Tag Archives: Golden Age of Television

Alias vs. Jessica Jones

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Jessica Jones

The verdict is in—Jessica Jones is awesome. I’m sure you’ve read it all in various reviews littering the web. There’s the superb depiction of rape trauma and PTSD, the excellent depression, the fabulous sex, and the best portrayal of Luke Cage both inside and outside of comics. Kyrsten Ritter and the supporting cast—sublime!  And what about that snappy dialogue—not bad but maybe not as snappy as in that other show about a “rape” victim-superheroine, iZombie.

But there is one rather obvious problem with Jessica Jones. It’s stupid; massively dumb and bloated to boot. It’s the same old story, the desperation to love something, anything in this Golden Age of TV or at least find some reason to like the latest Hollywood craze—the superhero franchise. The publicity agents have urged us to like, nay love, sex and dragons, rotting flesh, and xenophobic paranoid CIA agents; and now they insist we venerate plain clothes superheroics.

Just like in the zombie apocalypse of The Walking Dead, Jessica Jones never lets logic get in the way of thrills, false dilemmas, and homilies about our decadent society. The remarkable zombie franchise embodies the deeply held American fantasy that the last will be first and they will need guns to accomplish this. It is the little people who will pull through and distill the human (let’s just call it the American) spirit to make the Fatherland great again (or least provide glorious entertainment). Certainly not the armed forces which are clearly the most poorly armed and least disciplined of all organizations

In his article at Quartz, Noah insists that Jessica Jones is (and I paraphrase here) a smart show but I think what he meant to say was that it’s a show with something (new?) to say which I guess is kind of an improvement over most things on TV which are generally vacuous, inane or some combination of both. So the “patriarchy” is violent, desirable, all consuming and almost irresistible—the hidden, unacknowledged evil running through society.  Does this mean that Jessica Jones is Pilgrim’s Progress for feminists, and frequently just as tedious? Why didn’t they just send me the 1000 word memo Noah wrote instead? It was  certainly more concise and less soporific. Oh, I know, it’s because Jessica Jones is meant to be an entertainment.

Noah has spent his binge watching hours screaming at poor Jessica to invest in noise cancelling ear phones or at least some thick cotton wool (answer in episode 10; it’s not the Killgrave of the comics we all know and love). He wonders why Daredevil or a hermetically-sealed Iron Man don’t come round to save the day. The answer to this last question, at least, is obvious. Marvel won’t let them. Or maybe this minor mass murderer is too insignificant for all the mutants, aliens, Inhumans, superheroes, or agents with futuristic weapons living in New York to bother with. And what about the mind control virus responsible for Killgrave’s powers? Probably a few steps down the Chain of Cretinousness from Midi-chlorians. The invention of Superman’s solar powered fuel cells seem like an act of prodigious sagacity by comparison.

Noah like so many others have wondered why it is so hard for people to believe in mind control in a world of galactic invasions and Asgardian Gods come to earth (with mind controlling abilities to boot)? Because if they did, we wouldn’t have this meaningful bash about rape trauma and violent revenge. Because it is all too clear that the makers of Jessica Jones have utter contempt for superheroics and the well tested internal logic which governs them. Which would be a most excellent thing if you weren’t accepting a paycheck from the overlords of the Marvel Universe.

Let’s be honest here—superhero comics are overwhelmingly idiotic. So utterly degraded that Brian Michael Bendis and Michael Gaydos’ first run of Alias (the comic in which Jessica Jones is introduced) was greeted like manna from heaven when it first hit the stands. Make no mistake, Alias is largely the kind of superhero police procedural Bendis has been fond of since his halcyon days on Powers; instantly forgettable and considerably inferior in almost every respect to the television adaptation. It should be noted, however, that all the central relationships in the television adaptation have been cribbed (and fleshed out) from the comics (Alias #24 to #28, “Purple”  Parts 1 to 5).

