What to talk about? Well, I could talk about ‘The Catch’ –
it was good in S1, now, in S2, it is even more exciting, in a good way: the
cast and crew at that series has invested effort and enthusiasm into the
series, and there is plenty of imagination to go around as well.
How is this important (in greater detail)? Just look at ‘Gilmore
Girls: A Year in the Life’ restart and compare it with ‘Fuller House’. Both
shows tried to play on the nostalgia of their former fans but while ‘Fuller
House’ had enough enthusiasm in its cast (and crew) to create endurance for the
show, ‘Gilmore Girls’ didn’t. Both shows had flaws, but ‘Fuller House’ is going
to have S2 – actually, it had had S2, ‘Gilmore Girls’ probably will not. Yes,
its’ humor was sometimes somewhat racist or otherwise abusive, (especially by
modern standards than by the 1990s standards); yes, the plotlines had
plotholes, and the character development of the titular characters (and others)
was often flawed, but so’s the case of ‘Fuller House’ – it may not be exactly
racist, but neither was it perfect, period. So?
Okay, firstly the racial issue (sort of). Earlier this
month, there was a new viral video, a very short one. Professor Robert Kelly
was interviewed for BBC from his home, when his daughter (3-4 years of age)
walked in, followed by his son, (a baby, 1-2 years of age) in his baby walker,
and then his wife (Kim Jong-A) rushed in and got them (the children, the professor
was left behind to finish his interview) out. The whole thing took less than a
minute, (judging by the length of the clip), and personally, I think that the
mother’s actions were the most distracting and messy. What next?
Next, BBC released a full online interview with Robert Kelly
and his family, and there were also plenty of other online clips that showed
the family in question. As the audience can see, this an interracial family,
probably bilingual as well, (Kim Jong-A has some problems with speaking
English, and since Robert Kelly works at the Pusan National University, he
probably has a good grip on the Korean language), and progressive/liberal in
their views, at least when it comes to raising their children: they are given
the run of the house and trouble began after their mom forced them out of the
room, (which is apparently their room with their toys). What is this has to do
with GG?
Enter Lane Kim, (who is a Korean), and her husband, Zach,
(who is Anglo-American). They are either some of the main characters, or some
of the most important secondary characters, take your pick. Moreover, the Kims
are probably the only Asian-American characters of GG, just as Michel was the
only African-American character there, so, while GG probably were not racist, neither
had they tried to make their show more racially diverse, in keeping in touch
with the current socio-political times…
No, seriously, Trump’s approach to the racial issues is as
incompetent as it is to everything else…and Obama’s was not better, (remember
all those racial riots throughout his
presidency?), but this is not just about the 45th president of the
U.S., (or his cabinet, or the 44th president, or etc.). Rather, it
is about the fact that by now, the Americans like to think of themselves as
interracially integrated people and GG failed to reflect this.
Of course, neither does ‘Fuller House’, but ‘Fuller House’
is centered around a single family, (although a very big and unconventional
one), whereas GG is centered around an entire town instead. These are two
different scopes, you know? Would it kill ASP and her husband to integrate at
least some POCs into the town – as background,
episodic characters? Since there really were not any, apparently yeah, it
would.
Instead, there was the line of the Star Hollow not having
any gays, so shall we export some from the next town? It was said by Taylor
Doose, (I think), who is not always a positive character, but still, with the
Donald in power, this sounds slightly too much as what the 45th
president can say under some circumstances or other, because it was tasteless. And
that is a problem for the U.S. – it is not that the 45th president
is incompetent, it is that he is tasteless and vulgar, and the same goes for
his cabinet, and – for his critics, who often just spew vitriol from TV and
computer screens without caring as to whom they can really hit. By now, the
Americans themselves are tired of this sort of criticism, so it is going down,
but do not worry – the anti-Russian hysteria and wiretap accusations and similar
topics going around will compensate for that sort of thing nicely…
And with its’ government divided, does the U.S. think that
it can take on North Korea and China,
should it come to WWIII? Yeah, the odds right now are not in the U.S. favor: first resolve the inner division between each
other, (I am talking Republican and Democratic parties here, plus every other third
party involved), and then go back to adventures abroad.
If we get back to GG, the truth, again, is that they didn’t
try to be deliberately racist, or openly insulting towards fat people – various
reviewers felt that Melissa McCarthy/Sookie St. James had views regarding this, and she’s a prominent actress in Hollywood
these days and she and the Pellegrinos possibly had a talk, so between this and
her fee no wonder that Melissa-Sookie didn’t stick around for the new show.
However, enough with the conspiracy theories for the moment,
the fact is that GG do not feel racist, they feel sloppy, slothful or lazy –
people just did not want to get involved/invest their effort into it. Milo
Ventimiglia, who played Jess Moriano, was openly unenthusiastic in his
interview regarding the ‘next’ next installment of the GG saga, and without
Jess the GG dynamic just falls apart so either Milo will change his mind, (for
an appropriate amount of cash), or no more GG – and considering that the
backlash of ‘A Year in the Life’ was already rather damaging to the original
series, this doesn’t look good for GG…
And that is actually my next point: team GG did not put too much
effort or imagination into the show’s revival because there was no enthusiasm,
or at least – not enough enthusiasm, you know? ‘APB’, ‘Powerless’, ‘Making
History’ ‘Time after Time’ and etc., have their flaws, but they also have
enthusiasm, and consequently, they make plenty of effort to counterbalance for
these flaws. GG did not. Hence – the fallout.
The same goes for the dilemma of ‘For Honor’ – sort of. As
far as I’m concerned, ‘For Honor’ did deliver mostly what it promised to
deliver – a very good fighting game, not unlike that of ‘Battlefield 1’, save
that it is set in the Middle Ages…sort of. Whatever option you choose, you
still get plenty of good fighting – and nothing else. Apparently, when it came
to the campaign mode in foiling Apollyon’s plot, this was not good enough, and that
is a real problem. Oh, it is not the only one, but most of the other problems
are technical; ‘For Honor’ should fix them easily enough and keep on going…or
fail to do so, and vanish into obscurity forever, as it deserves to. A bad
story, however, is not fixed as easily, and ‘For Honor’ is ‘purely’ a game; it
cannot be redesigned and reset with the same ease that, say, a TV series can…
Facepalm. What I meant to say here is that ‘For Honor’ will
need to back away from all the intensity it had generated this February (2017)
and revise its’ campaign story mode big time, so that the next
edition/release/whatever has something different. After all, the conclusion of
the campaign mode is kind of depressing: Apollyon died, the wars continued,
almost everyone else died, there is no peace and the matter of honor is hanging
in balance as well. Yeah, after the disastrous 45th presidential
election this is just what the U.S. society needs – more doom and gloom. Maybe
this is how the creative team of ‘For Honor’ thinks to introduce the new
classes/characters/etc., but as I have written before, this probably is not the
good/right idea that they think it is…
And that is that for today’s installment. GG is done, at
least for the moment, ‘Fuller House’ is not, and neither is ‘For Honor’
(hopefully). See you next time.
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