Remembering Nora and Her Ladies: Sally, Annie, and Kathleen

It's been two weeks since screenwriting goddess Nora Ephron passed away.  In an era where our news is almost fleeting to the point of disposability, it's easy to forget yesterday's headlines, let alone last month’s.  And yet I find that I still want to devote a few words to Ms. Ephron - Nora - can I call her Nora? - in my little corner of the internet.  At the same time, I also find that I'm still not quite sure what I want to say - or can say.  I was not friends with this woman, nor did I ever meet her at any point in my life.  (Sadly, for me.)  I'd like to boast that I tracked her career carefully and with the attention and fervor of a true and devoted fan.  Unfortunately, it's not quite true.  I can't speak specifically to her traits, as so many memorials have intended to:  how she lived unapologetically, how she loved good food and good company, how she spoke with trenchant wit, and profound but nonchalant wisdom. 

What I can speak to, however, are Nora Ephron's ladies, because her ladies?  Those, I know.  Specifically, her romcom ladies: Sally Albright, Annie Reid, and Kathleen Kelly, all portrayed by Meg Ryan.  These three fictional women each earn a place in the Lady Character Pantheon (which, by the way, has a limitless seating capacity) for their individual and shared traits, bestowed to them by Nora's sharp wit and casual but spot-on understanding of the modern woman.  There are three trademarks unique to Ephron's heroines: she is not only the heroine of her own story, but also beloved in it, she is specific, and she is real.  Together, these intersecting attributes could easily be considered the Canon of Writing Ladies - particularly in romantic comedies, where she is so often and easily set adrift.

The first characteristic of a Nora Ephron lady is simple, and self-explanatory: she is the heroine of her own story.  Sally, Annie, and Kathleen are all in charge of their own lives and the decisions in them, and while there are certainly outside forces exerting power over their lives, never once is she not in the driver’s seat.  This is a basic rule of storytelling and main characters: good characters make choices, and good stories present good characters with hard choices.  But beyond this, Nora takes it a step further: her heroines are never the punchline to their own narrative’s joke.  These ladies never become the butt of a gag, and are never meant to be laughed at.  While there is certainly comedy in the way Sally orders food, or proclaims with dread that she’s going to be 40 in eight years, we are never meant to laugh at her more than we relate to her.  None of these “quirky” traits are ever used against her by the storytelling - the storyteller is Our Lady Lead’s friend, and never makes her the fool against her will.  Even the breakups in Sleepless in Seattle and You’ve Got Mail, despite both being initiated against Annie and Kathleen by their significant others, end peaceably.  Both women are shown to have made mistakes, but neither are shamed, blamed, or harangued for their transgressions.  In all, this means that each lady is allowed to maneuver through her film, and emerge from it, with her dignity intact.

Even if this is a growing rarity for romcom ladies, handling the writerly execution of a Lady Heroine is fairly straightforward.  But concept and content for the character?  It’s a bit more nebulous.  Often, romantic comedies endeavor to portray the "Everywoman," when in fact, this concept is a myth.  Even more ironic, the best way to achieve what filmmakers are going for with this "Everywoman" - mass relatability - is to give her specific characteristics that a variety of women might identify with.  And I'm not talking "every woman wants a fairy tale wedding!" or "every woman is a klutz!" or "every woman cries at romantic movies!"  These inferred suggestions about an "Everywoman" have been painted and repainted so many times that near every romcom lady has deteriorated into a one-dimensional stereotype, which, go figure, is actually pretty alienating.  (Some Everywoman.)  We're at a point now where even the "specific" versions of these attempts to create relatability are becoming trite: "Career women are uptight and lonely!"  "The quiet ones are actually party animals!"  Generalizations are a death sentence to strong characters, but especially to female characters, who are already susceptible to being casually categorized, boxed, and labeled for mass consumption and easy understanding.  But specificity is the best way to reroute expectation - and stereotype.

Neither Sally, nor Annie, nor Kathleen are "Career Women" nor are they "Unlucky in Love," or even "Lonely Girls," despite the fact that they all have jobs, are unmarried at movie's beginning, and hitched to a dude by movie's end.  Of the three, only Kathleen's job is explored at length, simply because it's important to the film - but she certainly doesn't fit the paradigm of "Career Woman."  She inherited her shop from her mother, and it's less a job so much as an emotional fulfillment for the character... perhaps helping Kathleen to steer clear of the "Lonely Girl" stereotype as well.  She's incredibly fulfilled by her job, and there's no suggestion that it might prevent her from having a love life.  Sally describes herself as a basically happy person, and while much of hers and Harry’s conversations involve relationships, it’s never communicated that something - a man - is somehow missing from Sally’s life.  (After all, it’s hard to argue that Sally needs a man when Harry spends nearly the entire film by her side.  She got one in the first minute, whether she wanted it or not.)

But even though Nora Ephron sidesteps these tropes, she does so without condemning the more innocuous root of the stereotypes.  These are not women dressed up with the boastful trappings of manhood, nor limited by the inferred (and insulting) “weakness” associated with womanhood.  Sally breaks down and cries when her ex, who had sworn off marriage, gets engaged to another woman.  Annie watches An Affair to Remember, cries, and quotes the dialogue, lamenting that people “know how to be in love” in the movies.  Kathleen, a compassionate businesswoman, is perhaps too nice for the impersonal business world.  And, though it’s mentioned in passing, both Sally and Kathleen state that they want to have kids someday.  These are all realities of womanhood, and achieve relatability without forcing these women into stereotype.  Not only that, but these standards of “femininity” abide by Rule #1: they are not used to make fun of the Lady Lead.  She is respected for her “feminine” traits - crying, enjoying romantic films, creating personal relationships, and wanting children - and they are not purposefully exaggerated for a joke.

It’s possible that Nora Ephron penned these three women so well that all subsequent romcom endeavors aim to achieve the same effect, and only result in aped imitation.  For example, nowadays, we get one scene where Our Lady Lead does one thing that Sally/Annie/Kathleen did, and suddenly, we know them.  We get her.  But that’s all there is to know about Lucy/Sarah/Katie/Jane.  If she orders a meal like Sally, we know immediately that she’s Control Freak Uptight Girl (and that she will meet a Relaxed Free Spirit Dude and fall in love, even though he drives her crazy).  If she claims to love Pride and Prejudice, as Kathleen does, we know she’s Overly Romantic Girl (and will meet an Unsentimental Cynic Guy, and fall in love, even though he drives her crazy).  And if, like Annie, she’s seemingly happy, sensible, and chatty, we know that she’s Cute and Normal Neurotic Girl (and she will meet Non-Threateningly Handsome Average Guy, and fall in love - he probably won’t drive her crazy, though the process of falling in love with him will).

But Sally, Annie, and Kathleen are all set apart through specificity, which in turn gives them a greater maneuverability of characteristics.  They are not just One Thing, and are therefore allowed to manifest onscreen in varied and ultimately real ways.  While Sally breaks down and cries over Joe, she is actually the more practical of the two leads - Harry is by far the more emotional of the pair, and more prone to unhappiness.  And even with the emotional reaction to Joe’s engagement, Sally’s cheery nature despite her singledom is not mere delusion: the script is very specific in identifying the cause of Sally’s distress.  It’s not because an ex is getting married and she isn’t.  It’s because her ex never wanted to get married, and now that he is, it means that he didn’t want to marry her.  She’s not obsessed with marriage; she’s a human being whose self-worth is capable of breaking just like anyone else’s.  When Harry accidentally insinuates that their hookup was pity sex, she slaps him and says, “Fuck you!”  She swears, but she’s not a Wild Girl.  She works, but she’s not a Lonely Career Woman.  She purposefully lays on the horn to get Harry to stop kissing that girl and GET IN THE CAR, but she’s not a Bitch.  She is allowed, by the narrative, a full range of emotions and characteristics that combine to create a well-developed main character, and a very real human being.

Perhaps the best thing Nora Ephron does to imbue her ladies with realism is to give them something other than just a love story.  When the love story between a man and a woman is the only story told onscreen, it’s difficult to provide content for the woman that doesn’t directly relate back to the man.  Inevitably, core pieces of her identity are therefore given over to construct her “development,” and without any other story to interact with, fall into the hands of the man she’s meant to fall in love with.  What results is a sticky portrayal of what it means to be in a relationship with someone, and how that might affect - or should affect - how a woman behaves, how she identifies herself, and what she values.  Good characters change, and if a character is in a love story only, then she or he is changing at the hands of, or for, the love story.  The message seems to be: a woman can only get her happy ending when she changes part of herself, or has some epiphany about her existence that leads her down the altar, at long last.  Single means unhappy, and something is wrong.  Wedding means happy, with a man, and everything is right.  More often than not, Our Lady Lead is the thing that’s changed in the middle, and that change is the inferred ticket to happiness.

