"I don't know what you mean, but, it had the cadence of a joke."

 Oh, Perd.


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Take a hint, Outsourced.

What's Outsourced, you ask? This is Outsourced:

Good job, NBC. :| It's no Studio 60, but really? Man-meat?


In better news: babies!

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"There is nothing more American . . ."

Than an overprivileged businessman in a pink tie.

Also, cheeseburgers. Yum.

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"I know. She doesn't even work."

If you watched the rest of the episode, and the preview for next week, she needs to have a talk with her husband.

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"You seem pretty smart. You got a sports coat."

I watched the Community pilot tonight. I would have liked it more if it wasn't centered on Joel McHale's pursuit of a woman who is both younger and better looking than he is. If I wanted to see a shamed lawyer pay his debt to society by associating with a group of poor, unfortunate souls, I'd watch The Mighty Ducks again for the 5oth time.

Yes, readers, I'm going to watch Community again next week. But who doesn't like a good Emilio Estevez reference?

And yes, that's Trudy from Mad Men. Good for her getting work. On a network show, too!

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"Meredith, where are your panties?!"

Oh, dear.

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Neither of them is Hawaiian,

but one is half Samoan (and Canadian!) and the other is partially Japanese. The Japanese one still isn't any part black, so I don't know why he continues to play Barack Obama; I don't think he is channeling the President's white side.

Anyway, the dialogue and setup is funny. I hope that is an actual Hawaiian song.

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Debatable

Sarah Haskins declares Twitter war on Jimmy Fallon, by Jessica at Feministing.

That video does look familiar. Even if Jimmy has never watched Current TV, I'm sure at least one of his writers has heard of Sarah Haskins and has seen her work.

The worst part of the situation is that the video is not funny. It only highlights the fact that there is only one woman with a late night talk show (and unfortunately one black guy). There are plenty of funny women--who have experience, as well as large audiences with potential for growth--who would be great late night talk show hosts. Yet the guy who couldn't get through an SNL sketch without laughing gets a 12:35 slot on NBC.

If you're reading this, Mr. Fallon, hello! Thanks for visiting my blog!

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I Don't Want to Be

any of these losers: AMPTP Dedicated To Feeding Delicious Content To Hungry Screens, from Defamer.





Also, TV Blogs Go Dark in Solidarity with the Writers Guild of America, by Liz at Glowy Box, via Defamer.

On November 13th, this blog and the blogs listed below will be on strike for the day in solidarity with the Writers Guild of America. As fellow writers and as TV fans, we are coming together to express our strong support for the writers and their goals. We believe that when a writer's work makes money for a company, that writer deserves to be paid . . .

You may notice, as TheStarterWife did, that Television Without Pity is conspicuously missing from that list of 17, even though its arguably most famous contributor of yore is a strike captain. As far as I know, the blog, which is now owned by Bravo/NBC Universal/GE/The Sheinhardt Wig Company, has not mentioned the strike once. Last year, before the takeover, I'm pretty sure the strike would have taken up a whole lot of space on the front page, with recappers' hypotheses and Mondo Extra interviews with writers on the front lines. If the TWoP co-founders Tara Ariano and Sarah D. Bunting are really "[maintaining] complete editorial independence, despite now being a tiny division of General Electric", then they are doing a sucky job. Also, the new TV Guide-esque design of the site looks stinky-pooh.

White Hot

After reading Stephanie's ravings about Chuck, I decided to watch the show's pilot episode tonight. I initially didn't want to watch it because of the picture the commercials painted: dorky guy, hot girl, guns and car chases. Not my bag, man. So I chose to watch it so I could share an informed opinion.

I'm really annoyed.

I like the concept of the show: an employee at Best Buy, er, "Buy More," becomes a human computer, and both the NSA and the CIA are after him. What I don't like is the basis for the casting choices, especially in the women's roles. It's great that Sarah, the secret agent, has agility, intelligence, and a challenging career. So why does she have to walk around in her underwear for two scenes? And it's great that she can dance. But why does her moves at the concert serve mainly to overstimulate Chuck? It wasn't necessary for her to gyrate like a stripper to toss knives at her assassins. Although Chuck creator Josh Schwartz wanted you to believe it was necessary. Was it also necessary for her to be white, blond, stunning, and borderline emaciated? I swear I saw her ribs while she was parading around her hotel room in her bra and panties.

