gee, I wonder what will happen. And the worst part is that Grandma Bluth said she wanted to go back to work, which I fear means we'll have a lot less Jessica Walter, who I know has been domoted and is one of the few things that makes this show tolerable.

I don't love Scrubs, and from all accounts Zach Braff is a big ass, but the critic I read was right and they really did seem to have a new vitality on the two episodes last night on their new network ABC. The caustic new intern "Jo" is fun, and it was very sweet to see JD and Turk usher Glynn Turman's character into death. Even if it meant they missed steak night, which sounded pretty fun. Courteney Cox, however, looks way to skinny, her hair is stringy, and she wasn't very funny. I don't think she's permanent though, as Ken Jenkins is still on the show.

I've also been watching, from Netflix, original SNLs. I still love Gilda Radner, but the shows vary a lot based on the hosts. Candice Bergen--funny. Lily Tomlin--funny. Robert Klein, not so much. They're getting into a groove, but are still trying things like having the hosts interact a bunch with the musical guests which I'm glad they haven't done since. ABBA lipsyncing on the deck of the Titanic was mildly funny. Loudon Wainright lookedawfully young and I've seen the first two "Land Shark" sketches, which hold up well, and the first appearance of Emily Littella. Of course, I don't think it really gets good until they get rid of Chevy Chase, who Jane Curtin once said was "probably out kicking a puppy or something," and bring in coolest man on the planet Bill Murray, but that will take a lot more disks and I have lots of other stuff to see first.

Happy New Year

It's my first post of the New Year. I've not been posting, in large part because many of my shows were on hiatus for the holidays. Many I watch will continue to be so. I know we're still due three more Pushing Daisies, and Dirty, Sexy Moneys, but the last I heard the rumor was these would be burned off, presumably on single Saturdays. NBC won't be showing Chuck or Heroes this month, starting its policy of all reality (or Jay Leno) all the time. On the other hand, Monk, Psych and The Secret Life of the American Teenager (unfortunately) are back, with Greek, Lost, and I think Big Love not far off, plus the ABC premiere of Scrubs and eventually the new Cupid, which I know I'll check out, and Dollhouse eventually, so I'll probably be watching pretty much my normal amount of TV, and presumably my new students won't watch any of these shows so I'll still be out of step.

It's amazing how much I can read when TV is not demanding my time, and I am not wrecking my eyesight all day on the Internet. I read five and a half books on my trip: Youth in Revolt , which was good and Bonk, which was very funny, both of which I got for my sister, When Will there Be Good News?, nicely British and enjoyable but forgettable, and The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, which was very interesting and informative as novels go, gifts for my mom, half of A History of the World in 6 Glasses (got through all of beer and cola and most of wine), which I got for my dad, and wouldn't mind finishing at Borders someday, and Interred with Their Bones--bought at the San Francisco airport--sort of a mix of Possession, a book I love, and The DaVinci Code, a book I thoroughly hated. Of course there's going to be another book starring the same main character who serves as literary detective. If I wrote novels, that's what I'd focus on. I'm reading one more now--much more embarrasing, bought when exhausted at the Charlotte airport where I had a three hour layover: Trading Up by Candice Bushnell. Interred had a big allusion to Don Quixote, and the Charlotte airport bookstore had two copies with lovely Picasso covers, but I was just too tired to concentrate. As it happened Interred lasted until 10 minutes before landing, which is odd as Youth in Revolt did the same thing but was 100 pages longer, a bigger sized book, and I only had a 40 minute layover. Go figure.

Last night was a typically histrionic Gossip Girl. Chuck made me think of fun words like louche and dissolute as he smoked hash in the school lobby and was pleasured by two women at once at the once-again-his-Victrola burlesque club (the slow motion stage show was pretty gross, though). I'm not sure I'm liking Blair's whole self-sacrificing routine, but I'm glad she was there for him and these two really pep up the scene. For the first time I missed Nate, though, as he should have been part of the Chuck rescue along with Blair and Serena. Once again I didn't miss Vanessa. The Jenny/Erik story was mildly interesting but basically dumb. As usual, no one cares about Dan and Serena and even though I don't care about her, she can do so much better. Since I'm going to be writing about the retro sensibility of 90210, I think it's interesting that this show embraces 40s styles, timeless preppiness (though it was making fun of a Junior League type group last night), and the mean girl ethos of the 1990s, yet we've never seen anyone announce he was smoking hash TV (as opposed to pot) or have a teen character mired in Thai sex clubs--and we'll just forget that those girls are probably sex slaves. If I think too much about this I'll have to really hate Chuck Bass and I don't want to.

In any case, it's an actually fun show, unlike The Secret Life of the American Teenager, which is just plain ludicrous. For reasons I still don't understand--not sure if it was the network, or my misbehaving TiVo, but everything's fine now--after the first sequence, the sound completely disappeared. I always have the closed captioning on so I just kept watching but I can't imagine the dialogue or story could have been improved with sound and am not sure if it made it worse. It's still impossible to know when this show is trying to be funny and when it's being unintentionally hillarious, or when it's just insane, but I got to/had to watch two fifteen years olds and everyone in their age range (14-16 I think, plus however old Grace's autistic brother is) they know get fake IDs so they could either a. get married, b. witness the marriage, or c. have drinks at the nonexistent reception, even if they don't drink or their friends/girlfriends convinced them not to drink because "drinking stinks." And somehow the autistic brother got a girlfriend who didn't look autistic, but did seem crazy. Voice tone might have given me some indication. Anyhow, surprise, TiVo's description for next week says they find out the marriage isn't legal. Ya think? And why Ben and Amy ignored the huge red flag of her once happy parents fighting, or why Grace's mom, who was once married to Amy's dad and knew the kids were going to a wedding, or the bad girl's mom who had an affair with Amy's dad, didn't have the courtesy to tell Amy's dad, jerk that he is, I do not know. I'm not happy about this show continuing and I'm baffled and upset that it's up against Gossip Girl (though fortunately since it's on cable there are subsequent airings right after), much as I'm pissed they're putting House against Chuck, no doubt sealing the latter's demise.