i am a lover of pop culture. sometimes, i am watching a tv show or a film, or listening to some song, and i'm like, dang, do others experience this like i do? do others also share these thoughts?
this blog hopes to encourage consumers to be critical of all the while loving pop culture.
my biggest, longest celebrity crush is probably joshua jackson. dawson's creek was a huge part of my early adolescence and pacey was just a really attractive character. he was the boy that went against everything that your parents would have wanted for you, but you also got to see this side of him that was tender, sweet, whatever, just that he mattered in all the right ways.
so it's really refreshing to see joshua jackson portraying peter bishop on fringe. peter does bear some resemblance in character to pacey, but peter has also hugely matured on the show. in fact, peter feels like this culmination of the maturation of pacey, like seeing how this really great person can come out of growing up with this same personal backbone.
maybe i'll elaborate some more some other time. i couldn't really find a lot of video clips that can support my point, and it's also just something that i came to conclude after having watched both these shows so thoroughly. watching joshua jackson portraying these two roles over time makes me really curious to get to know him on a more personal level.
the best kind of music stays with you even way past when you first heard it, right? and with regards to artists, the best kind of artist produces work that evolves along with you, whatever path you are taking. i wouldn't say that beyonce and i are on the same trajectories in life, but i would agree that we are going through our 20s in our ways and her music has often included enough cushion room for me to enjoy in my own trajectory. so in a way, we were growing together through her music.
the other day, i heard "crazy in love" on the radio and it just hit me clearly -- bey has really evolved in the kind of music she produces. yes, she may be still be in the same genre, but the content and substance has really evolved. her debut as a solo artist was a continuation of themes emerged from destiny's child, that is, what it means to be an independent woman going through love, etc. and then we went from falling "crazy in love" to affirming ourselves in our breakups:
temporality is an important theme here, because love, as constructed from beyonce's earlier singles, is momentary, wonderful, creative, thematic, and perhaps even transitional. but we begin to see a departure with beyonce's more recent work, starting w/ i am... sasha fierce:
instead, we begin to see the themes of marriage and permanence. the lyrical metaphors are less extended and more settled. the emotional control of her songs are stronger. they depict an independent woman who is sure of her emotions, who knows how she can "upgrade somebody" because she's done it. we begin to see a subtle undergirding of vulnerability in her songs, like in "halo":
the direction of her music -- even if predictable -- is a heartfelt evolution. i really appreciate it. and we begin to see that music is used not only to stay in a moment, as her earlier songs functioned as, but as a heralding and as a reflection. for example, "best i never had" is largely about learning to look back on a mistake and closing a book with finality:
again, temporality emerges as a theme, and this time, there's an urgency about permanence, about time being wasted and better spent. and "love on top" (as performance on mtv) served as a kind of heralding of motherhood:
now with the addition of baby blue ivy carter, it will be interesting to see what creative decisions beyonce makes with her music. :)
this was a partial culmination of the nation's past two weeks of #linsanity. it's so refreshing, not to see an asian american athlete in the news (because are we really still there?), but to experience an asian american story in the news across our multiple experiences as asian americans. this story is no longer an ethnic-specific interest circulating in asian american circles and blogs but one that crosses into the mainstream & the chinese immigrant communities that i also knew that operate in cantonese rather than english. like my family in new york. AND the people we live around.
seeing (or rather, feeling the impact of seeing) jeremy lin play on the knicks is like giving new meaning to some real feelings i had growing up. i think back to how my dad is like crazy in love w/ basketball and how i tried getting into it to bond with my dad. now i'm thinking, what kind of narratives are possible in a world where there are more jeremy lins? like how many different pairs of fathers and sons could there be, whose stories of family, of immigration & acculturation, are intertwined w/ a love for basketball (and new york)? i love getting texts from my mom about how they're so into the knicks.
so of course, when some people got too nervous and immature about race & did something stupid about how they couldn't handle it, the party got a lil sour. at this point, i don't think anyone's really trying to side w/ the unfortunate headline from espn. but i do think there are interesting nuances among how we all feel antagonistic toward the headline.
like was it just a really unfortunate headline? "espn, let's cut it out and get back to the game."
was it real racist? "espn, what's up w/ the ideology going around in your network?"
or was it more tired? "espn, really?! really, y'all?! stop fucking it up for rest of us!!!"
the snl sketch is actually really interesting because people's interpretations or responses do have those kinds of nuances. i read on one blog that the video parodied (as in, poked fun at) the asian stereotyping "without taking it too far." like can you imagine what lines of thinking around this video exist out there?
