Tag: alyssa rosenberg

Revisiting Community

Matthew EilarLeave a comment

The last time I wrote about NBC’s Community, I was deeply ambivalent. It was a little to shiny and cutesy for me. Since then, I’ve become a semi-regular watcher, but once again, I think I’m going to stop watching the show.

One of the things that pisses me off is the free pass that the show seems to get from TV critics about the show’s racial humor. I think this pass is a result of two things, the fairly ( and depressingly uncommon) diverse and integrated cast, and the fact that every once in a while, the show has extremely witty race-based humor (see the clip above). For example, read this fawning passage from Todd VanDerWerff at the AV Club:

Community‘s about a lot of things, really, but one of the things it keeps buried until it’s useful to trot it out thematically is the fear of getting old. I mean, just aside from the fact that the show has an elderly guy and a middle-aged black woman as characters and actually takes them seriously beyond the stereotypes other shows would reduce them to, …

…As much as everyone loves the supporting characters on the show, Jeff and Britta are its heart, with Annie and Troy as reminders of who they were, Pierce and Shirley as ideas of who they might become, and Abed as the odd man out, observing and always commenting.

The thing is, I’m not convinced that the show takes these characters beyond stereotypes at all. Alyssa Rosenberg blogged about this in relation to Glee a few days ago:

I love, love Amber Riley, and I love Mercedes as a character who can declare “I’m worried about showing too much skin and causing a sex riot,” as an explanation for why she refuses to wear a cheerleading skirt, and I hate that the inevitable end consequence of having a big, sassy black girl is a story about eating disorders and a rainbow of high school students singing Christina Aguilera’s most saccharine song.  Why can’t she just be fabulous without consequence? Why can’t she have a boyfriend? Why are the show’s best, tartest couple reduced to sidekicks?  Why does the gay kid have to be semi-pathetic and clueless?

What this comes down to is that there is still work to be done, still decisions to be made once the casting is done. Both Glee and Community would have you believe that they are poking fun at the “sassy black woman” stereotype. But the shows never made that transition to treating their characters beyond stereotype, and so end up reinforcing them.

Book: His Majesty's Dragon

Matthew EilarLeave a comment


I just got done with Naomi Novik’s His Majesty’s Dragon. I picked it up on Alyssa Rosenberg’s half-recommendation. It seemed like it would hit all of my buttons. I’m an unabashed lover of kitschy dragon fiction, and historical fiction makes me feel intelligent and stokes my ego (when it’s done well, because I understand the references. When it’s done poorly, because I feel superior to the author). A dragon-filled book of military historical fiction? I’m on board!
HMD is set in England during the Napoleonic Wars. We meet Will Laurence, captain in the Royal Navy, as he captures a French frigate with a valuable cargo: a dragon egg. In this alternate history, dragons function as the aerial arm of the military, complete with ground crews and different breeds suited to strafing, bombing and dog (dragon?) -fighting. Will harnesses (imprints) this mysterious dragon, which he names Temraire. This book (the first in a series) deals with the personal fallout of that action, and Will and Temraire’s training regimen in the Dragon Air Corps.
The book is slight, with lean plotting. I found it pretty entertaining and extremely easy to read. I also appreciated that Novik flirted with some of the conventions of the genre, while sidestepping most of them. The mere fact that our protagonist is in his late 20’s means that there is a whole host of adolescent-centric character arcs that we don’t have to read again.
The flip side of that ease and directness of plot is that it frequently feels like it’s underwritten. I don’t believe that longer is always better (although I am slogging through the Baroque Trilogy, so I must be some kind of masochist), but there are several sections that, had they been fleshed out a little more, would have served a more cohesive, satisfying, and substantial whole.
I also found the speculative/alternate history aspect of the book fairly superficial. The characters speak in an unobtrusive old timey formal style (as opposed to, say, Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norell, a novel in which everyone speaks like Joseph in Wuthering Heights), and Novik name-checks a handful of historical figures, but otherwise the characters and plot could have been set in any fictional world. Or Pern.
The most surprising thing to me was how disturbed I was by scenes of dragon aerial combat. The book sets them up as these sentient war beasts, and I couldn’t help but think of war elephants. The scenes aren’t particularly graphic, but the flippant cartoony descriptions almost made it worse for me.
I would probably recommend reading the book if you had it in your hand and were boarding a flight, otherwise I’d skip it. I’m a sucker for multi-volume sci-fi/fantasy stories, yet I don’t think I’ll continue with the series.

Book: His Majesty’s Dragon

Matthew EilarLeave a comment

I just got done with Naomi Novik’s His Majesty’s Dragon. I picked it up on Alyssa Rosenberg’s half-recommendation. It seemed like it would hit all of my buttons. I’m an unabashed lover of kitschy dragon fiction, and historical fiction makes me feel intelligent and stokes my ego (when it’s done well, because I understand the references. When it’s done poorly, because I feel superior to the author). A dragon-filled book of military historical fiction? I’m on board!

HMD is set in England during the Napoleonic Wars. We meet Will Laurence, captain in the Royal Navy, as he captures a French frigate with a valuable cargo: a dragon egg. In this alternate history, dragons function as the aerial arm of the military, complete with ground crews and different breeds suited to strafing, bombing and dog (dragon?) -fighting. Will harnesses (imprints) this mysterious dragon, which he names Temraire. This book (the first in a series) deals with the personal fallout of that action, and Will and Temraire’s training regimen in the Dragon Air Corps.

The book is slight, with lean plotting. I found it pretty entertaining and extremely easy to read. I also appreciated that Novik flirted with some of the conventions of the genre, while sidestepping most of them. The mere fact that our protagonist is in his late 20’s means that there is a whole host of adolescent-centric character arcs that we don’t have to read again.

The flip side of that ease and directness of plot is that it frequently feels like it’s underwritten. I don’t believe that longer is always better (although I am slogging through the Baroque Trilogy, so I must be some kind of masochist), but there are several sections that, had they been fleshed out a little more, would have served a more cohesive, satisfying, and substantial whole.

I also found the speculative/alternate history aspect of the book fairly superficial. The characters speak in an unobtrusive old timey formal style (as opposed to, say, Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norell, a novel in which everyone speaks like Joseph in Wuthering Heights), and Novik name-checks a handful of historical figures, but otherwise the characters and plot could have been set in any fictional world. Or Pern.

The most surprising thing to me was how disturbed I was by scenes of dragon aerial combat. The book sets them up as these sentient war beasts, and I couldn’t help but think of war elephants. The scenes aren’t particularly graphic, but the flippant cartoony descriptions almost made it worse for me.

I would probably recommend reading the book if you had it in your hand and were boarding a flight, otherwise I’d skip it. I’m a sucker for multi-volume sci-fi/fantasy stories, yet I don’t think I’ll continue with the series.

Diane Neal

Matthew Eilar1 Comment

I was happy to see this post on the awesomeness of Casey Novak (not to be confused with the recently dead Robert Novak) from the excellent Alyssa Rosenberg.  Casey Novak (on Law and Order: Special Victims Unit) is played by Diane Neal, and she is fully half of the reason why I watch the show.