I’ve recently come to realize that I have quite a few of my own “soap operas.” That is, ongoing entertainment that I am somewhat embarrassed to be invested in. Many of them are shows, but the one I came to first was a webcomic.

Questionable Content

I started reading QC in college, back when the art was way worse and the pull was more about the indie rock jokes then the drama. I’ve stuck with it over time as it evolved its art, characters, timing, and plot arcs. A friend of mine refers to it as a hipster version of Friends (the social circle is tight-knit despite the romantic foibles and tensions, and all of the action happens in a coffee shop or one of two apartments). Recently, the comic wrapped up a major romance between two of the main characters. I checked the updates often and with anticipation. I texted friends: “What will happen now?!? This break up will change the whole social circle!!!” It happened slowly and over time, but with this recent develop, it’s become clear: QC is a soap opera for me. Jeph Jacques wrote a comic that I thought I enjoyed casually. Then, all of a sudden he started sneaking in complexity and depth, and now I’m getting all angsty about cartoons. Damn you, Jacques.

Glee

This one is significantly more embarrassing. This is a show that my mother DID question me about. “I’m really surprised that you like this. It seems really cheesy.” I will not try to deny this.

I got hooked on Glee when my time was spent either working retail or sitting around being depressed that I spent my other time working retail. Television was a warm blanket of distraction, and as far as distractions go, Glee is the most elaborate, over-the-top kind. When it came back around for its most recent season, I wasn’t sure that I would still be on the bandwagon. In its absence, I had forgotten that Glee is also clever and well-written. It’s bad television, executed in this way that’s skillful enough to keep me watching. There are enough ridiculous plot points or depictions to keep me complaining, but there are also enough Sue Sylvester one-liners to keep me hooked.

I do tend to agree with the critics who argue that Glee paints a ridiculously unrealistic picture of high school. The drama is candid: Santana is a nympho, and this is readily acknowledged and accepted among the group. The nerds and outcasts in the group are perfectly at home with the fact that they are routinely accosted with slushies, yet they still interact in a forthright manner with their tormentors. I’m sure I need not point out how unrealistic it is that Sue Sylvester is still employed.

Yet my roommate maintains that Glee‘s portrayal of high school isn’t that far off. I’m sure that this is in part because her high school may have been very different than mine, but she did point out that high school throws people into a completely weird, totally unique environment. Someone who may ignore you in the hallway may make a completely civil lab partner by sheer necessity of the situation. In many ways, high school is completely detached from reality. Perhaps it’s possible that Glee is more insightful and spot on than everyone thinks.

Plus it’s totally rad to hear covers of your favorite Billboard hits, amirite???

LOST

There came a point during my retail slump where the TV season ended. No new 30 Rock, Glee was taking a break, etc. I was desperate. As it happened, this was right when the final season of LOST ended: emotional news flashes popped up on my Facebook, bidding the show farewell. LOST had always been much talked about, and I had always been dismissive. I had no interest in a show that seemed to make its success from cliff-hangers, and the idea of spending a week dying to know what would confuse me next seemed like something that would make me resentful. But what’s this? The show is over? Nobody cares about LOST anymore, and the entire series is on Hulu? I decided to take the plunge. I didn’t have to wait for LOST, LOST waited for me. I was sucked in, and I took my boyfriend with me.

LOST is such a massive show, and I initially thought about blogging in depth about my experience watching it. But I figured most people wouldn’t care anymore now that the show’s over. There’s plenty on the Internet about LOST already, and honestly, it’s difficult to get into without going super in-depth or posting spoilers. However, I will say a few things:

• The show is way, way better than I’d expected. I thought it would be a lot of cheap tricks and taunting mysteries, but it’s really not. It’s really well-written, and, for the most part, not as over-the-top as I’d anticipated. Most of the talk about the show is deserved.
• Being able to watch and whatever pace I want is a massive benefit. The episodes that aren’t as strong don’t bother me as much as they no doubt did the people who had to wait a whole week to move on in the series. If there’s a particularly juicy cliff-hanger, I appreciate being able to watch the next episode.
• It’s to the show’s credit that I am so immersed in a series that honestly, has very few truly likable characters. Seriously. Sawyer is SUCH a dick.
• Ben Linus is the best character in anything, ever.

