Bunheads: More pies for all, please.

Bunheads, a new television series created by Amy Sherman-Palladino of Gilmore Girls fame (and The Return of Jezebel James shame), premiered last week on ABC Family.

After the premiere, Grey's Anatomy creator Shonda Rhimes tweeted this:

Hey @abcfBunheads: really? You couldn't cast even ONE young dancer of color so I could feel good about my kid watching this show? NOT ONE?

Ms Rhimes also tweeted

@sassylassee @abcfBunheads I def don't feel bad when my kid watches white performers. Not at all what I'm saying.

and then

@kwanfan1212 I did love seeing girls of all shapes and sizes. That was great. Am a huge Gilmore Girls fan. Just pointing out one issue...

Later, when Amy Sherman-Palladino was asked about the tweets, here was Ms. Sherman-Palladino's response:

“I’m not gonna get into a pissing match with Shonda Rhimes, because she’s got like 15,000 shows on the air. She’s doing just fine for herself. … As far as the women thing goes.. I’ve always felt like women have never supported women to the level that they should. … I think it’s a shame… but it is what it is. I feel like maybe they feel it’s too competitive.”

. . . 

 “Let me put it a different way. I wouldn’t do it. I wouldn’t go after another woman. I, frankly, wouldn’t go after another showrunner. It is so hard to get a show on the air…”

Which really misses the point.

Here is what I think Ms. Rhimes and Ms. Sherman-Palladino were really saying:

Ms. Rhimes: I like your work, Amy, and so does my child. Therefore, I expect more from shows that you create, and I am disappointed in your decision to make your entire cast white.

Ms. Sherman-Palladino: I feel attacked by a fellow female showrunner, who I see as currently more successful than myself. I refuse to acknowledge my privilege: the privilege to see people who look like all over every type of media in my country; the privilege to fill my shows with characters and actors who not only look like me, but also think like me, speak like me, and give importance to the things I care about; and the privilege to dismiss the valid concerns of people of different colors and ethnicities. I refuse to acknowledge the need for diversity in media, even though I am fully aware that my own television series are among the historically few series with both female protagonists and majority female casts.

These are discussions that need to be had, not brushed off as the Twitter rantings of some angry black woman, which multiple commenters on other sites have been doing. This is a prime example of fighting for slices of pie. There are statistics, that I won't bother looking up, about the demographics of writers and showrunners in the US television industry. Most television writers and producers are white and male. Amy Sherman-Palladino is one of the few white female showrunners working today, and Shonda Rhimes is one of the even fewer working nonwhite female showrunners, and one of the tiny sliver of people to have multiple shows on the air at the same time. Ms. Rhimes and Ms. Sherman-Palladino are sharing a tiny piece of the industry pie, a pie that needs to be enlarged and multiplied.

Shonda Rhimes has a noted history of colorblind casting for her shows. Amy Sherman-Palladino has a less-noted history, as many other white showrunners do, of hiring almost entirely white (and heterosexual) cast of characters.

I have watched all three of Ms. Sherman-Palladino's branded shows, so I do know of what I speak. I could accept that 12 years ago, the fictional small town of Stars Hollow in Connecticut could be populated mostly by white people, plus one Korean-American family and one black French gentleman. However, my belief cannot be suspended that far in 2012. I cannot blindly accept a showrunner conveniently creating a the fictional seaside town of Paradise (not to be confused with the actual inland town of the same name) in California, a state that used to be Mexico, with almost no people of color. According to the 2010 census, California is a "majority-minority" state, with a 40.1% non-Hispanic white population, while 37.6% of the population is Hispanic or Latino of any race. California also has the largest Southeast Asian, Indian American and Taiwanese American populations in the United States. Los Angeles, the home of the entertainment industry, has a population that is 27.8% non-Hispanic white and 47.7% Hispanic or Latino of any race. Which means that it takes some serious selective blinders for Ms. Sherman-Palladino to create her all-white version of Paradise.

I do agree that women should support each other, especially in entertainment. There are so few opportunities for us to achieve success and happiness in a world that rarely values who we are, what we want, and how we would like to express ourselves. However, that support should not come at the ignorance of other issues. As a black woman, a woman, and a person in general, I should have the ability to see more women, more colorful women and more colorful people positively and accurately portrayed in my media. It is not an either/or proposition. I need more pies. It is unacceptable to have only one speaking character of color on Bunheads (so far), then describe her as having a face like a Libyan dictator, and villainize her character by asserting that she unfairly gets "paid more" than the harder-working showgirls because she dances topless.

And we haven't even talked about the "marrying your stalker" plotline. ABC Family indeed.

Yes, I will still be watching Bunheads. It's about dancing! And look: Emily Gilmore!