One rather curious thing about Bendis’ Alias was his determination not to make Jessica Jones a rape victim. One suspects a half-conscious reaction to the plethora of female rape (and murder) victims in the 80s superhero renaissance initiated by Miller and Moore (see Watchmen, The Killing Joke, Born Again, The Dark Knight Returns et al). In fact, the Jessica Jones of the comics makes it a point to tell Luke Cage that she was not raped—in the traditional meaning of the word—though she was certainly made to watch rape and murder, and thoroughly mentally abused in more vivid terms than shown in its adaptation. I doubt if there is another “living” Marvel heroine who has undergone a more traumatic experience than Jessica Jones. The television adaptation is less interested in hideous spectacle and more focused on rehabilitation and recovery, and is much the better for it.

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The inconsistencies, incoherence, and tumescence of the television series are all there to provide recurrent inconclusive confrontations as we await Killgrave’s inevitable demise in the final episode (he doesn’t die in the comics). The texture of the cloth seems fine but the presentation is nonsensical and aggravating. You have to be in the mood to give the creators broad license to throw away good sense in the name of preaching for you to enjoy this.

There is, however, one thing to say in Bendis’ favor (I think)—he’s not ashamed of the form. He bloody loves it. Jessica’s first case involves being tricked into spying on Steve Rogers (aka Captain America), and when she gets into trouble it is Matt Murdoch (aka Daredevil) who pulls her out of an interrogation session. Bendis has no truck with inconsistent power levels and Jessica doesn’t suddenly lose her ability to dish out measured love taps to humans without abilities; something which occurs in every other episode of the television series. Killgrave is in jail with lots of other super criminals in the comics and his utter vulnerability to Daredevil made fun of. As for Jessica Jones, it is her shame and embarrassment which prevents her from seeking the help of the Avengers more often (long story) and when Killgrave finally escapes, the havoc he creates is met by a response from the same team. A psychic defense trigger provided by an X-Man (Jean Grey) helps Jones defeat Killgrave.

Now let’s just sit back and think about this for a while. Can you imagine how stupid (not to mention impractical from a commercial perspective) all this would be for a “serious” TV show? You’d need a Class A creative mind to make all this work and also be intellectually stimulating, which is why something like Watchmen has become the perennial bat used to whack all comers who would label it undoable. How do you make a story about “real” life if there are superheroes and vigilantes running amok throughout America? The answer to this is quite simple—you can’t. They why they call it fucking fantasy, an altered reality in which all commonsense reactions to and explanations for everyday trauma go out the door. Contrary to what Noah writes in his Splice article, superheroes do in fact “change the world;” in myriad ways both harebrained and inventive. They just don’t do it on Jessica Jones.

Melissa Rosenberg’s debilitated answer to all this is a tincture of powers, the spoonful of fantasy to help the hard medicine of psychological stress (and the sermon of the day) go down. Because no one is going to binge watch a 13 episode series about a rape survivor but superheroes—they’re hot. If only we could make them more “serious.”  The recipe involves choosing one or all from the following triumvirate, the foundation stone of this Golden Age of TV:

(1) sex (2) sexual violence (3) violence

We can forget about the superpowers and the superheroes whenever it becomes inconvenient for our agenda of earnest meditation on the unhumorous. Well, how about this for a  suggestion—why bother making the damn superhero show at all.

Subtitled Love Affairs: Why Millions of Americans Prefer Korean Television

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Cityhunter promo poster optmzd

 
American television doesn’t want me anymore.

I realized this a couple years ago when I downloaded the first season of “Breaking Bad” for distraction on a plane flight. Although I admired the clever structure of the pilot, I discovered I wasn’t curious about what would happen next. Even though I’ve worked as a high school teacher and I carry debt for hospital bills, I couldn’t relate to Walter White. And perhaps because I’m a female writer in my late thirties, I thought Walter’s late-thirties writer wife Skylar was an unrecognizable stock character. I lost interest without finishing the short first season, and it’s still sitting on my hard drive whispering that I must be lacking in good taste.

The idea among television critics that we’re living in a “golden age” for American television overlooks the fact that some of us find critically-acclaimed American television boring. The shows that get the most buzz are smart, it’s true. But they aren’t necessarily entertaining. This isn’t a golden age of television for all Americans. It’s a golden age for people who prefer intricate plots over empathy. Who can enjoy a show even if they don’t like the characters.

