A Love Letter to Glee (…Sort Of)

picture by LiGado em Série/Flickr.com

Dear Show,

I really, really love you. I do. Your cast is both talented and diverse, you have lots of music that I love and you say that you’re all about breaking down stereotypes. Also, you have Puck. What’s not to love?

Except.

I am getting really, really tired of seeing you not actually break down these stereotypes at all. When you had Mercedes say, “I’m a strong, black woman… but that’s not all I am,” I practically cheered. That is a fantastic line, and exactly what I want to see. But that’s what you told me, not what I see.

Why are the kids from the “trouble-making” school mostly black? Did you seriously name that girl Aphasia? Aphasia, as in: “an acquired language disorder in which there is an impairment of any language modality… [which] may include difficulty in producing or comprehending spoken or written language.” Do you think it’s ironic and clever to give a character who doesn’t speak “proper English” a name that means a language disorder? Because I don’t.

And this “all women are crazy” theme you’ve got going on? I’m not a fan. I’m not sure why the female characters on this show have to be in competition with one another, and catty, and shrill, and deceitful, and so on. Last week, I was hugely uncomfortable by the whole Mr. Schue/Rachel storyline. Not just because I don’t like the teacher/student thing, or the fact that Rachel just jumped from Finn to Puck to Will, thus portraying the flighty teenage girl to perfection, but also because she really just seemed to be there to move his storyline forward. That seems to happen a lot. Where’s Ms. Pillsbury, if she’s not interacting with/thinking about/pining for Mr. Schue? Nowhere. Why doesn’t Rachel ever interact with the members of Glee who she isn’t interested in dating? (Except for Kurt, and this whole pitting the divas against each other thing is pretty lame, too). And when the women do interact, why is it never in a supportive way. Why is Santana calling her pregnant “friend” Tubbers and sexting Puck, who she only seems to want because Quinn wants him?

Show, sometimes you do beautiful, amazing things. Like the performance of “Imagine” tonight, which was touching and lovely. Or giving people who aren’t Rachel or Finn (Artie! Mercedes!! Tina!!!) solos. You have lessons like, you don’t need to be anything more than yourself to succeed. You have beautiful moments between parents and their kids, moments that feel real and how I wish life really was all at the same time (Kurt coming out to his dad, Finn telling his mom about Quinn’s pregnancy). You give otherwise unlikable characters moments that make them more 3D (Puck’s apology to Rachel, Sue’s—admittedly heavy-handed—interactions with her sister) and mostly likable characters a chance to mess up and then learn from their mistakes (Mr. Schue realizing they don’t need over-the-top hairography to shine). The scene where Quinn and Finn talk to her parents after they learn about her pregnancy? Heartbreaking, and so well-done.

There are lots of reasons for me to love you. But show, you really have to work on these stereotypes. I get what you’re trying to do, this “being subversive” thing you want to have going on. It’s just not working. Mostly it doesn’t work in annoying, little ways. Sometimes it doesn’t work in big, race-fail and gender-fail ways. Either way, it’s not working. I watch you because you make me laugh, and sometimes get a little teary, and you have great songs and a really talented cast. But if I keep getting smacked in the face with sketchy race and gender portrayals, there might come a time when those things aren’t enough.

Think about it.

Love,
Stacy

White-Washed

I’d like to introduce you all to someone. His name is Jake Gyllenhaal:

He’s playing Prince Dastan in Jerry Bruckheimer’s adaptation of the Prince of Persia video games, Prince of Persia: Sands of Time. That’s the first official publicity shot of Jake as Prince Dastan, right up there, and that down there is a newly-released (or maybe that should be newly-leaked, since it seems there hasn’t been an official release) trailer.

So… here’s the thing. Jake, as lovely as he surely is, lacks a certain something I think is necessary for this role. I call it, Persian heritage. Now, I’ve never actually played the PoP video games, but I’m sure there are glaring inaccuracies and ways they could have been more sensitive to Persian culture. Accurately representing any culture for mainstream consumption is hard. Doing so when it’s not your culture, so you haven’t been thoroughly inducted into its complications and contradictions since birth? Even harder. However, whatever the flaws of those video games, they have this movie beat in at least one major way: the Prince character is always (barring one exception, 2008′s Prince of Persia) Persian.

