....and not a Black girl in site... tv review

This morning I was up early, as usual, trying to be productive. I turned it to HBO On Demand (also known as my fall back tv experience) to check out a new show, How to Make It in America. 

How to Make It in America is an HBO original dramedy following two young New Yorkers, Ben Epstein (Bryan Greenberg) and Cam Calderon (Victor Rasuk) who are attempting to hustle their way onto the fashion scene. 

There are some interesting things happening on this show. 

1. Considering the fact that I JUST had a conversation with Michelle about all of these shows with racially homogenous (read: all white) casts, I will say that How to Make It... is actually  fairly diverse. Well, they have a fairly diverse cast in the way that most shows trying to avoid charges of being racist do:

Protagonist: White

Protagonist's Sidekick: Brown

Protagonist's love interests: White (w/occasional women of color here and there)

Peripheral (nameless) casts: rainbow

So really, it's diverse... but it aint.

2. I think it's interesting to consider male characters interested in fashion. Doesn't happen often. I'm intrigued.

3. Bryan Greenberg... Whatever, I love that dude. I sat through 2 awkward, albeit mildly intriguing, seasons of October Road and was sad when his character peaced out on One Tree Hill. Plus he's pretty!

What aint working (and the subject of my title)....

HOW THE FUCK DO YOU SET A SHOW IN NEW YORK AND NOT HAVE EVEN JUST ONE FLY ASS FASHIONISTA BLACK GIRL W/ GUSH-WORTHY NATURAL HAIR?

I mean really...

You can't tell me they don't exist because was started by a Black fashionista for other Brown fashionistas: The Fashion Bomb

So I like this show... or at least I wanna like this show but this just brought up all these issues about how Black women are far too often completely excised from popular culture. And if they are there you know who's not... Black men? This is really the same for all people of color. If there are brown men... then there's no brown women, no matter how big or small the part. 

Really, this is my critique. This is ALWAYS my critique. And you can always count on me to make it. 

I watch a lot of tv (it is what it is) and it's hard not to see the trend. Don't believe me? 

Check out some of these shows when you've got the time:

Dollhouse (canceled, but you can get that ish on Netflix)

House

CSI (all of them)

Gossip Girl

The Big Bang Theory

The Deep End

Southland

Leverage

The Closer

Secret Diary of a Call Girl

Mercy

the forgotten

Psych

or what about these shows that have no brown folk at all:

How I Met Your Mother

One Tree Hill

Desperate Housewives

Big Love

Caprica

Burn Notice

Life Unexpected

United States of Tara

Nurse Jackie (they got rid of Mo-Mo apparently....d-bags)

Smallville

and to be fair... these shows are the exception:

Grey's Anatomy

Private Practice

The Wire (but it's over and I'm still sad)

NUMB3RS

Cold Case

But at the end of the day (or really the beginning of the day in the case), the pilot episode wasn't great, the second epi waas interesting enough and I'm willing to add it to my tv-watching agenda.

But I'll always be salty as hell until there's a Black girl on the scene. And hopefully one who looks something like THIS.

My favorite TV show...

I won't go. I won't sleep. I can not breathe, until you're resting here with me.....

Roswell!

When Liz Parker (Shiri Appleby) is shot by a stray bullet in her family's restaurant, The Crashdown, in Roswell, NM Max Evans (Jason Behr) must make a life altering decision: save the girl he's secretly loved since first grade or protect his secret origins in outer space. Also featuring Colin Hanks, Brendan Fehr, Majandra Delfino and Katherine Heigl.

Roswell was my first... lots of things.

This was the first time I saw a show promo that made me so anxious for the fall premiere season that I WISHED for the end of summer. I've always been a tv hound, but this show was quite possibly the beginning of my downfall, otherwise known as my transformation into a couch potato.

Roswell was also the first time a show's fate ever stressed me out. When the WB canceled Roswell I cried. Seriously, I was 17 or 18. And now that I've typed that I realize how unbelievably pathetic that sounds. *cringe* Anyway, UPN saved this show and I was ecstatic. And then they canceled it after one season. I was too angry to shed any more tears.

That cancellation still stings today. Every fall season I get so excited when a show I love premieres, but I'm always very antsy that it'll get canceled too soon. I'm pretty sure that wounded distrust began here. Season 4 would have been amazing, but we'll never know!

This was also the first time I realized how great a truly amazing soundtrack could be. Everything from the theme ("Here With Me" by my beloved Dido) to every moody, depressing alternative female singer they used to punctuate teenage angst spoke to me. And when they put the series on dvd, even though they couldn't afford all of the songs on the original soundtrack, I think the team did a great job picking songs that carried the spirit of the show well.

I've also never been able to truly let this show go. Every now and then I bust out the dvds and have a Roswell marathon. I also shamelessly plug the show to friends (no takers yet, but soon... soon someone'll catch on to this fabulousness!) And I'm finally reading the books. I love a good, breezy YA escape and that's exactly what I get. I also love taking a mini vacation with a book that I can devour in a day of leisurely reading.

