The cast of Beverly Hills Teens (Jett is the one with the blonde palm tree and guitar, Switchboard is behind her in the jacuzzi wearing sunglasses and a pink bow); image courtesy of wikimedia.org
The other night at a mutual friend’s party, Alex of Pink Army played me a portion of an episode of the animated children’s program Beverly Hills Teens. It aired on syndication and was brought to American kids by DiC, who anticipated the allure of rich teens romping through Beverly Hills before Aaron Spelling by a few years. Apparently it only had one season in the can (1987-1988) but the 65 episodes were re-ran for some time. Five of these episodes are available in full to curious or nostalgic types on YouTube. Other friends at the party remembered it as well, serving as either a lead-in to Jem or following Duck Tales in the after-school line-up. Somehow it was not on my radar. Maybe it was because I was watching Out of This World instead.
Make no mistake: this show is really dumb. Hokey writing, predictable storylines, broadly-written stock characters, and so forth. Basically, each episode focuses on teen queens Larke Tanner and Bianca Dupree. Anyone who’s watched Gossip Girl or read an Archie comic can guess how any plot goes down. Snobby blue-blood brunette Dupree covets something of golden girl Tanner’s (her popularity, modeling career, or boyfriend Troy) and doesn’t get it.
Like Betty and Veronica and Larke and Bianca, Blair and Serena are blonde vs. brunette frenemies
The considerable supporting cast also brings to mind the Archie universe or the coterie of folks inhabiting the CW’s version of the UES. All-American Troy is Archie Andrews or Nate Archibald. Preppy Pierce Thorndyke III (love that name) is Reggie Mantle III or Chuck Bass. Token African American character Shanelle Spencer suggests a shallow notion of inclusiveness in the same way that Chuck Clayton, Nancy Woods, or Blair’s attendants of color do. Rocker Gig and surfer Radley provide some slacker cool in the wake of Jughead Jones’s insouciance that predates the hipster appeal of Dan Humphrey. You get it.
Gossip Girl: what happens when Archie Andrews meets Aaron Spelling, Stephanie Savage, and Josh Schwartz; image courtesy of feministe.us
However, I don’t want to write off this formulaic children’s cartoon without mentioning two characters that are completely in line with my research: rock chick Jett and nerdy informant Switchboard. Valley girl Jett may be Gig’s girlfriend, but they also play guitars in an outfit together. In fact, Jett sings the theme song. I suppose she could be somewhere between Jenny Humphrey and Josie McCoy, a satellite in the Archie universe.
Rachel Leigh Cook in the middle as the live-action version of Josie McCoy, flanked by drummer Melody Valentine (Tara Reid) and bassist Valerie Brown (Rosario Dawson); image courtesy of premiere.com
The character I relate to is Switchboard, a friend of Jett’s. The name’s great, for a start. And while she’s cast as a geek (glasses on!), her idiosyncratic, period-indicative fashion sense would be prescient for how hipster girls dress now. As a journalist who always has the scoop on everything that’s going on in this stratified world, it only lends to her credibility. And while she’s got a strange obsession with the boring popular girls, something tells me that she’d later channel that energy into something more subversive once she went to RISD or Mills College. Basically, I think this girl later goes on to launch Artforum‘s Web site. There’s no clear precursor to her in the Archie universe, but I think she may very well be Gossip Girl, if it isn’t Chuck.
It’s now clear that geeks have a tremendous amount of cultural sway, as books like Benjamin Nugent’s American Nerd: The Story of My People and the rise of Tina Fey suggest. I’d argue there’s a whole lot of whiteness going on with this construction of geek, as the characterization of classed whiteness offered by Stuff White People Like and the fascination with blipsters may also evince. That said, as a white girl geek, I’m still interested in cataloging those moment when nerdy girls and women exist in media culture, no matter how small or problematic. In honor of friend and fellow geek Catherine, who came to feminism through riot grrrl as a teenage outcast and gave me Nugent’s book for my 25th birthday, I’ll leave you with Lisa Loeb’s “Stay.” Catherine texted me yesterday that she was watching this video and discovered that Ms. Loeb (an Ivy League-educated Texan) designed her own eyewear collection. Naturally.