"haha they're making fun of those douchebags who made the headline/used it on air. ok sure."
or maybe something like, "yeah, it was as stupid as this looks. i'm over it."
or like, "what's up with the pairing w/ comments about black athletes? #newconversations"
anyway, i'm actually gonna start watching knicks games now. i haven't really watched an nba in its entirety since i was a teenager. kinda crazy how this came to be, but it's a nice feeling!
come to think of it, there aren't many current shows that i've had a long and continuous viewership for. many of them have been canceled. and w/ those shows, i've had periods of serious interest and also some periods of low interest. still, over time i've come to enter a new place with the development of those shows in a way that i haven't with many other shows that i watch, a place where the plot has evolved such that only longtime viewers can really understand the gravity of the plot as it is now. fringe is one of those shows. (lost was the first of those shows for me.)
we started off just trying to make connections across these weird cases that came to the fringe division of the FBI. then we see lots of character development that was even tied to premise of the show, related to the string of really strange cases. and slowly, the show introduced us to a parallel universe that was "foreign" and suspicious, perhaps even hostile. there were attempts to infiltrate anther universe. there were interdependent damages happening to both universes.
and now, we are entering a new chapter, where the 2 universes are coming together to fight over a common enemy, an "outsider" (of the FBI or dept. of homeland security) that has infiltrated both universes. and we are seeing these conversations among characters that are taking us to new heights in the ways we are conceptualizing their relationships to each other.
so much of this story of parallel universes was that walter went to another universe to "rescue" his son from the other universe. the concept of an individual was so centralized/centered that it transcended universes. peter there is the same as peter here. that was the assumption. that was the idea. and gradually, all the players have come to grow to understand otherwise, that peter here can never be peter there, even if all else seems familiar. rather, what ties us together are the emotional bonds we create with one another. if you don't remember me, then i'm in the wrong universe.
there were two particular scenes that really took us there. one was between peter and his mother, who passed away earlier on in "our" universe but lives on in the "other" parallel universe. she has really come to terms w/ the realities of the existence of parallel universes that aren't so discrete anymore, such that she has comforted herself hoping that even though she lost a child, she can know that in another universe her son may be alive and well. and when another peter comes to her life, she can say it is a different peter indeed but that she would still help him. the relatable complexity of that connection really takes us as viewers into a new place about the show. it was done at the stretch point of our zone of proximal development (ZPD) and takes us into another way of thinking about the world we live in. we can be only speculative about how far we get with the ideas from the show, but it certainly suggests another clear way of thinking about our world and this world of television.
for a few episodes earlier this season, i was losing momentum for the show. but catching up the last few episodes, i got into it again. and i couldn't have gone it without how the show has prepped me for it.
did y'all watch season 2 of work of art, the reality contest show for artists? when i was in new york for the holidays, i saw that kymia's exhibit was being featured at the brooklyn museum, and i decided to watch the new season, which i am so glad to have done!
there are 4 particular contestants that i came to love and cheered on through the end:
kymia is this iranian american artist who saw her father die in a lake and is on the autism spectrum. she was very receptive to feedback and really tried to take the opportunity as one to grow from, which wasn't something that every other artist on the show shared.
dusty is this middle america art teacher who is so removed from what is conventionally considered as "the art world," right? he definitely brings this element of country (as in country music) to the show, and it's very sincere and open-minded. not the bigoted america that we find in middle america politically, but a warm middle america that is genuinely concerned about the day-to-day well being of his community. he made a piece of art that was specifically about the foreclosures across america and collaborated w/ another artist on parenthood. in one scene, he talked about how he's never lived w/ a gay guy, but he did it as a matter-of-fact declaration rather than an anxious confession. i like that. he has a mullet too.
young is this gay korean (?) american artist who's a little quirky but is really thoughtful about his work. i love that he isn't afraid to put himself in his art, and he just really brought his A game to the show. dusty and young collaborated on this really great mural/street art challenge on parenthood and he usually infuses an element of politics and identity in his work, which i love.
