Narrative Junkie

Battlestar Galactica discussion

Your truly and Mrs. Yours Truly gab about the top-notch sci-fi show with Shifting Channels co-host Harold Check.

Most dead-on critique of Disney

From SNL TV Funhouse:

Two that crack me up

Andy Samberg videos with a latent homosexual theme:

• Roy rules!
• Andy's dad

Is Claire dead?

A "Lost" theory.

Farley!

Of all the genius and near-genius comedic actors who've been cast members on Saturday Night Live, Chris Farley is the only one I can repetitively. A sampling:

• The Chris Farley Show with Jeff Daniels
• The Herlihy Boy Housesitting Service
• Weekend Update with Bennett Brauer
• Farley as Dom Deluise
• Schillervision Hidden Camera
• Focus on Beauty II

More SNL skits...

• It's a Wonderful Life lost ending - with Dana Carvey as Jimmy Stewart
• White Like Me - Eddie Murphy learns the truth
• Roseanne Rosannadanna reports - ah Gilda
• Superhero party - worth it for Belushi as The Hulk
• Indoor gardening tips from a man who's scared of plants - Christopher Walken puts googly eyes on them

SNL skits on hulu

There are clips from almost all 33 seasons. It would take forever to sift through them all, but here are some classics I remember from when they originally aired:

• Cheesburger, cheeseburger!
• Gilda Radner and Bill Murray before the nerd prom
• Gilda Radner: The Judy Miller Show
• Chevy Chase gives Richard Pryor a word association test
• Andy Kaufman's foreign man
• Mr. Mike's Blind Chicken

To be way continued...

Omar, "The Wire," and letting go

I like to think I'm a sophisticated enough consumer of fiction to keep the push-pull of belief-versus-detachment in homeostasis. Meaning, when I’m watching, oh, say, King Kong, and I indulge in that mandatory bit of moviegoer double-think called suspension of disbelief, I don't feel the need to call my family back in New York and warn them away from the Empire State Building.

Occasionally, though, the fantasy component overwhelms reality. I become in thrall to people who don’t really exist, and the emotional attachment starts to bleed into the third dimension. Say, a short period at bedtime contemplating the death of Big Pussy Bonpensiero; a stray 10 minutes brooding over the lack of crossover between "Deep Space Nine" and the rest of the "Star Trek" franchise. Sudden insight into family members while viewing The Exorcist.

But I don’t think a fictional event has ever affected me as much as the death of Omar on “The Wire.” In the cosmology of that series, Omar was an angel. Even amidst the gritty realism of the drug milieu it portrays, the show apotheosized Omar to the point of liberal fantasy persona:black, smart, gay, and ethical within the framework of the rules of the street. A true outsider, neither of the establishment nor its antithetical criminal organizations, Omar set the terms of his life in a way McNulty or Stringer Bell never could. His character's power rested in its embodiment of an American archetype dressed up in do-rag and jagged scar (which is no dress-up at all, really. The scar belongs to Omar's vessel, the actor Michael K Williams). Beholden to no institution, obliged to no loyalty except his crew and his code, he is an Individual with a capital I, free of the conventions binding the law and the street.

I fell in love with Omar in the episode in which he perjures himself in the service of putting one of Avon's murderous enforcers away. Badgered on the stand by the corrupt drug lawyer Levy (perhaps the most immoral character in the entire "Wire" universe), he doesn't flinch. Levy calls him a parasite, living off the drug culture.  Omar retorts:  "Just like you man. I got the shotgun, you got the suitcase." In a series that thrives on parallelism, Omar's connecting the dots was a watershed moment, and an indicator of where creator David Simon's heart lies. It took the clear-eyed view of an outsider to fully assess Levy; and in the last few episodes, Detective Freeman goes after the lawyer, because he understands there is no bigger fish in the drug pyramid. Levy and his ilk are the end of the line.

So when Omar was drawn into a shooting war with Marlo -- in his sociopathology, an equally mythological character -- my fictional rat brain kicked in, and against my better judgment, I licked my lips in anticipation of a long duel culminating in a deciding gunfight, or maybe even Marlo getting bitchslapped by our hero, striking a blow for gay black independent hoodlums everywhere.

Such hopes for satisfying closure, naturally, proved infantile, like the hysterical protestations of betrayal levied by "Sopranos" fans who wanted Tony to meet his end whacked or jailed, and received a single cut to black instead. Because the very qualities of “The Wire” that make Omar or any of the characters so attractively sympathetic are the same ones that preclude a happy or even happyish or even dramatic end to his story arc. We like the story because it feels deep, nuanced, and real. So emulating reality, with all its little hiccups of significance amidst generally prosaic doings, the creators found Omar more likely to get offed in a single moment of relaxing his guard than in a western style showdown against the biggest black hat. The very point: No matter how hard the character tried to live up to his archetype, "the game" offers no such transendence. The Omars of that world don't end up on beaches in the Caribbean or mowing down, Rambo-style, an army of street thugs. They end up just another corpse in the morgue, to be processsed and forgotten. That scene provided an ironic coda to the Omar story. Here was a character we had invested so much time and perhaps hope in, and he ends up not only shot down by a child, but misidentified by an erroneous toe tag to boot. It was then I accepted Omar's fate as predetermined by the show's Gods, immune to any amount of rooting by his fans.

I think we are all drawn to familiar stories told well because they give the illusion of spontaneity without arrogating control of the outcome from the viewer. It’s a foregone conclusion that the hero will win; the variation occurs in the means to that end. In fictional worlds like "The Wire," however, we trade our right to a comforting finale for the pleasure of watching a narrative where real-world rules apply. In such stories, as in life, one must just work with what's given, and learn to let go.

 

Is it just me...

...or is Hulu the beginning of the end for Netflix?

Linkateria:

• Review:  Web TV site Hulu is amazing...for now (San Jose Mercury News)

Will there be a "Sex and the City" death?

• Sarah Jessica Parker Honored at ShoWest, Addresses Rumors of a Death in SATC Movie (BuzzSugar)