But, with other material supplementing the Love Story, Lady Lead has the opportunity to develop and find change in areas of her life that don’t have to do with her relationship status.  Take, for example, You’ve Got Mail.  Yes, the film tells the love story of Joe Fox and Kathleen Kelly.  However, you could strongly argue that the real love story in the movie belongs to Kathleen and her deceased mother, or Kathleen and the world of books.  The film’s most emotional moment happens when Kathleen is forced to close her store, and, upon looking into the dark and empty space for the last time, sees her own image as a little girl, dancing happily with her mother.  As mentioned previously, Kathleen’s entire emotional fulfillment comes from her job, which is rare for most Working Lady romcom leads.  She may fall in love with Joe Fox, but the beating heart of the film is actually her love for her mother, and what her mother left to her: a bookshop, and the love of reading.

In When Harry Met Sally, the two fall in love quite accidentally, and even the film’s Big Moment, where Harry runs through the streets of New York City to confess his love on New Year’s Eve, plays out with restraint.  Harry arrives at the party, out of breath, and rattles off a list of things he loves about Sally, and in return, she tells him that he’s making it impossible for her to hate him - and she really, really hates him.  Cue kiss, and end movie.  It’s the most delightful subversion of a love story: she tells him she hates him, and then they agree that they’re old friends, as the tune of Auld Lang Syne plays over their kiss and cut to credits.  

Even in Sleepless in Seattle, which is arguably one of the most romantically-constructed romcoms of all time, Nora handles the sentimentality with an honest realism.  The whole theme of the film is “love in the movies,” but neither Annie nor Sam know they’re in a movie.  Each of them are reliably dubious about the possibility of falling in love with someone they’ve never met.  Annie in particular firmly states that destiny is something humans created because they can’t deal with the fact that everything is accidental, and then spends the entire movie fraught with doubt over the possibility that maybe she’s wrong.  So ultimately, while Sleepless in Seattle is a love story from an almost cosmic perspective, it plays out in these characters’ lives as simply and realistically as possible - which makes the fact that it does happen all the more magical.  When Dr. Marcia asks Sam about how he knew he loved his wife, he replies simply: he took her hand, helping her out a car, and he knew.  Annie’s grandmother relays the same basic idea about falling in love with her husband.  It’s as simple as taking someone’s hand.  That’s it.  And in the end, that’s all it takes for Annie and Sam: they shake hands, and we know they’re in love.  They don’t have to kiss, or embrace, or even have a conversation - that would oversell it.  This is a couple that has fallen in love in a single moment: all we need is hands, and we believe it, and it’s all the more romantic for it.

What’s perhaps interesting, then, is that these atypical expressions of romance actually help to sell the stories as more romantic.  Between this nonromantic path to romance, and the measures of specificity taken to achieve mass relatability, Nora Ephron seems to understand something that most screenwriters don’t: telling a story is not like taking a picture and showing it to the audience, but rather, putting paint strokes on canvas and letting the audience watch the image come together.  Not every smear of paint has to be romantic, or widely relatable, or even terribly pertinent to the plot.  But, when you step back, those overtones can still be seen in the bigger picture.  

Ultimately, it’s this approach that helps put Sally Albright, Annie Reid, and Kathleen Kelly in the Pantheon of Lady Characters, as well as Nora Ephron in the Pantheon of Lady Writers.  Each character is her own heroine, beloved by the narrative.  She subverts stereotype through specificity, and evokes relatability not through generalization but through realism.  In the bigger picture, these attributes come together to portray a strong female character who is not only well-developed and well-written, but who resonates with a wide audience of women.  In that sense, it’s easy to consider that, though I may never have known Nora Ephron, it felt very much like she knew me, and I will probably always want to be just like her.

Rest in peace, Our Lady Lead.

HBO's "Girls" - Likeability, Diversity, and Feminist Issues

Before I even knew anything about HBO's series Girls - the premise, the actors, the creator - there was one thing I was fundamentally aware of: it was (and still is) the subject of both hot debate and damning criticism.  Naturally, this piqued my interest.  A show very brazenly titled "Girls" getting a landslide of public censure?  This is like a playground for anyone inclined to examine the common cultural interaction with women's issues!  (In other words, me.)  But, as I have now watched the show and taken a turn on the monkey bars of its public reception, I've discovered: this playground is actually a minefield.

There are a slew of critiques lambasting Girls.  They are not entirely invalid.  However, in examining the criticism alongside the show's intention, it's not hard to become increasingly exasperated with dissenters that are missing a few key points - especially when the sum of complaints suggests a somewhat insidious notion about what society thinks about "girls" themselves, independently of the association with an HBO television show of the same name.  The following piece is intended to be my own exploration of the critical aura surrounding the show, dealing with the issues and source material as objectively as possible. 

The most common criticism I've read about Girls is that the show's characters aren't likeable.  They are self-absorbed, entitled, 25-year-old brats who come from wealthy families that support their dumbass dreamers' existences in New York City.  This assessment is not entirely untrue.  The premise of the show is to give a glimpse into the generation-specific issues of young women growing up in a world having to negotiate their own expectations with the expectations that society has raised them with.  Hannah Horvath, like many others her age, was probably raised on Sesame Street, and Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood, and countless other children's programs extolling the value of every kid's special talents.  This trend in child-rearing is still in effect - every little kid with access to a TV is promised that they have a special place in the world where their unique individuality will be a blessing to their endeavors.  It is a singularly Western, monied existence that is, of course, not without its flaws.  And these flaws do stem from the fact that it's Western, and monied - the conditions of which are more predominantly featured in the media than any other existence.

The problem, thus, is not necessarily with Girls, but with the negative space around it - it's not about what Girls is proffering, but rather what Girls is not.  And to be frank, this is not an issue singular to this one show on HBO.  The vacuum of "other" in popular media is still standard, and perpetuates with nearly every new offering.  Even worse, it is casually accepted as the norm.  There are countless shows on television that are astonishingly white and monied, and the issue remains unvoiced.  How I Met Your Mother exists in a similar vein as Girls - young adults in New York City navigating the issues of life and love - and there is barely a shade of difference between the skintones of the main five characters, let alone any actual variation in ethnicity or race.  This is not an issue specific to Girls.  Girls is absolutely not exempt from the charge by any means, but then again, neither are How I Met Your Mother, Two and a Half Men, Mad Men, Breaking Bad, Desperate Housewives, Cougar Town or Gossip Girl - among others.  And where is the definitive line for representation?  Does The Good Wife get off the hook simply for the existence of Kalinda Sharma?  Does Happy Endings receive a free pass for Brad Williams?  Is that "enough?"  Isn't the fact that we're using the word "enough" a nasty reveal about the topic of diversity on popular television?

There's no right answer.  This is a messy, messy issue that can really only benefit from open discussion, admission of the problems, and support for a wider variety of representation in television and movies.  With Girls, it is being talked about.  Creator Lena Dunham gets asked about the issue in nearly every interview, and I find it interesting that suddenly mainstream audiences care enough to ask about the trend of all-white casting that plagues almost every television show.  Is it because Girls purposefully removes the high-gloss sheen of previous NYC-based TV incarnations, and thereby implies a promise to represent the city as realistically diverse?  Is it because Girls is on HBO and seems kind of pretentious and so we want to hold it more accountable than something on Fox?  Is it because Lena Dunham is a 25-years-young woman with an HBO deal writing a show called Girls?  I can only guess.

Anyways, it's all kind of moot, because at the end of the day, the issue merits being talked about.  So we'll talk about it with Girls, because it applies.  Lena Dunham, in an interview on NPR's Fresh Air, responds to the critique:

I take that criticism very seriously. [...] This show isn't supposed to feel exclusionary. It's supposed to feel honest, and it's supposed to feel true to many aspects of my experience. But for me to ignore that criticism and not to take it in would really go against my beliefs and my education in so many things. And I think the liberal-arts student in me really wants to engage in a dialogue about it, but as I learn about engaging with the media, I realize it's not the same as sitting in a seminar talking things through at Oberlin. Every quote is sort of used and misused and placed and misplaced, and I really wanted to make sure I spoke sensitively to this issue.  [...]

I wrote the first season primarily by myself, and I co-wrote a few episodes. But I am a half-Jew, half-WASP, and I wrote two Jews and two WASPs. Something I wanted to avoid was tokenism in casting. If I had one of the four girls, if, for example, she was African-American, I feel like — not that the experience of an African-American girl and a white girl are drastically different, but there has to be specificity to that experience [that] I wasn't able to speak to. I really wrote the show from a gut-level place, and each character was a piece of me or based on someone close to me. And only later did I realize that it was four white girls. As much as I can say it was an accident, it was only later as the criticism came out, I thought, "I hear this and I want to respond to it." And this is a hard issue to speak to because all I want to do is sound sensitive and not say anything that will horrify anyone or make them feel more isolated, but I did write something that was super-specific to my experience, and I always want to avoid rendering an experience I can't speak to accurately.