Of my soap opera’s, LOST is the best. It’s a soap opera because it relies largely on dramatic action for its plot movement, but it’s so huge and complicated, and the complex elements are, for the most part, really well thought-out. However, at the same time, the character action occasionally allows for me to yell things at my television like, “OH NO SHE DIDN’T!!!!” Thus –> soap opera.

Skins

Of my soap operas, Skins is easily the trashiest. You can tell it’s at least kind of trashy, because MTV is going to premiere an American adaptation of it in January. I don’t watch The Secret Life of an American Teen, but I’m assuming the best way to describe Skins is to say that it’s a British, R-rated version of that show. The premise is this: a group of young, attractive British teens finishing up their last few years of school do a bunch of drugs and sleep together. DRAMA!

I give Skins credit for not being purely exploitative. There are a number of moments that are truly sad, frightening, or jarring, and not in a glorifying way. It feels like Skins comes really close to making a statement about its young characters, but then decides at the last moment that it’s just as interested in showing attractive people go at it.

There are a couple of things that I find interesting about Skins. I like that the cast rotates every two seasons. I like that the writing and execution seem pretty intelligent – I can usually tell what the show is going for, but not because it’s intentions are obvious or overdone. I like that every once in awhile a hip band makes a cameo, and I like that the characters are likable, even though at times they do compromising or hateable things.

ALSO, in Britain you can curse and show nudity if it’s after like 11 p.m. If you watch Skins, you can see Dev Patel’s balls, and that is pretty awesome.

For the most part, I run through the episodes while doing something else. It’s easy to just follow the drama as it unfolds. Skins is another show that’s done just well enough to keep me invested. I’ll probably watch at least the first couple episodes of the American version, and I’m a little bit ashamed about that.

In conclusion…

If I could draw one common element between these four guilty pleasures, it’s that they’re all dramatic, and at least every so often, shamelessly so. The television shows that I regularly watch that I think are legitimately good (Community, 30 Rock) are comedy shows. I understand that I like them because they are well-written, well-timed, and deliciously clever. While all of the above pieces of media are also really well-written, they’re also often times cheesy and over-the-top. In the most recent episode of LOST I watched, at least two characters dramatically decided to take a course of action that could possibly destroy all of them, and the reason was at least partially because the person they loved possibly didn’t love them back. Ridiculous! I think I like the fact that, at least in some of these shows, I can see emotions displayed that are human and silly. I can recognize things that I can also see in myself, but I can also make fun of them. Part of me says, “Juliet, stop being such a finicky bitch!” but another part secretly understands where she’s coming from.

And I mean, where else can I find someone who understands what it’s like to do an elaborate song and dance performance down my high school hallway?

A brief summary: The Cremaster Cycle is a series of films by Matthew Barney (best known for being crazy musician Bjork’s crazy baby-daddy). They are five films made over eight years that are full of symbolism about balls. Seriously. The cremaster muscle is the one that covers the testicles, causing them to raise and lower in response to temperature. The first film is supposed to represent the most ascended or least differentiated state, while the fifth is supposed to represent the most descended or most differentiated state. Supposedly it’s a metaphor for the creative process. Either way, it’s lavish and impressive with the visuals, sparse with the dialogue,l and hard to follow with regard to the narrative.

I just watched C1 and wanted to share with you what I think so far:

Everything looks like balls. There is a football field where a bunch of dancers do choreography, and they all hold balloons. The balloons look like balls. In the air float two Goodyear blimps, and as they sit side by side, the blimps look like balls. In the blimps are a bunch of women around a table, and the table is full of grapes, which look like balls.

Now, maybe because I know about the films’ thesis so to speak, I am projecting. Even things that don’t really look like balls sort of look like balls to me. There is a centerpiece on the table that is made out of vaseline, and the centerpiece makes me THINK of balls, even if it doesn’t necessarily look like balls. The windows in the blimps are oval-shaped, but when the camera lingers on them, I think of balls. Everything. Is. Balls.

Below is an image from the first movie, in which this weird chick arranges the grapes into one of the film’s recurring symbols. I’m not sure what it’s supposed to be, but I’m assuming it has something to do with balls.

Update: I’m watching C2 now, and things have gotten considerably more fucked up. We are beyond grapes in blimps, and moving on to graphic sex and bees.

