What I Watched: Random Musings

This has been a hard week full of news that left me heartsick, over and over. Frivolous pastimes, like this blog, seem pointless in times like these — or, worse, a guilty luxury. And yet, these are also the small things that help to keep me going. I have never been more grateful that I have the privilege of distraction; that, by some lucky twist of fate, my immigrant parents sought a new life in a country that was not afraid to welcome us with open arms. I am not sure how much longer it will be feasible to maintain an apolitical space like this blog given the current climate; for now, I am going to embrace a little frivolity on this Friday morning and I hope you guys will join me in the same spirit.

As the title suggests, some random musings:

One

I recently fell down a My So-Called Life rabbit hole. Can you believe MSCL was on the air more than 20 years ago? It does not compute. I still, vividly, remember watching it; it was weirdly cathartic. I was roughly the same age as Angela Chase and vaguely resembled the actress playing her. My teenage life was far less eventful than Angela’s, but watching the show still somehow felt like watching my inner landscape blown up on a screen. There is just one thing I hated about it. The ending. I remember my teenage self being really mad at Angela for choosing Jordan effing Catalano over Brian. Which is weird, because in real life I was all about the Jordan Catalano types for a long time – far too long into my 20s even. Anyway, reading a bunch of retrospectives on the show and whatnot, I got to wondering: was I in the minority in wanting Angela to pick Brian? Was I wrong? I mean, I know I felt very strongly about my opinion at the time but I went on to make the exact same choice as Angela more times than I care to remember, so what was that all about? If you watched the show (then and/or later), let’s talk through this.

Two

A couple of weeks ago, I saw a clip of Stephen Colbert and Patrick Wilson singing the US national anthem at some kind of sports game. I don’t remember what kind of game, don’t ask; my priorities are different, okay? More importantly, my latent Patrick Wilson Problem has now flared up again. “Tall, captain of the football team who can sing” is only just below “dark-haired, broody Brit” on my list of Hot Guy Problems. See, also, Scott Michael Foster. The fact that Wilson, self-admittedly, resembles the Least Chris (the Pratt – are we going to fight about this?) is something I struggled with for a minute, but all that is behind us now. Anyway, the last time my Patrick Wilson Problem was in full effect, I didn’t have Netflix. Now, I do. And that is how I came to binge-watch Fargo, which is, in fact, the point of this entire aside. I know I am super late to this particular party, but that is one damn good show. I haven’t gotten into an episodic drama for a while, but this is the best thing I’ve seen since Hannibal last year. Season 2 may be impossible to top (Lou Solverson could just be my dream man), but I am watching season 1 now and it’s also really, really great. As a whole, the show reminds me of The Wire, with its interconnected story lines set in a common “universe” — and also, obviously, the quality of the writing and acting. The performances on Fargo are, across the board, phenomenal, and it’s making me realize how spoiled we are with TV shows these days; even supporting roles are filled by first caliber actors. Thank god for the Golden Age of TV because I’m at a stage where I’d much rather watch a show, on my own schedule and from the comfort of my own house, than trek to a movie theatre to gamble 2 hours of my life on something that may or may not ultimately satisfy.

Three

I have never seen Sleepless in Seattle. Is that a weird gap in my cultural knowledge as a late Gen-X white woman? The reason is that I mostly hate rom-coms, unless they happen to feature one of my Hot Guy Problems du jour. Anyway, I really enjoyed this Vulture article about Sleepless in Seattle’s second-banana male character played by the wonderful Bill Pullman. It brings up a great point about how kindness — in male romantic leads, but I would argue, also more generally in pop culture protagonists — is underappreciated. Think about how many popular characters would qualify as anti-heroes these days; most popular shows and movies are replete with examples. It’s novel and, frankly, refreshing to come across a protagonist who is straight up nice. I’m not talking about a Nice Guy here – because, ugh, we’ve seen enough of those lately; I mean a guy who is the (old) definition of nice: kind and humble, without being a fool or a patsy or a sanctimonious prick. I am sure that it’s not a coincidence that my hankering for a “nice” hero is surfacing at this precise moment, and I can only assume that I’m not the only one in this particular boat. We are currently an under-served demographic, so I hope someone in Hollywood is taking notes.

As a further side-bar to the side-bar, the article reminded me of how much I love reading new takes on the minor footnotes of pop culture. Like, the first time I realized how terrible Love Actually actually is? Amazing. I mean, I will still watch Love Actually every single time it comes on TV, but I loved that article so much.

Four

Celebrity gossip: indulge me for a moment. If you read the same websites I do, you may recall the roll-out of Brad Pitt’s “relationship” with Neri Oxman – the Amal Clooney of the architecture world, or something like that. It was a thing a couple months back. I stopped having strong opinions about Brad Pitt a long time ago, so if there was an interesting angle to the story, for me, it was Oxman’s; there was a little tidbit about how she had been dating a billionaire, and was now dealing with Brad Pitt and I remember thinking – damn, girl. Talk about living one’s best life: a successful, well-respected professional woman, with a billionaire and a famous actor vying for her attentions. (Why is no one making this movie, by the way? I have some casting ideas.) But that was then, and now there’s been an update. Apparently, she chose the billionaire; which, at first, I was totally prepared to understand. Brad Pitt has baggage, you know? And he doesn’t have billions. Also, he’s no Patrick Wilson. But then – plot twist! – I found out who the billionaire is. Are you ready for this? Bill-I’m-gonna-short-Herbalife-but-also-dump-billions-into-Valeant-Ackman. So, now I’m, like, maybe there’s a third option. Maybe Angela Neri should just ride off into the glorious sunset alone. Who’s with me?