okayawesome: laura roslin (YOU CAN'T DISAPPOINT A PICTURE)
OH MY GOD.

I THINK I STOPPED BREATHING ABOUT HALFWAY THROUGH THAT EPISODE.

THERE ARE TEARS IN MY EYES.

AND THERE'S STILL ONE MORE TO GO.

I don't even know if I'll be able to handle whatever's coming next.

...OH MAN I'M GOING TO BE ON VACATION THEN, TOO, I'LL HAVE TO WATCH IN AN INTERNET CAFE OR SOMETHING D: LOL SHAKING AND CRYING IN SEMI-PUBLIC.
okayawesome: laura roslin (abed takes notes!)
Fall is here, and while back in New Hampshire that meant beautiful leaves turning and shit like that, here it means there's lots of American TV to carry me through my boredom. Last year, I was too busy to really catch anything new, but between my back injury and packing up to move (I have a gooorgeous new apartment, y'all), I've had nothing to do, so it's basically been NOTHING BUT PREMIERES for me.

Let's see how everything stacks up!

New Shows )

Returning Shows )

Unpremieres: Shows that just ended or are mid-run )

Meanwhile, I quit The Big Bang Theory and Grey's Anatomy without bothering to watch the premieres. I just... can't seem to drum up the interest in either of them. OTOH, totally going to be catching Once Upon a Time when that comes out. My beloved Cougar Town is pushed to midseason, and I guess so is 30 Rock? :( Mad Men is pushed to FOREVER (seriously, MARCH, WTF). Game Of Thrones and Sirens are both back in April, and Misfits... when the hell is Misfits back, anyway?

So... anyway, I like TV. Let's talk about TV.
okayawesome: laura roslin ("as if" is so 1995)
...Okay, obviously I do not believe that is true.

But it is interesting how, the older I get and the more aware/attuned to feminist issues in media I become, the harder it is to enjoy certain things without a healthy amount of reserve and a big grain of salt.

Case in point: I'm currently in the middle of season two of Breaking Bad. And from a purely technical and artistic standpoint, it really is an astonishingly good show: the dialogue is great, the acting is fantastic, and the cinematography is probably the best I've ever seen on television. Part of me is really, really enjoying it.

And yet... every time I watch an episode, I'm uncomfortably aware of how much a Man's World the show takes place in. Sure, the gender divide in the cast is more or less equal on the surface (the leads are both men, but the secondary cast is two and two right now)... but the women function solely as wives and girlfriends, existing to throw wrenches in Walter and Jesse's (and Hank's) domestic lives when need be, to assist their storylines when they need assisting.

And as I watch it, I think: how could a show that is so accomplished on so many levels fail so completely at something like this? Or rather, if it does fail at this, can it really be that good of a show?

Obviously, none of this is new thinking at all, and I am retreading a road that many have taken before me.

I think this is just the first time I've watched a show that was really supposed to be of superior quality, yet stuck in my craw so very much over gender issues. I can look at Mad Men, Game of Thrones, and other "quality" series, critically, and there are a lot of things I can say about them... But I can't say that the portrayal of gender isn't highly nuanced. I know the focus of Breaking Bad is on Walter and Jesse, but I don't see why it still couldn't do the same. It seems to be pretty good on racial issues, for example.

Well, here's hoping it gets better. *crosses fingers* Either way, I just felt the need to rant about it, quite suddenly, because it's actually sort of ruining my enjoyment of the show.

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