Mileage varies on individual reaction to a showrunner's response to some sort of criticism - especially when that criticism is founded in a complaint about representation and the kyriarchy.  Some showrunners are clearly full of shit and care not one single iota, and others scramble so quickly to defend themselves that they haul out a series of empty arguments while simultaneously trying to cover their asses.  For me, I appreciate that Lena Dunham's above response doesn't quite shuffle into either category.  Although I find it a bit unlikely and/or eyeroll-worthy that she "only later" realized that her show was about four white girls, I also think that Dunham raises a valid point in highlighting her inability to specifically authenticate a non-white experience in the context of her show.  Representation is more than just "tossing in" a POC in a supporting role and giving them the storylines, characterization, and narrative function that an audience has come to expect from these types of parts.  This is how stereotypes form and perpetuate.  But stereotypes and tokenism will evaporate when the "other" gets the same treatment as the "norm."  Of course, it is also vitally important to avoid erasing or devaluing what is culturally distinct and specifically honest to the contextual experience of the "other."  "Other" becomes the "norm" when "other" is as visible as "norm," not when it is dressed with the trappings of "normalcy."

Clearly, Lena Dunham does not have the voice to communicate an authentic WOC experience in New York City, in keeping with her show's intention to demonstrate "real life" experiences.  (Though it's just as limiting to say that Hannah, Marnie, Jessa, or Shoshanna wouldn't realistically have WOC friends in the same kind of situations as them.  Is that really so easily assumed?  The suggestion is souring.)  Regardless, the obvious answer here is to hire a WOC writer who can provide a voice.  I'm not sure this has happened for Season 2.  Instead, Donald Glover is being brought on as a guest star.  And while I doubt that this is a bad thing necessarily, I'm not sure it's the best decision for the scenario.  The main complaint about the lack of diversity doesn't necessarily mean that Girls needs to simply refocus their universe and de-stereotype their background POC.  (Although that would certainly help.)  Instead, I interpret it to be a problem within the realm of feminism: if you're going to have a show called Girls, then it would be prudent to include all girls.  Or at least some semblance of diversity in representing "girls."  I daresay that Girls does not need Donald Glover, but in fact, a non-white woman to become a part of the ensemble.  With that one simple adjustment, the issue diminishes greatly.  (Of course, a non-white woman writer would also help, as would the right balance of visibility, authenticity, and equality in the portrayal.  But first things first.)

Perhaps it is this notion that illuminates why exactly Girls has received heavy criticism specifically about the lack of diversity, where other shows go "under the radar."  Girls does represent, to a degree, an "other."  The portrayal of the four main female characters is intended to subvert the stereotypes and expectations that audiences have for young women characters.  The pilot episode of Girls goes out of its way to introduce a suggested comparison to Sex and the City - Shoshanna rambles about which character she identifies with, which is not uncommon amongst women.  Just ask the pink "I'm a Charlotte" t-shirts at the HBO store.  The notion that women seek a female character to identify with is not unexpected; however, I find it somewhat perplexing that we do so in a manner that categorizes us.  "I'm a Samantha" is emblazoned across plenty of t-shirts - but there is no t-shirt that says "I'm a Bruce Banner" or "I'm a Han Solo."  (Let's not even talk about how many female characters can be specifically identified by first name only - hell, Penny from The Big Bang Theory doesn't even have a last name.)  Girls specifically introduces the idea that women are prone to try and categorize themselves - "what type of woman are you?" - and suggests, through the subsequent stories told, that there's no real answer to that question.  In fact, each character reveals subtleties and nuances that defy their "label," and that encourage the audience to allow them these gradations. 

Now, when you consider that Girls is purposefully expressing an example of "other" and including only white and (implicitly?) Jewish women, it is definitely problematic - and even somewhat hypocritical.  It's especially troubling to consider that Girls is attempting to expand and subvert the norm, while clearly ignoring women of color - the few that pass through are relegated to brief roles as nannies, and co-workers.  No commentary, stereotype, or subversion of the modern woman is made when dealing with these characters.  It's unfortunate, because feminism is an umbrella over all women, not just upper-middle-class white women, and Girls blatantly misses this principle and becomes exclusionary as a result.  In that the show's expression of "other" extends only so far as white women, it thus can be interpreted in some part as simply an expression of privilege.  Which just boomerangs everything back to the original complaint of the show: that these women are obnoxious, entitled, and bratty.  But in fact, the issue actually stems from neglecting to acknowledge the diversity that should be implicit under the umbrella of feminism and the modern woman.

Outside the walls of feminism, I take issue with the larger complaint that the characters on Girls are unlikeable simply because they are entitled and bratty.  There are a few things that perturb me with this claim.  First, I think it's necessary to the premise of the show to demonstrate, at the start, where these women are beginning.  They wholly believe in their own "awesomeness," and the whole point of the show is to witness them negotiating that self-obsession when forced to interact with the real world where no one cares.  Hell, the whole show kicks off with Hannah's parents denying her financial support, and we realize that her existence from here on out will be a reality check.  Without understanding where Hannah is coming from, we can't fully appreciate where she is headed.  This is how storytelling works!  Every character is poised for change - Hannah learning the real meaning of independence and not just its idealized appeal, Jessa reevaluating the implications of her bohemian lifestyle, and Marnie reassessing her priorities and self-perception - both the latter two coming to terms with the fact that everything they thought they wanted may not actually be what they want now.  I am willing to suffer through the early glimpses of delusional self-congratulation by these characters on the promise that they are in fact, going to change, as all well-written characters do.  And as we are nearing the end of Girls' first season, it's clear that that promise is being kept.

Second, I fail to see how flawed characters are a bad thing.  All good characters have strengths, and flaws, and not only is it incredibly rewarding to watch them manifest in different scenarios, it's also incredibly human.  And it's here where I tend to sniff something nasty lurking behind the criticism of Girls' characters.  This is a show where the four leads are women who are purposefully portrayed as having real flaws that sometimes lead to poor decisions and bad mistakes - and apparently this is also a show where unlikeable characters are just too insufferable to sit through.

I don't understand it.  We live in a world where television shows center around a chemistry teacher making crystal meth or a man moonlighting as a murderer and everyone loves it.  While it's true that certain storytelling elements have to be carefully in place in order to sell the likeability of morally ambiguous characters, I find it questionable that Girls comes under fire for its gray-area females.  (If you'd like to bring up Weeds' Nancy Botwin in argument, I would counter that perhaps she is more acceptable in that she is constructed on a paradigm of motherhood, something which is easily bought, sold, and relied on in women's character-building.)  And yet, discussion of Mad Men Season 5 incites talk of missing the "old Don Draper," who cheated on his wife, and drags Megan, his new wife who apparently "did this to him" (but with whom he appears to be in love) through the insult mill.  (If I read another offensive remark about Jessica Paré's teeth I'm going to go She-Hulk.)

Even on Girls, I find that many critics laud the construction and development of Hannah's boyfriend Adam, whose character has moved from mysterious bad boyfriend to sensitive misunderstood weirdo.  Adam is talked about like the highlight of every episode, and yet I fail to see how his shift in characterization is any different from Hannah's, Marnie's, or Jessa's.  Each of them were established at some level of moral reprehensibility, and have since been slowly moving towards a more sympathetic and relatable mix of characteristics.  But it seems that Adam's shades of gray are more easily accepted in both their complexity as well as with the assumption that he is basically good.  By contrast, the nuances in Hannah, Marnie, and Jessa cause viewers confusion: is she this type of girl, or that type of girl?  The difficulty for the audience to easily shuffle the female characters into the standard categories we're accustomed to seeing for female characters is frustrating.  We want to reject any intricacy of character, and stick them in their "I'm a Carrie" t-shirts.  And when the intricacies of character sometimes reveal less-than-ideal flaws?  Forget it.  Not only are they boxed away into whatever available stereotype is closest, the box is sealed with "Caution: Bitch" tape and never to be opened again.

What's ironic is that this is reflected in the show itself.  All four leads are written as having a character crisis of sorts, that manifests easily when asking the question: "what kind of girl am I?"  Hannah's entire existence seems to be a series of excursions in "experience," as though she's frantically searching for some kind of exploit to entangle herself with, branding it with what she thinks makes her special: insight, snark, and gumption.  Hannah Horvath has been told she is exceptional, and she lives her life trying to make that come to fruition at every turn.  Marnie is the epitome of put-together: she is the capable one, with a good job and a good boyfriend and a good life.  She assumed, perhaps through what she perceived society expected of her, that this is what would make her happy.  Season 1 has thus far demonstrated that she is "not that kind of girl," and now Marnie must figure it out herself.  The same sentiment is echoed with Jessa, who lived most of her developing years as the bohemian, carefree girl - but does she actually want to be that person?  Jessa as well as Marnie is now poised for reassessing her true identity in conjunction with what she thinks she wants, whether self-dictated or interpreted from societal expectations.

