Gossip Girl and Pretty Little Liars

Although I had already seen the first episode of Pretty Little Liars, watching it through a more critical lens, I definitely found myself recognizing things about the show that had not quite crossed my mind the first time watching it.

The shows undeniable obsession with technology is something that has come to be fairly common among shows feared towards millennials. The emphasis placed on the texts from “A” become a central component of the show. This emphasis is extremely similar to Gossip girl. Stein even notes that “Indeed, if A/Alison has a counterpart in currently airing teen TV programming, it would be the anonymous and all-seeing Gossip Girl.” What does this use of technology imply?

The articles we read for the week were intriguing, however, upon watching both shows something occurred to me and rather than really directly relate the reading the screening, this week I’m using the readings as a starting point but taking my post in my own direction. Gossip Girl’s storyline revolves around the power of technology, specifically the website posts and text alerts that come from a mysterious person. Pretty Little Liars uses a similar mechanism, except her name is “A.” What I think is fascinating to think about is the role technology has been given. While the teens in the show text each other, the primary use of technology in these two shows is to expose secrets for the most part. In both shows, characters are caught off guard by text messages about things they thought no one else would find out about. In a sense, technology is used to hold these teens accountable. It is sort of like a conscience of sorts. It implies they need to be careful, because someone is always watching and technology never allows things to remain a secret.

The spin that has been put on technology makes me think about the generation gap. Indeed it is our parents’ generation who is creating shows like this. Teens have become comfortable with technology and see it as a positive. While I certainly am not going to make the claim that the generation above us fears technology, I do think that there are some hints of that in these shows. My mom is always shocked at finding out about how much people reveal on the internet etc. How many times on the news have you seen a story where technology incriminates someone? I think that our generation realizes that but adults feel we may be too naïve and fail to understand the consequences and I think shows like Gossip Girl and Pretty Little Liars address that.

USA

I know I usually write about television shows, but I couldn’t help myself from posting about the killing of Osama Bin Laden. I just feel like I need to express my reaction and say something. Maybe this whole blogging experience really has grown on me more than I thought.

God Bless America. Justice has been served. While I know that he’s not the only bad guy out there, he certainly was the face of Al Qaeda and I’m thrilled after just about 10 years, we finally got him.

Its one of those things where I think for the rest of my life I will remember where I was when I found out this information. Interestingly enough, it relates to Millennial Media because it was social media that first allowed me to hear the information: Facebook to be specific. I think the sense of American pride that many others and I feel tonight is evident through numerous Facebook status updates and I just thought I’d share a few:

The hide and go seek champion of a generation is now dead...here we go America

Team America does it again! Nighty night Osama

USA.

God bless America

God Bless the U.S.A....justice has been served

WE KILLED BIN LADEN!!

we got him!!!

You get the idea. Clearly everyone is excited. People are arguing that it may end up being Obama’s biggest accomplishment in his presidency. It certainly was great hearing the news and while watching the Obama’s Press Conference with a few of my friends, I got Goosebumps thinking that we finally got him after all these years. While it seems weird to be so happy about someone’s death, I think its justified given the situation. Seeing all the random celebrations that seem to be popping up around the country and world for that matter, it really just makes you want to be with friends and family and for a minute appreciate this widespread feeling of national pride.

YES WE DID.

Here's a video of people celebrating outside of the White House:

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2011/05/01/bin.laden.vo.washington.crowd.cnn?hpt=T1

The Voice

Last week I went home for Easter and it was so nice to just be able to turn on the TV and watch random television shows because we don’t really have that opportunity at school. While watching a devastating Sabres game where they gave up a 3-1 lead in game 6 allowing the Flyers to tie the series 3-3, advertisements for the show ‘The Voice” were everywhere. My mom informed me that the commercials have been playing on NBC non-stop. Clearly NBC was trying to push this show.

When deciding what to watch, their persistent advertising method clearly worked because that is immediately what came to mind. Interestingly enough, I could not watch the whole episode on iTunes, but I could watch it on their website. Only allowing me to watch on their website forced me to actually visit the site where I could explore more about the show itself.

At first when I started watching I was skeptical of the show because I thought it was just NBC’s desperate attempt at getting their own American Idol singing-style television show. When I began watching, however, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that it had its own unique twist.

While watching those opening auditions on American Idol with horribly bad singers among the good ones can be entertaining, I always thought they went on too long. The Voice gets rid of this audition round and only puts people with genuinely decent voices on the show, which I liked.