1. It’s nearly impossible to jam a floppy jelly dildo up the ass of an unwilling “victim”—particularly when that victim is on his back, outweighs his “rapist” by at least 150 pounds, and isn’t restrained. I’m concerned that straight teenage boys are going to see Greek and leave with the impression that a dildo can go from brandished to embedded in two seconds flat.

I agree that there were a lot of male butt sex jokes. Butt sex jokes are really easy humor, but none of the jokes were BLATANTLY homophobic, so that’s something. I can deal with a couple, even if, as mentioned above, they’re not necessarily realistic.

2. Get Him to the Greek spends an awful lot time rooting around in Jonah Hill’s anal cavity.

See above. Jeez, Dan, get over it.

3. The film is supposed to be edgy and daring. And it is… about drug use. (Heroin is portrayed as very nearly benign.) But the filmmakers were careful to toe Hollywood’s boring, reflexive, sex-negative line when it comes to threeways. In mainstream films threeways are always disasters. Without fail cinematic threeways are initiated for the wrong reasons (revenge in Greek‘s case), someone’s feelings are inevitably hurt during (Hill’s), and all involved are filled with self-loathing and regret after (quick—burn the sheets, pillowcases, and mattress!). Has no one in Hollywood ever had or heard of a successful threeway?

The threeway plot point in GHTTG was an extension on Aldous’s impulsive manipulation, not a social comment on threeways in general. It was portrayed as hurtful specifically BECAUSE it was done for the wrong reasons. I disagree that this portrayal necessarily reflects poorly on all threeways in general. Not everything has to be a be-all, end-all portrayal. I don’t honestly think a joyous, positive threeway would have worked at this point in the film. Calm down.

4. Best portrayal of cunnilingus in a mainstream film since Bruce Willis ate pussy in Pulp Fiction.

Meh. I don’t have an opinion on this.

Also: Russell Brand is funny all the time. He may have the same personality regardless of whether he is doing stand up, being interviewed or “acting” as a movie character – but this doesn’t matter. It’s hilarious every time.

Also: P. Diddy is funny. Who knew?

Seriously Apple. Everyone loves you! EVERYONE. So just let poor people buy your products, don’t leave your prototypes in bars and then get mad when people take them and talk about it, and tell your CEO not to be such a smug asshole when replying to emails.

I live with an Apple nerd. You would think I’d get tired of hearing about how great Apple is. It’s the opposite: I’m tired of hearing every detail of their stupid screw ups.

Now, part of my distaste towards babies may be normal. In a retail environment, often you’re not aware of a baby until it starts yelling about wanting a shiny thing – so maybe I’m biased. Plus, babies are messy and annoying and they stop you from sleeping in. They smell and drool. These are all Baby Facts. It’s not unreasonable to not want those things. And sure, babies are also really amazing. They are future-adult humans, and they’re full of potential and wonder. But this means they have the potential to turn out horrible, and so the thought of being responsible for one is pretty terrifying. These are all pretty fair reasons to not really care for babies.

But why then, do I want a high maintenance pet so badly? I mean, I would gladly take a cat. I would take almost any pet, but for some reason, the weirder the better. Sometimes I think about potential pets, and I ask myself, “Hmm, I wonder if you could domesticate a raccoon?” (You can, by the way. You have to raccoon-proof your house, because they’re so incredibly intelligent, but you’re able to train them. The only thing is that when you train them to leave something alone because it’s yours, they make a mental note of it. So if you ever piss them off, like forget to feed them on time or something, they will remember the things you care about, and then pee on them. RACCOONS ARE SO COOL.) The other day I researched which scorpions you can keep as pets (Emperors!) But for some reason I just can’t seem to wrap my mind around human babies.

So to truly test for the presence of any maternal instinct, I saw Babies. As evidenced by the trailer, Babies is a mostly dialogue-free documentary about four different babies from four different cultures doing baby things for the first year of their lives. Cuteness ensues. Clearly if anything was going to make me feel an affinity for babies, Babies would be it. Could it warm my cold heart?

There are four babies in Babies: Namibian baby is the adorable one, Mongolian baby was the hilarious one, Tokyo baby and American baby were the westernized ones. But here’s what’s important: Three of the four babies were born to families with cats. Two of them were seemingly surrounded by other animals. All of the interesting and hilarious parts of Babies involved the babies interacting with these animals. So the way I see it, my preference for weird animals over children was just reinforced.

