The Post-Modern Nature of Arrested Development's Final Episodes

Arrested Development was always a brilliant show with a dedicated following. The long-running gags, fourth-wall break-downs, and unforgettable characters make Netflix's decision to bring it back for a final season extremely satisfying for fans.

What is interesting, and somewhat Post-Modern about this final season is that each episode is self-contained, but contains minor references to other episodes - just not like you would find in a television series. This allows one to watch the episodes in the order presented, which gives one set of experiences, including beginnings and endings. Alternatively, one can watch the episodes out of order, following characters and minor plot lines wherever they go. This leads to a different set of beginnings and endings for the viewer.

Happy Viewing in whichever order you choose!

The Revolution Will Be Webcast

A Brave New World of Political Skulduggery? - washingtonpost.com

Finally, politics has embraced our post-modern condition with thr massive dissemination of the Hillary-Obama 1984 ad via (print, tv and web) media in addition to blog and email forwards. The ad is everything good about post-modernism - the mixing of media (video and text), the use of sampling (the reuse of the 1984 Macintosh commercial - aired during that year's superbowl incidentally), superbly crafted subtext(s) (which I go into here using only the video and not the audio) and the ability to spread itself virally. Oh Joy!

Gil Scott Heron was right in that the Revolution will not be televised. It will be brought about by thousands of free spirits creatively using the tools at their disposal to effect massive change. James Carville once made the point that the entire Renaissance was only 1500 people but they changed the world. This ad could herald something similar. I hope it really is the beginning of "citizen political ads" as the MSM has stated. And this WaPo article makes the point that the commercial was made very easily. While it "only" reached a few million of our 300 million citizens, those are the people paying attention early and who will be opinion and grassroots leaders in their communities.

This brings me to a point I haven't made on this blog yet. Namely, that political campaigns belong to the people, not the politicians. Abominations like McCain-Feingold give politicians too much control over the direction of political debate and cultural discourse by limiting who may participate and when they may participate. This is simply the political class's unique version of rent-seeking.

Ads like this show that the barrier to entry for political ads (now that YouTube and its rivals exist) is extremely low and relatively inexpensive. Normal citizens can now make their own advertisements (assuming the FEC doesn't freak out and ban them all) very cheaply and still have impact. What happens now is the question.

Deconstructing the Hillary-Obama 1984 Ad

The Hillary-Obama Ad is a great juxtaposition of the most famous commerical of all time (Apple's initial upstart assault on dominant Microsoft, in turn based on Orwell's 1984) with the dates of the a previous general election and the commercial's first airing (1984) and the next general election 2008. Scroll down to watch the ad.

What happened in the 1984 election? - the Democratic candidate annointed by primogeniture (as only Republicans do), Walter Mondale, had beaten off an insurgent campaign based on new ideas and charisma, Gary Hart, to lose in a disastrous landslide in the 1984 general election (to Ronald Reagan). The visual reference to the 1984 commercial also provides the undertones (subtexts) that Hillary:

(1) Is Big Brother, again enforcing orthodoxy
(2) Again advancing through primogeniture in a party which finds such a process alien to its political DNA and distateful to its (small d) democratic roots.
(3) Will lose disastrously because (1) will produce an result completely in sync with the American People

What could happen in the 2008 election? - The American people, tired of the same (type) of people running the government as those of the last 20 years will pick a new (type?) of politician. It could be Barack Obama, Chuck Hagel, Newt Gingrich, Al Gore and a few others.

The visual statement: "2008 won't be like 1984" provides the undertones (subtexts):

1) It won't be Hillary. She represents the continuity of the political past, not the break from it we're all yearning for.
2) The above-referenced yearning which didn't really exist in 1984 because people were relatively satisified with President Reagan
3) Poses a direct challenge to Hillary (from the Obama campaign based on the logo, but they have denied it).
4) Hillary as recipient of the "two-minute hate" against which true-believers can rebel.

The War at Home is still on!

I'm very excited about this generally. Given the sheer amount of references to/jokes about drugs and premarital sex, I'm surprised the Lifestyle Police have let them stay on the air. BTW - I predicted a while back it would only last one season. I was wrong.

I think the use of the characters performing a monologue against a totally white backdrop is great for demonstrating the inner monologue, as well as for setting future jokes. Very PoMo.

The Pussy Conundrum on Arrested Development

Arrested Development featured an interesting voiceover commentary on the word "pussy" and the contexts in which it can be discussed on tv. In England pussy is just shorthand for "pussycat," and thus a harmless word, whereas here it is considered a vulgar euphemism in American. Later on the narrator, as he often does, goes all post-modern by self-referentially noting it was shame that they had to bleep the word out when used in its proper English context.

I Love Charmed

Ok, how post-modern is this quote?

..."All is did is inputted [SIC] it all [the data] into the computer, I hooked the cystal up to the GPS system,I started scrying for the demon, and whala, that's where he was."

Piper:"She was scrying with a computer? It's pretty State of the Art."

Briliant.

I Love Desperate Housewives . .and Postmodernism Rocks!

SoI was watching the E! True Hollywood story about the Women of Desperate Houswives, and they showed video footage of Eva Longoria in the Miss Corpus Christi pageant. The interesting bit isn't the highlighted footage of Ms. Longoria's choreography performance, but that of "the woman in the green dress" who is at least half a beat behind. We'll call her Sandy.

Sandy must have wanted to do well in the pageant or she wouldn't have entered. We don't know how she did, but we're sure that this was Sandy's worst part of the pageant, and of which she surely was embarassed at the time.

Ok, so Sandy goes through life happy despite not winning the pageant (Eva Longoria did). She even tells her friends that she lost the Miss Corpus Christi pageant to Eva Longoria - why wouldn't she claim this small part of fame. And then E! obtains footage of the disastrous performance. Is she aware of it? Does she laugh at herself? Do her friends laugh at her or with her?

What a post-modern conundrum. Being presented years after the fact with an embarassing event that receded into memory and was only available in the present because video recorders have added partial permanence to the perishable events of our lives.

We'll never know how Sandy reacts, but we hope she laughs.

Joey's Post-Modern Condition

The one truly brilliant element of Friends and Joey revolves around the nature of Joey as character. Joey the character is a supposedly mediocre working actor in Friends who becomes a slightly better actor landing a sit-com and then a movie lead.

It is possible that Matt LeBlanc is one of the greatest actors of our generation. Unfortunately, it is equally likely that he is just average. This problem is Joey's Post-Modern Condition. Matt LeBlanc could just as easily be a good actor portraying a bad actor or a bad actor playing a good one.

Add to the mix that we frequently see Joey Tribiani acting, and the show is completely brilliant. Joey playing an action hero in "Joey and the Big Break: Part Two" clearly overacts and is then told by the director that it was "classic poster." The question then becomes whether LeBlanc is actually acting the way he naturally does, and is thus an awful actor; the way he thinks Joey would (over)act, and is thus a great actor. The audience is left to mediate between the actor and the show and thus determine for itself the correct answer.

I beleive LeBlanc to be a brilliant actor portraying a mediocre one. He should win every award out there.