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.

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.

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.

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.

Where's Andrea Zuckerman when you need her?

Only 6 days to the election, and I'm with Wyatt Cenac--let's just get this the fuck over already! Good news or bad, I just wanna know.

As I write this, a fourth season episode of the original 90210 is on. I've been watching the old shows once or twice a week lately, and it's really amazing to me just how much I believe those people are friends and that they are exactly who they say they are. I'm pretty sure I believed it within a few episodes.

The new show, however, oy gevult. As I suspected, without Kelly or Brenda, it's a worse dog than ever. I still enjoy Silver, and Dixon is OK but otherwise really really don't care about Annie or Naomi or Annie's parents or the so-called hot teacher or Annie's so-called love interest. The only person is intriguing, and in part that's because they clearly don't know what to do with him. He says he's been in love with Adrianna since the third grade, and mentions he wants to ask Annie out in an earlier episode but holds himself and dresses like a ballet dancer. I hate to say "he's so gay" but "he's so gay." Whether it is Michael Steger who is gay, and Navid is not, or whether Michael Steger is playing Navid gay, I don't know but the actor doesn't choose his own clothes, I suspect. Skinny jeans and a deep v-neck top on that tall willowy body with the long hair just reads gay to me. Anyhow, it came even more out of nowhere than Jenny and Nate did. I don't know why Gossip Girl can get it so right generally, and this show can get it so wrong generally. Of course, Kelly is still coming back, and I do still study teen TV, so it's staying on my season pass, but I just really don't care, and I truly don't believe these people like each other or know who the hell they are supposed to be.

Greek ended well, I guess. I read that Michael Rady is coming back so it's not a surprise that he and Casey will be together next year, (or at least in the same storyline), but I still liked seeing a girl on TV realize her future work life may be more important than a guy, even if that's a pretty cool one. I guess the idea of rival sorority is OK, but I'd rather have Casey a lot less interested in the house, and more interested in school or causes or something. We really don't know if any of those girls are smart and playing vacuous, or actually not all that bright but it would be nice to see it since I think Spencer Grammer really does come off as pretty smart. The woman who plays Rebecca too. Anyhow, with the next season coming in January, it's not the same sort of cliffhanger as Mad Men, where we have to wait 9 months.

I enjoyed the brawl between the two fraternities more than I would think, in part because I was wondering how they choreographed it. I'm sure Rusty will move into the house and realize he can't study amidst the noise and the dirt and the general busybodyness of Cappie and the gang, and will be back with Dale before long.

I don't much care, but it beats the hell out of Secret Life of the American Teenager.