The Mindy Project (2012-Present)

 

Years watching The Office put The Mindy Project on my radar, and my adoration for Mindy Kaling helped me stick with this workplace rom-com through its early growing pains.  Though it took a bit of time to figure itself out, it’s shaped into a likeable, irreverently funny show. 

 

Kaling wears the multiple hats of creator, writer, and star in this sitcom.  Dr. Mindy Lahiri is equal parts dedicated doctor (an OBGYN in private practice,) flighty pop-culture addict, and cockeyed romantic optimist.  She grew up on a diet of romantic comedies, favoring the likes of When Harry Met Sally and You’ve Got Mail, and endeavors to manufacture her own rom-com moments in the story of her life.  Unfortunately for her, her dating life is insane at best and dreadful at worst, and her tendency to force perfect romantic moments isn’t entirely blameless on that front.

 

Mindy is absent-minded, frivolous, fiercely loyal, overdramatic, professionally adept, deeply loving, and more than a little self-absorbed.  In other words, she’s a wonderfully-drawn character with a nice balance of flaws and attributes, an entirely rootable character.  Since she’s played by Kaling, she’s of course Indian-American, and her ethnicity informs her character without defining it.

 

I’m not the biggest rom-com fan, but I’ve seen enough to know the beats, and Kaling has a fantastic knack for turning the conventions on their head.  All of Mindy’s attempts at the Big Moments are dashed by a harsh dose of reality.  She stands on the sidewalk to have a heart-to-heart with her boyfriend at his bedroom window, and all his neighbors eavesdrop and weigh in on the conversation.  A sexy shower for two, it turns out, is overly crowded, and it devolves into shoving, scattered shampoo bottles, and unflattering naked angles.  When she visits the Empire State Building on the days leading up to Valentine’s Day in the hopes of meeting someone on the observation deck, she’s grabbed by security (who think she may be scoping it out for a potential terrorist attack.)

 

The show is rounded out by an ensemble of quirky coworkers at Mindy’s practice.  My personal favorites are Morgan, a nurse, and Danny, a fellow doctor.  Morgan is an ex-con with a dim-witted heart of gold.  He collects best friends like they’re going out of style, and his brand of loyalty is unwavering, extremely hands-on, and often not entirely wanted.  Danny is a pessimistic curmudgeon, a divorcee with a cynical outlook on just about everything.  Despite this, he’s deeply sensitive, and when he opens up to someone, he lays himself bare.

 

In case the above description didn’t give it away, there’s just possibly a will-they-won’t-they thing going on between Mindy and Danny.  I really enjoy it – they’re friends first, and they get one each other’s nerves as often as they come to each other’s aid.  They have great chemistry (in my admittedly uninformed view,) and no matter what stage their relationship is in at any given time, the show always maintains its sly, character-driven sense of humor.

 

Warnings

 

Sexual content (including primetime-style sex scenes,) some language, drinking, and smoking.

Orange is the New Black (2013-Present)

*Disclaimer: Like Supergirl, Orange is the New Black is a fine show that does a lot of things really well but falls short in certain aspects. Namely, like way, way too many shows, it features multiple characters with disabilities played by able-bodied actors. Seriously, if characters with disabilities were cast appropriately, actors with disabilities would be all over Hollywood in prominent roles.*

 

After gushing over the utterly wonderful Poussey and Taystee, I figured I ought to write about the show in general.  Orange is the New Black was a slow starter for me; it began as a show to watch when I had time, but it grew addictive as it went on, and by the time I finished season 1, I was a definite fan.  I’m currently trying to figure out how I’ll pace myself when season 2 arrives, knowing I’ll have a full year to wait before getting any more.

 

In Orange is the New Black, Piper Chapman is taken from her cushy life when she’s called up for a decade-old crime  In her early 20s, she carried money for her then-girlfriend, an international drug smuggler, and she’s now been sentenced to 15 months in a medium-security federal prison for her sins.  At first, she approaches her situation intellectually, doing research on What to Expect When You’re in the Clink.  She plans to keep her head down, power through, and come out unchanged, where her fiancée and a season of Mad Man will be waiting for her.