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Who does he think he is? Cher?

Harry who? Son omits Reid name from campaign ad, by Rachel Rose Hartman, Yahoo! News.

Rory 2010? Is one of the Gilmores running for governor?

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"Snow in 49 states at one time."

"Which state is holding out?"

Is it Hawaii?

49 states dusted with snow; Hawaii's the holdout, by Seth Borenstein, AP via Yahoo! News.

I was right!

More than two-thirds of the nation's land mass had snow on the ground when the day dawned yesterday, and then it snowed ever so slightly in Florida to make it 49 states out of 50.

At the same time, those weird weather forces are turning Canada's Winter Olympics into the bring-your-own-snow games.

Who's the Great White North now?

Who? I'm still going with Canada:




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The CW doesn't care about black people.

I first heard about this today on "Big Boy's Neighborhood's Liz Hernandez".

Sitcom Saga: No Finale For 'Girlfriends' and Litigation Looms, by Jawn Murray, BlackVoices.com.

. . . The CW had opted to cancel [Girlfriends] without fulfilling its remaining nine episodes.

Well I've now learned exclusively that The CW made the cast members an offer to return for a "retrospective" episode that would feature recaps of the previous shows and cast members reflecting on those shows.

The CW apparently only offered to pay the actors half of their episodic salary to shoot the makeshift finale, thus the stars collectively opted not to participate.

In addition, several people close to the show tell me that The CW refuses to honor the contracts of the principal cast members and does not intend to pay the actors for the nine episodes that will not be taped.

Now the show stars have hired a litigator who will file a joint lawsuit on behalf of the talent, suing the network for the money they are due.

"The network told them point blank, 'Sue us!' After using this show to help build its name, The CW has turned their back on them and disrespected them in the most horrible way," said someone associated with the show, who spoke under the condition of anonymity.

This is some nonsense. I don't even watch Girlfriends on The CW, because the show has gone downhill since Toni left, and Joan and William got together, then broke up. However, the show did bring over a solid audience base from UPN to this redheaded amalgamated stepchild of a network.

First Dawn Ostroff came for Everwood. Then she came for Gilmore Girls and Veronica Mars. Now Girlfriends is getting the Ostroff treatment. Shame on you, CW. Shame!

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My favorite thing today

other than recovering from the GMAT:

Fame Audit: The Cast Of Gilmore Girls, on Television Without Pity.

An excerpt:

Melissa McCarthy constantly and gleefully tapdances all over the line separating the adorable from the insufferable. That line can be very fine. Her unending chirp is endearing in small doses, but she's likely to remain in supporting roles as assorted best friends, unless she's capable of toning it down, which seems doubtful. She displays an admirably sunny disposition, certainly, but not one that's going to make her a leading lady. Frankly, at thirty-seven, she's already played a "Doris" and a "Shirley," so nobody's thinking in those terms anyway.

If I ran Hollywood, I'd make her a leading lady. I love Sookie! She's so much fun. Plus, she's starring in pamie's new show.

It sounds weird to say "The good news is that she's about to star in Sisterhood Of The Traveling Pants 2," but it's very true of Alexis Bledel. Although she was part of a great ensemble on Gilmore Girls, it's hard to know how well that nervous talking thing she does is going to play in any other setting, so it's good that she has a franchise to work on for now. She's managed to get through seven seasons as a pretty young actress without doing almost anything else that got her any attention, and she may have failed to capitalize on her moment.

I know I'm not the only one who wouldn't mind seeing Rory slowly fade away.

Teenybopper a-go-go

It started on Tuesday night when the second-to-last episode ever of Gilmore Girls being pre-empted by the Griffith Park fire. Here is the email I wrote to one of my fellow Gilmore Girls fans right after the "Breaking News" interrupted Lorelai's yammering:

Is it bad that I screamed out loud when KTLA preempted
Gilmore Girls with the Griffith Park brush fire? No, I
think it's even worse that I want them to get back to
the show. Especially since it's THE SECOND TO LAST ONE
EVER.

How about they put a crawl underneath the show saying,
"If you live near Griffith Park, get out now." That
would be more effective, considering they don't have
any crawl right now. It's just incendiary (so
inappropriate) shots of the fire.

Now I'm getting mad for a whole other reason. There is
no actual useful information on the screen. It
literally says, "Brush Fire" on the lower right on
screen. Because I couldn't tell from the giant flames
and smoke encompassing the screen. Why don't they tell
people what to do? Stop speculating about the
nonexistent winds and the other weather you still
don't know about, KTLA news guy whose name I forgot.
Tell people if they should leave and where they should
go. And tell people if they should avoid work in the
area tomorrow.

Now there is a shot of a guy recording this on his
cell phone. Good job, KTLA. Now I know where not to go
for news I can use.