Alexandra Patsavas licensing indie rock for TV and movies like a boss; image courtesy of letterstotwilight.wordpress.com
I’ve been thinking about Alexandra Patsavas for a long time. She started blipping on my radar during the first season of The O.C., which she helped make a phenomenon early in the show’s run. She’s worked similar magic for Grey’s Anatomy and collaborates with creator Josh Schwartz, who also gave us The O.C., Chuck, Gossip Girl, andRockville CA. Her credits are all over network and cable television. She’s also worked in film, most notably with the Twilight franchise.
Patsavas in between Josh Schwartz and Kaiser Chiefs' lead singer Ricky Wilson; image courtesy of pedrowatcher.freedomblogging.com
What does she do, you ask? She’s a music supervisor, and one of the few women to rise to such prominence in the industry. The role of music supervisor has expanded considerably in the past fifteen years or so to include legal finagling with record labels. I’d also argue that their role, depending on the project and the collaborative spirit of a director or show runner, warrants entitlement to authorial claims. As such, Patsavas is also the person largely responsible for the commercialization of indie rock during the 2000s, almost single-handedly catapulting bands like Death Cab for Cutie into mainstream success. She even has a hand in distribution, as the indie-friendly Twilight soundtracks that she developed were released on her record label, Chop Shop.
New Moon soundtrack (Chop Shop/Atlantic, 2009); image courtesy of openbooksociety.com
Thus, she’s been a figure I’ve followed obsessively during this decade, sometimes causing me to sniff that I’d never sell independent music out like she has and other times provoking me to growl “bitch took my job,” depending on my cash flow at the time. Either way, I’m fascinated with her and think we should think about her work more closely.
It seems I’m not alone in thinking Ms. Patsavas is interesting. In a previous post on designer Anna Sui and her Gossip Girl-inspired collection for Target, reader Alaina made an astute comment about the shared importance of music and fashion on the show. To her, if anyone on the trendsetting teen soap has the cultural clout akin to, say, Sex and the City costume designer Pat Field, it isn’t designer Eric Daman but music supervisor Patsavas.
Now, I don’t want to put words in her mouth so hopefully she’ll feel compelled to elaborate her point further. But I interpreted her comment to mean that Patsavas’s work on Schwartz’s television shows, which all feature characters who are tremendously literate in popular and independent music, creates a sense of authenticity both for the show and for the characters whose lives are changed and identities formed by the right song from Spoon, Sonic Youth, LCD Soundsystem, Death Cab for Cutie, Air, Daft Punk, or any other cool-kid music act. In fact, Seth Cohen and Dan and Jenny Humphrey might not even exist without her, as they certainly wouldn’t know what band names to drop. Thus, Patsavas creates a brand awareness akin to the sort of work Field did through Carrie Bradshaw in making Manolo Blahnik, Jimmy Choo, and Christian Louboutin such household names.
"Sarah, I own you like Alex Patsavas owns the Humphreys!", Pat Field with Sarah Jessica Parker; image courtesy of observer.com
For me, though, perhaps her most fascinating work is on Mad Men, which is often period-appropriate but sometimes dabbles with pointed anachronism, thus potentially opening up inquiry about the show’s relationship to historical authenticity. The most jarring (and discussed) musical moment so far has been season two’s “Maidenform,” which opens to Betty Draper, Joan Holloway, and Peggy Olsen getting dressed to the galloping strains of The Decemberists’s “The Infanta,” a track off Picaresque that was released in 2005 and not 1962. I’m assuming she’s responsible for selecting the show’s theme as well, though imagine score composer David Carbonara or creator/show runner/auteur Matthew Weiner could be responsible. Regardless, this is easily the show’s most heard but least commented upon bit of anachronism.
As I mentioned in my comment to Gary Edgerton’s essay for In Media Res about the show’s opening credits, the theme song is not the work of Bernard Herrmann or a Carbonara approximation. It’s an instrumental version of a song called “A Beautiful Mine.” The people responsible for it are an instrumental hip hop artist named RDJ2, a rapper from Freestyle Fellowship named Aceyalone, and a period-appropriate violinist named Enoch Light, whose “Autumn Leaves” provides the basis for the tune. The song originally appeared on Acey’s Magnificent City.
