Studio 60 and Allusion 1

I wanted to walk through a few allusions in Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, to show on how many levels Aaron Sorkin’s writing works. You don’t need to have noticed any of this to love the show; much of it works on a subliminal level anyway.

This post is, I think, a good example of the intellectual back-patting that Ping33 and Salon.com have complained about. While I still think Studio 60 is one of the best shows on television, I will admit that some of the old Sorkin magic is missing. Until I am ready to articulate exactly what has gone wrong, however, I want to concentrate on what I do like, even if it is exactly what others hate; the show has problems, but I don't think the smart stuff I am going to discuss in this post and at least two others is among them.

Sorkin alludes to his two other television shows in the teaser to the pilot of Studio 60. Long before Desperate Housewives and Transamerica Felicity Huffman was one of the main stars of Sorkin’s Sports Night, like Studio 60, a television show about putting on a television show. She is here to remind viewers of the continuity between Sports Night and Studio 60. When Judd Hirsch interrupts the fictional Studio 60’s live broadcast, he interrupts a sketch about George Bush in the Oval Office; Tommy Schlamme – Sorkin’s main director on both Sports Night and the West Wing – alludes to their second earlier show as he copies his famous camera push through the Oval Office Window – though here he breaks into a sketch comedy recreation of the Oval Office of George Bush rather than President Bartlett’s Oval Office. The set of the West Wing was the most expensive set ever built for a television pilot; here we see it for what it always was – a set.

At the end of the second episode of Studio 60 Steven Webber says to Amanda Peete “You’ve got spunk, kid,” and she replies, and he says it with her, “I hate spunk.” It works even if you don’t know where it is coming from, but it works better if you know that the line is from the pilot of the Mary Tyler Moore Show. Like Amanda Peete’s character Mary, on the show, is a single woman trying to make a career behind the scenes of a television show. And of course, the line quoted in the show is delivered by Ed Asner, who had a cameo in the pilot of Studio 60, and appears in episode five.

Essays on Firefly and House

BenBella is putting out two more Smart Pop books, one on Firefly/Serenity (a sequel to their Finding Serenity, edited by Jane Espenson) and one on House; I have been asked to contribute to each (I already have an essay in the Veronica Mars book due out soon). For House I will write on Hugh Laurie's career as it leads up to the character of Doctor Gregory House, and for Firefly, on the complex and interesting story structure of the episode "Out of Gas." I will keep everyone updated on these projects.

On Blogging (for Reconstruction.ws)

A few years ago I edited an issue of the online journal Reconstruction (the issue in which my essay on the X-Men and Gnosticism appeared). This week they have an issue on the theories and practice of blogging. They asked a host of people to blog about blogging so that that the journal can link to each one, creating a kind of hypertext collection of thoughts on the subject. This is my entry.

I like comics and movies and TV and poetry and music. Because I have all kinds of advanced training in English literature, when I read a book or watch a movie, I notice stuff. My superhero book attempted to collect all the things I noticed about comics into a single book-length argument. But truth be told, the thesis of the book came very late; it was not until I was nearly done that I realized that the connecting thread could be the argument about how the new comics I wanted to talk about constituted the successor to the industry’s Golden and Silver ages. It is the little observations about each comic book, rather than the big argument, that I think is the real value of the study. And when I read books it is the moment to moment observations that stay with me, rather than the big argument or story.

Blogging allows each little observation worthy of a bigger argument to be published, and available, before the book they belong in has been written, or even imagined.

Everyone needs to have a large discussion about the future of the University and the internet. If primary texts can be available on the web, for free, and academic essays and even books can be available in the form of blogs, for free, and if lectures by any professor can be recorded with a cell phone and thrown up on youtube, for free, then a very large part of an Oxbridge or Ivy League education can be had for free, at home, right now, by anyone with a decent computer connection.