Weird pets: 1, Babies: 0

Now, don’t we all feel better?

So this has been in the news for a few weeks now, and at first I didn’t even think it was worth commenting on. What’s that, you say? The Vatican has been gripped by scandal, and Melissa, Hater of All Things Religious, hasn’t blogged about it? Eh. I sort of figured that the shame and disgust inherent in what has been learned about these priests speaks for itself. And to be honest, I wasn’t exactly surprised. I mean, this was a big deal ten years ago when it broke in America. I was 13 and still Catholic. Everyone shook their heads, and it was something we all knew about, but no one really wanted to talk about.

Anyway. Then I started hearing about the Pope being linked to the scandal, and I thought “Wow. That really sucks for the Catholic church.” Then I started thinking about how screwed up it is to be desensitized to a powerful religious body in the grips of widespread child molestation.

Here is a brief rundown from what I’ve been able to gather from multiple news stories:

Joseph Ratzinger is our current Pope. From 1981 until 2005 he served as a cardinal at the Vatican as the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. From what I understand this is an office that safeguards Catholic doctrine. Among other things, it deals with things like priests molesting members of their congregations, and whether or not those child molesters have canonical trials and stay priests and such.

The American Church scandal broke in 2001, but in recent weeks the news has been covering a similarly widespread problem in Ireland, Austria, the Netherlands and Germany. Earlier this month the Pope released a letter of apology addressing the Ireland scandal. Apparently a massive cover-up has been going on there for decades.

The articles I linked to above have all sorts of really distressing shit in them. Apparently an Irish cardinal forced two child victims to sign a secrecy oath during a 1975 investigation. In 2001 Ratzinger sent out a letter to archbishops saying that if they didn’t report abuse cases directly to his office as opposed to going to other authorities, they would face excommunication. Ratzinger’s office pardoned a priest who ran a school for deaf kids where he continually molested as many as 200 children.

All of this stuff is now coming out, and much of it from the time when Ratzinger was in charge of the office that’s responsible for making sure this stuff doesn’t happen. The news is buzzing because of instances like what I mentioned above: Ratzinger receiving notifications of abuse, priests being pardoned or switched to other parishes, etc.

And – much like I initially did when I first heard these news stories – everyone just seems to be taking it in stride.

I don’t typically want to bring Bill Maher and Chris Hitchens into a level-headed conversation about religion (if such a thing exists) because while I think they’re smart and correct, they’re super smug. But they recently had an interview, and Hitchens said something that I think very correctly puts things in perspective:

BM: It’s funny because, in this society especially, the worst thing anyone can ever do in the eyes of – not just the law, but public opinion – even in prisons! Even in prisons there is a hierarchy of crimes. The child molesters are the ones who even hardened criminals shun or actually kill.

CH: Suppose you and I are having a martini – it’s thinkable. And you say to me ‘Hitch, I’ve been in trouble with the law,’ and I say, ‘Well,’ and I ask you, and you say ‘Well, there was that thing with the joint, there was that thing at the traffic lights,  there was that time I was really short of money and, you know, the bank of Santa Monica,’ and I think, ‘OK, all right, we’re all human.’ But if you say, ’And I had some friends once, who had two little boys and they trusted me as a babysitter, and boy I had a lot of fun with those kids. Do you want to have lunch next Friday?’ No! I don’t.

BM: Right. You’d get the O.J. treatment.

CH: This is the one crime that no one can think about without vomiting. And that’s the one that the great moral church wants wiggle room for. We can’t allow that.

For anyone who wants to watch the full clip, the video is here. (WARNING: smugness).

So here is what I don’t understand: Why is no one demanding radical change from the Vatican? Why are people not outraged?

Hitchens likes to clarify the terms we use in this situation: “Why hide it under the name ‘child abuse’? Why not call it ‘the rape and torture of children’?”

I agree to an extent. If someone told you “You know little Charles down the street? Did you hear? His parents had to get a new babysitter because the one they had undressed Charles, shoved his genitals in his mouth, and forced him to masturbate in front of him. It’s a real shame.” That’s a lot harder to take than just watching the news and hearing about “widespread child abuse.”

I mean, that’s the only reason I can figure that people aren’t having huge crusades or protests to stop this from happening in sacred religious places all over the world.

