Brothers & Sisters: the 2-hr Movie Event!

I love love LOVE Brothers & Sisters. Hands-down it's my favorite primetime show on network TV right now, and on my list of all-time favorite shows EVER. It's one of very few that comes close to meeting my ideals of equality and tolerance in America, right up there with Northern Exposure and The Cosby Show. And it's damn funny.

This Sunday, B&S is getting what ABC has been hyping as a "2-hr Movie Event." The promo alone is, well, oh so dramatic -- will someone really die? Uh-huh. You can almost hear the promo people winking.

All of this is rather unlike the subtle, beautifully acted, down-to-earth, socially-minded show I am obsessed with. Still, aside from the pretty consistent Sally Field/Rachel Griffiths awards exposure, B&S is often largely ignored, even by its own network. (Because Grey's, DH, & Lost are all just a bit more, you know -- consumable.)

But, as a fan who wants her show to stick around into a 4th season, I can't always take the high road. So I'm all for this "Movie Event" if it means my B&S getting a little love for a change. Usually, I'm stuck waiting for a lightning-quick verbal blurb at the tail-end of a Desperate Housewives promo just to make sure it still exists. Well, not this week because B&S is taking over the DH timeslot completely! Wahoo!

I do have to say though, I think the inclusion of the word "movie" here is a little silly. Is it going to be commercial-free? Will it be shown in widescreen? Somehow, I think not. But if the ratings are high, the action is riveting, and I'm glued to my seat, I guess it's okay.

Watch the promo here. For speculation on who might be kicking the bucket, check out Terri's analyses at Watching B&S.

The Soapbox: Young & the Restless

So it's official -- Nasty Cane is here to stay. Which, for me, makes him 100% more interesting than Nice Cane. And hopefully 100% less appealing to Lily, though the verdict's still out on that one (maybe we'll know more tomorrow). But if I were Chloe, I'd be taking very specific notes documenting everything Nasty Cane does from here on out. Because if this Delia tug-o-war does end up in court, Chloe's going to need all the ammunition she can get, which at this point NC is supplying in spades. Picking fights that end in throwing unreturned punches against charming brother Billy doesn't seem like the smartest way to get custody of a newborn, especially in the presence of multiple witnesses. Nothing like a domineering "I'm in charge here" proclamation to persuade everyone you'll be a splendid father.

In other developments, Sharon has quickly morphed from a mildly disturbed shoplifter into someone who is actually losing her mind. It never once occurred to me that she might not fully realize what she was doing, yet after seeing her unload on Nick today and freak out in front of Eden, I'm convinced Jack is right and she really is on the edge. Still, Jack can claim all he wants that none of this is his fault... and that's all it is, an empty claim. Take a little responsibility, please. If you'd tried for even two consecutive days to be a decent partner, she probably wouldn't have been alone at the cabin at all... and neither the Brad thing nor the Nick THING would have happened the way it did. Though I suppose Noah would dead instead... so there's that.

Read today's recap here.

The President Speaks

Senator Robert McCallister once said on the show Brothers & Sisters, "I am the most ambitious man you'll ever meet." Had he not been a fictional character, this would still not be true, as the most ambitious person anywhere has got to be President Obama. If I didn't know that before tonight, I surely know it now. Yet, Obama's ambition is not really about personal gain or achievements, which is what makes it so appealing to me. Listening to his speech tonight, I was amazed by how much he wants to accomplish in this country... by the end of the year even! Some would say it's too much, but I for one am all for optimism. I think that if you are realistic, it is realistic you will achieve realistic goals. Obama obviously craves the extraordinary, which means fostering a palpable belief in those goals among Americans... which is really the first step towards making anything possible. It's pretty apparent that not everyone believes yet, and some probably never will, but I think if this country can attain half of what he talked about tonight, we'll be doing okay.

Transcript of the speech here.

81st Oscars: General Impressions

If the theme of this year's Oscars was meant to something of a throwback to the 1930-40s variety shows of classic Hollywood, there were certain things I liked about this theme and others I would prefer to leave in the past.

What I loved: everything about Kate Winslet and Sean Penn's acceptance speeches, the gathering of Best Actresses (I hope they continue this part of the format next year -- it gave me chills), and Meryl Streep -- can she sit in the front row every year, whether she's nominated or not?... because I get a lot more joy out of seeing her there than I ever did Jack Nicholson.

What I liked: Hugh Jackman in general, the singing & dancing, sort of a loosening up of an often uptight event, which created a Tony-meets-the-Oscars feel (as a musical theater fan, this was enjoyable, I thought).