Here’s how the show works. 4 successful singers (Cee Lo Green, Christina Aguilera, Adam Levine and Blake Shelton) act as coaches/ judges. In the first round these four sit in chairs facing the opposite direction of the singer, so that they are judging purely on talent not appearance. If they like what they hear they hit a button and their chair spins around allowing them to see the performer. If only one spins around that performer is automatically placed on that specific coaches team. If, however, more than one coach spins around, the performer then is allowed to choose which coaches team they would like to join. At the end of these blind auditions, each coach has a team. In the next round a battle round takes place where the singers are given advice from the coaches and then they two team members compete against each other and the coach decides who will move on. Then, in the last round there is a live performance where the public will help decide who moves on and eventually who wins a recording contract.

This is similar to American Idol because it still incorporates that interactive TV idea where viewers are active participants in helping decide the course of the show. One thing I found fascinating was that throughout the show, twitter posts were displayed on a banner across the screen and the proper hash tag was even posted for viewers. This new aspect highlights that social media is constantly evolving and shaping the way we watch/participate in television.

GLEE!

On the surface level, Glee looks like it is a very diverse show that pushes typical boundaries and stereotypes. With such a diverse cast, this appears to be the truth, however, after watching the pilot, the show seems to revert to typical stereotypes that are often played out in television shows.

In his engaging article “Stage Left: Glee and the textual politics of difference,” Lucas Hilderbrand discusses the pilot episode of Glee. In the first episode, while all of the characters are given face time, the audience is given extensive background information about Rachel and Finn, the two white lead characters. All of the other characters, which include Artie, a paraplegic, Mercedes, an overweight black girl and Kurt, a homosexual white boy, receive very little attention. Hilderbrand goes so far as to say “The rest of the cast seemed like set dressing.”

I really think that Hilderbrand is on to something, however, when he says “I have no actual access to network scheming, but this seemed to reek of the logic that the show had to be palatable enough for mainstream ratings before the minorities would incrementally get their own numbers and subplots.” Lets face it, America is pretty critical and still by some terms very conservative. I’m sure network executives were fearful of producing a show that pushed the limits too much early on in a new series. They probably thought that they needed to maintain a steady, consistent viewership before delving into more controversial topics; after all, they are all about the ratings.

Hilderbrand argues that Glee, in its second season, is now starting to create actual storylines that are somewhat ground breaking for television in their controversiality. In its diversity, however surface level it may have initially been, Glee allowed itself the room to create such controversial storylines, and for that I commend it and hope that it continues to further develop characters other than the main white characters.

Lastly, as I side note I have to ask: did anyone else find it odd that Quinn, the cheerleader, was the head of the celibacy club when thinking back to The Secret Life of the American Teenager where Grace was also very religious and committed to abstinence? I, personally found it to be an odd coincidence and wonder what it suggests about millennial religiosity especially when (SPOILER ALERT) both girls end up ignoring their pledges.

Survivor

The show I ended up watching for the first time was just one that I stumbled upon on TV. Many years ago, when the first season came out I admittedly watched the show, but I have not seen it since and I have heard that there are many differences now compared to back then. Survivor is on its unprecedented 22nd season. Arguably, Survivor was the first reality TV game show to take off and has continued to succeed for the past 11 years.

The specific name of the show this year is Survivor: Redemption Island. Redemption Island is the twist of the season. When a member is voted out during tribal council, instead of immediately being sent home, they are sent to Redemption Island where they are secluded from everyone else. The next time someone is voted out they, too, go to Redemption Island and those two members compete in a duel. The winner gets to remain on the show at Redemption Island and the loser goes home. In the episode I watched, which was not the pilot or even the first episode of the 22^nd season, the duel taking place at Redemption Island was crucial. You see, every once in a while on the show, the winner of the battle at Redemption Island is allowed to leave Redemption Island and get back into the game: its their second life.

In this episode, Matt, who had won 5 consecutive battles at Redemption Island to remain in the game, faced Sarita. The challenge was one that tested physical and mental strength. They needed to “use [their] arms to brace [themselves] against two walls while [their] bare feet are perched on very narrow footholds. Every 15 minutes [they’d] move [their] feet to smaller footholds.” There were only three levels of footholds so when they got to the last row, there was no time limit. These footholds were about a half inch, quarter inch, and eighth of an inch thick.