The Pope issued an apology letter be he failed to do any of the following:

• Discipline anybody in any way.
• Acknowledge that this has been happening everywhere, for far too long.
• Own up to the fact that the Vatican has been intentionally handling it poorly, which is a very big part of the problem.

Part of this whole problem, however, is not the Church’s fault at all.

Let’s say there’s a person, and much like most other people, this person cannot control what they’re sexually attracted to. Except this person happens to be sexually attracted to children, which is problematic. Unlike most other people, it is criminal and immoral to act on his or her urges. This person cannot help what they’re attracted to, they know it’s wrong, and if they ever tell anyone, ever, their life will be ruined.

What’s the more attractive option: Live a life of painful solitude with everyone wondering what they’re deal is? Or take the option where celibacy is accepted and become a celebrated part of someone’s community, all the well hoping that a merciful god exists and maybe will take your weird, cruel urges away?

Living a life of celibacy is abnormal and has its own problems, but it doesn’t cause a person to become a pedophile. It makes more sense that pedophilia causes one to become a priest. This is not a Catholic Church problem, but a society problem.

There are a slew of Catholic Church problems, however. As Hitchens mentioned above, the church is asking for wiggle room on really widespread child molestation. I’m really hard-pressed to think of anything worse than acting as a moral superior while covering up child abuse in favor of saving face.

What the Vatican really needs is to address the problem inherent in a culture where celibacy is required, but punishment and discipline is dismissed in favor of secrecy in cover-up. It is a problem to say, “You must obey this law that says you reject all sexual activity, but you must not obey basic laws with regards to sexual assault.”

I would go so far as to say that it’s time to hold the church accountable to the same legal procedures that the rest of the world has to follow. The Pope saying he’s sorry doesn’t really help unless he is also says, AT THE VERY LEAST, “And from now on we will make sure the sexual predators in the church go to jail instead of just reassigning them to a different church where they can abuse MORE kids.”

Ladies and Gentlemen, this is the globe’s #1 Group Against Gay Marriage, Birth Control and Other Things That Are Harmless and Make Sense But You Should Feel Guilty About Them.

And you know what? Maybe it’s really, really difficult to find a Cardinal at the Vatican who will do the honorable thing when it comes to dealing with sexual predators in the church. But maybe you should try and find him, and make HIM Pope.

UPDATE: The Pope did a little trash talking during his Palm Sunday mass, throwing some jabs at the “petty gossip of dominant opinion.” He won’t be “intimidated,” apparently. Archbishop Timothy Dolan has also spoken in his defense, saying “certain sources seem frenzied to implicate the man.”

Ummm….. He was the head of the office in charge of dealing with this stuff. He sent out a letter threatening to excommunicate anyone who reported abuse to any other office. It was his job to oversee all of this. For twenty four years.

They really need to stop acting like this. It’s disgusting.

OK, THAT IS IT. NO MORE LIBERAL RANTS. NEXT POST WILL HAVE A FUNNY VIDEO OR CUTE ANIMAL PICTURE, I PROMISE.

My name is Melissa, and I have a Jon Stewart problem. I think he is wonderful, and not just because he is funny (AND HE IS SO FUNNY). I think that he is great at giving interviews (OK, sometimes he is not so great, but SOMETIMES HE IS WONDERFUL), and I think he is really intelligent and insightful when he’s being serious about politics and America. Example: This long but very interesting interview he did with Bill O’Reilly awhile back. They talk about a lot of different issues, but perhaps most interesting was Stewart going into his criticisms of Fox News. Choice quote:

Fox news used to be all about “You don’t criticize the president during wartime. It’s unacceptable, it’s treasonous, it’s aid and comfort to the enemy.” All of a sudden for some reason you can run out there and say “Barack Obama is destroying the fabric of this country.”…

…Here is what Fox has done through their cyclonic perpetual emotion machine that is 24 hour a day 7 day a week: They’ve taken reasonable concerns about this president and this economy and turned it into a full blown panic attack about the second coming of Chairman Mao.