Pointedly, his vocals are absent from the show’s theme. I suppose a black man’s rap might be too anachronistic for some. But I also think there’s something unsettling about such an argument. It may either provide a comment on the deliberate absence of people of color in a show set in pre-integration America or validate many of the show’s detractors who cry “racism!” I think it does both.
Thus, song selection matters. But of course, so do song selectors.
Taylor Momsen, apparently over it; image courtesy of gofugyourself.com
So, did ya’ll know that Taylor Momsen fronts a rock band? I guess that’s why she’s always sneering each time I see her on Go Fug Yourself. All this, and Leighton Meester working toward a pop career too!
Now, I don’t want to seem snide or condescending, especially about a veteran child actress transitioning into adulthood. I don’t want to speculate that her interest in music has developed just as the once-hot teen soap she’s on is starting to cool. Who am I to suggest that the Gossip Girl star’s musical forays aren’t sincere?
Apparently Momsen’s been singing for years and fronts a band called The Pretty Wreckless. While essentially a solo project with some (male) hired-gun musicians, she is the act’s vocalist, costume designer, and primary songwriter. The group has been putting on shows and has recorded a single, “Zombie,” which has a raw sound that suggests Momsen’s listened to a lot of Courtney Love.
Momsen channels Love when fronting her band; image courtesy of buzznet.com
Momsen’s done a lot more to suggest she wants to explore music beyond adding another hyphenate, like one-time would-be pop singers Hilary Duff, Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, and Nicole Richie, who at one point was in a band with model Josie Maran called Darling and was supposed to be working on an alternative-influenced solo project that may or may not see the light. Momsen even plays a bit of guitar as well. I’d hazard she’d do more of it if she’d bulk up. Have you seen her twiggy arms? Homegirl needs to eat all kinds of sandwiches.
But I am a still little incredulous, as I am about Momsen’s entire hipster image, which became public just as Jenny Humphreys was becoming the UES’s edgy It Girl on Gossip Girl. There’s something just way too pre-fab about all of it that makes me wonder if there’s any real difference between Momsen wears skinny jeans and when, say, the Jonas Brothers do it (or, as Jonah Weiner points out in an article Kristen sent my way, when Miley Cyrus hires producers who swipe from lesser-known songs for indie cred). After the controversial but transformative presence Rachel Zoe had in reinventing Nicole Richie’s public image, I work under the assumption that all celebrities have stylists and that Momsen’s no exception, even if she herself is interested in fashion. I can’t help but wonder if similar industrial mechanisms are at work for her and her musical aspirations.
Maybe I’m just being snobby about medium and public image. While I have my doubts about Momsen’s musical pursuits, I never questioned when fellow former child actress Jena Malone released a seven-inch with Social Registry back in 2007 and continued on as the lead singer of The Shoe. Assuredly this has much to do with an appreciation of Malone’s experimental sound.
Jena Malone, in concert; image courtesy of jena-malone.info
But I’d be lying if I said my enjoyment of Malone’s music wasn’t informed by my pre-established fandom of her turns in indie-friendly fare like Cheaters, Saved, and Donnie Darko. It probably didn’t hurt matters that she has lesbian parents, legally emancipated herself as a minor for financial reasons, and appeared in public with a bald head. In short, her outsider persona matched her acting and musical choices. It seemed, to employ that ickiest of value judgements, “authentic.”
That said, I support Momsen’s right to rock out. But I’ll have to hear and see more before I call myself a fan.
So, I have two entries drafted on Almost Famous and Sonic Youth’s cameo on last night’s Gossip Girl. Now, I could finish one of them and rush it to publication for you kind, attentive readers. But, I started watching season one of Friday Night Lights this weekend and some profound race relations stuff is going down and I intend to finish disc four tonight. If you’ve watched the show, you understand. If you haven’t, then I highly recommend starting, especially if you’re like me and grew up in a rural Texas suburb.