Television can still move me deeply. But in the past year, the television producers who make it with me aren’t the guys in Hollywood or New York. It’s the guys in Seoul, South Korea.

I was surprised by my out-of-the-blue interest in Korea, which began while I watched the first episode of my first subtitled show. Internet video-streaming sites (including Netflix and Hulu) offer large libraries of these “K-dramas,” as English-speaking fans call them. And several million Americans are watching with me, though it’s hard to quantify the online viewership. One of the largest sites, New York-based Drama Fever, serves about six to seven million US viewers a month, of whom roughly 80% are native English speakers. That’s roughly the number of people who watched the penultimate episode of “Breaking Bad” in 2013. (Independent research firm comScore confirms the site’s audience is growing, but estimate the audience at a somewhat lower 3.4 million. For comparison, that’s roughly the average audience size for the first two seasons of Game of Thrones.) Most viewers are women, according to Drama Fever—and that’s about all we have in common. The audience includes all races and a variety of tastes.

The Wall Street Journal reported on the rise of subtitled Asian shows this summer with a touch of horror, but there’s no reason to look down on Korean television. After years of government investment in the industry, their production values are excellent. Their aesthetic is different from ours, which can be jarring in mediocre shows, and they can be as corny as a Frank Capra film bathed in the collected tears of Steven Spielberg. But when the cream rises to the top, the best shows are suspenseful, funny and heartfelt. And even though I don’t speak Korean and I’ve never visited Asia, the cultural differences are minor next to the fact that I can relate to the characters in a way I haven’t related to anyone on American television since Dana Scully and Buffy Summers left the air.

One reason to watch Korean series is for three-dimensional female characters. K-dramas have their fair share of stock characters, Korean versions of season one Skylar, but they also have a good record of developing great roles for women. The characters popular with fans in recent years include an ambitious pastry chef, a tough cross-dressing tomboy, a scatter-brained spirit medium and a cynical defense attorney.

Another thing drawing some women may be that popular Korean series have a much lower body count than popular American shows—roughly one-eighth corpse per episode (my unofficial estimate), versus the US rate of nearly five corpses per episode (three if you omit cable). Korean characters tend to die of illness or in car crashes, while most fictional American corpses are the result of murder or zombie apocalypse. The numbers themselves are less important than the narrative style they suggest. American television producers have faith in stories about crime, politics and violence—and they do a good job with these subjects. But it’s increasingly hard to imagine an American drama that doesn’t have crime, politics or violence. In contrast, South Korea makes prime-time one-hour shows about families, growing up, romance, friendship—the good stuff in life. Some series are comedies, some are weepy melodramas, but most of them touch in some way on the human capacity for mixed emotions. Here in the U.S., shows about families and romance tend to be placed in the 22 minute format time-slot, which officially makes them “comedies” by Emmy standards, even when a show like “Nurse Jackie” challenges the drama-comedy distinction.

It’s tempting to attribute Korea’s growing appeal to the declining number of female writers in American television. After all, 75% of American television pilots are developed by writing teams made up entirely of men, while the vast majority of writers for prime-time Korean series are female. Superstar writers like the Hong Sisters even become household names à la Aaron Sorkin. The worldwide hit romantic comedy “Coffee Prince” had a female director as well as writer. But this fact doesn’t explain much on its own. After all, it was male writer Joss Whedon who created a few of my favorite female television characters.

What distinguishes K-dramas isn’t their subject matter or the gender of their writers, but their tone—and it’s hard to ascribe a gender to tone. Korean series are less cynical. The heroes are idealists underneath their flaws. The anti-heroes aren’t quite as despicable. The loners aren’t quite as alone. These are all aspects of the central fact about K-dramas: they need to entertain a wide swath of the population to make money. The successful K-drama provides pleasure to as many people as possible—like American television did twenty years ago before DVRs and Netflix.

