Television

Indymisanthrope said:
The persona from previous specials is mostly gone, or at least subdued. In fact I think one of the most interesting elements is that he obliquely discusses his own issues by examining his past act’s reliance on other problematic artists for material.

Whether he’s really taken everything to heart, or staged the whole thing to feel stripped-down and raw to demonstrate the right amount of humility, it’s hard to say. I’m really interested to see whether others here think this is sincerity or not (also taking into consideration that this is within the context of a touring act, and that necessarily makes it a mix of sincerity, and acting sincere, to replicate the experience from night to night).

I’m rooting for him to figure out a way through this. I didn’t think the things he was accused of made him irredeemable on the level of people like Louie or Ryan Adams. He’s a test case for how a potential redemption can potentially play out, and how much of it has to occur in the public eye in order for us to accept it as valid.
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That is the crux of every one of these public apologies of what I'll call the lower tier of accused Hollywood *predators* and their scripted public apologies which have been screened by a publicist, agent, and so on and so on and so forth. It's hard to believe someone has "healed" when their schtick, their meal ticket, and their private indiscretions are so intertwined.

*(I'm not sure predator is the right word but I'm at a lack of how to sum up all the character traits and situations that cause these people to act the way they do)
 
Indymisanthrope said:
Yeah, 100% agreed, but I'm also compelled by these other two points on the other side:
1. It's part of a comedy act in this specific case, so of course the whole thing has been written, polished, staged, rehearsed, and performed several times. Many times what we, the general public, are seeing is the final product, where the emotional aspect has to be called up and performed despite the performer having already worked through some of those emotions privately, and a long time ago. That performance is sometimes for our benefit, so that we can move on, as much as it is for the performer's.
2. Externalizing our internal lives necessarily involves some degree of artifice. Trying to tell someone how you've changed, without having the means to show them, requires a performer to lean on the strength of the performance to convey more than the words can alone if they want to have any hope of convincing the people who are listening.

I'm not going to mount a full-throated defense of the guy or anything, but it's an interesting discussion, I think. As much as I felt like he did a decent job, a whole other part of me was seeing the schematics of everything that had been orchestrated to make me feel like he'd done a decent job.
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Not going to discuss this to death either. Just commenting those are interesting points to consider. It's like seeing the puppet, the metaphorical strings and the puppeteer all embodied in the same person.
 
Four episodes into the new season of Queer Eye and I was pretty skeptical. Dunno if my expectations of the show are too high, but the subjects felt like decent people who had their lives 80% together, and just needed a haircut, some clothes, and help organizing a community event.

Then I hit the fifth episode...

Something as simple as taking a 60 year-old man to adopt a dog had me in tears. Like sobbing uncontrollably. Well played.
 
Indymisanthrope said:
Did anyone else get the sense that
Mrs. Dooley didn't really want to do this at all, but in an ironic twist knew that accepting a celebration of 'her' would ultimately benefit her community more than herself?
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Exactly! I guess I chalked it up to the fact that they kept everything centered on the school (seems like if their goal was to get Ms. Dooley to focus on herself, it would be good to make changes which actually encourage work-life balance), but it didn't feel much like they dug into Ms. Dooley herself beyond "she puts a lot of work into the school so they should make her the center of attention," and "that haircut needs an update."

That said, she was adorable, and of those first four episodes I was the most emotional for that one because we can all relate to teachers needing more recognition, and I have a soft spot for authority figures telling grown adults they're proud of the person they've become.
 
I know TBS renewed The Search Party for a 3rd season a while back, so, when the hell is it actually coming back? Not like they have a ton of visual effects to work on for that show. I enjoyed the show, but it has been so long that I don't even remember where the story left off. I kind of remember, but when you go a year and a half (plus) between seasons, people are going to forget. And lose interest.
 
Aron said:
I know TBS renewed The Search Party for a 3rd season a while back, so, when the hell is it actually coming back? Not like they have a ton of visual effects to work on for that show. I enjoyed the show, but it has been so long that I don't even remember where the story left off. I kind of remember, but when you go a year and a half (plus) between seasons, people are going to forget. And lose interest.
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I thought the same thing last week...still not even a hint of when it will come back.
 
Update on the Aziz comedy special. I tried to watch it, but I only made it through about 10 minutes for two reasons.

1) I can't listen to his shrill voice for more than that amount of time and the volume control was atrocious. I had to crank the volume to hear his awkward whispered apology and would then get blasted with his shrill nasal excited scream once the "jokes" started.

2) I still can't separate the art and the artist (cliché I know) for the same reasons @Indymisanthrope gave. It's canned, it's part of the act, that is to say it's been rehearsed and he's doing it on a stage where people paid money to sit and watch him. It just felt kind of cringey for lack of a better word.

Maybe I'll give it another shot tonight. Maybe...
 
I watched the Aziz stand up and have mixed feelings about it. I agree with most of his points about how we as a society handle scandal but thought the majority of his stuff about himself was weak. I also think most apologies are weak tho, especially celebrity ones, so I dont know what he could of said or done to make it any better.
 
Indymisanthrope said:
At the same time, he also just...doesn't really apologize at all. Instead, he acknowledges that he's been looking at his own life with "2019 glasses" or whatever he calls them, both his private behavior and his public career, and can't really do anything about it except try to live a better life. He does try to ride the fence a little bit with the bits about what our thresholds are for condemning someone based on their past behavior. But ultimately, I'd rather have what he gave, an explanation of how an eye-opening event really makes you take an inventory of your past and what you want to leave behind, than an apology (that he doesn't really owe to us anyway).
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Oh I know, I didnt say he apologized, and I dont think he needs to apologize to the public, because he didnt wrong us, he wronged that woman, and a comedy special isnt the place to apologize to her. He was trying to win back favor with the public tho, which is essentially the only reason celebrities do apologize, which is why I made that connection
 
Indymisanthrope said:
Anybody watch the new Aziz Ansari special on Netflix? I saw that he had taken a little bit of heat in some early reviews for not addressing the accusations made against him to the reviewers' satisfaction, but I actually thought it was a fairly thoughtful hour. Most of it really is addressing how we deal with our problematic faves, including him. I thought he addressed it about as candidly as I could have expected while still making it a stand-up special, and without making the accusations the subject of the jokes themselves (aside from one kinda cringey moment in the first couple of minutes).

I was curious, because out of everybody who has been outed in the Me Too era, Aziz is one of the ones I was watching for the most, to see how and what he would do in the aftermath. I ended that special thinking that he *sounds like* he gets it, even if he's not discussing it publicly, in detail. Does he apologize or admit culpability? Not in the special. But he does talk a lot about reflecting on what kind of person he's been, and trying to do better. Of course, he centers himself in that, and not the person who made the accusations against him, but again, within the context of stand-up comedy I'm kind of relieved that the comments he did make weren't targeted at or about her in any way. It's not the right setting for that. I don't know; it's walking a very tricky tightrope, but I thought he did an okay job.

Anybody else? How did you feel about it?
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I thought the way he handled it was great. He didn't make his issues the focal point of the whole hour. He kept me entertained and really hit me in the feels when he got serious at the end. A well thought out and executed special imo and Spike Jonze on camera always adds a lil extra for me
 
I'm just gonna say that I haven't watched a bad episode of Black Mirror Season 3 yet. Probably some of the best sci-fi television in terms of story and production.

Finished Black Museum last night (season 4) and the imagination in developing that story line is incredible. I think that monkey will give me existential nightmares forever.
 
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