That said, two dude-friends pointed me in an interesting direction this morning and I thought I’d write a quick post on it. Peter reminded me of one artist I forgot about and David pointed out another act I didn’t know existed (but whose work I had heard sampled on Fergie’s “Fergalicious“). Thanks, guys. That these artists were obscure female rap artists who got support from members of rap group N.W.A. should not be overlooked, especially alongside the widely-held belief that N.W.A., and the subgenre of gangsta rap that they helped pioneer, were sexist and misogynistic (and also homophobic). And I don’t want to discredit those claims, as they have considerable merit. Barring examples from Ice-T, Dr. Dre, and Eazy-E’s solo careers, and Dre’s assault on Dee Barnes while still in the group, I don’t think we have to look much further than “One Less Bitch” and “She Swallowed It” off Efil4zaggin).
That said, I think this argument gets challenged by the presence Tairrie B, who was signed to Ruthless Records, who also housed N.W.A. for a time, and was mentored by Eazy-E. It gets further complicated by J.J. Fad, who originally used their initials to form the group’s name, whose debut album, Supersonic was produced by Dr. Dre, DJ Yella, and Arabian Prince’s production credits. Now, this isn’t to overlook the gendered dimensions of the mentor-protégée relationship (though it would behoove us to remember that N.W.A.’s records often contained samples of records by female artists like Lyn Collins and E.S.G.). It also isn’t to overlook Tairrie’s normative white, blonde good looks, or that her metal career further temper the waters.
Tairrie B fronting My Ruin; image courtesy of pauljorion.com
But it does emphasize the oft-overlooked presence women and girls of multiple racial and ethnic categories have always had in hip-hop and the support some men in positions of power in the game have given. It may not forgive a statement like “bitches ain’t shit but hoes and tricks” or level the playing field, but it sure as hell complicates standard conceptions of gender roles and racial norms in hip-hop’s industrial practices.
J.J. Fad, as of 2008; image courtesy of simplydopeculture.wordpress.com
So, before I go into my post about Anna Sui’s Gossip Girl-inspired Target collection that launched last summer, I’d like to first announce something totally superfluous but strangely encapsulating. I am down to the dregs of my Anna Sui Dolly Girl perfume. My mom bought it for me several birthdays ago and it is a delightfully flirty fragrance that I only wear when I need to feel publically sexy. If I went to your birthday party, going-away party, theme party, house-warming, wedding, or any other BIG EVENT, this is what I smelled like before I got sweaty and/or drunk. Priced at $35 and lasting over several years, it has definitely served me well.
Anna Sui's Dolly Girl; image courtesy of fragrancex.com
Delightfully flirty and publically sexy seems to be Gossip Girl‘s chief M.O. The CW teen drama, created by O.C. mastermind Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage, is now in its third season and based on the popular tween book series of same name by Cecily von Ziegesar. It focuses on the soapy, bitchy, frothy excesses of a gaggle of teenaged haves and (to a lesser extent) have-nots and their parents in New York City. Importantly, its wardrobe is in essence a principal character, largely due to costume designer Eric Daman’s keen eye for established and emergent talent in contemporary fashion. The show has launched once-fledging talent like Blake Lively, who has appeared in pictorials for Vanity Fairand on the cover of Vogue. It has also scored previously unknown actresses like Leighton Meester into a spokeswoman deal with Reebok.
Vogue cover girl Blake Lively, February 2009; image courtesy of bryanboy.com
The show has proven itself bit of a taste-maker. How else to explain why this “silly” teen soap (with a considerable hip twentysomething following) got the coop of having Christian Dior’s Miss Dior Chérie advertisement air for the first time during the “Bonfire of the Vanity” episode? Oh, and let’s not overlook who directed the spot — Ms. Sofia Coppola, herself a hipster icon, fashionista, erstwhile clothing designer, sometimes design collaborator, and friend to folks like Marc Jacobs and, yes, Anna Sui.
BTW, I remember this really interesting feature Seventeen did back in 1993 with Sui, Coppola, and friends Zoe Cassavettes and Donovan Leitch, but cannot find it on the Interwebz. If curious, please contact your local library. When you find it, note the crocheted shawls, chokers, matte lipstick, and other hallmarks of early-90s fashion they’re wearing that are now making a comeback.