Korean television shows aren’t “gritty,” and this makes even their action thrillers very different from ours. The big 2011 hit “City Hunter”—based in name only on Tsukasa Hojo’s 1985-91 manga—looks pretty dark on paper. It follows a mysterious vigilante looking for justice against the men who caused his father’s death. Dozens of people die in the first ten minutes of the first episode. The first episode also features a terrorist bombing, a kidnapping of a baby, a bunch of commandos slitting throats, a noisy shootout at a Thai drug plantation, and a leg severed by a land-mine. Though the following episodes contain less killing, the plot still revolves around betrayal, manipulation and corruption. There are knife-fights, gunfights and a really cool walking cane with a sword concealed inside. In episode seven, we watch the hero dig a bullet out of his own shoulder.

But despite the violence—which is presented mildly enough for Korean network television—the show interrogates violence from an idealistic point of view we haven’t seen on American television since before Sept. 11. The hero, Yoon-Sung, is the adopted son of a ruthless drug kingpin who raised and educated him to be a professional revenge-seeker. But in the first episode he’s already questioning his father’s quickness to shoot first, ask questions later. The guy’s got great moves in combat, but he prefers to tie his enemies up, put them in a refrigerator box, and drop them off at the district attorney’s office along with conclusive evidence of their crimes. Take that! The emotional and moral heart of the 20-episode series quickly becomes the conflict between Yoon-Sung and his father over whether to achieve their goals through killing or MacGyver-esque stunts. And the MacGyver-esque stunts are way more fun to watch.

The style of humor in “City Hunter” also steers away from cynicism. Instead of relying on snarky one-liners, the show finds humor in the characters’ internal contradictions. It’s funny that Yoon-Sung’s earnest middle-aged sidekick is addicted to the home shopping channel. It’s funny that Yoon-Sung preserves his secret identity by pretending to be feeble in front of his judo-chopping girlfriend. Leading man Lee Min-Ho has great comic timing—he’s starred in more than one popular romantic comedy—making him an action hero more in the mold of a young Cary Grant than Vin Diesel.

And like Cary Grant in a Hitchcock movie, the hero often finds himself at the mercy of the women in his life. More than once the hero’s survival depends on his crush Kim Na-Na, a fifth-level black belt who works for the Korean equivalent of the Secret Service. She occasionally needs rescuing herself—she’s not quite Buffy—but she sometimes rescues the hero in turn. A second woman, a divorced veterinarian, provides crucial help (no spoilers here). And an important secondary narrative follows Yoon-Sung’s birth mother, whose life we learn about in flashbacks. These women aren’t accessories to the hero, but the people who make his success possible.

None of these elements—the idealism, the humor, the women with original personalities—are particularly “Korean” or calculated to appeal to women. We once found these things in abundance on American television. The idealism is particularly familiar. Our film and television spent the forties and fifties plumbing idealistic questions about the moral use of violence much like the ones in “City Hunter”—they’re at the heart of the classic Westerns by John Ford, Anthony Mann and Budd Boetticher. But today, these elements make for a thriller that feels unlike anything on American television right now. It’s a story about characters I want to root for.

Plenty of people enjoy America’s gritty shows. But a few million of us are bored by the joylessness on television. Before another long work week starts, we want someone to tell us a good story. If it’s a story that makes us feel like we’re living in a golden age of television, that’s even better. But first, tell us a story with characters we care for, with stakes that matter.

We didn’t leave American television. American television left us.

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Odessa Jones has a lot of degrees in a lot of subjects and she puts it all to good use in her commentary on subtitled Korean romances, including “City Hunter,” at K-Drama Today.

Why Mainstream Magazines Cover Game of Thrones

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This first appeared on Splice Today.
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Recently Dylan Matthews at Vox pointed out that not many people actually watch Game of Thrones, or Mad Men, or any of the most-critically-important-shows-on-television (TM). Instead, people watch NCIS, or Big Bang Theory, or, occasionally, reruns of Big Bang Theory or NCIS. One Sunday, in fact, a new Mad Men episode got fewer viewers than 8 different Law & Order SVU reruns.

So the question is, why do mainstream sites (like The Atlantic, or Salon, or Slate) cover certain shows obsessively while other, more popular shows, are ignored?