It’s not that I don’t think Jake can’t play the character. He’s a good actor; I’m sure he can. What I’m most annoyed about is the fact that there are 3575886960703758 roles “for” white actors in Hollywood; either the role is specifically about a white character, or the script/story doesn’t specify race, which of course means the character is white. (What other ethnicity could John or Julie or Serena or whatever possibly be, right?) This is a character that is canonically of Middle Eastern descent and—amazingly!—not a terrorist, Bedouin or oil sheikh. This is one role that is “for” Middle Eastern actors. Why can’t one actually be cast?

Jake’s not a proven action star, so that’s not the reason. Maybe because he’s so darn cute? That seems as logical a reason as any. So, an exercise: how many Middle Eastern characters can I find that are at least as attractive?

The List:

- Haaz Sleiman, who’s currently portraying Mo-Mo on Nurse Jackie.
- Oded Fehr, Carlos in the Resident Evil franchise and Ardeth in The Mummy franchise.
- Osamah Sami, an Aussie actor who’s worked in theatre and TV.
- Antonio Albadran, whose big-screen work includes (or may be limited to, I’m not really clear on that part) the Kurt Russell/Dakota Fanning flick Dreamer: Inspired by a True Story.
- Don Hany, another Aussie.
- Zaib Shaikh, who’s currently starring on CBC’s Little Mosque on the Prairie.

Admittedly, finding Middle Eastern actors wasn’t a total breeze. But if I could find six with proven acting chops, experience working in the Western film industry and who aren’t hard to look at, why can’t Hollywood’s many casting directors find viable options?

Things I Did Today

Photo by antigone78/Flickr.com

1. Wrote this week’s Weekender (and there’s lots of cool stuff going on this weekend. Your social calendar come Friday may well include skeletons, horses and porny art—Or perhaps it’s arty porn. But not all these things at the same time, people. Minds out of the gutter!)
2. Paid my Visa and phone bill (ouch)
3. Interviewed two rabbis
4. Got a gigantic headache because I was too busy to eat lunch
5. Was informed by a (very polite, but still) communications officer for the RCMP that they actually can’t tell me anything about the Canadian witness protection program, so sorry!
6. As a consequence of #5, am now scrambling to find out how one changes their identity in Canada for my tomorrow morning deadline. Sigh.
7. As a consequence of #6, got frustrated and ended up taking a quiz at Bella Sugar that required me to differentiate between street drugs and eyeshadow hues. I got 5/5… I’m really not sure what that says about me.

Okay. Back to it.

@stacyleekong

Maybe you saw this post a few months ago, where I made a fairly impassioned (and, let’s be honest, rambling) argument for why I would not be jumping on the Twitter bandwagon? Well, a couple of days ago I did a little ETA action on that same post. If you saw that then you probably knew what was coming well before I did.

That’s right. I gave in.

While all the things I said before are still true (and dude, I was so right; it’s a gigantic time-waster), I no longer feel like there are tons of conversations going on that I know nothing about. What’s @thismagazine saying to @richard_florida? Now I know! What’s @BarackObama saying to @SenChrisDodd? Now I know! What’s @RevRunWisdom saying to, well, everyone? Now I know!

*sigh* It makes my nosy curious little journalist’s heart pretty happy.

Writing Woes

It’s my first day at a new gig tomorrow (more on that later), and I really should be heading to bed right about now. I had a lovely long weekend, and also did absolutely no writing. Before bed I have to finish next week’s Weekender, and of course I just spent the past 20 minutes fiendishly trying to think of a more appropriate way to say “come to terms with.” Finally (finally) I get it: “resign themselves to—”

Victory!

… Now why was that so hard?

It Only Takes, Chatelaine – October 2009

Helping women around the world gain access to adequate health care isn’t as hard as it may at first seem. Here are some simple ways to get involved.