Bringing publications like Seventeeninto the discussion make inevitable the show’s fanbase and target audience, who tend to be pre-teen and tween girls. Thus, there’s probably a fair amount of aspiration that can be marketed toward (a euphemistic term for “exploited”). And while I feel kinda icky about the proceedings, especially since Sui’s Gossip Girl-inspired togs tend to be mid-range ($30-$70), I at least can recognize that these clothes are more affordable than, say, Louis Vuitton, or even some of the garments sold at mall retailers like Express, Banana Republic, and The Limited.
The market-driven desire to dress like a gossip girl suggests a particular cultural power, perhaps one not since seen since Carrie Bradshaw became a game-charging sartorialist (and Sarah Jessica Parker became her). The Gossip Girl cast’s on- and off-screen wardrobe (and, in Taylor Momsen’s case, the merging of the two) has also provided fodder for fashion blogs like Go Fug Yourself, much in the same way that producer Josh Schwartz’s name-making franchise The O.C. Gossip Girl has even taken its fashion-plate status toward self-reflexive ends. In the season two episode, “The Serena Also Rises,” a fashion show seating chart appears on screen, with Fug Girls Jessica Morgan and Heather Cocks’s names on it.
Thus, the show, like other Schwartz-helmed programs, is known for its intertextuality. So it seems fitting that a television show — particularly one as creative as marketing and distributing itself in an increasingly digitized and convergent media climate that young women have been especially adept at traversing, would try marketing its show through clothes. It’s a move with a bit of recent history (Grey’s Anatomy for New York & Company) and a bit of current cross-promotional play (Mad Men for Banana Republic, which Jonathan Gray has critiqued).
But having Sui team up with Target to design for Gossip Girl it is interesting, and smart in terms of the show’s investment in fashion, both as an industry and as a bridging cultural practice. Like Gossip Girl, Sui’s work has been characterized by her ongoing interests in popular music. Gossip Girl‘s music supervisor Alexandra Patsavas defines the show by its of-the-moment “indie” sound, which in turn gets referenced, idolized, and critiqued at length by the show’s characters in much the same way it was on The O.C..Likewise, Sui is often inspired by popular music — particularly 60s garage rock, 90s Britpop, riot grrrl, and mod culture — and incorporates the attitude and aesthetic into her designs.
Actress Emma Stone wearing Sui's mod babydoll dress, designed with Blair Waldorf in mind; image courtesy of thestarnews.info
Both the show and designer have a preoccupation with the 90s — for the show, it is an era that commercialized alternative rock and, for hip dad and former rocker Rufus Humphrey, it is an albatross. Sui might feel similarly about the era, which was her zenith period and was not repeated in the 2000s when peer designers like Marc Jacobs, Alexander McQueen, and Stella McCartney made the career move to be house designers for Louis Vuitton, Givenchy, and Chloé, respectively. Sui instead followed in the footsteps of designers like Betsey Johnson and continued to cultivate her brand from a slightly lower tier, opening boutiques around the world and continuing to create new collections, but largely outside of the elite world of haute couture. Likewise, Gossip Girl is not a big player on television with colossal ratings. It’s not on a big-four network or on a prestige cable channel like HBO.
(Note: Obviously, if one wants to read into Sui’s professional position her marginalized status as one of the few Asian American female clothing designers, there is ample room for this. Admittedly, I have not done so here, but would be very interested and encouraged by what others might have to say on the matter.)
But both designer and show have cultivated their kitschy, hip brands toward less-travelled though no-less-populist ends. Thus, it makes sense that Sui would link up with Gossip Girl (apparently, her favorite television show), and that they would link up with Target, a big box chain with affordable prices, a cooler and more ethical socioeconomic reputation than Wal-Mart, and a relationship with designers like Isaac Mizrahi, as well as M.I.A.’s former roommate Luella Bartley and Michelle Obama’s go-to guy Thakoon Panichgul who, like Sui, have created limited edition collections for the retailer.
Now, having already discussed the problematic nature of fixing a price range and marketing a clothing line toward an intended audience in such a blatant way, I’d like to close by casting a critical eye toward the clothes themselves.
A dress for Blair, Jenny, Serena, and Vanessa; image courtesy of mahoganyglam.com
One issue I have with the collection is how focused it is on dresses and skirts. While supposedly each outfit is designed with a particular gossip girl style in mind (specifically Serena’s boho chic, Blair’s classic glamour, Jenny’s runway punk, and clearly cast-aside Vanessa’s vaguely ethnic intellectual look), all of these items can easily be paired together because of their overt, unproblematized femininity.