sara jimenez is this multiracial artist who is understatedly talented on the show. she didn't have a loud personality but she also really approached her work really thoughtfully. over the course of the season, we saw her really dive into the challenges, ranging from revisiting some painful childhood experiences (and taking risks in her artwork based on that) to exploring new materials in her final collection for the show. i came away from the show really respecting and admiring her.
what i loved about this season is that all those artists made it really far in the season. their work was consistently personal, political, and purposeful. i don't really have an expertise in art but i do understand what it's like to have ownership over your work and i really connected w/ those artists on that level. they understood and were committed to making a labor of love.
there were other artists whom i didn't feel so warm about. i appreciated bayete but i did have to agree w/ bill powers when he critiqued bayete's work as having little substance, even if the subject of the art was more loaded, complex, and controversial. i feel like i should appreciate leon more than i actually did, because his story as a singaporean deaf artist is pretty interesting. tewz was pretty cool, but i didn't think he was as mentally ready to engage w/ the process on the show.
there was one artist who really got on my nerve! lola. she just reminded me of all these "artistic" people i went to high school with. she were certainly talented, but didn't really have this serious relationship to art. it felt like she was still fumbling around a lot, whereas other artists had a sharper focus and process. and she was immature, which is the ultimate pet peeve!
the street art episode was probably my favorite because i really appreciate street art. and this is one of those topics where sentiments really illustrate a lot of underlying assumptions about someone's social consciousness, right? is street art just ghetto? is it deeper? is it respectable? if so, how is it used to offer substance? how you approach the challenge does say something about how you "essentialize" or define the art form.
kymia and sara jimenez collaborated on a piece that illustrated the uprooting of their families from another homeland to america. dusty and young made the piece about losing/becoming a parent. LOVED that. (and from my genuine praise of dusty, i hope you can conclude that i actually don't have this blind, unconditional bias toward the artists of color.)
lola and sarah, instead, made this whimsical piece w/ penises and fantastical animals. it's a cute idea and had little to no substance. and at the critique, lola kept using this motif of street art as mischievousness or illegality in her explanation. it was really shallow an analysis of the challenge and of the art. street art--me coming from a school of thought that respects urban culture as intellectually rigorous--is not necessarily marked by this construction of illegality or even mischievous. to me, it's an expression of public space, of community. it's a stain of an experience. and i'm really glad that the judges chose to critique from that viewpoint.
and china chow. i would just love to sit down and chat w/ her about multicultural america and the art world. i really feel like she must have cultivated this really deep analysis about the world on that sociopolitical level and really embraces the diversification of the art world, not just in demographics but of the range of experiences that are thoughtfully explored in the artwork. we see hints of that here and there, especially when she gets emotional.
i have been on a rihanna binge. i was really reluctant to get this new album because my first preview wasn't so hot. but then i heard "you da one" and started getting HOOKED. it just reminded me of the positivity and youthfulness that were reminiscent of the brilliance of "what's my name." this song follows "what's my name" in that it is making a statement about the wonderful feeling of love, or near-love. love isn't this all-blinding shit of fairy tales, but it can feel REAL GOOD. the tone of the song is grown and there's no confusion about that. there's a bit of uncertainty (can you go downtown w/ me? are you really/do you see yourself as "da one"?) but the risk is gladly taken in the declaration or confession of the song.
the REAL subject
the focus of the song is actually not the "you" directed in the title but actually rihanna, the speaker. the video NEVER shows who the subject of the song is. there is no actor cast. instead, it's essentially a glamor video about the actual declaration by the speaker. it's actually about rihanna communicating the message more than the conventional function of the message, which is to reach the "you" in the title. i love that because the song, then, is no longer a cheesy love song and instead, is about the risk that it entails making that kind of declaration, as substantiated by the line "yep, i'm falling for ya but there's nothing wrong w/ that" as well as the bridge, which goes:
"yes i'm kinda crazy
that's what happens baby
when you put it down
you shouldn't have given it to me
good like that
shouldn't have hit it like that
had me yellin' like that
didn't know you would've had me coming back"
the risk or vulnerability here is more confessional, more embracing of a kind of point of shame or embarrassment, more than an actual validation or affirmation of love.
return to videographic themes
this video is definitely not ORIGINAL. it draws on a lot of known aesthetics, including the mainstream pop aesthetics that you see in retailer commercials and lady gaga's video for "just dance" (a la glamorous party-wear). can't you just imagine rihanna fitting right in at the party looking like this:
the typefaces are also really commercial, straight out of the fonts of shopping bags, shopping mall displays, and even mainstream t-shirts that you find from k-mart and jc penney to express and armani exchange.