 

Clearly, Piper has a few things to learn.  She’s instantly overwhelmed by the dehumanization, the loss of privilege and privacy.  She’s thrown into a culture where women don’t stray outside strict racial boundaries, the bathroom stalls don’t have doors, and any sign of disrespect (to inmates or staff members) invites danger.  Her habit of putting her foot in her mouth has her in constant hot water, and her usual method of conflict resolution – level-headed discourse – doesn’t fly here.

 

Likewise, Piper and her fiancée Larry see just how difficult it is to maintain their relationship with Piper in jail.  Piper’s entire world has turned upside-down, and Larry has no way to truly understand what she’s going through.  Matters are further complicated when Piper realizes she’s incarcerated with Alex, the ex-girlfriend who presumably informed on her.  Despite the obvious bad blood between the two, there’s a magnetic pull to their interactions, and Piper’s thoughts about the alluring, untrustworthy woman do her head in.

 

Aside from the central characters, the show is populated by a stellar ensemble of fellow inmates.  Their lives and stories are revealed gradually, initial stereotyped impressions reshaping into women who are deftly drawn and well thought out.  Each episode includes a flashback or two about one character’s pre-prison life, and it’s great to see different facets of these women and get a glimpse of what started them down the path to their current predicament.  The show’s greatest strength is this unique, complex, and sympathetic cast of characters.  They are of different ages, races, social classes, orientations, national origins, and abilities.  They wrestle with hopelessness, power struggles, indignity, mental illness, rights of gender identity, betrayal, and corruption, to name just a few.  They also fall in love, adopt fierce loyalties, chase the things that make them feel normal, and find reasons to laugh.  The show uses them to put stunningly-individual faces to the often faceless circumstance of the imprisoned.  If Piper moved steadily down my list of favorites throughout the season, it’s only because I kept finding more to love among the supporting players.

 

Warnings

 

Swearing, sexual content (including nudity, sex scenes, and masturbation,) substance abuse, some violence, racist and homophobic slurs, and frank depiction of bodily functions.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead (1966)

 

(Although the above picture is from the 1990 film adaptation, this post is about the play itself.)

 

This extraordinary play introduced me to Tom Stoppard years ago.  I’d rented the movie sight unseen, knowing that I liked Gary Oldman and it presumably had something to do with Hamlet, and immediately fell in love.  I was quick to seek out the script and check out more from Stoppard.  After reading the Coast of Utopia trilogy next, I definitely had a favorite playwright.

 

The story of Hamlet is turned inside out here, told through the eyes of his old school friends.  Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, enlisted to “glean what afflicts” the mad young prince, play minor roles in Shakespeare’s play but still meet messy ends.  In this tale, they’re given center stage, muddling uncertainly through their task and heading inexorably toward their tragic finish. 

 

It’s an interesting viewpoint.  I’ve seen this technique before, although it’s more typically a story reworked from the villain’s perspective.  Rosencrantz and Guildenstern aren’t nefarious, and in Hamlet, they’re far from dynamic.  Essentially, they’re pawns in a royal game with little agency of their own.  However, both are of course the protagonists of their own lives, and as such, the play reframes Hamlet to be entirely about them.

 

The play has a strong absurdist bent, part of which comes from their unconscious knowledge that they’re minor characters in someone else’s play.  Left alone onstage too long, they grow antsy for someone more important to appear.  They despair at how little impact they seem to have on events and yearn for something meatier to work with.  “All we get is incidents!” Rosencrantz exclaims.  “Dear God, is it too much to expect a little sustained action?!”  Additionally, their generic interchangeability in Shakespeare’s play is magnified here – no one can tell them apart, to the point where Rosencrantz and Guildenstern themselves are no longer sure which is which.

 

Besides this nudging of the fourth wall, great absurdity and surrealism can be found in the incidental dialogue.  The pair’s actual scenes from Hamlet play out fairly verbatim, but between these scenes are long segments of the two of them basically waiting for something more to happen.  In these sequences, they obviously discuss their situation and try in vain to influence the proceedings, but that just scratches the surface.  They also play word games, philosophize, pick fights with tragedians, tell jokes, and challenge the laws of both probability and fate.