Another issue, and one that Target faces with all limited collections, is whether big-name designers cater toward in-between or fat body types. The clothes’ sizes range from extra-small to extra-large, leaving out women and girls who are bigger. What is more, while these clothes appear to be well-made, many of the designs in Sui’s collection seems to principally flatter a long, lean body type. As a short, curvy girl who wears a size four (which, if we recall The Devil Wears Prada, is the new size six), I would have to belt pretty much all of these dresses so they wouldn’t look like gunnysacks on me (that is, the ones that aren’t so short that they would fail to flatter my thickly proportioned thighs). And don’t even get me started on how stumpy I’d look in a pair of checkered, bowed pedal pushers. NEXT!
I reject the pedal pushers on the right; image courtesy of fashionlooks.onsugar.com
So, while interesting in many other ways, I feel like Sui’s collection suggests that only certain shapes and classes get to be gossip girls when it comes to fashion. I don’t think we needed Target to tell us that, but I hope it inspires other women and girls to either make the styles their own or, better yet, start picking up the needle and thread and putting their own outfits together.
Cover to Music for Men (Columbia, 2009), note drag king cover subject is drummer Hannah Blilie; image courtesy of indieelectrorock.blogspot.com
I’m assembling my thoughts on Anna Sui’s Gossip Girl-inspired clothing line for Target. Since I might bitch about synergy, normalizing skinny, gendered body types for young consumers, and the great malling of America at some point in that post, I thought I’d post a wonderful alternative to these at-this-point rote grievances by highlighting Gossip’s “Dimestore Diamond,” a new song off their soon-to-be-released Songs For Men. You can listen to it here (oh, and should you choose to click on the NPR link, maybe say hi to Lightning Bolt, Dead Man’s Bones, Thao Nguyen and the Get Down Stay Down, La Loup, and BlakRoc).
In this very sexy, rocking song that does a great job bridging the band’s bluesy origins with its more recent new wave leanings, a woman (who may or may not be engaged in the world’s oldest profession) is praised for her ability to maximize the fashionable potential out of thrift store togs, cut her own hair, and make her own clothes. Who says you have to rely on high-end fashion or commercial retailers to put together a fly outfit? Here here!
Also, given that “everybody knows” the things this diamond does to please, I can’t help but wonder if she lives in a small town. Perhaps I’m projecting Searcy, Arkansas — the band’s hometown origins – onto the song, but it’s hard for me not to read the song’s narrative as being informed by issues of class and place. This brings a few things to mind for me.
1. In a Bust interview, lead singer Beth Ditto talks about growing up a working class, closeted Southern girl and how, if she hadn’t left her hometown, she may have stayed in the closet, gotten pregnant, gotten married, and lived a lie.
2. As a tangent, Ditto’s interview also makes me think about Kurt from Glee, FOX’s new dramedy that is starting to get really good. In last night’s episode, Kurt finds himself as a place kicker for his school’s football team, as well as coming out to his butch, widowed father — all because of the power of Beyoncé (and man, talk about a text that plays with lip syncing, dis/embodiment, trying on identities, and drag — put your hands up, Winona Ryder). These are two brave acts from a young man who (at least for now) finds himself stuck in Lima, Ohio.
3. And finally, taking points 1 and 2 together, I wanna give a hug to all the closeted kids I knew in high school who didn’t feel safe with who they really were then (and maybe some still don’t). I hope wherever you are, you’re shining like the real thing.
Deb and Hunter, meeting cute (naturally); image taken from the WB
Sigh. The things I do in the name of research.
I finished watching the first season of Rockville CA, an irritating Web show brought to the masses via Josh Schwartz, the wunderkind behind The O.C., Chuck, and Gossip Girl. Who knew 20 six-minute Webisodes would weigh down on me like a lead balloon?
Note: After hearing lead fanboy Hunter crack whip-smart for about two hours, I will resist all urges to make a Led Zeppelin reference.
My friend Kristen brought the show to my attention, as she does with many things, after sending me this interesting New York Times piece on it.