Basically, two of the four main character arcs are specifically written as women realizing that they are boxed into a category of existence and might want to reevaluate that definition.  Not only that, but these two characters are constructed as foils - foils that we see often in female characters.  Marnie is the "uptight girl," and Jessa is the "carefree girl."  We are well-familiar with these character incarnations in onscreen females.  But rarely are they allowed to be more than just "uptight" and "carefree."  So often in media, a female character gets the label of "uptight" or "carefree" and she is either completely reinforced in that notion, or completely derided.  If she's uptight, she's told to be more carefree.  If she's carefree, she's told to be more uptight.  So not only are these female characters boxed into their category, they're also informed that their manner of existence is incorrect.  And how often does this pattern show up in the romantic comedy genre, specifically directed towards women themselves?

This is one thing that Girls does remarkably well when dealing with their characters.  They construct them on a paradigm we recognize - uptight girl, carefree girl - and create a path for them that subverts and adds nuance to what we've been trained to expect from popular storytelling.  Thus far Jessa and Marnie have interacted with each other on their arc, embodying the idea that perhaps their character redefinition will involve them subtly moving towards one another, moving more towards the middle of the Uptight-Carefree Spectrum.  And this was not manifested in any sort of argument over which way of life is "better," or a portrait of two women actively at ideological odds.  Rather, "Weirdos Need Girlfriends Too" showed two women shifting their perspectives in nuanced ways, with mutual respect, through their everyday interactions.  Even better, no one told them to be one thing versus another.  Katherine's speech to Jessa in the next episode specifically addresses the idea that perhaps this identity is simply a front, distracting from an identity that will be more genuine, and happy.  Added up, these characters are therefore allowed (and encouraged) to get out of their boxes, without being yelled at, shamed, or having to be transferred immediately into another one.  There's no "I'm a Charlotte" t-shirt for Marnie, or "I'm a Samantha" for Jessa, or a swap between them.  They are allowed to be something beyond their category, in little steps and shades, and as a viewer, I'm fascinated by the idea of watching them figure it out. 

In this way, Girls provides a self-awareness of the expectations placed on young women about their identity, using the mold to create a starting point, and making commentary on the limitations of that mold by moving the characters away from an easy and unhappy absolute, towards a more complex and, hopefully happier, reality.  I find it ironic, therefore, that these characters are frequently derided, misunderstood, and disliked.  In some ways, to dislike Hannah, or Jessa, or Marnie, on principle, is to deny them their opportunity to figure themselves out.  To cast off their Sex and the City labels, and reimagine the boundaries - or lack thereof - to their identities.  Considering how important this is to the issue of portraying female characters realistically in the media, I can't find it in me to write off Girls completely.  With every nasty critique that fails to support its argument against the show believably, I can't help but wonder if there's simply an internalized lack of respect for a young woman trying to shuffle out her own identity on her own terms with her own mistakes, when it would be so much more convenient for society if we could just put her in a box.

So, Girls has both virtue, and vice.  Its treatment of female characters is noteworthy in that the writing specifically subverts and reimagines what we've been trained to expect about young women's identities, communicating the idea that they must be self-generated for the purpose of her own happiness.  It presents the young women honestly, with strengths and flaws, and deliberately shows them to be both self-importantly boisterous and yet emotionally vulnerable.  From a storytelling perspective, the character work is unique, interesting, and holds potential.

Of course, the main vice here is the lack of diversity expressed through the core premise of the show.  In limiting her group of "Girls" to expressions of white and/or Jewish only, Lena Dunham seriously deflates much of what makes her show unique.  Subverting gendered expectations in favor of demonstrating the reality of an "other" only goes so far when the only WOC on the show are fringe characters, shown to be nannies and low-totem office workers.

In the end, for me, it's perhaps the ultimate irony that an exploration of Girls leaves me wondering if I should wrap it all up in a pretty bow and declare that I like it, or dismiss it completely for its faults.  Why does it have to be one or the other?  If I'm praising this show for allowing its characters to exist beyond the finite walls of definition, then it seems pretty hypocritical to try and force it into a "bad" or "good" description altogether.  In truth, there has been both good and bad presented in this first season.  Ultimately, Girls is not perfect.  We keep wanting it to be.  And that's kind of the point.

(Please note: this conclusion could very easily be interpreted as washing away the points previously made about Girls' lack of diversity.   That is not the intent.  I still would like to see the show hire a WOC writer and include at least one WOC character in their core ensemble.)

Love Bloggo: The Devotion Project

Ignorance is powerful.  It closes people's minds to that which is different from them, and creates a barrier that is difficult to break down.  Ignorance means an unwillingness to understand, to find common ground, and to accept diversity. 

The media is powerful.  With constant bombardment of advertisements, television, and the internet, the modern human is an unwitting subject to cultural suggestion, soaking up values, norms, and ideals like a sponge.  This can be good, or this can be bad.  The media is driven by money, and dictated by and directed to those who have that power.  This is why the stories being told on television and in Hollywood are primarily hallmarked by cisgender straight characters, almost always white. 

But media also has the power to be good.  There are stories with other types of characters, because these humans exist.  And it's hugely important to show them, to make them visible, and to let their voices be heard.  How else can we balance the power?

The Devotion Project does exactly that.  But this is perhaps a fortuitous side effect to the project's true purpose: to demonstrate happy, loving LGBTQ couples and families so that LGBTQ youth have role models to look up to.  With six videos planned, filmmaker Antony Osso has completed four mini-documentaries focusing on LGBTQ love stories - detailing not only the more romantic anecdotes about first meeting and falling in love, but as well dealing with the trials and tribulations affecting two people that promise to spend their lives together.  Short, sweet, and well-told, each film successfully paints a portrait of two individuals wholly in love, devoted to one another and their life together.  These couples are fantastic role models for young members of the LGTBQ community, who are so frequently deprived of positive images for their futures.

But what makes these stories even more powerful, on a larger scale, is that these unions are also fantastic role models for straight couples.  And it's here where ignorance can truly be stamped out.  Nothing is different when it comes to love.  Humanity is the same, whether gay, straight, bisexual, or transgender.  Raising a child is no different.  Having a family is no different.  Navigating the complications of a relationship is no different.  Ultimately, loving one another is no different.  By showing what is the same across all cultural, sexual, and gender identities, The Devotion Project is a huge step forward in the effort to break down the barrier between ignorance and acceptance.

I encourage you to watch all four videos completed thus far.  They're all gems, although "More Than Ever" and "Listen from the Heart" are particularly touching - make sure you have tissues!  As for the final two videos, The Devotion Project is still seeking funding.  If you'd like to donate, go here.  But at the very least, please take some time to watch the films, and even share them.  The more people that engage in these stories, the more we can work towards better LGBTQ visibility in the media, and positive representation in the common cultural landscape.

Because The Devotion Project proves one thing: that love is the most powerful of all.

"More Than Ever"

"Say Only Yes"

"Listen from the Heart"

"My Person"

You can also follow The Devotion Project on Tumblr.

Mad Men: Ownership, Objects, and "The Other Woman"

It's not unprecedented for Mad Men to drift into the exploration of issues such as sexism, racism, and homophobia - all of which were drastically different in the 1960s than they are today.  But no episode of the show has been as brilliant, evocative, and horrible as "The Other Woman."  And while it's certainly worthwhile to talk about the episode in terms of plot development, character arc, and larger storyline - as you might with any other hour of television - the most important investigation of "The Other Woman" is without a doubt under the lens of feminism.

In 1967, the world was different.  It's easy to watch Mad Men and covet Joan's wardrobe and Don's fedora, or chuckle at all the indoor chain-smokers, or marvel at how The Beatles are spoken about as contemporaries, not legends.  But the show makes the effort to go even deeper - to pull the curtain back on the insidious normalcy of prejudice: towards women, towards black people, towards Jewish people, towards Japanese people, towards gay people.  Mad Men has characters that fall into these categories, because these people still existed in the 1960s, even though society at the time wished they didn't.  And the disadvantages these characters face as an inherent and unshakeable fixture of their existence are often displayed by the show, yet can be ignored by a modern viewer.  

In the case of "The Other Woman," Mad Men painted a disturbing portrait of womanhood in 1967, framed with the misogyny of ownership and a discourse on the voice of woman.  Peggy, Joan, and Megan were all struggling to make decisions for the betterment of their own selves, trying to be in charge of their destinies and fulfill their own personal identities.  Yet, these decisions were entrenched in a man's world, on a man's whim, and with a man's permission.  