 

This is where the play truly lives.  Stoppard’s sparkling, whip-smart wit comes fast and furious, dancing nimbly between wry, outrageous, and reflective.  There are so many excellent scenes worth mentioning – the game of questions, roleplaying their confrontation with Hamlet, and Rosencrantz’s “dead in a box” speech are a few highlights.  The hapless leading men have an easy, bickering back-and-forth that rival any comedy duo alive or dead.  Rosencrantz’s eager-but-dim logic complements Guildenstern’s penchant for overly-complicated chains of thought, and the two squabble their way through the play with pitch-perfect timing.  Yet, for all that they get on one another’s nerves, they both know that they’re in this impossible, inscrutable situation together, and they always have each other’s backs in the end.

 

Warnings

 

Sexual references and a little swearing.

The Lego Movie (2014, PG)

Seriously, now – no judgment.  I begrudgingly saw this movie with friends, but I truly enjoyed it a lot.  Far from being what I’d thought it’d be (a long, high-budget toy commercial,) The Lego Movie is actually a fun, inventive film with creative visuals, some nice themes, and sly humor.

 

Let’s start with the plot, which is way more 1984-meets-The-Matrix-meets-Toy-Story than I’d expected.  Emmett is an average Lego living an average life, doing precisely what he’s told.  He’s been fully indoctrinated into a society ruled by instructions:  follow the steps for proper assembly, be friendly and productive, consume prefab popular art, and inform on any dissenters with a cheerfully clear conscious.  Little does he know that the administration of the unscrupulous president is built on a foundation of harsh interrogations, uncharged detainees, and merciless executions.  Likewise, he has no idea that there are other worlds beyond the boundaries of his own, where an underground collective of Master Builders assemble according to no one’s rules and await the arrival of a prophesied hero known as The Special.

 

Until, that is, an unexpected tumble puts Emmett in contact with the non-regulation Piece of Resistance and he’s pulled into a chaotic, whirlwind adventure by a fetching young Master Builder.  Soon, there’s a price on his head, he’s breaking between worlds, and a genuine wizard is trying to tap into innate leadership qualities the prophecy says he has.  The only problem is that Emmett couldn’t be more unqualified for the job.  He likes following the instructions, he loves being told what to think, and his own ideas aren’t exactly brimming with creativity.  He, and his newfound followers, start to worry that there’s been a mistake.

 

It’s a wonderfully funny film that smartly mines the tropes of dystopian fiction and skewers fantasy/sci-fi conventions about a promised Chosen One; it pokes fun at films that take their own lore too seriously by constantly letting the air out of its mythos.  Additionally, there are plenty of nostalgic classic-Legos jokes for enthusiasts, as well as an undercurrent of adult humor that goes over the kids’ heads.  The movie also has some thoughtful moments, exploring themes of team work, creativity, and individual worth.  These bits can be a little obvious – we’re not talking Pixar pathos here – but the heart is always in the right place.

 

The animation is impressive, capturing the look and feel of a stop-motion feature.  The movie does a lot of playing with the nature of a Lego world, and the visuals take full advantage of that.  It’s great to watch characters tweak their getaway vehicles on the go, repurposing pieces to make a motorcycle into a plane.  The limited mobility of Lego people gets a few laughs, and the detail in the animation is pretty incredible.

 

Plenty of big names lend their voices to the film.  Chris Pratt and Elizabeth Banks are our anchors, with Will Ferrell, Liam Neeson, and Morgan Freeman as major players.  Will Arnett is a standout as a tool-ish Lego Batman, and there are fun appearances by Alison Brie, Charlie Day, and Jonah Hill, among others.

 

Warnings

 

Some Lego violence, a few dark themes, and a little disguised adult humor.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2005)

What’s this – review déjà vu?  Au contraire; what we have here is the original Winter Soldier arc from the Captain America comics, in a series of stories by Ed Brubaker.  Even before I saw (and loved) the film, I’d heard rumblings online about how great the comic storyline was, and after I’d seen it, it was clear that this story couldn’t remain unread.

 

Luckily, I was able to track down a nice trade paperback of the collected comics with only minimal scrounging, and I read all thirteen issues in one sitting.  In other words:  yeah, I’d say it’s worth a read.  Don’t go into it expecting the movie, because it’s not, but it’s a heck of a story.  I can’t quite picturing being a longtime Cap fan reading it as it was first unfolding.