Ooh, I feel a post coming on.

And the post did come on, albeit four days later. And apparently, I wasn't the only angry TV viewer that night. My friend then left the following comment on my MySpace page:

KTLA is stupid! People are really irate on their website in the GG comment area, it is a little scary! It is like a riot online.

She wasn't the only one. The next day Defamer reported on the story. In Gilmore Girls Vs. The Wildfire, the Hollywood gossip blog expressed its deepest, snarkiest sympathy for those who missed out on the departing program. They also included some choice selections from the KTLA Gilmore Girls message board. My favorite was

you know, i cannot believe they are doing this to us.and this ghetto station doesn't even show the episodes online like abc and nbc
Submitted by: very upset

because I didn't even think of that. The CW is supposed to be so cool and hip with their Mark McGrath and their Pussycat Dolls, and it doesn't have its shows online. But the station that caters to the retirement home crowd does. How's that for irony?

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Number two: Reza Aslan. So dreamy. He was supposed to be on The Colbert Report on Tuesday, but it was postponed till July. So he was The Daily Show on Thursday. I had to drop my Daily Show ban for one night. :( I fast-forwarded through the John Oliver "I'm British" crap and got to the interview, which you can watch at the Comedy Central website. Speaking of behind-the-times internet destinations. Could there videos be any choppier?

After pausing, rewinding and playing the tape numerous times, I went to the MySpace page for Reza Aslan's Intellectual Groupies, and left this comment:

Oh my gosh, he was so cute last night on The Daily Show. I loved when he said, "Nobody talks to the administration. It's a closed bubble." And then he moved his hands in a bubble formation. He was looking at Jon, but it felt like he was talking to me.

Supposedly Mr. Aslan is getting married. That's disappointing. Because I'm sure his upcoming nuptials are the only thing that is preventing me from dating him. Not the fact that I don't know him. Or that I've never met him. Or that I wouldn't convert to Islam for him, completely ignoring his passion for his religion, even though he compiled a history of Islam, and has pushed the book on us for two years. No, his marriage is what is stopping us from being together. At least he probably won't get lanced in the future. Which brings me to number three...

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Joseph Gordon-Levitt. I was in Borders today, perusing the latest issue of Ms. Magazine like a good feminist on a budget. Then the shiny black cover of anthem magazine caught my eye with the headline, "Joseph Gordon-Levitt Goes to Iraq, Kisses Men, and Robs a Bank." Ms. went back on the shelf as I got my paws on anthem. You can read part of the interview here and look at a couple poses from the photo shoot, too.

I liked his take on the questions asked about his sexuality:

"This is kind of embarrassing, but I recently put my name into a search engine and someone posted, is Joseph Gordon-Levitt gay? and the answer posted was: Is he an alien? because I played [one on 3rd Rock]. Right now I'm in Toronto playing a psychopathic murderer. And recently I played someone who was in the U.S. army in Iraq. So it's like, what's harder? Kissing a dude or killing people? I would hope that I can feel at least a bit of the horror of what it must be like, when I was playing a soldier, how hard it must be, the hell they go through. So, kissing Topher Grace is like, whatever."

But right before that excerpt in the print version, Mr. G-L talks about creating a website for soldiers in Iraq where they can post their own videos about their experience. Mr. G-L has gotten tired of the "news" people sitting in a studio talking about what is supposedly going on over there, instead of simply asking the people on the ground. A celebrity actually doing something constructive about changing our society, instead of demanding that we do something silly like buy a yellow bumper sticker or use one sheet of toilet paper to wipe? Amazing. Watch your back, Clooney.

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Who else loved The Office on Thursday? It was all about the Pam speech. My favorite part? "Pam, that was amazing. But I'm still looking for someone with a sales background." Oh Michael.

Is Oscar really going to "try girls for a while"? If done right, that would be a funny episode.

Watching Tyra's "So What!" Parade

I started laughing to myself this week as I recalled reading this Mondo Extras recap on TWoP during my Winter Break: The Christmas Shoes. It was a made-for-TV movie, based on a schmaltzy Christmas song, starring Rob Lowe and Kimberly Williams. Here's what recapper Mr. Sobell had to say:

...It's a ridiculous anthem, full of mawkish sentiment and shallow acts of semi-kindness heralded as selfless philanthropy, topped with the kind of self-centered smugness normally reserved for Aaron Sorkin homilies. Someone responsible for "The Christmas Shoes" really needs to be punched.

