Tag: television

The Life and Lies of George Costanza

Natalie Minor Leave a comment

Sometimes I sit alone and wonder whether there is a better or worse character in the history of television than George Costanza, who if you don’t know is one of the four ensemble characters on Seinfeld. Many times I have cried from laughter watching this dysfunctional, irrational man getting himself in and out of tight spots (both literally and figuratively), but just as many times I have cringed at the thought that this walking farce is based on a real person. Let’s just consider some of the things that Georgie (as his mom so affectionately calls him) has gotten away with relatively unscathed:

  • He creates a fake charity called the Human Fund so that he doesn’t have to get his coworkers Christmas presents by making a donation on their behalf. He then accepts a hefty donation to his fake charity by his boss and tries to keep it for himself.
  • He leaves his car in the New York Yankee’s parking garage for a week and his boss George Steinbrenner assumes he’s DEAD, so he fakes a bunch of injuries to cover for the fact that he just never goes to work.
  • His fiancé dies from licking too many toxic envelopes while sending out wedding invitations, and he doesn’t mourn her so much as he mourns the giant fortune he finds out they would have inherited together.
  • He tries to get Elaine to set him up with Marisa Tomei (yes, that Marisa Tomei) even though he is engaged at the time (which he is aware of, thank you very much.)
  • He has a contractor alter his desk so he can sleep under it instead of doing work. When George Steinbrenner comes looking for him and sits in his office for over 3 hours, he has Jerry call in a bomb threat to get him out of the office, only to have Steinbrenner and his grandkids hide under his desk and find him.
  • He goes on a date with a waitress from Monk’s and while walking through the park talks about how, when you break it down, manure isn’t so bad. It’s just a newer, with a ma in front of it!
  • He starts dating a woman in prison because she won’t be able to “pop in” on him unexpectedly, and then tries to break up with her when she’s up for parole (she doesn’t get out on parole but then does the ultimate pop-in when she breaks out of prison and shows up at his apartment.)

This is just a taste of the absolute chaos that is the life of George Costanza. His life is like the opposite of the whole “I can’t make this up” in that it’s complete nonsense – there’s no way his life isn’t made up. And yet somewhere, at this very moment, Larry David is walking around causing some raucous. The genius who created Seinfeld based George off of himself, a fact that simultaneously leaves me disturbed and feeling better about my own life.

As I so often do, I will leave you with a little bit of George Costanza. Here’s a best of:

 

Why I Think Jimmy Fallon Revolutionized Late Night Television, Part 1

Jeannie Marie Leave a comment

When I was little, I obviously had a concrete bedtime that my mom and dad used to enforce fairly strictly (mostly my mom on this one). But as I got older, they loosened up, because honestly, their bedtime habits aren’t the best, and it was hard to make me go to bed when they weren’t going to bed themselves. So around the time I was in middle school, I discovered late night TV and all the wonders it held.

And by wonders, I mean…not wonders. Sure, I thought it was cool to stay up so late that I get to see David Letterman, and maybe sometimes I’d get some of the jokes, but most of them flew straight over my head. However, I did enjoy the guests they brought on the show, especially when I started exploring music on my own terms rather than just based on what my mom played in the car. As I got older, I watched more late night TV, maybe not religiously but often enough that I decided who my favorites were. I wasn’t a big fan of Letterman, so I often fluctuated between Leno and Kimmel – Kimmel was crass (I got the jokes now) but funny, and Leno was mean but funny, so they evened each other out. There was even a period of time when me and my mom would curl up most nights and watch Craig Ferguson together, because we found him to be hilarious for some odd reason.

Late night TV, for me, was always a kind of frivolity. Like, if it’s on, sure, I’ll watch it, but I never went out of my way to see something. But then I realized that this was actually kind of a problem. As I learned more about general pop culture and became invested in it, I realized that my generation, the teens/young adults, we were the audience that was hard to crack. Not only are we apathetic about the world, we also had weird, unpredictable taste (Backstreet Boys? Really?). According to them, that is. According to me, late night was just boring.

But then something happened. My mom told me that there was a new guy on the Late Show, some comedian named Jimmy Fallon. She would call me into her room every so often, because Emma Stone was on or they were playing some wacky game.

I don’t think I need to say anymore about how Jimmy’s popularity skyrocketed. Also being a casual watcher of SNL, I learned that Jimmy had been on SNL years before, and for some reason I was surprised. Jimmy as a sketch comedian? Really? He was perfect for late night. But then it made sense. Jimmy isn’t perfect for late night…he’s just a funny guy. Period.

Over the past few days I’ve found myself pulling up videos of him and showing my friends his hilarious videos, whether it be his “show” “Ew!” or the lip sync battles, and then asking them why they like Jimmy Fallon so much. It’s no surprise that I talk to my friends and they all agree that he is hilarious and we all love him.

At first I thought it was just because he cracked the code somehow. Like he “gets us,” and he gets the age of technology. Leno had Headlines, from newspapers, Fallon has Hashtags from Twitter. But then I thought that wasn’t exactly right. I mean sure, his YouTube videos have tons of hits, but it’s gotta be more than relatability.