 

Let’s just get this out of the way first – the main story is completely different from the movie.  It’s super comic-book-y, with clones and magic doomsday devices and phantom Nazis.  This was my first “regular” comic book experience, and I wasn’t quite ready for how out there it is.  I’m mostly used to Doctor Who comics, which basically tell the same stories the show would if it had the budget to pull off the enormous scopes and incredible visuals.  But Marvel is a different animal.  The comics go into all sorts of wild stuff that the films wouldn’t touch, and it took a little getting used to, but I definitely enjoyed it.  However, I’ll cop to chuckling when a character would offer a big info-dump about back when So-and-So returned from the dead or lost their mind or inexplicably turned evil.  What a long, immensely complicated history they have.

 

So, we’ll stick with the basics.  At this point in the comics, as in the films, Cap is in the 21^st century.  He’s working uneasily alongside his ex Sharon Carter, trying to thwart a deviously tangled evil plan from a menacing baddie.  On the way, he’s disturbed by ghosts of his past, and he can’t figure out if they’re dreams, lies, memories.  A more tangible threat comes in the form of the Winter Soldier, a legendary assassin who seems to anticipate his every move.  With his incredible skills, ruthless efficiency, and brute force, the Soldier is a foe to be reckoned with.

 

If you’ve seen the movie, then you know who the Winter Soldier is and realize the violence, cabals, and cosmic cubes are just window dressing for the much more personal story between these two.  This is where the plot shifts from an inventive page-turner to a riveting gut-punch, where I can see why fans went into a frenzy of anticipation when Marvel first announced the title of the new movie.  Cap’s discovery of the Winter Soldier’s identity, and the comic’s slow exploration of the Soldier’s past, is simply stunning.  An entire issue is spent revealing this history through heartbreaking flashbacks framed by a dispassionate confidential report, and Cap is carried to the end of the story on a sea of conflicting emotions that threatens to rule his mind.

 

Reading the story, I realized that, as much as I loved the movie, it really just touches on the richness of this plot.  In the film, Cap’s reaction to the Winter Soldier and their subsequent interactions are spot-on, but the background of the Soldier himself is only given in glimpses.  I hope that future Captain America movies delve deeper into the revelations of this amazing arc.

 

Warnings

 

Tons of comic book violence, including a little gore, and some pretty heavy subject matter.

MIKA: The Boy Who Knew Too Much (2009)

Really, once you take a shine to MIKA, a single album isn’t going to be enough.  Not long after I bought Life in Cartoon Motion, I moved on to his sophomore release.  New album, same story:  delightful earbugs, joyous beats, and playful lyrics.  It’s made frequent appearances in my car’s CD player ever since I got it, and I will admit to some entirely ridiculous, coordination-less dancing in my apartment with the blinds shut.

 

You’ve already heard my rundown on MIKA and what he’s about, so I won’t spend much time rehashing.  As much as I love Life in Cartoon Motion, I have to say, I think The Boy Who Knew Too Much is even stronger.  It’s a more mature album without some of the roughness of MIKA’s previous outing.  While a few numbers on the first album had to grow on me, pretty much every track on this one grabbed me right out of the gate.

 

Things get off to a big, celebratory start with “We Are Golden.”  The opening chorus immediately jumps out of the speaker and grabs your attention, anthemic as it is catchy.  MIKA’s vocals are perhaps at their most audacious here, leaping into falsetto at the drop of a hat and sailing back down just as easily.  The song brims with energy and commotion, and a boisterous children’s choir adds extra enthusiasm to the title line.  Plus, there’s the lyric “Looking for treasure / In the things that you threw – / Like a magpie, / I live for glitter, not you,” which is just fantastic.

 

And we’re off!  There’s the sleekly syncopated “Blame It on the Girls,” the sing-along “Dr. John,” and the cathartic “One Foot Boy.”  As with Life in Cartoon Motion, there are a few slower numbers, most notably “I See You.”  The song tells the story of someone who’s loved from afar, afraid to take a chance and risk breaking the illusion.  Its gentle, wistful melody builds as the song reaches its ultimate conclusion of “I’m standing across from you. / I’ve dreamt alone, now dreams won’t do.”  Another especially interesting piece is “Toy Boy.”  The light, jaunty tune belies the sad story of its lyrics, about a wind-up toy mourning his lost love.  The toy “had a boy once who loved [him],” but his boy’s “mama thought there was something wrong” with it and surmised that he’d “be better with a Barbie girl.”