I remember sharing this opinion with my father-in-law between guffaws of derisive laughter. However, my father-in-law -- an otherwise sensible fellow with little patience for the grade-A Velveeta often served up by popular culture -- took umbrage with my disdain for "The Christmas Shoes"; the words "cynical left-coast elitist" may have been tossed around in anger. And I soon learned that the majority of the civilized world seemed to take his side in this clash of cultures -- all throughout the weekend, people were calling into the radio station begging, pleading with the DJs to play this inane treacle. And in fact, the song turned out to be so terrifically popular that a woman named Donna VanLiere would churn out a novella based on this jejune pop song. I don't mean to disparage Ms. VanLiere or her literary efforts, but, several decades from now, don't expect to find The Christmas Shoes on the reading list for that "Great Books of the Early 21st Century" course they're teaching at your grandkid's university -- not if that school hopes to keep its accreditation, at any rate...

I was cracking up. When I shared the recap with my Mummy, she didn't find it as funny, since she's into that cheese. She's the kind of TV viewer who really liked The Ron Clark Story. I'm the kind of TV viewer who rolled my eyes when Matthew Perry had to be carried out on a stretcher by the paramedics after he passed out from pneumonia in his classroom. It only gave me more reason to laugh at the subsequent Nice White Lady sketch from MadTV.

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Via Defamer:

Book Soup Overrun By Blanche Devereaux-Quoting Sodomites.

The deep imprint left upon the television landscape by seminal 1980s osteoporotic sitcom The Golden Girls is indisputable: Swap in some Cosmos for a cheesecake, you're looking at a post-menopausal Sex and the City; add an angry lesbian and some Hot Topics, The View. Not surprisingly, the series carries with it a fanatical following, comprised mainly of gay men of a certain age, and no one else. Many of them showed up at Book Soup last night to hear Rue "Blanche" McClanahan read and sign from her new autobiography.

It's not just for the gays. I love The Golden Girls, too. I have seen every episode at least twice, many a lot more than that. It's on five times a day, every week day. I'm a Dorothy.

And, Defamer Employment: Kids' Show Currently Staffing Up On Craigslist. Oh, the hilarity. My favorite part comes near the bottom.

YOU SHOULD *NOT* PURSUE THIS JOB IF:

...You would ever write (or laugh at) any of these 6 lines of dialogue:

(1) "Hey, stop eating my dinner, Eatie McEaterson!"
(2) "These nachos are like a party in my mouth!"
(3) "Whooaaa, too much information."
(4) "And by [that] I mean [this]."
(5) "Whoops, did I say that out loud?"
(6) "I think I just threw up in my mouth a little bit."

If you enjoy any of the above 6 lines of dialogue, time to move on to the next Craigslist ad! [...]

If you really hate this ad and you want to tell us how awful, unprofessional, and arrogant it is, please send that email to either your mom or your nearest Home Depot.

As is the norm on Defamer, the comments below it are the piece de resistance. The Craig's List ad subsequently "got over 900 responses in less than 48 hours," probably due to their Defamer mention. I bet they received a few mom/Home Depot emails as well.

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from Wired, via Yahoo!News:

Army Squeezes Soldier Blogs, Maybe to Death.

The U.S. Army has ordered soldiers to stop posting to blogs or sending personal e-mail messages, without first clearing the content with a superior officer, Wired News has learned. The directive, issued April 19, is the sharpest restriction on troops' online activities since the start of the Iraq war. And it could mean the end of military blogs, observers say.

So which freedoms are these soldiers fighting for again, even though they obviously can't exercise them themselves?

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via AfterEllen:

My So-Called Box Set: But will Tino ever show? According to dorothy snarker,

My So-Called Life might be coming back. No, sorry, not with new episodes (I know, that was just cruel, teasing you like that), but as a re-released DVD box set of its one and only season.

That would awesome, because I didn't get the first edition of DVDs. By the time I realized they might be good DVDs to invest in (i.e. last year), they were no longer available in stores. Hmph.

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from The New York Times, via Pajiba Love:

Young, Gifted, and Not Getting Into Harvard, by Michael Winerip.

ON a Sunday morning a few months back, I interviewed my final Harvard applicant of the year. After saying goodbye to the girl and watching her and her mother drive off, I headed to the beach at the end of our street for a run.

It was a spectacular winter day, bright, sunny and cold; the tide was out, the waves were high, and I had the beach to myself. As I ran, I thought the same thing I do after all these interviews: Another amazing kid who won’t get into Harvard.

He ends the article with this paragraph, emphasis mine:

That day, running on the beach, I was lost in my thoughts when a voice startled me. “Pops, hey, Pops!” It was Sammy, one of my twins, who’s probably heading for a good state school. He was in his wetsuit, surfing alone in the 30-degree weather, the only other person on the beach. “What a day!” he yelled, and his joy filled my heart.

Gee, thanks, Dad. Way to lowball your kid's abilities in a national newspaper.