So, I’ll be honest. I kind of have an axe to grind with the Schwartz empire anyway. Mainly because it has commodified music geekery in the most generic, bland, pretend-smart, pretend-cool way possible (shooting daggers at you, Seth Cohen).
It could be a knee-jerk reaction. Schwartz’s right-hand lady, music supervisor Alexandra Patsavas, who co-produced Rockville CA and, like me, also got her start in college radio, has a job I’d kill for and know I could do so much better if I wanted to use my record collection to underscore beautifully-lit, woodenly-acted scenes of teen angst and lust. In short, my irritation could be simply reduced to “bitch took my job.”
But it’s never that simple.
Or is it? Christ, the things that are wrong with this show are so by-the-book.
1. The set-up. Oh, you know this one. If you’re seen any romantic comedy, ever, you’ve got this one down. Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets . . . you know what? Not even gonna finish the sentence. You’ve got it.
2. You know the couple — Deb and Hunter — are in love because they hate each other instantly and start arguing. I don’t know where this narrative contrivance began, but this has never happened to me. Usually, if I like someone, the attraction has nothing to do with wanting to rip the person’s face off until enough people are like “hey, you two would make a cute couple” that I think “you know what, you’re right! This annoying person who I cannot stand is actually pumping my ‘nads.” No, when I purport to not find you appealing, I don’t actually want to go on a date and kiss in the rain or whatever. I actually don’t want to be seen with you socially at all.
3. Perhaps I’m being unfair about my next point in conjunction with point #2, as many romantic comedies hinge on adult couples not meeting cute, but this premise seems very high school. Especially for men, as Hunter sweats and stammers immature misogyny. Through 17 of the 20 episodes, his actions and banter seem to say, “I don’t like her, she has cooties! She scares me . . . I think my body is changing. I’m compelled to her, but I don’t know why. Foul temptress! I was much safer with my comic books, G.I. Joe figurines, and Ramones records!”
In fact, perhaps unsurprisingly given Schwartz’s involvement, this show reads like a high school melodrama. The nerdy hot girl with glasses. The pretty blonde girl who is friends with the nerdy hot girl with glasses that the male lead originally finds attractive (there’s a bit of The Truth About Cats and Dogs in there too). The unattainable hunk that the nerdy hot girl with glasses likes (at school it’d be a football player; here, it’s a bassist). The wise elder who is charmed nostalgic by all the angst and endearing awkwardness. And even though the show takes place at a venue (where the show gets its name), it could just as easily take place in in the high school gym, made all glittery for prom, or in the library, during weekend detention. I’ve been to Southern California. It’s a little dangerous and a little seedy. That’s part of its charm. This show turns it into an American Eagle ad. Or a womb. Whatever.
4. If this is what music geeks are really like, we are insufferable. By that, I mean, if we are, in fact, indexical, socially-inept, commodity fetishists. If all we do is make snide comments, droll asides, and catalogical recitations of bands and their output, we are lame. The show would also suggest that we are completely beholden to capitalism and instant gratification, blind to corporate enterprising’s hold on us, what with the show’s incessant plugging of Heineken. In short, if we are what this show suggests we are, we are sheep.
5. Goddamn, is the music awful. A perhaps promising trapping of the show is that each episode takes place during a different concert. However, almost everyone sounds like a reduced, flattened, laminated version of some pre-existing band (usually Joy Division or U2).
And, as you can imagine, almost all these bands are comprised of white dudes. Earlimart, The Duke Spirit, and a couple others are exceptions, but I’ll bet you know what position most of the women (who are the lone female in each band) occupy. Also, Lykke Li is in an episode, which kinda bums me out, as I like Lykke Li. But I already heard “Dance Dance Dance” at a Victoria’s Secret and “I’m Good, I’m Gone” on American Idol, so she’s already been co-opted.
6. The “clever” banter. Puns are the lowest form of comedy, and any punchline based on making a play on Clap Your Hands Say Yeah is lower still. Hunter is the worst perpetrator, but Deb slings her share of barbs as well. Plus, people are never that funny and quick. It was unbelievable in the first half of Juno, when all the characters were always so damn quippy. Like Dawson’s Creek before it, the dialogue is completely fictive in Rockville CA.