*sigh* I'm so nostalgic now... Looks like it might be time for another Max fest. Oh Jason Behr... how I love you!

Happy Birthday Sierra!

As you all know, I love my babies...
So here's a personal shot out to one of the coolest (the coolest!) little people I know.
::my namesake::

 

::my heart::

Just for you:



Love,

Titi Colie!

The Cold Blue Blood- book recommendation

Plot:
New York movie critic Mitch Berger goes to sleepy New England Dorset and falls in love with a secluded carriage house, where he plans to hide and grieve his wife's death. When there is a series of murders, surrounding Dorset's old moneyed elites, Mitch comes into contact with State Trooper Desiree Mitry, the highest ranking African American woman in the New England state police. They solve the mystery, fall in love, and Mitch's fool butt almost gets his ass killed!

This summer I decided to move away from all of the sci-fi, romance novels that I'd been consuming throughout the spring and move into mysteries. But not like creepy old man dead in the closet mysteries (I'll get to those soon enough), but cozy mysteries that are really interesting and fun to read, but not so much scary.

I started with Charlaine Harris' Real Murders.

Yea, you might remember her from the Sookie Stackhouse novels and True Blood. If you've read those novels then you know how quickly Harris becomes super annoying and the quality of the story begins to suffer. *cough*Dead and Gone*cough* She just has a way of turning okay characters into the most annoying people you could ever imagine reading. (By book 9 I hated Sookie almost as much as I hated Bella Swan). So I gave her Aurora Teagarden stories a try with more than a little trepidation. But, I have to say that the first and second books really weren't that bad. I'm currently going through that series (slowly) but I got sidetracked with Handler's Berger & Mitry mysteries.

The Cold Blue Blood by David Handler was recommended  on a message board/interracial fiction site. The series focuses on the developing relationship between Mitch and Des and, in my opinion, an inordinate amount of murders in such a small New England town.

So why am I recommending it?

Honestly, this shit is hilarious. Somehow Handler has a way of writing two characters who are just real enough that you think you might know someone like them, but just odd enough that you might not.

Mitch is like a "real life" version of The Critic . Fat, Jewish, totally nerdy, and only the tiniest bit pathetic. And not bald (plus!).

Des... Oh I just don't know how to describe her, but I'd love to see how Handler envisioned her. But in a word, she's AWESOME! even though she talks kinda funny...

Anyway, ch-ch-ch-check it out...

Dear Cold Case

You suck extra hard!

Give me back my Kat Miller:

This, by the way, is hot:

Let's go back to that.

...good day mate (or whatever)...

We all know that there are lots of foreign actors donning "American" accents on tv. Some people get all angsty about it, usually New Yorkers, oddly enough. I, however, think it's super freaking awesome. Especially the bad ones! Let' consider the players:

Alex O'Louglin: SEXY... oh, his accent... um, pretty decent actually, except sometimes you can tell that it's acting. Usually it's when he doesn't blend words together or cut off their endings in that very particular way that I love. It's hard to explain really. Well, that's not true. It's more like Americans are lazy (I mean this as a compliment) and "to" usually becomes "ta" as we blend it with the following or preceding words. So every time someone actually says "I want to go to the store" as opposed to "I wanta go..." they're either trying too hard or the accent is so fake... Either way, I love it.

Joseph Fiennes: Passable, mostly because he's doing the whole nondescript American accent that's always the easy way out in my opinion, but whatever.

Jonathan LaPaglia: Really good, but he has an odd way of speaking on Cold Case. It's not Boston. It's not New York. It's.... whatever, he's cute. It is what it is.

Yvonne Strahovski: Seriously... another Australian? (I kid I kid). Passable, but she does the kind of accent that you know isn't quite right but you put up with it anyway cause... well, fine... she's hot.

Jamie Bamber: He was damn good on BSG... Sure he had some slip ups every now and then, but very few as far as I could see. And he's hot. (Yes, there is a theme: Be pretty: no one cares if you sound like a muppet.)

Hugh Laurie: Motherphucken Flawless, mate! 

Who are your favorite pretend Americans?

...what a difference a curl makes...

On The L Word, Katherine Moennig was, quite possibly, the love of my life as sexy, horribly emaciated, womanizer Shane.  When that show ended, very unsatisfactorily I might add, I despaired about getting my weekly Shane Katherine fix.

So of course I was excited when I saw that she was cast on Three Rivers as Dr. Miranda Foster, with the oh so motherphucken gorgeous Alex O'Loughlin of Moonlight fame. (Man, I miss that show!) The season premiere last week was... meh. Whatever. I wasn't surprised. I wasn't in love. And while this show is likely to make a second season it's almost certain that I'll only watch to drool over Alex. I'd hoped to salivate over Katherine as well until:

 WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON WITH HER HAIR!?

Oh my god. I really have nothing else to say. No review of the show. No critiques really about the plot or acting. I can't even muster a huzzah! at the fabulous Alfre Woodard.

All I have to offer is a deep, heartfelt plea for the hair and makeup team on Three Rivers to fix this situation.

STAT!