What should be left in the 1930s: any reference whatsoever to blackface, the bevies of pants-less beauties during the dance numbers, and the once-again male-dominated categories (almost every one except the actress and documentary categories, it seemed).

One thing that's often discussed in feminist circles during awards seasons is why in the world there are sex-divided categories for acting at all. On principle, I agree that this seems bizarre, since it's a much more artificial division of abilities than in sports (although I would probably argue those divisions are largely artificial too). But by dividing acting categories by sex, you're basically saying that female performances can't be compared to male performances even though they can be compared to each other, and vice versa. Which IS weird, especially when you see Sean Penn competing with Mickey Rourke and Brad Pitt in the same category, all with three wildly different styles and characters.

All of this I agree with. But when year after year it becomes so freaking obvious how male-dominated most of these categories are, I find myself clinging to the ones that are actually female-only. When Shirley MacLaine & Sophia Loren were up there with the other Best Actresses right before Kate won, I was loving it. Which makes me worry that if the acting categories were co-ed, women might be pushed out altogether, or reduced to token nominations.

[Sidenote... During the credits they showed snippets of upcoming films, and I caught a glimpse of Amelia starring Hilary Swank, which appears to be a biopic about Amelia Earhart. Not sure when it's coming out, but I'll be pretty excited for this one!]

Crossposted at Radiant Likeness.

81st Oscars: Live Blogging

Have to say, I'm really liking the format for the acting awards, with a handful of winners from the past introducing the current nominees. Feels personal and emotional, which is nice. When Whoopi Goldberg, Anjelica Huston, & the others got out there right before Penelope Cruz won, I was really into it. It felt like history -- and community -- rather than a single person winning a single award in a singular moment.

One awkward? moment -- I wasn't quite sure about Cuba Gooding, Jr.'s presentation of Robert Downey, Jr. as a Best Supporting Actor nominee. On one hand, it seemed like he was poking fun... on the other hand, he used all the time allotted him to poke fun. If there was some real resentment there I wouldn't be all that surprised (or blame Cuba in the least). I haven't seen Tropic Thunder but it's my personal opinion that a white actor in blackface will always be a slap in the face, no matter how "clever" the character supposedly is. But again, I haven't seen it. Still, Hollywood is often rather clueless about these sorts of things, even as "liberal" as they claim to be. So I'm not quite willing to take their word for it in this particular instance. Especially since no men of color were nominated in either acting category at all. Stay classy, Academy.

81st Oscars: Live Blogging

Good stuff so far... Jackman's intro, Penelope Cruz, Tina Fey & Steve Martin, Dustin Lance Black (Milk screenwriter)... not to mention Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto! :D

In general I'm liking the format this year... it feels more authentic and less gimicky than in the past, though still uber-glitzy of course.

I'll be checking in again... keeping fingers crossed for Kate Winslet.

The Soapbox: Grey's Anatomy

This is a couple days old already, but when did Derek Shepherd stop specializing in neurosurgery and start specializing in jackassery? We are told over and over again that he is the best, OMG so amazing!, neurosurgeon in the country -- and really they do say it over and over, just in case you might have forgotten -- yet, a patient dies, he feels responsible (which he probably should have), and not only does he throw a temper tantrum, he does it in a hugely inappropriate & ridiculous way... by picking a fight to the bloody death with his supposed best friend, and in the workplace no less, after Sloan has confessed to seeing Lexie, which is really something that doesn't concern Derek in the first place. Great messages about masculinity here.

[A brief aside... Contrasted with that, we see Bailey getting chewed out by the Chief for requesting a simple letter of recommendation. Say what?]

Some might say this jackassery has often been the case with Derek... and although I was in love with the show early on (which is not really the case now), in all fairness it's hard to look at his original behavior towards Meredith (carrying on without divulging his marital status) and turn a blind eye to the idea that he's always been this way.

One thing that drives me the most crazy about soaps -- daytime or primetime -- is the willingness of many producers/writers to repeatedly put female characters in relationship positions that:

#1 Make them feel responsible for their guy's jackassery, such as when Meredith wasn't ready to settle down and Derek proceeded to take up with Rose rather than support his girlfriend through a difficult time. Yet, she had driven him to it, he had no choice!

#2 Allow them to rationalize this jackassery with a positive trait, such as Derek is a brain surgeon, so of course he's high maintenance.