For Joan, the decision concerned her body.  Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce has been fighting to win the Jaguar account all season, and in "The Other Woman," they finally got a guarantee for the ticket: Herb Rennet, the head honcho, wanted a night with Joan - and not just for dinner and drinks.  This bold proposition quickly spiraled out of control at the hands of Pete, who was so focused on the "prize" that he never stopped to hear Joan's opinion on the matter.  After all, this is business, and there's always someone who has to "go the extra mile."  In this scenario, that person was Joan.  Joan could sleep with the head of Jaguar as requested, thereby securing the account, and in return receive $50,000 for her time and body.

But Mad Men crafted an episode that went beyond the discussion of business prostitution and Joan's dignity.  "The Other Woman" simultaneously showed us the ad campaign for Jaguar, which provided the stark backdrop demonstrating what exactly defined a woman's place in the world of men.  Because the Jaguar was impractical for the married family man, it was instead advertised as "a mistress," a fulfillment of desire.  Megan summed it up succinctly: "a wife is just a Buick in the garage."  So, an easy and disturbing exercise in feminist critique would be to rewatch "The Other Woman" and replace every instance of the word "car" with the word "woman."  There is little difference, in cultural suggestion of 1967, between a living human woman with free will, and a car.  Mad Men delineated it all with Ginsberg's winning line: "At last, something beautiful you can truly own."

Of course, this all relates back to Joan, as the quiet nucleus of this episode.  How much does it cost to own a woman?  To have her exactly how you would like her - customized, for you to control, to exist for your every pleasure?  Joan was placed at the center of this discussion, and yet, she got little say in the matter.  She could no more express her opinion about being owned than could a shiny red Jaguar.  Pete goaded her by comparing her to Cleopatra, a queen, and Roger and Bert, while seemingly unsupportive of the plan, never bothered to address Joan directly.  Lane only encouraged her to leverage partnership in the company simply to cover his own ass, which is sitting on secret embezzlement and financial problems.  

Only Don ever took the initiative to speak to Joan in person about the matter, when he discovered Pete actually propositioned with a deal.  Rushing to Joan's apartment, Don assured her they didn't want to do business with people like Herb Rennet.  With tears in her eyes, she held his face, told him she was fine, and wished him luck for the ad pitch.  What we didn't know, at the time, was that Joan had already made her choice.  Brilliantly cross-cutting Don's building pitch with the horrifying dread and tension of Joan at Herb's apartment, Mad Men hit the thematic notes with precision and power.  Don asked, about obtaining beautiful things: "What price would we pay?  What behavior would we forgive?"  Simultaneously, we see Herb unzip Joan's dress, and Joan's eyes fill with tears and a stoic, detached determination.  If that weren't emotionally traumatic enough, the denouement for this peak was the unsettling reveal that sank in with the quick flutter of Joan's emerald green robe.  She had already sealed the deal before Don got to her.  And suddenly, it seemed so clear, as the scene repeated itself.  Christina Hendricks' lowered eyes and assured "I'm fine" became one hundred times more heartbreaking with the new information, as we realized that maybe, if Don had gotten there sooner, she wouldn't have gone through with it.

Or would she have?  There's plenty of debate as to whether or not it's in Joan's character to accept the offer, or if she'd have too much self-respect to say no.  However, I find this discussion to be beside the point.  Inspecting Joan's moral code to look for clues indicating one way or the other seems to suggest overlooking the fact that she was propositioned in the first place.  Why scrutinize Joan's ethics and not the ethics of the men surrounding her, refusing to speak up?  I will say, though, that  Mad Men portrayed this scenario with the right kinds of grace and power when dealing with feminist issues - yes, Joan was powerless, but she was not a victim.  She had no control over the situation she was in, except in her one choice: to say yes, or no.  It's not an easy choice.  But it's Joan's choice, and the narrative was very clear that Joan made her choice.  However, the choice did not begin with Joan.  The choice came to Joan because it was placed there, by the misconception that woman, and her body, could be owned - purchased and delivered for customer satisfaction.  For Joan, she didn't have a choice about her body or her place in the world.  It is 1967 and she is just one woman, raising a child by herself.  She is just one woman, making one choice, in a man's world.  She did the best with what the world gave her, while trying as much as possible to retain her dignity and identity, to the extent that the world would allow her.

"The Other Woman" also presented Peggy with the opportunity to improve her future.  Even though she's in charge of all accounts except Jaguar, she's somewhat dissatisfied with her job.  This episode found her selling a successful (gender-swapped!) ad idea on the fly and yet Don rewarded the location shoot to Ginsberg, who technically held the account.  When Peggy protested, Don was quick to assume she just wanted to go to Paris and threw money in her face.  Literally.  He threw money in her face.  From there, Peggy was encouraged by Freddy Rumsfeld to move on from SCDP, despite her loyalty to Don, and seek a position up the ladder.  Even though she was emotionally reluctant to do so, she pursued the interest, won herself a $19,000 salary at a competing firm, and had to give Don her notice.

It couldn't come at a worse time, as Don had just realized that Joan had gone through with the Jaguar transaction and became a partner of the company.  And it was particularly telling, what with the frame of the episode, that he didn't take Peggy's speech seriously at first.  Earlier, we saw Don literally throw money in Peggy's face so that she would leave him alone, and at the end, he tried the same tactic - but this time to coerce her to stay.  What price would you pay for something - or someone - you valued?  This instance of a man trying to buy a woman plays in direct contrast to Herb and Joan.  Peggy is being bought for her talent, and loyalty, and dedication - not for her body.  The distinction is clear - notice that the writers gave Joan a moment of intellect with Herb, correcting his botched metaphor using Arabian and Greek myths.  But this bit of intelligence is ignored, and she is instead instructed to remove her dress.

But Peggy, even though she chose to leave, was rewarded for her choice.  Her farewell with Don was emotionally distressing, and particularly fascinating under a feminist lens.  Instead of shaking her hand as you might in business, Don instead grabbed her hand and kissed it, holding on from his seated position with the amount of worship one might save for a queen.  Combined with the moment where Joan mournfully watches Peggy's retreating back as she walks out of the office, I was at my fill of emotional devastation for the hour.  I worried that Peggy might not be making the right decision.  But then, as Peggy stepped into the elevator, a smile played at the corners of her mouth, and Mad Men gave us the greatest music cue in the Kinks' "You Really Got Me."  I breathed a sigh of relief, unable to resist the charm of success.  Peggy's gonna be okay.

From the looks of it, so is Megan, who held the final choice of the hour.  Having done well on the audition, she received a callback for a Broadway show.  The only problem: it would require her to live in Boston, away from Don, for three months.  "Forget it!" he barked, and just like that, Megan was expected to relinquish her choice.  But Megan refuses to just give up her own personal aspirations simply to please Don.  Not only that she suspects that he doesn't take her seriously - her dreams are petty and meaningless, and likely to stay unfulfilled.  

Now, I don't understand Megan hate.  I really don't.  Because this character is great.  Not only does she seem to be tapped into zeitgeist of the growing feminist movement, she manifests it in her actual relationship with Don.  She flat out tells him she does not intend on failing.  Three cheer!   She also explains to him that if she were forced to choose between her love and her career goals - something that has happened on countless occasion to women through history - she would choose him.  But she would hate him for it.  This honesty from Megan is refreshing, as is her ability to understand her own emotional spectrum.  (It seemed rare on this show before she showed up.)  So, Don relents, and "allows" Megan to go on her final audition.  But tellingly, the only moment we see from this is the casting directors asking Megan to stand in front of them and turn around, so that they may look at her.  In that moment, Megan was no more than a Jaguar in the showroom, spinning silently on a dais, waiting for a man to choose her.

In the end, Joan made partner, Peggy had her new job, and Megan may still have a shot at the role.  Each achieved some level of success.  But at what cost?  Navigating their own lives involved being at the whim of men's desires, and worse yet, wallets.  What price would they pay?  What behavior would they forgive?  They had choices, yes.  But they live in a man's world, where they are often objects, to be purchased, and looked at, and bought.  This dictates what kinds of choices they have access to, and redefines the ways they go about trying to make the choices they do have.  "The Other Woman" gave a nasty glimpse into this world, in 1967, and highlighted it with tragic accuracy.  There may be several ways to look at this episode, but from no other perspective is it more disturbing than under the importance of women, and their access to personal choice, self, and success.