And I think what I’ve come up with is a pretty solid explanation. Jimmy’s show is clearly different from other late night TV. I mean, where else can you see a host and his guest get up spontaneously and sing “It Takes Two?” But more than his structure, it’s Jimmy himself. He makes fun of other stars, to be sure. But it’s not like Letterman, where there was a hint of poison in his barbs. Jimmy is like your best friend making fun of you. They can make fun of you because you know so clearly that they’re joking. You can’t help but to laugh along instead of being offended. And when he’s not doing a monologue, he’s having his guests do crazy things that are starting to revolutionize late night TV (okay, maybe that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but I repeat: lip sync battles). He’s making late night TV fun instead of following the usual monologue-guest-guest 2-music format. And my age group is responding to it, if 28 million views on #Hashtag says anything.

Wait, Shouldn’t I Hate This…

Erika Bell Leave a comment

It’s Friday and classes are over for the week. In hopes of unwinding, I turn on Pandora to inhale a little of today’s latest jams. Pandora is put on because I can’t think of what I specifically want to here, there’s no rhyme or reason to my choices, just something to spark my interest and get me dancing and bobbing my head. On comes Usher – I Don’t Mind. Now, if you didn’t know, this song follows the mindset of the R&B singer as he serenades to possible strippers, communicating how he doesn’t mind of their profession. Admirable in a sense, but the delivery with lines that target that the women are bad examples to society, that his only acceptance of them is that they will be his at home, and his only real connection to these women being their physical features, makes the message questionable and alarming. But…for some reason… I couldn’t resist dancing and bobbing my head!

Why is this? I find this happens a lot, whether it be with questionable songs with great beats, or films and television shows littered with misogynistic characters but great story lines. There’s something that makes these works of art that we should hate, in regards to content, popular and likable. The Usher song is a great example of using an awesome beat and sweet, serenading voice, in hopes of disguising such a questionable message. Are all of the popular content that carry these sour lessons on being a human being, disguised really well with other fancy aspects in order to distract viewers and listeners from the reality of what is going on and being said?

I think it is important to note that, with complex creations like films or music, not everything is black and white. There has to be some things we hate, some things we love, and some things we’re kind of unsure of, in the story line so that a complexity is there for audiences to evaluate and critique. It is questionable, however, if these complexities are put into these creations intentionally or naturally? Are these beliefs, words, messages, true to the creator’s reality and the audience they want to capture, or was it intentionally made in hopes of arousing some controversy on possible issues?

Unfortunately, I don’t have the answer to a lot of these questions, and if I could interview Usher right now I would. A lot of toxic messages are out in entertainment media, and it is important to be mindful of whether its consumption is changing our ideals on what is right or wrong. However, I do know the struggle. It’s incredibly confusing when you hear a song and don’t support what’s being said, but continue to dance wildly along because it’s just too damn catchy to avoid enjoying yourself over.

Showdown: TV vs. Internet

Jeannie Marie Leave a comment

So I opened my Facebook today and got my daily dose of news vis-à-vis my “trending” sidebar (like I always do, what, do I look like I have enough money or time to subscribe to NYT?) and combed through the articles. Of course, a few interesting topics caught my eye including Nick Jonas releasing more new songs (yay?) and some other junk I don’t remember. But then I saw an article about HBO that could change the way television works, quite possibly forever.

Starting in 2015, HBO will be offering a (paid) subscription to their web content (i.e. their TV shows) that is separate from your cable subscription.

Pause. Wait for it. You can watch HBO online, free, without having cable????

As someone who has lived without cable for some time now and has had to rely on, ah, “other” means to consume her favorite television content, this is fantastic news. Now, it still costs money so I mean I’m not screaming into the abyss in joy over this new development. Again, do I look like someone who can afford to pay for HBO? My mom pays for our Netflix and that’s already pushing it.

But for other people who don’t want to pay for the 1000+ (sometimes like 8000??? why????) channels but still want to get their weekly dose of Game of Thrones, this is great. And actually revolutionary.

Netflix was the pioneer, creating a way for TV to be accessible through the internet. Then Hulu decided to step it up, creating a way for people to not only view old seasons of popular TV shows, but for a way to view the current season in case you have that one last discussion Wednesday nights and miss Modern Family every week. And now you have HBO, creating another avenue for you to consume television content on the internet.

This may seem somewhat irrelevant to the topic of art, other than the obvious fact that TV shows are a piece of film art and this relates to TV, but I think that the way that a culture consumes its art is equally important to what it consumes. The internet has been changing the game since it started, and in the past two years we’ve seen an overhaul of how our lives work – we shape our lives around the internet now. It’s not something that I’m saying is bad, but it’s a fact. Just this summer the popular to some show Legend of Korra made the somewhat controversial switch from television to internet. Even though it seems illogical – a made for TV show goes completely digital like it’s a cheap YouTube series – it’s actually the smartest move for the show. Kids weren’t watching Korra like the teens were. Korra, as a sequel series to Avatar: The Last Airbender, was made for the kids who liked Avatar and grew up. Now, they aren’t watching Nick every Saturday morning – they’re on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and watching their shows on Netflix and Hulu between cramming for finals.

And that’s only one example. But now, this huge move for HBO points in that same direction. TV is packing its bags with only one destination in mind: the internet.

Whether that’s a good move is up to you to decide. But like it or not, it’s happening, and the way that we think of television is changing.