(the value of the text, i think, is really in building the confessional nature of the song. the typefaces essentially give flavor to the core idea that this is being expressed, in text and song, and it's not just in some kind of personal handwriting but in a variety of "flavors" or personas.)
black beauty from the recent past
rihanna is a kind of aesthetic butterfly, and she's known to fluctuate and she can play up different styles pretty successfully. her strength is selling IMAGES. and for this video, she returns to a kind of r&b maturity that we don't usually see. she has her hair short and her image up close, and the look is distinctly black, or as i recognize it to be. it reminds me of in the late 90s when i saw many black women on television (and in real life) sporting a short cut as seen in toni braxton's "7 whole days" and other black female singers of recent past r&b.
this style of hair is less common these days than in years past, and i want to acknowledge the aesthetic history of the images. there's also something really particular about the beauty of black women, especially from the 70s, 80s, and 90s, in this:
for me, the projection of the pattern onto the body is fluid enough to articulate a light and non-burdensome quality about love, that no matter how you project the image, it's on her. all in all, definitely, these scenes are not ORIGINAL, but they are still VERY FRESH.
rude boy, part two
i've also noticed that this video returns to two particular cinematographic features of the music video for "rude boy." there's the mirror image:
and then there's the isolation of the lips to accentuate the sexy talking:
and the return, in different tones:
i mean, i love rihanna too but it's interesting that the creative team decided to repeat some of the tricks like this.
do i still love the song? yes. overall, i feel like rihanna delivered an album that was really a departure from the darkness of the past few albums, beginning w/ rated r. i especially love "do ya thing" because it's really confronting conventional/traditional ideas about relationships (can your boo be around other really sexy women?). i also love "we all want love" because why can't we embrace that seeming vulnerable but actually more universal than we'd like to acknowledge concept that we want love? and that's basically why the album and the song "you da one" are so salient for me---it's a big declaration of love, even w/ the risk and vulnerability. that's strength of a different kind.
you know how RED RIDING HOOD got this darker "remake" or "update" this past year?
well, i didn't see it so i can't tell you much about it BUT i do remember it as the earliest of this recent wave of entertainment that has returned to the genre of fairy tales--with a new twist. forget disney, forget "age-old" tales that have really messed up gender and sexual politics. there's a new wave of fairy tales that are looking more appropriate for our generation.
i've been HOOKED on ONCE UPON A TIME. the abc series basically opens up the "happy endings" of a bunch of fairy tales and adds nuance to them. i like how they are explicitly making those connections between the fairy tales of some old era to their juxtaposed, contemporary lives. it's cute, it's endearing, and it actually builds suspense to the show. i also love that we get to see snow white as having become this fierce fighter after she got banished into the woods, in one scene giving this robin hood flavor with her green hood. she's not just cleaning after the dwarves. she's an INDEPENDENT WOMAN.
there's also this twist that is reminiscent of both LOST and BUFFY. emma swan, the protagonist, needs to return to this mysterious town of storybrook, maine, to break the curse. we've already seen that w/ how the survivors on LOST had to return and how buffy had to die to save the world. it's a little trite, but okay. are you watching this show? what are your thoughts on it?
the other, i saw the trailer for an update to the actual snow white tale, featuring JULIA ROBERTS. i was surprised, but then the gender twist made it more plausible that she would actually take this role. after winning her oscar, julia roberts kinda took it REAL EASY, but this is a nice reminder that she can be versatile.
i love that this update is heavily about how snow white gets her revenge, that both the main female characters are taking charge of their lives, even if they are making polar opposite choices. also it looks like the dancing scenes may be a bit of bollywood, which is neat. and the balance of comedy, visual appeal, and tradition is reminiscent of the incredible creativity that i value in movies like SHAOLIN SOCCER. definitely want to watch this.
how amazing would it be to see more fairy tales reimagined for the new millenium? in new retellings where not only the women are acting with boldness and clarity but the undersides are accentuated and reconfigured, where characters overlooked are now given more spotlight and perhaps even queer details? i'm liking this trend. let's keep it up.