The RBI Report: "Goodbye"

If you wanted to watch a satisfying, cohesive, touching finale to wrap up Glee's original high school conceit... well, you're shit out of luck.  The best possible way to achieve this is to watch the first five minutes of "Goodbye," give or take a minute or two, then fast-forward to "You Get What You Give."  Then, shut off the episode.  Just turn it off.  Because the majority of the scripted scenes were cobbled together with the blowhard intent to be what Glee was originally - which wouldn't be an issue, except it's done so with the methods that Glee operates with currently.  So what resulted was a top-heavy mess of an episode, with rushed and shallow dialogue that forced false resolution, created unnecessary conflict, and ultimately brushed off some characters and relationships, while glorifying others.

"Goodbye," written and directed by Brad Falchuk

It's not hard to figure out what makes for a satisfying finale.  Glee even seems to understand this to a basic degree, trying to stuff in as many moments as possible paying off original dynamics and focusing on the growth and changes these kids have made.  Each senior (well, almost each senior) had an individual narration and scenes doled out to them to either honor their past or open a question for their future.  In theory, this isn't so bad.  But with Glee, "honoring the past" comes out "patting ourselves on the back for something that never happened" because the fact of the matter is that "growth" is rarely present on this show.  "Growth" and "development" are actually "boomerang change that will be in constant and unpredictable flux until we need to stop telling the story."  So almost every hearkened moment in "Goodbye" was marred with some aspect of self-delusion, like the writers were stubbornly trying to tell us (literally, through dialogue) that this is how it was all along, with the frustrating conviction of a really bad magician trying to cover up his cheaper tricks.  So not only was it conceptually flimsy, but the execution was pretty shoddy as well.

As for the future, it really doesn't bode well to have to tell the audience exactly what every character's plans are in one episode alone.  There are eight graduating seniors, and that's assuming that the audience doesn't care at all about the juniors.  (Which is probably untrue.)  There's just not enough time, and Glee did itself no favors for these resolutions in a few areas.  For "Goodbye" itself, the focus on the future was far too unbalanced between the focus on the past as well as between the individual characters themselves.  Characters who were shown to have had no actual plot about their futures were abruptly dropping their reveals casually into conversation, while others suddenly had unnecessary and overworked twists in their plans.  Surprise!  Santana suddenly has money to go to college, but she might want to go to New York instead!  Surprise!  Finn's going to waffle on this last-minute life dream of acting because he doesn't think it will honor his dad!  Surprise!  Brittany's not graduating and there's nothing anyone can do about it!  (Okay, fine, that last one may have been unnecessary, but it sure as hell wasn't overworked.  "Brittany who?" ask the writers, as the audience weeps.)

All of this should have been introduced way, way sooner.  With no time on the clock and choices to make, it became blatantly obvious which characters the writers care to bother with, and this was perhaps the most disheartening thing about the finale.  Its choices revealed a clear and undeniable pecking order when it came to this show's ensemble, and by displaying it in full view, the writers didn't really do what any good finale should: pay homage to the shoulders the show sits on.  In the case of Glee, it's the notion that every kid has a home in the glee club.  Outcasts and misfits aren't cast out; they fit in.  Even despite all these kids' differences, they became family; that is the whole story of the show.  And yet, there were precious few moments dedicated to this concept of "the group."  Remember in my "Nationals" recap, where I said the competition episode was too group-centric, and lacked individual point of view?  "Goodbye" suffered the opposite problem, and I suspect the writers would have done better to switch their approaches between the two.

It turns out, by episode's end, that the most important entity in this universe is not the New Directions, but Rachel Berry.  I still can't believe that "Goodbye" didn't end with the glee club in a group number.  How could it not?  It's perhaps the easiest thing to check off a "series finale" to-do list.  But instead, in an astounding lack of clarity by the writers, everything wrapped up with Rachel Berry, who, having postponed her dreams, was literally forced on a train to pursue her future.  This is a show about misfits in Lima, and it ended in New York City with Rachel leading her own cliché musical number.  Since when was this show The Rachel Berry Show?  I love (some version of) Rachel, and I am 100% okay with considering her a main character - if not the main character.  She is an emotional focal point, and there is little to argue there.  However.  This whole show is not her story alone.  This story is about the New Directions.  Marginalizing everyone else so that Rachel could have her big moment in New York City is beyond insulting.  It's a slap in the face, really.

(As an aside, does anyone remember the joke on 30 Rock spoofing young dreamers who burst into song when they arrive in New York City?  Rachel's Big Finish felt exactly like that... except no one was joking.  I must have a charcoal heart, because I think I would have paid actual money to see a homeless man yell at Rachel to shut up as soon as she started singing in Grand Central Station.  Honestly, I think Glee could have actually done something along these lines and pulled it off.  The show used to satirize situations like this, but then somewhere down the line they devolved into the very thing they were satirizing.  If a little such zing were introduced, it'd deflate some of the heavy emotion from the previous scene, and actually serve as a kickoff to next season instead of an overindulgent misfire at honoring the past.  Because I imagine S4 is going to [should?] deal with Rachel Berry negotiating her Dream New York with the Harsh Reality of New York.  If nothing else, having a vagrant shut her up would prepare her for potentially being around Santana more.  I'm not saying Homeless Man Yelling at Rachel would have been the #1 thing about "Goodbye" I'd change, it just amuses me and is somewhat defensible from certain angles.  Humor me; I need something to get me through writing this recap.) 

Rachel's decision to stomp off to New York and achieve her dreams wouldn't be so bad, if only it were her own.  This is a character who prized her own dreams above all else, and when finally having kicked open the door to achieving them, she made a conscious decision to close it again, absently hoping that it might stay unlocked.  Who is this person?  I'm all for embedding Rachel Berry in a friend group, and providing her with the social acceptance she did not have at series' begin.  However, every writerly decision made for Rachel in Season 3 has forced her into this development and made her pay the price for having friends.  It's been wedding, or dreams, and she's never been able to have both.  And she still doesn't!  

There are so many things wrong with this storyline.  First, I cannot even comprehend how quickly the writers were able to throw Rachel's resolve in reverse.  Her world fell apart in "Choke," when she blew her NYADA audition, and it's taken countless other characters hoisting up her self-esteem to get her back on track.  She pestered the hell of Carmen Thibodeaux, strong-armed a solo for Nationals so she could show off her chops, and finally this all resulted in what she wanted: an acceptance letter.  But as soon as she can't have her best friend and boyfriend at her side?  She won't take it.  It's as if the writers want us to be completely exhausted by how much screentime they devoted to Rachel's troubles, while simultaneously making her the biggest brat of all time for turning down something so many people - including herself! - fought so hard for.  If Carmen Thibodeaux knew about this, I guarantee she'd have a few choice words for Rachel Berry.   

The second thing that's disappointingly bad about Rachel's goodbye is that her decision was made for her.  Her one choice, all episode - to stay in Lima - was skipped by without any pause for consideration, which only weakened Rachel's current character.  We didn't see her make that choice; she just told us about it in narration.  It didn't help that she also told us she has everything she ever wanted out of high school, and that postponing her Broadway dream was like "coming to her senses."  Who is this person?  She is a stranger to me.  Then, when she's perfectly happy (so she says) to go get married, she's actually being hijacked and taken to the train station - where everyone is waiting for her, assumedly with explicit instruction from Finn to use force if necessary.  (A friend texted at this point and laughed at what Finn must have said to convince them to show up: "Come help drag Rachel on the train after I dump her in the car on the way there.  I'll buy pizza after.") 

The idea that choices are being made for Rachel "for her own good," is terrible writing. Glee went out of their way to force Rachel's story as The Most Important Story, given its place at episode's end, and yet, she is not the hero of her own story anymore.  That role belongs to Finn, her fiancé, who oh-so-nobly sacrifices their relationship and their epic love for one another so that she can pursue her dreams.  Now, I don't mind that they break up, and I don't mind that Finn might be more realistic about staying together than Rachel.  I don't even necessarily mind that he wants to "set her free."  However, this is something, that in order to be a good story, needs to be told in scenes where they discuss this.  It must come about organically, onscreen, with both parties contributing their opinions in order to reach a mutual decision.  And all characters' choices need to be their own.  There are no heroes here.  Foisting the sacrifice on Finn's shoulders and depriving Rachel of any choice is just bad storytelling.  And moments like Finn running after her departing train, which might, under different circumstances, actually be heartfelt, are instead just laughable and examples of Glee's hollow execution of High Cheeseball.

