Never thought I'd write about Studio 60

[sistermagpie]

I sort of watch this show, though until this week I always missed the first half because of Weeds. I've also been watching Heroes and while I mostly like it I can't read anyone's thoughts on it because I barely know any of the characters' names.

Anyway, I was wondering something about

Generally, the show annoys me, though there are people on it I like. I agree with the article that musefool linked to here, that it's unbelievable as a show about a comedy show, because nobody cares about comedy at all, and the atmosphere isn't right. And of course, the sketches we see are awful. Someone had once pointed out that a lot of SNL sketches, even the classic ones, might look bad taken out of context, but I think the thing is those sketches wouldn't look bad so much as weird or silly. It's a slightly different thing. The show might do a lot better if you saw people saying strange things like "More Cowbell," because we'd get it was supposed to be funny and we just didn't get it. Instead all the sketches are obviously low-level SNL stuff where the whole sketch is clear, but just lame. In fact that joke thing with the credit protection actually was done better on SNL when it was a takeoff on a commercial current at that time.

Anyway, I'm pretty tired of what seems to be the pattern of every week I have to listen to Harry have some dumb opinion on something so that Matt can complain about it but then it ends up we feel badly for her and it turns out he was too harsh. This week we of course also got the judge also there to make remarks about African American hairstyles and then shame everyone for not respecting the red states. Which again was bizarre, because why was the judge saying that he found their show smug? We've seen the sketches...what's smug about it? They're not doing political humor. Do people find SNL smug?

Anyway, so Harry. I've accepted that she's supposed to be really talented even though she isn't. I'm not an expert on SNL but isn't the idea that the people who do well on the show do so because they are writers? Like, wasn't Gilda Radner presumably responsible for creating Rosanne Roseannadanna and Judy Miller etc.? At some points yeah, people would presumably be cast in others' sketches, but I always got the impression that being a comedian on those shows meant being able to write jokes as well as act them well, that you had to fight to get yourself on. Not that I think everyone necessarily did that, but if Harry is supposed to be the star of the show, shouldn't she have some talent for comedy instead of just being a blandly pretty blond who's able to not mess up an obvious joke? It's like doing a show about SNL's classic years and making Larraine Newman was the standout star.

But okay, I actually do have a question. Poor Harry was being "censored" by being told that she shouldn't do her Women of Faith concert because she shouldn't be associated with anti-gay marriage groups after her faux pas of saying that "The Bible says [homosexuality] is wrong, but it also says judge not lest ye be judged," with the press cutting off the second part of the sentence. My question is first of all, would that really be such a serious thing for her career? I mean, as I understand it (missed this part) the harassment she encountered was by gay men. It's not like there was some big outcry against her words, she just made herself known as a homophobe...is that really something that would scare people so much? Is her fanbase really supposed to be mostly made up of people who feel really strongly about that issue? I seem to remember Mel Gibson being known as a homophobe without its being a problem (again, went along with him being an outspoken Catholic). It seems like it sort of played into the myth that the country is being taken over by people pushing gay marriage when, uh, her view still seems to be pretty popular. In fact, she didn't even say anything about gay people herself, she said the Bible says it's wrong, with which many people would disagree but still, it's hardly a radical interpretation and the woman has a known second career as a gospel singer.

And that was the thing I wondered. They seemed to say she should cancel her concerts because she shouldn't be more linked to people against gay marriage. I'm not a publicist, but I thought that would be a fine thing. That way you're just making her understandable. People who have trouble with her being against gay marriage can just file her away under "religious fanatic." What good does cancelling concerts do? Isn't the cat kind of out of the bag about her religious connections? Would somebody think cancelling a few concerts would make the gay community forget she's got a whole career as a gospel singer and oh yeah, is the kind of Christian who thinks homosexuality is wrong? It just seemed like as usual it was there to make Harry the victim so that after lots of ranting against her beliefs there was still the predictable ending of Matt being the bad guy. Even the publicist was there as a symbol of the liberal police who would instinctively play down her religious life instead of working with it.

Comments

[montavilla.livejournal.com]

* Love the Monty Python story-and didn't they (as I think most comedy writers say) that they basically just kept stuff in that made them laugh?

The rule was that they ALL had to laugh. There's other great stories. For example, Eric Idle's famous "nudge nudge" man was originally written for another show in which he didn't perform, but no one got it, because it's all about the delivery. And all the animation Gilliam did was basically him frantically pulling stuff out of his picture files and slapping it in front of a camera.

I haven't been able to catch 30 Rock all the time, from what I've seen, they know at least how to portray comedy writers. There are other good models out there--The Dick Van Dyke Show and My Favorite Year come to mind. Both were based on the experiences of writing for the Sid Caesar show (on which Neil Simon and Woody Allen got their start as writers).

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

I notice in somebody's office on Studio 60 there's a Woody Allen poster. I haven't been able to tell which movie it's from or if it's from a movie. My first thought was Love and Death. Though I get the feeling they'd presumably like it because of the references to Russian Lit and Bergman instead of the jokes about Russian Lit and Bergman.