Just, yuck. And I'm not saying all soap relationships are handled this way. Yet, despite Grey's great potential to circumvent gender expectations/norms in being created/run by an African American female director/producer/showrunner, Shonda Rimes (a scenario which is disappointingly rare in network television), as well as the pretty amazing diversity of female characters on the show (compared with most network shows)... despite all it has going for it, the gals almost always take a backseat to the guys. And that burns me up.

Sure, it's easy to argue that's because the group of interns we've been following (now residents) will of course end up secondary to the attendings. This doesn't really explain, however, why the show was set up this way in the first place, with an overwhelmingly female group of interns/residents and an overwhelmingly male group of attendings.

My view is that the two female attendings that ever showed any backbone and played on an equal field with the guys were Addison and Hahn... who were of course both ushered/removed from the show at different times (for different reasons... Hahn's exit was sudden and controversial... and Addison of course can still be seen on Private Practice where she must now deal with her brother Archer's jackassery, rather than Derek's). And Callie and Bailey, both high-ranking residents, have a lot of potential as characters, and always have, but I tend to end up frustrated with how their storylines are either nonexistent or marginalized. They seem to orbit around what is happening more than they participate.

Perhaps my view is skewed because on daytime soaps female characters play toe-to-toe with men at high levels of professionalism (mostly in business) all the freaking time. It's hard not to watch Y&R's Jill, Katherine, or Nikki (who ran against Jack for state senate last year) or ATWT's Lucinda or Margo (top cop in the police department) and feel like the Grey's Anatomy women deserve so much better.

Despite what I've said here, my overall view of Grey's is not entirely negative. I love its diversity, as well as its willingness to represent women of realistic body types. I'm also fond of its penchant for objectifying men (the McDreamy, McSteamy aspect), which, in a society based on white male privilege, comes off as subversive. But these explorations will have to be left for another post.

Random Rant: It's still winter? edition

Have you ever slept late on a winter weekend, like really hard & late, and woke up not entirely knowing the day, time, or season? This happened to me today and, even as the pollution of reality started to seep in, I had one moment of what if -- what if it was June and not February. Please please, let it be June. I like to play these mental games with myself.

Then I got up and saw that all of the snow that had melted away in the last few weeks was back... well, 4-5 inches of it anyway. It's actually quite pretty, outlining tree limbs, piling on the bird feeders, where dark-eyed juncos peck away at safflower and thistle seed.

I'm not alone, however -- my cat Bo also believes it to be June. This cat is afflicted with spring fever worse than any animal I ever saw. It lasts from mid-February to mid-June for him. Even the mildest February day can set his brain into believing it is spring, which means all the windows should be open all the time from that moment on. Our other two cats are more moderate; they also love spring but are not invaded quite as violently by the actual spirit of it, which is what seems to happen to Bo when he races through all levels of the house yowling, backtracking, partially going up walls, randomly spinning to chase his tail, and creating a general racket by pounding all fifteen pounds of himself against stairs and floor. Please please, says Bo, let it be spring.

I couldn't agree more.

The Soapbox: Young & the Restless

If you saw Y&R today, you know that this episode confirms the emergence of AWESOME COLLEEN. By getting all in Victor's face to claim her dead father's board seat, Colleen has done something that neither Nick or Victoria (or most people) have ever been able to -- possess a backbone in the presence of The Mustache. It's sheer awesomeness, first witnessed during Brad's funeral visitation when Colleen told Victor off like a pro, Uncle Jack cheering in the background.

Also notable today was the re-emergence of Nasty Cane. It's hard to figure out how it's possible for someone so boring to be so nasty... Yet somehow, he manages it. I thought it was hilarious that after all the hell Chloe has put him through, he still, somehow, does not want to be done with this already. He's the baby's true father, just in case anyone missed it, and -- tantrum time -- he's not going to give Cordelia up! Especially not to charming (& interesting) brother Billy.

Come on. I know Cane probably bonded with the baby pre-delivery, but at this point she's only been out of the womb for a couple of hours. And here's when Nasty Cane turns into Psycho Cane, signing the birth certificate of an hours-old kid that he knows isn't his. Wow. I'd almost feel sorry for Chloe except she created this baby daddy monster all. on. her. own.

The Soapbox

On this blog, "the soapbox" is a little different than what you might be used to. No, it's not about politics. Or the soap you clean with. Though that's getting closer... ahem, Procter & Gamble. No, it's about soaps, plural, as in soap operas. I love these things. It's a love that goes back to my childhood, to the days my beloved babysitter (and a good one, btw) turned off Sesame Street for The Young & the Restless, and to the days my grandmother fell asleep on the couch to the spinning intro of As the World Turns while I wrote stories in little paper books my mom had stapled together. Soaps are in my blood.