Of course, in their own way, the writers tried to set up Finn's all-encompassing decision by showing that he is, in fact, hesitant about his future.  Apparently now is as good a time as any to bring Finn's daddy issues back into the picture, and catch us all up on what he feels about the previously-pedastaled, now-tarnished image of his father.  Turns out Finn wants to honor his dad's legacy, which apparently doesn't translate into an acting career, and so he makes the offscreen decision to join the army, without discussing it with anybody.  (We assume.  It happened offscreen, so we can only guess.)  The break-up with Rachel was also specifically foreshadowed with another pointless wedding planning scene, where Finn felt a "weird vibe" from Rachel, like she might not be happy with her choice of husband.  (I think he may have just been sensing the pod person that has replaced Rachel since, oh, mid-season.)  I have absolutely no idea why this needed to be addressed, because it's not even really foreshadowing.  Finn broke up with Rachel so that he wouldn't hold her back in the wake of his rejection from New York, which is actually rather sweet, when completely lifted out of the bullshit that Glee wrote into the scenario.  It doesn't have to be such an inferiority complex, or established as an issue before the inciting incident (acceptance letters) even happened.  Mostly, I'm just annoyed that when Finn expressed insecurities, Rachel returned with a dubious, "you think I'm the one who's settling for you?"  Which is just gross.  Yes, writers, we know that Finn was a Cool Guy and Rachel is a Loser.  We thank him for being so charitable to lesser beings, and are glad that the lesser beings recognize their good fortune.

Actually, this concept ruined what would have been such a (rare) lovely moment in "Goodbye."  Will assigned the seniors to sing to the juniors, and the juniors to sing to the seniors - as a whole.  The seniors' performance, as a hand-off to the younger kids, was great!  The juniors' performance, however, was inexplicably written away from group inclusion, and instead penned as an specific homage to Finn Hudson himself.  I just... I don't understand.  This decision makes no sense, and only serves the greater obnoxiousness of "Goodbye" as an episode: some of these characters are more important than others, and everyone within the narrative seems to know it.  The same thing happened with Kurt's solo, which he dedicated to the "men in the room," because they were so noble and secure in their masculinity to not treat Kurt like an inferior for being gay.  Give all those boys awards, they weren't assholes!  Why was this written this way?  As far as I see it, Kurt hasn't interacted all that much with the boys, and in the beginning, they were distant and uncomfortable by his sexuality.  The only who hasn't been, in a scripted, storyline sense, is Sam.  And then they never interacted again.  But it doesn't matter, because straight people deserve a thank you for not being bigots.  Never mind Kurt's forgotten relationship with Mercedes, or the possibility of singing to his dad, or even having a bit more realistic scene dealing with the prospect of a long-distance relationship.

In fact, even though Kurt is probably #3 in order of importance, as deemed by "Goodbye," the episode didn't treat the character all that well.  The scene with Burt was nice in theory, although a bit misguided in execution.  I didn't love the idea that Burt basically said "I lost you when you started to become yourself," and while I love the idea that he would take a step into Kurt's world as a gesture to their symbiosis of differences, it was framed more as a "hey, remember when?" which really was there for the audience to benefit from.  I actually feel like Kurt would be scarred by watching his dad perform Beyoncé, and the gratuitous flashbacks to Kurt's performance were completely unfounded, and for the audience only.  (It's Kurt's POV!  Why would he flash back to watching himself perform "Single Ladies?"  It makes no sense.)  I would have much preferred Burt offering to sing with Kurt, in an embodiment of their "meeting in the middle" dynamic.  

The difficulty of Kurt's long-distance relationship with Blaine was also waved away quickly, perhaps because the writers knew he wasn't going to get into NYADA anyways.  And how awful that Kurt didn't have a single moment for the narrative to focus on his rejection letter?  He has been on the same path as Rachel this season, and while Finn and Rachel got their front-seat breakup to address Finn's future, Kurt is left completely unanswered.  It's not even that we don't know what he's going to do; I'm fine with a cliffhanger.  That's not the issue.  The issue is that we had no moment to mourn the death of Kurt's dream.  No, it didn't need to be a huge teary number like "Cry," but there needed to be at least a moment.  As it was, he got a rejection letter, then spiralled away from the narrative completely.  It wasn't even insinuated that he had any part in pushing Rachel into her future, when it seems, based on all characterization, that he would. 

Unanswered questions and ignored emotional reactions also plagued Santana's storyline, and, by extension, Brittany's.  Santana's future was decided for her (I'm sensing a theme) a few episodes ago, wherein Sue and Brittany got her a scholarship to the University of Kentucky.  Of course, we immediately wondered, "Santana?  Louisville?" - but Santana didn't second-guess it until "Goodbye."  She gives some consideration to ditching college and heading off to NYC, but wants advice from her mother.  Yes, we finally got to meet Mama Lopez!  Gloria Estefan was fantastic as Santana's mother, and I wish dearly that we were able to meet her sooner, and with more (read: better) content.  

As is, Señora Lopez appeared to want Santana to go to college, and that's when the bomb dropped.  And by "bomb," I mean "something dusted under the rug and used only once for another character's purposes and then forgotten about completely."  Brittany's not graduating!  This is just the final nail in the coffin on how terribly the writers treat this character.  (On any other comedy, Brittany would be the scene stealer.  For awhile, on Glee, she was.  Now she's basically a ghost.  A silent, one-dimensional ghost.)  The implications of Brittany's erasure as a member of the senior class (president, no less!) are nauseating.  I'm not just talking about how Puck got a multi-episode arc out of potentially failing, while Brittany's isn't a big deal.  It's more that Santana seems surprised that Brittany isn't graduating, which suggests that either Santana is not paying attention to her girlfriend, doesn't think her girlfriend has problems with her grades, or that the writers are just not on the ball.  I vote that last one.  It's half-assumed, by the characters in the narrative, that Brittany's too dumb to graduate and nothing can be done about it.  But the writers never fully incorporated this idea, which means they're operating on the assumption that as an audience, we too are just assuming that Brittany's too dumb to graduate.  Which means that the writers absolutely think that Brittany is too dumb to graduate, and never chose to address that as anything other than incontrovertible truth.  How insulting.

What's even worse about this is that even when Brittany's announcement is made, it's not manifested into any emotional depth for her character.  Santana is outraged, then it's simply presented as another option for her future - maybe she'll stay behind in Lima with Brittany.  What is actually a real character moment for Brittany is shrugged off in favor of Santana's precedence as a fixture on this show, as established since the middle of Season 2.  Santana ranks higher on the list than Brittany, so naturally, Brittany's story developments affect only Santana's incorporated narrative.  But even "Goodbye" swung the impact of Brittany's news away from Santana's emotions and kept it strictly as a reason to stay local next year.  The emotion of the scenario was never manifested onscreen in any way.  Singing to Brittany during "You Get What You Give" was cute, but not really in keeping with their supposed emotional state after learning Brittany's high school fate just a few scenes before.  Not only that, but I can't believe the complete and utter lack of focus on Brittany during "In My Life."  Here she is, sitting with kids a year younger than her, saying goodbye to someone she shouldn't have to say goodbye to, and yet, there's barely a close-up.  The performance is supposed to be about Finn Hudson, after all.  I can't help but think Santana would have walked out of that number for its Brittany-related implications alone.

Instead, Puck was given the furrowed brow and sullen stare, because he still had unfinished character business to wrap up.  Was he going to graduate, or not?  Somehow Puck's lack of class attendance and book smarts doesn't translate to the same doomed inevitability of Brittany's stupidity.  Truthfully, the payoff to Puck's storyline could have happened an episode sooner, and we wouldn't have had to slog through so much crap to learn his fate in "Goodbye."  But "Props" only gave him the chance to take his test again, and this episode had to see him through the sitting of it.  And, because the writers had nothing else to do with Quinn, they boomeranged her into Puck's storyline for the final conquest over European Geography, the high school diploma, and the show's own canonical history.

I don't know if you realized, but Quinn is in love with Puck.  She has no regrets whatsoever about sleeping with him even when she was dating someone else, and certainly no regrets about that transgression resulting in a baby that got her kicked out of her own home.  She slept with him because he had swagger, and not because she was feeling fat that day.  She would never give her virginity to someone so self-pitying and down on life as Puck seems to be right now.  The guy she fell in love with (remember, that happened) was a badass!  The guy she knew won football games and ate the contents of a pepper shaker on a dare!  No one deserves her love more.  Because yes, she loves him.

Now, here's the thing.  There was a lot of sarcasm in that last paragraph, and I apologize.  But before you yell at me, let me say this: I don't mind it in concept.  Quinn and Puck did have a baby together, and yes, that gives them a strange bond that they'll have forever.  I don't mind that Quinn would want to help Puck.  I don't mind that they talk about their relationship.  I don't mind that the writers want to give them a nod, considering they were set up as potential romantic interests early on.  I don't even mind the idea that after all this time without virtually any interaction, Quinn loves Puck.  In some way, she probably does.  However!  This was terribly written.  The execution on all of these concepts was absolutely atrocious.  

