Chipper Jones' Farewell Tour Continues!

So, having seen two episodes of HBO's Girls, I don't mind talking about what I dislike about it. It's not so much that I necessarily dislike it as it is that there are a few things about it that just don't work. And perhaps I should mention that while I think I saw all — or most — of the first episode, the DVR of the second episode cut out in parts because of bad weather, which is because we have this dish on the roof because there's no FiOS in our neighborhood which is probably because all the cables from the cable TV thingys kind of float along the tops of branches in the area between the backyards of the houses on our street and the backyards of the houses on the other street, which means — or at least I think it means — that it's hard to string fiber optic cables back there, even though I saw some dudes from Time Warner stringing something back there the other week, so theoretically it'd be possible to get FiOS, but for the time being we don't have it, which is why the DVR of Girls cut out in parts — because satellite TV is kind of dopey, and because the cable packages are really expensive.

Oh, and I'm pretty sure I had to change a diaper during the second episode, and I'm still not really that quick at changing diapers, though I gather that a lot of guys take pride in being able to change a diaper like a NASCAR crew changes tires.

All of which is to say, I feel totally justified in saying that I completely one-hundred percent basically "get" Girls, the problems of which I will address immediately below.

Which starts here.

First, while watching the first episode I totally forgot the thing about how the show's creator is this decade's Harmony Korine or whatnot. What I remember thinking was, "Wow, this writer really thinks these characters are idiotic," which is a problem if you, as the viewer, are supposed to feel somehow invested — or at the very least interested in — the characters. For example, the protagonist is kind of a dipshit. Also, the lives of twenty-somethings in New York City are really fucking boring. Also, the New York that twenty-somethings inhabit is really fucking boring, like reading someone's Tumblr. And it doesn't help that the writer knows this, because then the characters seem that much less defined, and that much more stupid.

Which is why I was like, "Wow, I wonder who wrote this," which is when I saw the creator's name and Googled her and remembered the story about how she's like 23 or something, which actually made a lot of sense, because I while young writers tend to "write what they know," smart young writers will feel dumb about the limits of what they know and, in an almost self-hating kind of way, tear their characters apart. Which, like I said, ends up being kind of a drag to watch. I mean, sure, yeah, it's fun to laugh at dopey twenty-somethings, but this just kind of feels sadistic. If this were written by a 45-year-old man, you'd call it misogynistic. If this were written by a 35-year-old woman it would seem like satire. That you can see it as "autobiographical" or "semiautobiographical" gives it an earnest and ultimately kind of pathetic feel. At some point you can't really watch it without thinking about this aspect of the writing, because it kind of stands out.

That's not to say that parts of Girls aren't funny — there are some funny vignettes, especially in the second episode — but they're still just kind of painful to watch — and not just the sex scenes, which are what they are, but some of the job-related scenes and every time the protagonist tries to think of herself as a memoirist. And probably a few more which I'm too tired to correctly remember . . .

It's really hard to do unlikeable protagonists successfully. One of the strangest books that "works" in this respect is The Ginger Man, whose protagonist is such a huge dickhead that it gets silly after a while. Ultimately, I think most works of art with unrelenting protagonists tend to work better as think pieces than as something enjoyable.

(A quick aside: The more the protagonist/writer portrays herself as a loser writer who is chasing a faraway dream, the more annoying it becomes to watch the actual writer/protagonist get such success — it's a sort of faux modesty that rapidly turns into a kind of fuck you; maybe this is why people want to hate the whole thing.)

But I think there is one way Girls could really work well: Give the protagonist special superpowers to either fight crime or save Gotham from evil forces or something equivalent. If you think about it, it's perfect: Sure, the protagonist looks like a clueless rich kid slacker who is toiling away in obscurity but she's actually fighting on the front lines in the existential battle between good and evil. Now that's how you pull people in! It's like Dexter without the gore. It's like if Spiderman lived in Greenpoint. It's like if that stupid Jason Schwartzman show were actually good.

It's not too late to do this. And think about how pleasantly surprised you'd be if this turned out to be the case. In fact, you could probably make any bad show really awesome. What if all of these dreary David Milch series had a character with superpowers? Think how differently we'd perceive West Wing if C.J. used her powers to go rogue to really take care of Qumar. What if I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant was actually I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant . . . And A Superhero?

I may sound facetious but trust me, I'm not.

We Took Our Child To The Hunger Games; I'm Pretty Sure He Loved It

Have you ever heard of those Mommy Movie specials where movie theaters set aside a showing for adults to take young babies to and no one really cares if the babies cry or if you change them on the floor or whatnot? Well, we went to one today!

First, I want to say how offended I am that they're generally referred to as "Mommy Movie" days or whatever, because what, daddies can't drag along their infant to see The Hunger Games, too?