Kristen’s big question at the time she sent it was “Web series that codes the music geek as male maybe?” And one thing that is good about the show is that I can say “No, not exclusively.” However, I must qualify . . .
It’s true, Deb is a confirmed music geek. And a music professional as well (fresh out of college, she works in A and R; I hope she finds a nobler calling in the biz soon). Thus, in many ways, Rockville CA is a workplace comedy for her (not so much for Hunter — he basically, and appropriately, sells digital ad space).
Unfortunately, Deb’s not very discriminating, stating that almost every band playing at Rockville is “major” (a doubly-unfortunate connotation, bringing to mind both Victoria Beckham and the corporate label system; indeed, any time she says a band is “major,” she may as well be saying “ready for the majors!”).
Also, while she does get to exhibit geek savvy, like correcting her crush (Syd, the elusive bass player for Australia) when he says Ian Brown was the frontman for Teenage Fanclub (he actually sang for The Stone Roses), she is given the cold shoulder and reminded by Callie, Rockville’s leggy waitress, that guys, um, like, like to be right sometimes and, like, don’t like to be proven wrong. And while Deb vocally rejects Callie’s advice, it doesn’t keep her from looking in the mirror and taking her hair out of its ponytail at the end of the episode (I think the black-out came just before she took off her glasses).
Thankfully, Deb is not alone as a music geek, a fact that Shaun is happy to exclaim. Though Callie and Isabel, Deb’s needy friend who wears stripper heels “ironically” to seduce a musician she hooked up with previously, are a bit regressive — though both seem like true friends to Deb — Shaun has potential. For Shaun, who owns Rockville, the show may also be considered a workplace comedy. Shaun’s presence is heartening; she’s tough, smart and also a hot, older single lady (picture Allison Janey playing Kim Gordon — not the worst, right?).
However, she ends up selling out, signing her bar over to Chambers, a tow-headed poser, and his business partner, who wants to phase out the bands and bring in more DJs. This happened in the finale. I’m hoping that if the show gets a second season (and I can bear to watch it), Shaun becomes a tough entrepreneuse and fights it. I sense a benefit on the way.
By the way, while I love deejays, I take the new (evil, soulless) owners’ hope to maximize profits by bringing deejays in as a way to suggest that the artform (and its raced, classed implications) as being denigrated alongside of the show’s clear investment in rock, perhaps aligning with Lisa Lewis’s assertion that early MTV catered to “rock’s white-male bias” (see “The Making of a Preferred Address” in Lisa A. Lewis’s Gender Politics and MTV: Voicing the Difference). There’s several mentions throughout the show that rock is the supreme genre in popular music, suggesting that it is pure and authentic and ignoring the ways in which rock steals from other genres, and the white-washing that occurs in the process.
Which brings me to race. If you’re picturing a bunch of white people bickering with one another when they aren’t kissing or playing, you’d be right. There are two people of color on the show (three if you count Isabel, who is played by Natalie Morales).
One is the doorman, Hugh, who is African American. He kinda had a promising bit at the beginning of the first few episodes where he’d freeze Hunter out of the club because he didn’t like him. This would create moments where Hunter would exhibit painful displays of white guilt by trying to seem down and then fearful that he accidentally said something racist. Deb, who is Hugh’s friend, would get him in as her plus-one. In these episodes, Hugh would be reading a different book, like The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins. In other words, a smart guy with layers who wasn’t charmed by Hunter. More Hugh, please.
The other character is Annie, the Asian photographer who never speaks (the actress, Chris Yen, is Chinese American). SHE NEVER SPEAKS. In all 20 episodes, not a line of dialogue. While it’s interesting that she’s a photographer, and is always snapping shots of the bands and the venue’s denizens, having her be a silent outsider distanced by the camera kinda, you know, others her. Let’s get her to strike up a conversation with somebody. A great instance would be when Shaun threatens to set her on fire if she takes any pictures of her. Kind of an unfortunate line, as I tend to think of this image. Anyway, Annie could totally put down her camera and call Shaun out. But she doesn’t.
And that, in its way, encapsulates Rockville CA. A fair amount of promise, a lot of missed opportunities.