At first this may seem like a question that needs no particular answer. Critical enthusiasms and popularity are often at odds with each other. Critics loathed The Other Woman, but it did fine with the public; everybody it seems hates Justin Bieber except for all those millions of people who don’t. Critical darlings and popular favorites often don’t align; why should they here?

The thing is, though, that mainstream publications are in the business of getting clicks — and, as such, they actually do tend to often cover what is popular. The Atlantic writes about Beyoncé, and Star Wars, and Harry Potter and, Miley Cyrus. As far as films and music and YA novels go, the mainstream is right there with the unwashed, and/or washed hordes. But with television there’s a disconnect. How come?

I can’t answer that question specifically — but I think in general the choices people make about what is important in art have less to do with some sort of absolute critical/popular divide than they do with genre.

Folks usually think of genre as a convenient way to divide up art or literature, but the truth is that genre is a lot more than a categorization system. In fact, as Carl Freedman points out in his book Critical Theory and Science-Fiction, genre isn’t really a subset of art at all. Rather, art is a subset of genre. Hemingway’s novels are literature; Hemingway’s laundry lists are not. A judgment about what something is as genre precedes, and enables, the judgment of whether something is art — or, indeed, whether something is worth talking about at all.

The distinctions between NCIS and Breaking Bad may not look like a genre divide — both are dramas. But genres can actually be formed or coalesce in lots of different ways. The shows that get talked about tend to come from certain networks (HBO, Netflix) and have certain broad characteristics— as Kailyn Kent says, the Golden Age of Television could easily be called “The Golden Age of Gritty Shows About Conflicted Sociopaths.” The genre of television-worth-talking-about may not be specifically defined, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it can’t be used as a heuristic to decide what’s worth covering and what is a laundry list.

When you’re looking for it, you can see that genre distinctions actually affect coverage in lots of ways. It’s true that Harry Potter is extremely, awesomely popular — but Nora Roberts is extremely, awesomely popular too, selling twenty-seven books a minute according to a rare mainstream profile in The New Yorker. But you don’t see coverage of the latest Nora Roberts novels excitedly discussed at all the big websites. In part, perhaps, that’s because Nora Roberts novels don’t often get made into films — but that seems like it just begs the question, why don’t these incredibly popular novels get made into films?

There’s nothing innately wrong with using genre as a filter. In the first place, it’s unavoidable. Given the massive glut of culture sliding endlessly past our computer monitors, consumers and journalists alike need some way to sort through it. Genre’s a convenient rule-of-thumb; it tells you what might be of interest and what will make your eyes glaze over. In many cases, genre provides, not just a filter, but a community of like-minded folks, and even a self-description and an identity. To keep up with Mad Men or Orange Is the New Black is to be a particular kind of person, accepted into a certain kind of community and certain kinds of discussions. It’s a fandom. Genre shapes art, but it shapes people too.

The one danger of genre and of fandom is insularity. Again, genre sets the bounds not just of what you like, but of what you see as noteworthy or speakable. In that context, it can be easy to forget that other art, or other communities, exist. That can mean, as Vox suggests, that you start to think everyone is watching Mad Men rather than Big Bang Theory.

It can also dovetail, or reproduce other, less pleasant social divisions, though. Genres aren’t always as starkly linked to marginalized identities as the hillbilly/race records division was in the 1920s. But still, race, gender, and class, are often bound up in genre marketing and consumption, which means that ignoring certain genres in favor of others can have political and social implications. The fact that mainstream publications have so little interest in romance novels seems like it has something to do with the way that women, and femininity, are excluded from critical discussions in favor of more male-or-masculine-friendly genres, including YA novels in which the women heroes at least get to kill people. Along the same lines, it’s not exactly an accident that mainstream best music lists always seem to rate white rock (generally by guys) ahead of soul music or hip hop.

None of which is to say that folks shouldn’t like what they like, or shouldn’t pay attention to what they want to pay attention to. But it’s worth thinking about the way that what we like, and what we pay attention to, is often decided before we’ve really made a conscious choice about it. We like to think of art as opening possibilities. But it’s perhaps just as true to say that art, as genre, can often close us down, and make us narrower.
 

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