By the way, I didn't get into Harvard either. I didn't apply...but that's beside the point. The Pajibans summed it up well:

What's the Times' sudden obsession with high school kids and top colleges? Maybe the paper is trying to solidify its identity as the most respected paper among the white, upper-class mass of Ivy league applicants.

Who cares if some overachieving, overprivileged Northeasterners don't get into Harvard? This is not the education crisis facing the United States. This is a small group of yuppies burdened with one-upping each other on the backs of their unnecessarily stressed-out children.

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If you haven't read Racialicious this week, please do, along with Race in the Workplace. I would link to at least five articles that I liked on the site this week, but it takes me forever to link and quote and comment in my obsessively comprehensive manner. So clickety-click on the underline words above. Incredibly educational and poignant. Carmen really needs her own nightly show. That way, instead of spending two to three hours every time I post trying to convince you to read the articles that she puts on her blog, I could just say, "watch Carmen tonight at 8pm." And you would.

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Why is Maroon 5's new single "Makes Me Wonder" growing on me? Adam Levine cannot sing, and the video isn't that cool. How many times can those guys stand around playing their instruments in random places while emaciated, underdressed, glassy-eyed models wander around them aimlessly? Plus, Adam, you are no George Michael. You're not even Robbie Williams.

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The best for last. From The New York Observer:

Goodbye, Girls. Now I can exhale.

...[Lorelai Gilmore] never apologized. Not for getting pregnant; not for running away; not for over-mothering Rory; and not for being pretty and smart and young. Ms. Sherman-Palladino made her a strong character who overflowed with love and enthusiasm. We responded to her in kind.

Mr. Rosenthal, however, has seemed to want to punish the Gilmore girls for having too much fun -- and too much independence – over the last six years. Not a single character has escaped this season without tragedy or curse. After the collapse of her relationship with Luke, Lorelai made the very unlike Lorelai decision to marry Rory’s dad, Christopher (David Sutcliffe), perhaps the least reliable person she's ever known. The notion that Lorelai would be swept away by a romantic gesture (Christopher proposed in Paris after a shaky and swift post-Luke reunion) is totally ludicrous – this woman never even had a one night stand up to now. (Well, except with Christopher.) Luke, who having gotten to know the teen daughter he's only recently become aware of, became embroiled in a nasty custody battle – this is a man who didn't want a lawyer to help him get divorced a few seasons back. Rory is graduating from Yale (finally!) but has been dragged down by her boyfriend Logan (Matt Czuchry) who lost all of his family-bestowed millions on an internet merger deal gone bad…. And now, at 23, he's proposing! Mr. Gilmore, Lorelai's dad, had a heart attack; Rory's best friend Lane had sex once – on her honeymoon –hated it, and got pregnant with – wait for it – twins!

And, Who Will Play Obama on SNL?, by Jason Horowitz. The story should be called, "Lorne Michaels doesn't care about black people." Because, really. I could have told you who the 2008 Presidential candidates were going to be in 2005. The most loved sketches in 2000 were the ones with Darrell Hammond and Will Ferrell playing Al Gore and George W. Bush, respectively. Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, and Barack Obama have been making national headlines every week since the beginning of 2007. And Lorne still hasn't hired someone to play Barack Obama? You might think I'm being hard on Lorne, but consider this: he certainly has enough white guys to play the Republican candidates, even though most Americans can't name any of them besides John McCain. (Kudos to you if you named Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney, or Tom Tancredo. Bonus points for Law & Order's Fred Thompson.)

Gilmore Girls: I Shake My Fist at You!

Doesn't Zach have two kids to raise? Why is he going on some drunken tour without his family? Why is Lane raising their children by herself? Has Zach ever met Kwan and Steve? If Lane had to become "so mature" since she became a mother, shouldn't Zach, the twins supposed father, be mature at all? Could this show get any more regressive?

Lauren Graham, I'm glad you're a producer now, but that "I Will Always Love You" was a big honking anvil to my head. We get it. We're not stupid. Respect your audience.

Waah, waah, waah, Rory doesn't have her perfect job yet. Like I care. Join the Overeducated and Underemployed club, kid.

I'm hoping Logan gets on that slow boat to China. Or to San Francisco/Palo Alto. Wherever. I wouldn't mind him pulling a Chad Michael Murray or a Jared Padalecki, as long as Czuchry gets a less loathsome character.

Where was Michel?

The End of April

What an entertaining week.

First, my personal business. I am no longer watching The Daily Show. (Yet I am still watching Entourage. Go figure.) No, it was not the John McCain "IED under the desk" interview earlier this week. Nor was it the "look at Senator Harry Reid squeezing Speaker Nancy Pelosi's breasts" PhotoShopped clip that Jon thought was hilarious. It was the Baghdad wall segment on Wednesday, where the show used Aasif Mandvi to assert that if you leave large slab of cement exposed long enough, it will get tagged by Latino heritage graffiti. What a crock.