Matt ended up winning the challenge and the two tribes were forced to merge into one tribe. Back at the camp, Matt was conflicted with whom to side with: his old tribe that voted him out, or the other tribe that was trying to persuade him to jump ship. He ended up staying with his old tribe and voting the way that they told him to. Unfortunately for him, he was “played” and instead of voting for Steve, they all voted for Matt, and he was once again sent back to Redemption Island. Matt seemed to be a threat to many people because he is such a competitor and I wouldn’t want to be the next one sent to Redemption Island to face him. Overall it was pretty intriguing and I can see how it has remained so successful. 

Gossip Girl

I’m an avid Gossip Girl watcher, but never, would I have characterized it as noir prior to this week. Admittedly, however, I can’t say that I have put too much time into thinking what the show could be marked as. I accepted it pretty much at face value, as a teen, girl soap opera/ drama that many girls (including myself) enjoyed.

After reading Stein’s article this week on Millennial Noir, I have reconsidered the genre of Gossip Girl. At first I was skeptical of how Gossip Girl could be characterized as noir. Stein’s article, in conjunction with the episode from the screening, however, were fairly convincing of the “noirness” of the show.

Certainly the type of noir that Stein is referring to is not the typical kind of noir that most people would think of; instead it is a reworking of traditional noir. Stein suggests that through a combination of millennial and noir aspects, this series (along with Veronica Mars and Supernatural) has reworked the idea of typical noir into a more millennial noir. Braithwaite even uses the term “double architecture” to describe the joining of teen and noir.

Gossip Girl serves as a good example of this double architecture and reworking of traditional noir into a sort of millennial noir. Rather than having a femme fatale, as is typically the case in traditional noir, Gossip girl reworks this idea of noir “inverting and exposing noir gender/ power expectations” by using home fatales (Stein 9). Along those gender power inversion lines, the female characters are the ones who have the power. And not just the female characters, Stein is careful to note that it is the teenage female characters that hold the power, exposing generational differences.

In this particular episode, Blair (most prominently) and Serena hold the power. They are the ones whose actions and evidence eventually led to firing of the new teacher. It is interesting to me the role that technology has taken in this show. While the female characters are the ones who hold the power in this show, it is the technology of cellphones and the Internet that allow this to be possible. Without Blair’s original post on Gossip Girl that circulated a rumor about inappropriate relations between Dan and the teacher, she would have been limited in her power. Without cellphone picture taking capabilities, Serena would have never been able to provide evidence for Blair’s claim. Thus, I think it is safe to say that in these reworkings of traditional noir films and television shows like Gossip Girl and Veronica Mars, females certainly have been given more power, but it is also imperative to note the presence and power of technology that gives them such power. 

Bethenny

This week I decided to watch Bethenny Ever After, which is a spin off of the Real Housewives of NYC, but much better. The Bravo! show follows the life of Bethenny Frankel (the creator of skinny girl margarita), her husband Jason Hoppy and their daughter Bryn.

Bethenny was always one of my favorite personalities on RHONYC so I was excited to hear that she got her own show. She is extremely witty and sarcastic and her commentary is always hilarious. Also, after watching one episode the viewer can tell that she definitely wears the pants in the relationship.

In this episode, Bethenny, Jason, Bryn and their dog, Cookie, take a trip to visit Jason’s parents in a small town in Pennsylvania. The trip to get there proves to be a nightmare and it takes them forever to just get out of the city. Once they finally arrive, it is clear how excited the grandparents are to see Bryn. They hint at wanting to see her more often. Jason loves his family dearly and would seemingly be happy to visit them every weekend, but Bethenny feels very differently. She expresses her strong feelings that they do not visit more than once a month. I couldn’t believe how open she was about this topic in front of Jason’s parents. To me, it seemed fairly rude and somewhat thoughtless (Plus the fact that I could never imagine being so blunt in front of my mother and father in law). Jason becomes visibly upset by Bethenny’s lack of regard for his parents feelings. Things end up getting settled but there certainly was some tension.

The episode also features Bethenny going out to get drinks with Jason’s friends from his past. She thinks that they’re a group of characters, but thinks they’re great, nonetheless. They are extremely welcoming with Bethenny and offer to include her in their “family.” Bethenny is touched by this outreach especially because of her own family life, or lack there of.

Overall, I enjoyed the show. Bethenny is hilarious and I’m happy that she was given her own spinoff. I think it could be interesting to see how this show does ratings wise compared to a Real Housewives series, specifically, RHONYC.