I mention this because of the INSANELY OFFENSIVE AND CRAZY response that I’ve seen since the passing of the health care bill. I mean, obviously I’m happy it passed. I’m liberal, and I am doubly biased because I have been without health care for the past year (BECAUSE I AM LAZY AND WANT TO SUCK THE BLOOD OF THE TRULY HARDWORKING AMERICAN PEOPLE), and I consider myself very, very lucky that no truly serious health issues have occurred in my life during that time. And I do think that it’s America taking care of Americans in need. And I suppose we could have a debate about that. But seriously, this is what I’ve been seeing as a response, and not just from crazy liberal videos intentionally making fun of Tea Party folks, but from actual people that I know from real life:

The Congress has betrayed the FREEDOM of America with this DISASTEROUS legislation. Obama is spending us into oblivion! He is a big fuck-up, and he just keeps giving all of the lazy people what they desire. If you don’t work for shit, you don’t deserve it. I don’t want to pay for anyone’s health care so they can spend their money on 40′s and Blackberries, and I can’t have the things I want. People who have no interest in working use emergency rooms as hotel rooms and cause us to have to wait behind them for our turn. its called captiolism and people are to work for things instead of taking these ignorant steps towards socialism. Why do people who don’t do anything deserve the same things as people who make America better? These people are a drain on society.

Why should I have to go to work to pay for someone else’s healthcare when I already have to pay for my own? Universal healthcare gives a lazy people one more reason to sit at home all day and leech off the system that the Middle Class keeps running. You think unmotivated people deserve the same healthcare as the hard working people? Why should the working middle class have to spend their lives at work to support their families AND THEN also fund healthcare for people who CHOSE not to work? For millions of people across the world, America IS their “magic escape button”–they can come here and live without consequence when the rest of us foot the bills. Lazy people are spending what money and breaks we give them on non-essentials, rather than on bills, healthcare, schooling, etc.? I mean, when do the handouts stop? Maybe now all of the foreigners will stay in their own countries because our health care is as bad as their’s! Also, OBAMA IS TRYING TO TAKE OUR GUNS, AND THEY ARE MY RIGHT.

Now, fortunately, that trainwreck of a paragraph is not a verbatim quote for any one person. But it IS comprised of many pieces of real comments I have seen on Twitter and Facebook (even that added on bit about the guns). Obviously, it is a huge compilation of negative cherry-picked bits, and in no way represents any informed arguments that anyone made, because I am a jerk. Go write about it in your own blog.

It’s sort of been blowing me away that people do not even mask their hatred for the less fortunate. Not even a little! Poor people and immigrants are completely loathed, without shame or compassion.

Now, I’m sure I’m naive. Maybe a relative privilege has prevented me from really seeing scum of the earth leech of the system. But all I know from my own experience is that I’ve spent a year and a half working 35 hours per week, which was the most my company could pay me for without having to give me health benefits. Because sometimes you’re in a bad situation, and sometimes shit just sucks and even if you have a job and get by, you still don’t have health care. Not because you are a lazy miserable person, but because that’s just how life is. I have many coworkers who are in the same situation. I do not think that just because they get sick, they should have to sacrifice a week of groceries. It’s really offensive to me that all of these people are implying that anyone who can’t get or afford health insure is a lazy drain on society. Now, when these folks are confronted with this point, MOST of them (not all) back up and say “Ooooh, that’s not who I’m talking about.” But guess what? You can’t pick and choose who is deserving and who isn’t. And, very simply, it’s incredibly classist to give blanket statements like the ones above.

FURTHERMORE, this link lays out everything this health care bill does for the next ten years. There is no additional tax unless a) you use a tanning bed or b) you make $200,000. I’m comfortable with that. Sure you may not be able to specifically dictate where your taxes DO go, but you know what? Liberals had to deal with their taxes funding a crazy war they didn’t agree with. Because that’s how it works.

Anyway. The point is, people are in a hate frenzy, and it depresses me in a way that Jon Stewart himself cannot even fix.

Just kidding. Did you see that Glenn Beck impression? That fixes everything.

PLEASE let Greenberg be good. Everything in theaters right now looks horrible, and it’s starting to depress me.

And so, I kept listening to their songs. I will not post the soul-crushing ones here, because I don’t want to hurt anyone. But here is the band’s rendition of “Crazy in Love,” which used to be a song I didn’t care about, but is now one of the saddest songs I’ve ever heard.

You may find yourself asking, “However did you persevere?” It is because my boyfriend came home and showed me this video:

Emotions fixed! Thank you, the man my man could smell like.