I understand that white, blond, pretty, thin women actually exist in America. I have friends who fit this description. The problem is, they aren't the only women who exist in America. I think Josh Schwartz would prefer if they were the only women on the planet . . . but anyhoodle. Yes, Sarah Lancaster and Julia Ling were also on the show, and they both have dark hair. And Ms. Ling isn't white, as far as I know. However, both of them are really good-looking, and Julia's character had maybe two lines. Sarah Lancaster's character was somewhat more substantial, although I don't think she had any funny lines or any motivation other than helping her brother Chuck find a girlfriend.

Some people may say that I am overanalyzing a harmless, humorous show. Some people may point out that if I don't like Chuck, I can watch something else; there are other TV shows out there that speak to me as a clever, average-looking, nonwhite woman. Oh really? Which shows, besides Ugly Betty (who in real life is super cute), are those? I'd settle for one that addresses just one of those adjectives. Conversely, how many shows on television right now are made for, by and about dorky white guys who enjoy white supermodel-esque girls that exist mainly for their pleasure?

One of the reasons I'm perturbed is that I spent my Thursday night at a forum for women interested in getting an MBA. All of the women I encountered there were smart, driven, friendly people. They also all looked different, but they looked wonderful. They were different ages, shapes, colors and sizes. These were real women with a purpose, and none of them were being accurately represented in or acknowledged by our mainstream media. It makes me sick that all of the women in that room, and outside of that room as well, have so much to offer our society. Yet we keep getting the same detrimental message from our billboards, our magazines, our movies and our television shows: if you're not white, and if you're not hot, you probably don't exist.

Separate But Equal

After watching most of the Visible Vote 08: A Presidential Forum on Logo last night, I have now chosen my candidate: Dennis Kucinich. I don't care that some say he looks like "a cross between a hobbit and mole" and that he's "soooo left that he’ll never get nominated." He is indeed "idealistic and amazing," which is more than I can say for the other candidates, aside from Mike Gravel. They had the gall to show up to the LGBT forum, tried to convince the room that civil unions were just as good as straight marriages, and then got defensive when the queer moderators challenged their bigoted beliefs. Senator Obama had the nerve to bring up his miscegenating parents as proof of his understanding of fighting for equality, then got all mad when Jonathan Capehart from the Washington Post asked him, "how can you run as a candidate of change when your stance is decidedly old-school?" I haven't watched the Hillary part yet, so I can't comment on her.

So far, here is my second favorite part of the forum, 18 minutes of love and hope:

Kucinich at HRC Logo Dem Forum



Did you hear what he had to say about health care? Yep, that's right. Coverage for all.

My first favorite part of the Logo special? The gratuitous shots of NPH in the audience. This week I've been watching Season One of Doogie Howser, M.D., courtesy of N.S.B. If I had watched the show when in first came out in 1989, I would have been so in love with Neil Patrick Harris. The only thing stopping me from watching his latest series, How I Met Your Mother, is . . . the rest of the show. I don't need anymore white male focused heteronormative fantasy shoved down my throat. Hence, I will not be seeing Superbad (shocker!) no matter how much Dustin and Dan will probably love it and anything else Apatow pulls out of his tuchis, and no matter how cute Michael Cera totally is.

I did like NPH in Stark Raving Mad, though. What, you don't remember that NBC show with the former child star all grown up and doing something wacky? With his lookalike brothers?

This is Bad News.

Bravo nabs popular TV Web site: Television Without Pity bought by cable station.

[Co-founders Tara Ariano and Sarah D. Bunting] will remain as editors of TWOP, overseeing all content. Bravo execs said the site will maintain complete editorial independence, despite now being a tiny little division of General Electric.

I feel quite uneasy about this takeover. Having a multi-billion, multi-national corporation like GE owning a previously independent forum for speech and ideas sounds very, very wrong. How can we snark on the TWOP boards about 30 Rock riffing on NBC being owned by the Sheinhardt Wig Company when the boards we are snarking on are now owned by the very same company?

"If Television Without Pity didn't exist, we would have built it," said Bravo exec VP Jason Klarman, who's at the center of Bravo's online strategy.