I am so done with Jon Stewart's hypocrisy, his lecturing others about their intolerance, injustice and discrimination, while he seems unable to hire or invite anyone as a guest on the show who isn't a white male. And if he does encounter someone female or nonwhite--but never both--he goes out of his way to announce how hot they are, or only talk to them about racial issues. Or in the case of Mr. Mandvi, get one brown guy to tell the jokes about the other brown guys. Like Alberto Gonzales.

In happier news, I have found Designing Women again. It's back on Nick at Nite, every other day maybe, at 5:00 am. The other days Murphy Brown is on at 5:00 am. Apparently Nick at Nite has made a pact with Bill Cosby, Will Smith and the rest of the Black Crusaders, along with Roseanne, to play their hit shows ad nauseum. Now I love Fresh Prince as much as the next American. Although I do prefer the episodes before they got rid of Janet Hubert-Whitten. But must it be on all night every night?

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Onto the articles I found this week.

For the love of Stars Hollow, will someone please cancel 'Gilmore Girls'? by Maureen Ryan, Chicago Tribune. Hear hear! There there! The last episode, "It's Just Like Riding a Bike," was so hetero. Must everything in every character's life revolve around hooking up with a member of the opposite sex? Yes, Seasons 2 and 3 were rooted in the Rory-Dean-Jess love triangle. But there was so much more going on.

Now I actually have to sit and watch Sookie accept that her husband deceitfully impregnated her, and forgive him for it just because he wants her to. Um, no, David Rosenthal. In the real world, if Sookie didn't want to have another baby, she would have explored all of her options. Lane would have, too. Even in Stars Hollow, sex has consequences. And not everyone is ready for a baby. Or two. Or three. If your husband lies to you about getting a vasectomy, and you know that at one point in time he wanted "four in four" i.e. four kids in four years, and you are now pregnant with his unplanned child, you have a right to be angry at him, for as long as you want. If Jackson can't deal with that, he can leave. It's not like he is giving birth to this baby.

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Paparazzi on Camera, by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, on CollegeHumor, via Pajiba.


Even those Mr. G-L is not on camera, I still squee when I hear his voice. He's so cute! I hope he isn't a racist puppy-kicker. He probably smokes, though. Boo.

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U.S. gender pay gap emerges early, study finds, by Ellen Wulfhorst, Reuters.

A dramatic pay gap emerges between women and men in America the year after they graduate from college and widens over the ensuing decade, according to research released on Monday.

One year out of college, women working full time earn 80 percent of what men earn, according to the study by the American Association of University Women Educational Foundation, based in Washington D.C.

Ten years later, women earn 69 percent as much as men earn, it said.

Even as the study accounted for such factors as the number of hours worked, occupations or parenthood, the gap persisted, researchers said.

"If a woman and a man make the same choices, will they receive the same pay?" the study asked. "The answer is no.

Well then.

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Oregon Governor Starts Week on Food Stamps, by Julia Silverman, ABC News, via Yahoo! News.

Accompanied by reporters and food stamp recipient Christina Sigman-Davenport, Kulongoski headed straight for a display of organic bananas, only to have Sigman-Davenport steer him toward the cheaper non-organic variety.

The governor pined wistfully for canned Progresso soups, but at $1.53 apiece, they would have blown the [$21 budget]. He settled instead for three packages of Cup O'Noodles for 33 cents apiece. Kulongoski also gave up his usual Adams natural, no-stir peanut butter for a generic store brand, but drew the line at saving money by buying peanut butter and jelly in the same jar.

"I don't much like the looks of that," said Kulongoski, 66, staring at the concoction.

I don't like the looks of that either. Ew. But I wouldn't pass up some food stamps. There are times I'd like some meat and potatoes. Vegetables, too.

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on the record, by pigeon, at Taking Steps, via one of the newest Sites I Like, Feministe.

...i didn’t expect the duke case to shake me so much. i feel like i hear about, talk about, read about, think about rape every day. i like to think i’ve built up some callous at this point, a tough, thick covering to take the edge off...

...now you hear the news, following “three boys innocent” with “she was never raped” and liar and whore. and no one seems to notice that the accused men’s innocence has nothing to do with whether or not she was raped, only that they didn’t do it. she called 911 for a reason, she went to the hospital afterwards, the examination supported her claims of sexual assault. we have no reason to think those results were wrong, no new information to contest it. perhaps she picked the wrong guys from the line-up, but that has little to do with what actually happened to her...

I could quote, quote, quote, but y'all should read the whole thing for yourselves.