I'm proud to report that Animal was very good during his first movie (and his first trip to Brooklyn, his first stroll around Manhattan and his first inter-borough subway ride — well, except at the end there when he cried incessantly and we couldn't figure out what the deal was, until we realized after we got home that he was probably just really overheated in an unnecessary jacket and crammed against us in the carrier).

As for The Hunger Games, it was fantastic. Really well done. When we read the book I thought that it would make a pretty good movie, and they totally pulled it off.

I gather (because Jen said) there's been some discussion about the casting. When we first heard about it, I was surprised about a couple of the choices. While reading the book I pictured Stanley Tucci as Cinna, sort of half-reprising his role in The Devil Wears Prada (maybe that reveals something about me), and I thought Woody Harrelson was strange — that character I thought of as a rotund dark-haired man for some reason. But Woody Harrelson was great, and Stanley Tucci was good, too. And Jennifer Lawrence was great — such a strong character and she fit it perfectly.

(A word about the bizarre reaction to Lenny Kravitz' character and the District 11 characters being black — huh? I don't get it. The casting was smart in the way that it slightly evoked race and class in what seemed like was supposed to be a post-racial world; District 12 seemed like West Virginia while District 11 was perhaps Detroit or something; it worked.)

What I love about the story is how pitch perfect a Young Adult story it is. That the teens strugglie against adults in this tyrannical world is so smart. It reminded me of Robert Cormier's The Chocolate War, except Hunger Games was so much more awesome. The strong female character was so fresh, too, especially against that totally fucked up horrible relationship model in those vampire books.

What I also love about the story is the role of the underdog. (One thing I don't love about the movie is how they inserted a scene spelling that out so explicitly.) The earnest and non-ironic main character comes from an impoverished place where they are almost starving. She's thrust into a world of colorful urbane characters with expressive facial hair and high-speed rail. You can't not root for her. This makes the film sort of like a cross between Rudy, The Warriors, Platoon and My Fair Lady (give or take a few of those, I suppose).

What I also love about the story is the insane dystopian world the story inhabits, where teens kill one another for the television viewing pleasure of adults. It gets your attention. There was an asinine piece on the PBS NewsHour last week about the film where Jeffrey Brown asks his guest about the violence:

Q: Now, you said action. Of course, there's also violence.

A: There is violence.

Q: So, I've been reading. And that seems to be a question, about the level of violence. I mean, at the heart of this is a contest for survival involving teens killing teens.

Now, what kind of discussion has that elicited?

A: Right.

I think, certainly, parents seem to be concerned about this. You do have to ask yourself as a parent, is this a movie you want to take a young child to? And I think most parents would probably say, there — there is a PG-13 rating, so that's out there for you already.

But these are difficult questions, and I think the one thing that comes through from the beginning of the book until the ending is that Katniss is the main character, giving herself up as a sacrifice to save her sister. So there is deep love there, and she's doing this for a reason, that it's not like a video game, where people are just shooting each other for fun. There's a real depth to her story.

Huh?

(An aside: Why do "serious" news programs love to have writers on? They kind of suck on television, which is probably why they're writing and not speaking in public to begin with. Is this some kind of fetish about "writing" and "the print media"? The whole thing is stupid.)

How about the point of the violence is to show how tyrannical a world they're living in? How about comparing it to the violence in a movie like Saving Private Ryan, which was to illustrate how horrible war was? How about noting that ABC decided to air the uncut version of Private Ryan because the violence was an essential part of the message of the film? And that NBC showed Schindler's List uncut for the same reason? But "she's doing this for a reason, that it's not like a video game, where people are just shooting each other for fun"? What the fuck? Figure it the fuck out.

So anyway, I get why young adults would like this Young Adult work. It's a great Young Adult work. What I don't totally get is why adults are so apeshit about it. Before you get all "upset" or whatever, I'm including myself in that.

I wonder if it, in part, has to do with the great black-white/good-evil simplicity of the story. I think it's a stretch, and simplistic, to look at world and political events this last decade and think that there's a tendency for our culture to crave good vs. evil storylines. I mean, I like that answer in the sense that it feels good to point to one thing and apply it to all of popular culture, but there's got to be something else going on.

Maybe adults harbor a latent desire to want to see the underdog prevail. Maybe they want to see good triumph over evil. Maybe there's nothing particularly "adolescent" about it. I think I still crave stories that focus on good underdogs triumphing over evil overdogs. Maybe I crave simplistic stories. Maybe that's why Blue Valentine left me so fucking cold.

Sitting there with Animal, it struck me that I think I want a daughter, if only so she could see a positive female character like the one in The Hunger Games.

One last thing — I kept hearing about this great soundtrack with all manner of wonderful bands. I only heard a few soundtracky songs during the credits. It turns out that only three of the songs on the soundtrack actually appear in the film itself. That is basically the stupidest goddamn thing I've ever heard of. Call me a fuddy-duddy, but isn't a soundtrack comprised of songs that you hear parts of in a film? I thought it was bad enough that television shows had soundtracks. This might actually be worse.