 

Far and away, though, my favorite song on the album is “Good Gone Girl.”  It’s the cautionary tale of a fresh-faced “good girl” who went to California in searching of the big time and ended up chasing the company of anyone who’d provide for her.  Asking how she could’ve come to this, MIKA encourages her to remember where she came from, and to “dance to the life you wanted / When you were only seventeen / with your good-girl dream.”  By all accounts, it’s an unhappy story, but the music is so ridiculously catchy that I literally have a hard time moving on from it; when I’m listening to the album, I usually repeat this one at least a couple times before I make it to the next track.

 

All in all, the album is just put together splendidly.  There’s no dead weight, it’s full of engaging, danceable tunes, and despite its more polished feel, it maintains the playfulness of MIKA’s debut.  Just a top-notch follow-up; I love it!

Let’s Talk About Diversity…

The entries I posted last weekend got me thinking – about media diversity of all types, and about myself – and I realized it was time for a “check your privilege” moment.  

 

I recognize the social power of stories, especially on TV.  I’m always on the lookout for strong, dynamic female characters, and I know how beneficial visibility can be for members of any minority group.  As a white, able-bodied American from a good socio-economic background, I clearly won a lot of societal jackpots.  Still, I know I’m hyperaware of portrayals of women, in a way that my brothers aren’t.  I know how aggravating it can be to have a woman relegated to girlfriend status, and I notice how often “strong woman” translates to “conventionally attractive woman with many traditionally-masculine traits/attitudes.”  I don’t generally see female characters who look like me – women with my body type, obviously, women who don’t like makeup, women with a penchant for nerdy T-shirts and jeans that fit comfortably.

 

It wasn’t until recently, when I started deploring the dearth of asexual characters out there, that I really began to yearn for representation.  It’s one thing to want female characters I can root for, or celebrate diverse casts in the abstract; it’s quite another to realize “I don’t see any characters who are like me.”  There’s something so cathartic about seeing Poppy from Huge.  Even though she has a minor role and won’t be cracking any lists of my favorite characters, knowing that she’s there is so powerful.  I didn’t quite know how much I needed her character until I saw her.

 

After writing about Taystee and Poussey, I struck by my own relative viewer-privilege.  Even though I’m always more likely to tune into a show with a diverse ensemble, and I keep an eye on how shows treat their minority characters, I have major blind spots.  Before I started craving openly asexual characters, I see that I took my otherwise fairly easy-to-find representation for granted.  I don’t have to search for white, able-bodied American women on TV.  They’re just there.  In vast swathes of the TV I watch (save the “American” part when it comes to British shows,) they’re just there.  I’m sure they always will be.  Even now, though, there are still shows without any regular characters of color, queer characters, or characters with disabilities, and many that do don’t feature them as protagonists.  Regarding Poussey and Taystee, I’m sure there are women who crave compelling black female characters like I do asexuals, and it sucks that representation isn’t readily available for them.  As much as I like this pair, how much more wonderful must they be to someone who’s really aching for their presence on TV!

 

Also, while Poussey is easily my favorite on Orange is the New Black, I’m honestly not sure if I would have sought out a show solely about her, Taystee, Crazy Eyes, Sophia, and Miss Claudette.  It’s absurd to think, because I love these awesome women’s stories.  But it occurs to me that I may seek out diverse ensembles and grumble when the minority characters are portrayed lazily or unfairly, but I don’t make an effort to find shows expressly about minority characters.  I’ve only watched a few shows with a mostly-LGBTQ ensemble or a disabled protagonist (although I know the pool for the latter is shockingly limited, and the practice of hiring able-bodied actors to play disabled characters is far too rampant,) and I’ve never followed a show that doesn’t have any white characters as regulars.  I don’t know why; it’s not as if I’m hurting for white, able-bodied American representation elsewhere, so why do I not gravitate toward these shows?  There’s no reason for it, and it’s not something that I want to be true of me.