More on their feminist pros & cons as I go along.

A Blog is Born... er, Two

Back in the early 2000s, I finished up an English major and a library science master's degree and promptly lost all my creative juices. Or, more accurately, I spent six years building an academic mind that, while excellent at meeting deadlines and writing research papers, gradually crowded out whatever pure and basic need I had to express myself. I was drained... clean. Even though I had written for pleasure almost as long as I was able to write, I stopped writing. For five years. And I didn't miss it. I was glad and relieved to have exhausted myself; grateful to live instead of write. Or think, for that matter... it felt great to stop thinking.

But the thing about dried-up thoughts is that they're only temporary... the mind needs rest, a season of latency. And then the thoughts start coming back. And back and back and BACK, which is what happened to me, until I had no choice but to start expressing myself again.

At first, I did everything except write. I got married, planned a wedding, found a new job on the other side of the state, and moved myself and my hubby to a new town. This all happened within 3-4 months and not necessarily in that order. We bought a house the next year, which I proceeded to decorate on the inside and landscape on the outside. I set up a 36-gallon fish tank, planted it with live plants, and stocked it with fish, including two gold Angels. Through dumb luck, these Angels paired up and occasionally mate, the female laying eggs on the tallest, cleanest leaf she can find. After the male fertilizes them, they take turns fanning their translucent pectoral fins over the tiny white eggs, hovering there at eye level, waving their wings to increase water circulation. This prevents the eggs from becoming stagnant and corrupted by fungus.

For some reason though, the Angels weren't enough for me. I set up another fish tank. And another. Then I tore down the third one to compensate for the fourth I had acquired. This final step happened once more, but I've finally stopped at three functioning tanks, with two in storage. (Although... I have been dreaming of putting a fourth back up again, this time for a group of six female bettas.) And around the time of the aquarium explosion, I also started painting. And scrapbooking. And within this same time-span, I started writing a novel. Something inside would not SHUT UP.

Whatever the reasons or how I got here, this blog, along with its twin Radiant Likeness, exist because I have chatter in the brain. Bad. Chatter so bad that sometimes I can't sleep at night. Chatter that forces my husband and sister to listen to my in-depth analysis of topics they have only a moderate amount of interest in. These topics include soap operas, literature, and politics. No, I don't believe I have a mental illness... or if a mental illness can be caused by the repression of creativity, then perhaps I do have that. Does it have a name?

Either way, my floodgates are wide open now, with barely enough outlets. But you're writing a novel, you say, isn't that a massive outlet? And yes, it certainly is. But novels have rules, set by the novelist herself. Novels need a consistency of what goes in and what stays out... and even if those rules seem nonexistent to the reader, the writer knows what they are (most of the time). So, there's just too much junk in my head that really really really can't go in my novel. Yet, it has to get out. And if I'm going to spew a lot of random and unfiltered observations at the world, even if those observations are backed by a surprising energy, I'm not going to drown my novel in them.

So here I am. The Internet, with a capital "I." Sounds like a good place for a brain dump. This blog, Library Cat, is going to be a hodgepodge of various topics I like: cats (see my kitto Oliver above), libraries (where I work), travel (whenever possible), fish, nature, animals in general, books, literature, reading, writing, television/movies (especially soap operas), etc., all examined through a feminist prism. Don't get me wrong -- this site is for FUN. But feminism is so much a part of me that it is the one lens I can no longer drop at will... it's always there, even when I try to ignore it. Even so, Library Cat will be a pretty light blog (and why shouldn't it be?), full of potentially fun, inane, & trivial insights.

But... if you happen to be interested in stronger feminist fare, check out my other blog Radiant Likeness, where I plan to fully plant myself atop a feminist soapbox. Here I've given myself license to unleash on politics, pop culture, religion, social norms, and of course THE PATRIARCHY, as well as everything around and in between those topics. If Library Cat is a carefree mosaic of various feminisms, then Radiant Likeness is more along the lines of fierce and focused feminism (which, by the way, doesn't mean that it can't also be fun!).

Again you ask, why two blogs? Can't you just post the hell out of Library Cat?

It's true, I could. And we'll see how this goes... if I can unclog my brain a little then I may end up phasing one of them out at some point. But for now, there's just too much to say.

And as for Library Cat, though inherently feminist, my soapbox of choice much of the time will be a different kind of soapbox, the kind that extracts deep-seated satisfaction from that much maligned and stigmatized (yet often feminist) genre -- the soap opera. *gasp* What?

Let's begin.

Crossposted sections at Radiant Likeness.