It wouldn't be as bad if the dialogue weren't so on-the-nose.  The suggestion that Puck needs his mojo back and a kiss could give him confidence isn't terrible - when it's a construct that manifests in a storyline that shows me, and doesn't yap at me about it.  None of Quinn's dialogue felt at all like someone talking about their own feelings so much as the writers funneling in all the support they could muster for a Quinn/Puck kiss at scene's end.  Do they not understand that Quinn and Puck having a complicated relationship is actually really interesting?   I actually like the idea that they have an unspoken bond, even if they didn't interact at all during Season 2, and only in the first act of Season 3.  But instead of speaking to the fact that there might always be mixed feelings for what transpired between them, Quinn had words shoved in her mouth that basically rewrote history.  I never felt like Quinn ever liked Puck because of his swagger.  She only started to like him when he treated her kindly, and then in a bout of writer irresponsibility, he was actually quite a jerk to her and the relationship dissolved.  The only connection they've reliably shared was Beth, and that's fine.  A baby is a huge connection, and will always have some relevance to their lives.  However, a baby does not equate romantic love.  And just because Quinn says she has no regrets about Beth and losing her virginity, does not mean that she always has, and I wish she had been given dialogue that addressed that nuance.  We saw firsthand how the Puck-Beth situation obliterated Quinn's established existence, and even if it was for the better, we saw her miserable for quite some time.  Ignoring that is insulting to Quinn, and Puck, and their relationship.  

So no, I don't mind what the writers were attempting to achieve in concept.  It's actually kind of a neat genderswapped Sleeping Beauty angle, you could argue, and I like the idea of having a kiss or meaningful interaction that doesn't appear to launch into a dating relationship.  There's a lot of subtle, complex emotions to play with between Quinn and Puck, but the writing razed them all to one oversimplified and misguided expression of love.  Honestly, this could have all been saved if there was some indication that Quinn was purposefully behaving that way because she knew it would work.  I don't mean to say that she "tricked" him, per sé, but it's the easiest fix for making sense of her sudden emotional expression.  In the end, I would have rather had a meaningful heart-to-heart that fleshed out the complications in Puck and Quinn's dynamic and given them a nuanced payoff to their stop-and-start but always-there relationship.  Alas, there was neither.

Unfortunately, this same cloud loomed over Quinn's other "Goodbye" scenes - with Rachel, and with Sue.  They did fare slightly better than Puck's simply because the writers weren't trying so hard, but they were still marked by some sticky moments.  With Rachel, Quinn basically surrendered to the constant struggle of Rachel trying to be her friend for three years, and manifested that friendship in the most healthy (read: least Quinn Fabray) way - she bought Rachel a train pass to get from NYC to New Haven.  This is actually an exceptionally sweet gesture, especially considering that Rachel hadn't even gotten into NYADA yet.  But the action was shuffled under by bad dialogue that basically amounted to "so glad we're friends now!!!" and washed away completely with Quinn telling Rachel that indeed, she and Finn are "meant to be."  Ugh, gross.  Look, I'm fine if Quinn's at peace with Rachel dating Finn now - for all intents and purposes, she really should be.  But her character arc is about so much more than letting her ex date a girl she once hated.  Looking at it that way entrenches the entire narrative in Rachel's point of view, and thus this inclusion was so clunky, because it's the Glee writers forcing their characters to talk in a way that only people watching the show would.  Quinn Fabray has no concept of "endgame," or "who should be with whom," because she is a character in this nutty world.  The idea that Glee is using its own characters to flat-out address other relationships as "meant to be" is weak - and cheap - writing.  And it's even more insulting that Rachel hopped on board, and told Quinn she always thought that about her and Puck.  Hark, is that even more heavyhanded setup to the Quinn-Puck kiss?  Why, it is!

The Sue scene fared similarly to the Rachel scene, in that it was conceptually strong, but suffered bad dialogue.  Sue telling Quinn she's retiring Quinn's old uniform is another great gesture, and I quite like the idea that Sue confesses admiration for Quinn, and pride over her perseverance in high school.  Quinn went through a lot, and I like when other characters recognize that.  (Partly because it's a rarity.)  But at the same time, Sue also dropped the phrase "You're better than me... you're slightly less evil," and there Glee goes again giving characters dialogue that would only be expressed by people watching the show.  Look, villains don't think they're evil.  Quinn doesn't think she's evil, and if Sue does, it's simply because she's Sue Sylvester and a comic villain.  I'm so sick and tired of the "villains" on this show talking about how "bad" they are.  Everyone is the hero of their own narrative, and the idea that Glee forces their own story constructs into the mouths of their characters is beyond insulting.

Of course, I'm making my way down the list of Important Characters (as Deemed by "Goodbye") and finally arriving at what is perhaps the most insulting material.  Mercedes Jones and Mike Chang were completely deprived of any narration or individual treatment whatsoever.  The writers instead forced their future plans into a rapidfire conversation, where we learned that Mercedes got a recording contract in LA, that fell in her lap thanks to Sam's "Disco Inferno" video, and Mike is going to school in Chicago?  I don't know; it went by so fast and transitioned so quickly to Santana that I got whiplash-induced memory loss.  We didn't even get any real moments addressing what Sam and Mercedes, and Mike and Tina are going to do with one half of their couples graduating off and moving away.  What, they're not "meant to be" like Puck and Quinn or Finn and Rachel?  They're not even going to have a brief and Nicholas-Sparks-inspired conversation about it, like Kurt and Blaine?  There's not even a random suggestion that one of them might try and stay behind, like Santana and Brittany?

Basically, this sucks, and is an easy summary of what went wrong in "Goodbye."  Mercedes and Mike are characters on this show, graduates in the senior class, and valued members of the New Directions.  The idea that they were shuffled so quickly aside to showcase other characters and their stories (which weren't even that good to begin with) just shows how frustratingly hypocritical Glee is about their theme of inclusion.  This trickled down even from story construction into the tiniest of scene choices: the graduating order was deprived any ounce of logic (aka, not alphabetized) and instead, the seniors crossed the stage in almost exact reverse order of determined importance: Mike, Quinn, Mercedes, Puck, Santana, Kurt, Finn, and Rachel.  Logic deprived?  Characters ignored while others were glorified, and group dynamics ultimately shuffled aside?  These were the hallmarks of "Goodbye," and it's especially frustrating to know that this is what we're given for the end of the show's original conceit.

 

Yes, technically, Glee is renewed for Season 4 and allegedly has some sort of "revolutionary" new framework up its figurative sleeve, with all the same characters.  But the first three seasons of this show were about these kids coming together, so their parting ways is indeed the end of an era, and deserved to be marked as such.  There's plenty of emotion to be found there, and yet Glee ignored most of it.  Truthfully, they knew where to find it, as there were two moments in "Goodbye" that felt emotionally authentic and well-written.  Actually, the writers got there so quickly that I thought perhaps the whole episode would be rife with this sort of happy nostalgic pain that goes along with closing a chapter.  "Goodbye" began with Will walking through the hallway towards his glee classroom, as the sound of "Sit Down You're Rocking the Boat" drifted towards him.  The number was the first performed by the original New Directions, pre-Finn, and the same fivesome were performing it again as a last hurrah, just for fun.  If this were not enough to get the emotions stirring, they actually cut back and forth between the two performances, as though Will were seeing his kids all grown-up and feeling like their first steps were just yesterday.  This was surprisingly fantastic, and one of the few believable and appropriate moments honoring Will's relationship with the kids - perhaps because it suggested Will as a father figure more than a best buddy. 

Unfortunately, this quality didn't last.  The only other emotionally resonant moment in “Goodbye” was the performance of “You Get What You Give,” wherein all the seniors got a chance to be adorable and teary-eyed as they said goodbye to the juniors as a group.  There was even a bit of clever choreography!  The seniors began the song standing, then got the juniors up and dancing with them, only to be left standing in the seniors’ place as the older kids sat back down.  A simple, strong action, right?  It communicated, through dance, what was happening in story.  Combined with all the permutations of endearing individual interactions, I couldn’t help but feel my heart swell at this.  If only the whole episode was just fun musical numbers where the cast cried and smooshed all their faces together.

So while Glee did carve out a few successful moments devoted to giving a curtain call to these characters and relationships that we've loved for three years, the episode ultimately failed to hit the emotional beats it needed to satisfyingly close the book on the original gang.  Fettered with shallow and expository dialogue, it forced false resolution, drummed up unnecessary conflict, and ultimately revealed a nasty hierarchy of individual characters' importance that trumped any suggestion that these kids are a family.  In short, it completely knocked its legs out from underneath it, in a stunning display of clueless self-sabotage and smug self-congratulation of the show's true purpose, meaning, and story told.

The RBI Report Card...
Musical Numbers: B

Dance Numbers: A

Dialogue: F

Plot: D

Characterization: C

Episode MVP: Brittany Pierce, because the writers don't care about her.

Poll: Will you watch Glee next season?