Where are the reds?
I think I’ve mentioned before that I like Will & Grace for its charmingly archaic notion of the bohemian: gay men, Jews, and rich junkies. But of course there’s something missing from this otherwise pleasingly 1930s picture: where are the communists? I wonder what form of political action would best put pressure on NBC to ensure the introduction of a humorously and inoffensively stereotypical commie in the next season?
In other news, I have a song on my computer by Fefe Dobson, who appears to be the black, goth Avril, and as good as that sounds. I haven’t really interrogated why I’m so well-disposed to this recent trend in pop-soft-rock. I mean, objectively, Fefe Dobson sounds a great deal like the fucking Red Hot Chilli Peppers, but somehow recontextualizing that within a pop context sounds great. I wonder where I got the MP3 from? I suspect Dirrrty Pop should take the credit. It’s a great blog, anyway, recently combining Girls Aloud and the Spice Girls with questionable readings of Nietzsche.
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I remember a seinfeld episode when a “humorously and inoffensively stereotypical commie” appeared, and even convinced kramer of the virtues of socialism
Comment by richard @ 1/27/2006 4:44 am
Some people confuse Will & Grace with Dharma & Greg (just the names, I guess). Dharma & Greg was a much better show, and Dharma was an anarchist. (For those who don’t know this, D&G was about a daughter of commune-dwelling hippies, Dharma, married to a lawyer-son of snooty Republican rich people, Greg.) Sometimes, we were subjected to the usual hippie sterotype jokes, but at other times, we got to have a glimpse of some of Dharma’s genuinely anarchist tendencies. This happened especially in the first couple of seasons, such as the time when Dharma ran for a local elected office and had her election workers pick their duties out of a hat, to the time she opened up a “store” that ended up “selling” whatever people felt like bringing and sharing.
After the first two seasons, though, the show kind of veered away from Dharma’s anarchist ideas, focusing more on Greg’s silly rich family and on the roles that Dharma and Greg played in their relationship. At this point, the show fell into much more familiar territory and old TV gender roles, as the mixture of zany Dharma and straight-laced Greg began more and more to resemble I Dream of Jeannie. (I came up with that analogy on my own, but I found out later that I wasn’t the only one to do so.)
Anyway, I blogged about it here:
http://nomorebigwheels.blogspot.com/2004/10/tv-watching-confession-1-dharma-greg.html
Comment by Commie Curmudgeon @ 1/29/2006 11:50 pm
The Fefe Dobson song was actually from my other blog, Into The Groove. It gets confusing, I know! Glad you like the song and my posts :D
Comment by Jessica @ 2/2/2006 11:35 am
ha, i was going to mention the seinfeld episode!! tho the commie had little to do with the bohemian figure, and was more of a bland, bearded, CPUSA type (though certainly ineffective). kramer’s recapitulation of socialism was epic: explaining that delis wouldn’t exist under communism, because they represent a system for the classification of meats… communism would certainly be better off if it were really opposed to such an exaggerated range of classifications!
Comment by geo @ 2/4/2006 9:35 am