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Recycling While Brown, by amardeep, Sepia Mutiny.

The Indian-American poet Kazim Ali teaches at Shippensburg University, which is a little west of Harrisburg, PA (and not too far from where I myself teach).

On his website, he recently described how his “suspicious” behavior led to his entire campus being shut down. The behavior in question? Recycling. He was doing nothing other than dropping off a stack of printouts of poems to be recycled when someone from the campus ROTC called the police...

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Lastly, in Hollywood news that's too vapid for the room, both from the LA Times, via Defamer:

Power plays -- for a food court table, by Nicole LaPorte.

Century City is under attack. In a "300"-like assault, two silk-shirted waves of flashy Hollywood agents have infiltrated the Westside's most famous — and famously nondescript — office-park neighborhood, hitherto best known for a mall (the Westfield) and a hotel (the Century Plaza).

The invaders consist of two rival armies. The Creative Artists Agency minions were the first to land, having moved into their gargantuan new headquarters at 2000 Avenue of the Stars in January. Then, on Feb. 20, International Creative Management staked its claim to the territory, moving into three floors of the MGM Tower...

...But that's small change compared with the tactical maneuvers required for eating lunch. Imagine, if you will, Armani-uniformed agents standing in line with soccer moms at the Westfield mall's food court or balancing plastic trays loaded up with beer-battered chicken or Fuddruckers fries. "With all the suits and sunglasses, it feels like "The Matrix: The Food Court," joked manager-producer J.C. Spink ("A History of Violence").

And with such brazenly public dining come perils. "You can't really talk business because you've got CAA right there. And they've got us," said an ICM agent, who spoke on condition of anonymity (silence is the agency policy when dealing with the press). "I've heard people at CAA having their conversations — you can hear everything."

And,

Revenge of the Hollywood desk slaves, by Nick Confalone.

FOR FOUR weeks in April of 2006, I was an Internet celebrity. In one industry, in one city, I was a star. The blogs went crazy. Defamer was all over me. National Public Radio wanted an interview — but I turned them down. My site got more than a million hits in 24 hours.

It all started one morning the previous December, the same week the Hollywood Reporter listed the 100 most powerful women in Hollywood — the trade's equivalent of a swimsuit issue...

...Over the phone that morning, I gossiped about the list of 100 Powerful Women, women I'd never seen before. I didn't need to see them. The list said that looks don't matter, only power.

But because we have little or no actual power, the opposite must be true for assistants. If an agent gets a new assistant, the first thing my boss always wants to know is, "Is she hot?" I looked around our office and saw not a single unattractive assistant, and that's when it hit me: Don't the assistants deserve a list too?

I pulled out my credit card, registered a domain name, and Hottest Hollywood Assistants.com was born.

Happy reading!

Ooh, one more video. Sen. Mike Gravel at SC Debates 04/26/07, via YouTube. He's telling like it t-i-s.



Put your hand down, Joe Biden. When Senator Gravel said "top tier," he did not mean you.

I Hate Gilmore Girls

This is the worst season ever. I don't know of a show that has fallen so far so fast. I don't think Season 5 of The West Wing, after Sorkin left, was this bad.

These post-Palladino, Season 7 writers do not need the character to repeat every phrase two or three times. David Hasselhoff doesn't deserve to have his name dropped more than once an episode, much less in one scene.

Can Rory deal with an actual disappointment in her life? I mean, when she was actually working for stuff in high school, it was fulfilling when she earned something, like delivering a speech on C-SPAN, or getting into. Now when she gets this job in Providence that she doesn't even want, I feel like smacking her face. I'm sure real journalism majors share my sentiment. Holding out for a real newspaper? Please. As if The New York Times would really hire someone like Rory Gilmore.

I do not need anymore Logan on my screen ever. During Seasons 5 and 6, I was worried that I retroactively liked Jess because of how stupid Logan was. After the "you wrote a book" episode where Jess tangles with "the blond dick at Yale," I am now retroactively in love with Jess. Dean goes without saying. I'm not usually into adulterers, but I'll make an exception for the devoted Mr. Forester.

What is up with the, "Hi. How are you?" "Nice to see you again." and "This is a nice house." Is anyone at the show capable of constructing a meaningful line for a character? And how many times do I have to hear about the hay bale maze? Once! That's it. Everyone in town does not need to tell me about the things that I can see for myself happening on the screen. If I see the gazebo being lifted into the air by a crane at the end of one scene, then in the very next scene, Lorelai does not need to tell Rory that Taylor is "ripping out the gazebo with a crane." Hello, I was just there! I know that already!

I actually liked the April and Luke part. Hmm.