The Weekender, August 28-30

The Fake Prom, Virgin Festival and an appearance by Bill Clinton at The Ex top our list of the weekend’s best events. The rest are here.

It Only Takes, Chatelaine – September 2009

It doesn’t take much to change a child – or an adult’s – world. Helping them gain access to education is one major way, and here are some simple ways for you to get involved.

SYTYCD Canada – WTF?

Photo by eviltomthai/Flickr.com

I love SYTYCD in all its incarnations, and I was so excited for this season. I normally don’t really like watching the audition process because I find – in Idol and SYTYCD – that there’s more of a focus on the crazies than anything else, but this time around I caught a few episodes and was very impressed with the level of talent. I had no complaints at all about the Top 20 (and I always have complaints!).

I was a little disappointed with yesterday’s show – a few couples who seemed really strong prior to the top 20 show didn’t really measure up, I thought – but I was really surprised by today’s results show. First, why wasn’t Emmanuel Emanuel in the bottom three guys? He seems like a sweetie and he’s definitely a good dancer, but that was not a great performance. Second, what was up with Tatiana’s farewell speech? I found her saying, “I had a lot to offer” and wishing she hadn’t been kicked off a little lacking in class. Obviously you didn’t want to be kicked off, but you were and it’s not good PR to be so obviously bitter. Taylor’s goodbye was so much classier. I mean really, Tatiana. Not even a, “thank you for the opportunity?”

Also: Leah Miller? Still not as cool as Cat Deeley.

@NathanFillion

Photo by RavenU/Flickr.com

So, I don’t have Twitter*, but if I did I would so be following Nathan Fillion, because I just spent almost 20 minutes reading through his tweets and laughing. (Even though, as I said, I don’t have Twitter. How did I even end up on his page, anyway??) Recent funny: “When I get hiccups, I pretend I’ve become instantly drunk, like somebody slipped me a mickey.” Also, he calls people dude, just like I do. That means we’re meant to be, right?

* And for very good reason. Reasons, even. First, I am awful at updating things. Exhibit A: this blog. Exhibit B: the blog before this. Exhibit C: the blog before that. Second, the name I would want (stacyis, so the Google search result would say “stacy is on Twitter” or whatever) is already taken. By someone named Stacy Lee! She’s obviously my clone. Sort of. Well, my clone short four letters, I suppose. Third, I really think it would be another way for me to spend hours reading what other people write and doing very little writing of my own. Which is essentially point #1 expanded, but whatever. It’s still a really good reason.

*ETA: Oh, damn. I think I’m reconsidering.

The Weekender, August 21-23

The Ex, a prix-fixe fundraiser and the West Queen West MusicFest top our list of the weekend’s best events. Read on for the rest.

Not New, But…

Definitely interesting. Obama’s relationship with the press, detailed in this New York magazine cover story from earlier this month.

Huh.

How is that I get way more views on this blog when I don’t post than when I do? Honestly, it makes no sense.

On another note, I was in New York visiting my big sister earlier this month and she’s a big fan of Daughtry. I like his music well enough, but I never considered myself a huge fan. So tell me, darlings. Why can’t I get No Surprise out of my head? It’s been weeks.

The Weekender, August 14-16

A beer-tasting dinner at the new Black Creek Brewery tops our list of the weekend’s best events. The rest are here.

*I* Want to Interview President Obama!

Damon Weaver, an 11-year-old from Pahokee, Florida, has been trying to interview President Obama since his pre-election campaign. On August 14, Weaver met up with President Obama at the White House to talk about education.

First of all, I am so, unbelievably jealous. Not just because hello, he’s interviewing President Obama, but also because at 11, there’s no way I was this informed, engaged or professional.

Also, I’m don’t even know who I like better here. Obama’s answers were thoughtful and a nice balance between informative and down-to-earth without venturing into condescending territory. Weaver’s just… lovely. Smart, self-possessed and so on-track to do big things.

But I’m still totally jealous.