Then why didn't you build it four years ago, when Queer Eye for The Straight Guy took off and pretty much made your network?

[Bravo President Lauren Zalaznick] said she wants the cabler and its Web sites to speak to people who, like many TWOP visitors, don't necessarily watch a lot of TV--but who get worked up over the shows they do watch.

"They have to get smart and rich by reading a lot, going to movies, going to school and having big jobs -- therefore they have less time to watch TV sometimes," she said. "But they seem to have infinite bandwidth, so to speak, to love television, talk about television and go places and spend time deeply with their kind of most essential core television connection."

Um (which is a word forbidden on the TWOP boards), doofus? I learned about TWOP from my fellow TV obsessed friend three years ago, when both of us were unemployed.

While searching for more news about this development, I stumbled upon this article in the LA Times: 'Real Housewives of Orange County' eye greener pastures.

I don't really care about the battles between those fame-whores in Coto de Caza and the cable television network they are contractually obligated to obey. What I am concerned about is the passage that appeared towards the bottom of the article:

"Internet blogs have blazed with crass and incendiary comments about their looks and their past and present personal behavior. After attorneys for one participant contacted Television Without Pity, the fan-based website shut down a "Housewives" thread. (Bloggers on the Orange County Register's website complained their negative comments were not published on Bravo's website in favor of more favorable ones.)"

So supposedly, "No massive changes are planned to the site in the near future," but TWOP coincidentally shut down the Housewives thread last month because people were speaking about negatively about the show. I thought maybe this was a temporary closure, as is done from time to time on the TWOP forums when discussions get overly heated. But no. The still locked Housewives thread states: "In response to concerns raised by various show participants' lawyers, we're no longer hosting a thread about the show. Don't start one." posted by Wing Chun (aka Tara Ariano), on "Feb 8, 2007 @ 1:58 pm."

This sucks.

In even creepier, more twisted news: Halliburton will move headquarters from Houston to Dubai. For those of you who aren't what the words "Halliburton," "Dubai," or "Houston" mean, please look them up, then tell me your take on this story. There are as many theories floating around as there are blogs on the interwebs. The Halliburton discussion is still going strong at Daily Kos.

This news is bad, but not at all shocking to anyone who owns a working television set: Black leads still absent from network dramas. And network comedies. And non-syndicated comedies on cable.

Here is the excuse given:

"There is a feeling that the vast majority of the audience is not black, and having a black lead dominating the show makes most viewers feel shut out since they don't work with an African-American in a dominant position in their daily life," TV historian Tim Brooks says.

Who is having this "feeling?"And can this person or persons back up that feeling with any statistics proving their racist theories?

Furthermore, this theory that "black people don't watch black dramas--therefore they fail" is ridiculous. Happy Hour and 'Til Death and 20 Good Years didn't fail because "white people don't watch white comedies." They failed because the shows sucked.

Lastly:

Latinos, who overtook blacks as the largest minority in the U.S. in 2003, have a good chance at landing their first drama series on commercial broadcast TV this year with CBS' untitled family drama pilot featuring an predominantly Latino cast, including leading man Jimmy Smits.

So let me get this straight. Latinos (all of them, regardless of their countries of origin) have been the majority minority in the United States for four years now. And they have chance of getting a drama on broadcast television for the first time ever. Over 35 million people in this country identify as "Hispanic or Latino," and this is the first drama series that they might get on the air? It's not definite, even though Jimmy Smits has starred in three of the biggest network television series in the past three decades?

Yes, I'm sure that they're aren't many black people or Latino people on primetime because black people and Latino people obviously never watch TV. I obviously don't. And don't get me started on the lack of Asian people anywhere in the media, and yeah, having Hiro on Heroes and that guy on Lost is great, but that's two people.

It's nice that these articles never question how many non-white people have Nielsen rating boxes in their households. I don't know anyone of any color with a box on their TV. The articles also never mention that most of the people in charge of writing, directing, greenlighting, producing, casting, and advertising on these television shows are straight white men. Not that the race, gender, ethnicity or orientation of the people who control corporate media would have anything to do with the type of people who are shown on our television screens. Clearly these issues are unrelated, so there's no need to bring them up.