On to general CW issues. There's this new annoying segment called "C what's hip" with Mark McGrath. I think this was "hip" back in the mid-90s when it was called E! News Update with Steve Kmetko. And Mark McGrath, from Extra? The last time you were "hip" was when you were chanting "Fly" with Sugar Ray. If I want to "C what's happening," I'm not going to the lovechild of the WB and UPN--who brought us such gems as Pussycat Dolls: The Search for the Next Doll, and the final season of 7th Heaven--to find out what's going on in the world of celebrity.

Back to Gilmore Girls. Watching Season 7, and then watching Seasons 1 and 2 on DVD? The comparison makes me want to barf. Or maybe I ate too much for breakfast. My tummy is only so big inside.

I hope Jezebel James makes it to air.

End of kvetching.

Musings from an Adorable American: "It's Valentine's Day?" Edition

Things of various importance that have been on my mind this week:

• The State of the Black Union 2007
  

On Saturday morning, I stumbled upon this day long event on C-SPAN, while I was wading through the jungle that is the new TimeWarner Cable program guide. Ugh. This whole channel grouping thing is not helpful to me at all. I'm just confused and frustrated, and my networks aren't where they are supposed to be!

Back to the black people. I watched this program before and after the Barack Obama Presidential Campaign announcement--which C-SPAN cut to, then came back--and before and after I went to Step class at my gym.

Lots of pertinent issues were discussed by the usual suspects, like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, as well as other distinguished panelists. Even though Sharpton and Jackson are both ministers, I still can't tell you what their actual jobs are. They just seem to be on call whenever people like Michael Richards or Joe Biden need to apologize to the black community.

The most striking part of the State of the Black Union was not the gospel dance party afterwards that moderator Tavis Smiley didn't expect C-SPAN to stick around for. (What were they going to cut to, an empty Senate chamber? It was Saturday. That follow-up musical performance was the most exciting spectacle C-SPAN has covered in a long time.) The most striking part was that the majority of issues discussed were important to every American: health care, the growing prison population, education, employment, financial matters, the illegal occupation of Iraq. The event could have been called, "The State of the Union, and we just happen to be Black." This conversation was way more informative and engaging than either George W. Bush's State of the Union address this year, or the Democratic Party's response delivered by Senator Jim Webb. Just like Nickelodeon and Linda Ellerbee used to say when I was growing up, Black History is Everyone's History. And possibly more now than ever, when bankruptcies abound, home mortgage foreclosures are increasing, the gap between the very rich and the very poor is widening exponentially, and No Child Left Behind is leaving behind most of its school districts, the State of the Black Union is the State of Everyone's Union.

• Tina Fey's spot-on assesment of Aaron Sorkin

"...Sunday night at the Writers Guild Awards...Fey told the crowd, 'I hear Aaron Sorkin is in Los Angeles wearing the same dress - but longer, and not funny.' "

Hee!

• The State of the Black Union 2006

I watched the beginning of it this morning on TV One. Compared to the day-long coverage on the 2007 version on C-SPAN, I didn't like the commercials TV One has to show for revenue, but I did appreciate the editing. Listing the name and accomplishments under each speakers face is much more effective and time-efficient than Tavis Smiley taking two minutes to vocalize the same thing. I know Mr. Smiley is being reverrent and polite to these great American leaders, but I've got things to do. Let's keep it moving. You know these people can be longwinded. And when I say, "these people," I mean the mature members of our American community who love a captive audience and a TV camera pointed at their face.

• Gilmore Girls

This show has gone down the pooper. I was so bored during last night's episode, "Farewell, My Pet." The only saving graces were Michel and Paris, both of whom I have always loved.

• Debra Dickerson on The Colbert Report

I cannot believe this fool. Watch the clip that had me yelling at my TV screen. Like that's an unusual occurence for me. It's at the bottom of the Comedy Central page, so hurry before it's gone.

To summarize for the time- and/or technologically-impaired, Ms. Dickerson informs Mr. Colbert that Barack Obama is not really black, since, according to her, "'Black,' in our political and social reality, means those descended from West African slaves." Calling him black would supposedly disrespect his father's Kenyan heritage. Despite the fact that Senator Obama was born in Hawaii, and his mother, white though she may be, was born in Kansas. Mr. Colbert suggested calling Senator Obama, "nouveau black," to which Ms. Dickerson replied that they could call him "African African-American." Mr. Colbert also had a solution to Senator Obama's non-owned heritage: he could be someone's slave for a short while for the black experience and to gain some street cred; to avoid the racist overtones, he could be Jesse Jackson's slave. Ms. Dickerson had no response for that.

I'd love for Ms. Dickerson to come up to my face and tell me I'm not black because I can't trace my ancestry to a particular West African slave in my family tree. What an idiot. I am so not buying her book.

I'm sure I'll have more stuff to think about later this week.