The consequences of this fact – for established professors, and for future students and teachers – have not been thought through. But every time an academic pushes the “publish” button on blogger (or what have you) we get a little bit closer to the answer, good or bad. I, for one, cannot stop pushing that button.

Comics Out 11 October 2006

Nothing for me this week, though you are welcome to try and change my mind. And as always you can recommend, review and discuss the week in comics.

Our own Mitch has a review of the DVD X-Men: The Last Stand at silverbulletcomics.com. I am sure his review of the extras is accurate, but you all know that I found the film vile. (If you want to read the review go to the archives link in the right column, read the post for May 26th, and follow the link to the Oxford student newspaper).

Newsarama has a preview of the first few pages of Grant Morrison and Jim Lee's Wildcats; I avoided them myself, since I would rather read the issue all in one go, but there they are. Also at Newsarama (in the More News column on the right, under October 6) -- the truly surreal press release for the Guiding Light / Avengers crossover. Soap Operas are one of my main guilty pleasures, so this one has my attention. I cannot believe that Jimmy James (from Newsradio) has not yet jumped out and yelled "April Fools!" Any minute now. I am sure about this. Right?

I also thought, since I launched the debate last week, I would drop quick impression reviews of House of M, Civil War, and Infinite Crisis.

House of M was a pretty bog-standard "big" comic book story raised ever so slightly by the fact that Bendis is capable of more realistic dialogue that most comic book writers; the story had huge ramifications, which did not seem at all necessary to me, either in terms of the core story or in terms of the Marvel Universe. Plus Bendis seemed to think he was writing, at least partly, a mystery story (who made Wanda change the world?) with a twist ending. That whole aspect seemed to me very unimportant, but then, suddenly, at the end, it was the big issue. That's not good writing. Nor is the little girl who can magically "deprogram" everyone.

Civil War (the first four issues) is, as Starrlett and Mitch said, fun just in that World Series sense; I haven't been following the season, but it is nice to see all these guys on a big stage. Yeah it's silly and I could complain, but it has some nice scenes (Sue's letter, Thor showing up) and the art is quite good (the uniforms in particular are very physical, and damaged, which is a nice touch). I could do without the pretentious "A Marvel Event in Seven Parts", however; that bothered me most of all. It's like Morrison's Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on a Serious Earth. Terrible. Have more fun.

I was shocked to discover I actually liked Infinite Crisis. It is a total mess, cracking under the weight of a 12 (or 15) issue story smashed into 7 issues, a huge cast, and like 7 lead in mini-series. But it embraced a lot of the crazy, only occasionally dipping into unforgivable ridiculousness (that image of Alexander Luthor with the two huge balls), and I give extra points for exuberance and audacity. Not a masterpiece by any stretch of the imagination, but a pulpy page turner, I thought.

From Donald Barthelme's Snow White (Commonplace Book)

Then we went out to wash the buildings. Clean buildings fill your eyes with sunlight, and your heart with the idea that man is perfectible. Also they are good places to look at girls from, those high, swaying wooden platforms: you get a rare view, gazing at the tops of their red and gold and plum-colored heads. Viewed from above they are like targets, the plum-colored head the center of the target, the wavy navy skirt the bold circumference. The white or black legs flopping out in front are like someone waving his arms over the top of the target and calling, "You missed the center by not allowing sufficiently for the wind!" We are very much tempted to shoot our arrows into them, those targets. You know what that means. But we also pay attention to the buildings, gray and noble in their false architecture and cladding. There are Tiparillos in our faces and heavy jangling belts around our waists, and water in our buckets and squeegees on our poles. And we have our beer bottles up there too, and drink beer for a second breakfast, even though that is against the law, but we are so high up, no one can be sure. It's too bad Hogo de Bergerac isn't here with us, because maybe the experience would be good for him, would make him less loathsome. But he would probably just seize the occasion to perform some new loathsome act. He would probably just throw beer cans down into the street, to make irritating lumps under the feet of those girls who, right this minute, are trying to find the right typewriter, in the correct building.