Monday, May 27, 2019

Was Raj The Apu Of "The Big Bang Theory"?

I came to the "Big Bang Theory" party late (as did my wife, with me) in its 12-year run on CBS.  That didn't stop either us from enjoying it immensely, and appreciating the fact that it celebrated the "safe space" that geeks now have in the larger American culture.  When one or more of the characters talked about being beaten up as a child, boy, that was something I could relate to all too easily.  And, if the discussions about physics, engineering, and biology went over my head, as much of it did, the many references to popular movies, TV shows, and comics books most certainly did not.  Even if I'm forced to disagree with Raj on the subject of Aquaman:  I don't think that he sucks at all (and the success of the recent film based on the character suggests that a lot of people agree with me).

Raj.  Aye, there's the rub, to borrow a phrase.

Last week's TBBT series finale left me with more than a minor sense of disappointment, and not because I was sorry to see the show come to an end.  The past season's episodes had, with a few exceptions, a vague sense of deja vu in its comic set-ups and payoffs.  Dialogue that once seemed inordinately clever no longer seemed to live up to the deserved reputations of its earlier seasons.  So, as is always the case with any series, it was time for it to end.

And there were payoffs for most of the major characters.  Sheldon and Amy won the Nobel Prize for Physics, and, in the process, Sheldon finally found the freedom to acknowledge that friendships had not only made the moment possible, but sweeter as well.  Howard ended up not only with Bernadette, and a trip to the ISS, but a son and a daughter as well.  Leonard made peace with his love-withholding mother, and Penny found a successful career; they married and ended the show expecting a child.  Even Stuart, the comic-book-store guy, ended the show with a girlfriend.

And then there was Raj  Still stuck on an H1-B visa; not even a green card for the poor guy.  Still without a girlfriend.  Even worse, the final season gave him an engagement that broke up within a few episodes of the end.  All he gets in the last episode is a random encounter with Buffy the Vampire Slayer, who seems to be none too happy about the experience.  In short, he's basically the same, vaguely Harpo-Marxist, happy-go-lucky, token Indian character he was at the beginning of the show.

And the word "Indian" is what I feel is at the heart of this.

Prejudice is a pernicious thing.  It's not always completely obvious.  It becomes engrained in our thoughts and actions sometimes without our realizing it.  We often don't intend to think of members of various cultures in stereotypical terms.  We see a member of a particular demographic group depicted in a work of either fiction or non-fiction, and, perhaps because of our own laziness, or our unspoken need to feel good about ourselves, we accept that depiction as accurately applying to every member of the group in question.  Speaking for my part for a moment, I think that it has taken years of experiences with Indians, first in New York, and then as law clients, and then ultimately as a visitor to the country itself for a week to see not just a "people," but the full range of individuals that make up that people.

So, I find myself thinking about Raj's 12-season arc (or, perhaps, lack thereof), and wondering:  is he the Apu of TBBT?  Is he the character who ultimately, while never failing to be likeable or even sympathetic, leaves the viewers with just a faint taste of close-to-racism in their mouths?  And that might not be even fair to Apu; at least he, on "The Simpsons," got married and became a U.S. citizen.

It's not my purpose here to point an accusatory figure at anyone involved with TBBT, or damage its legacy, which I think deserves to be celebrated.  But I have to say that, at the very least, there's a certain laziness in the way in which Raj was all-too-frequently used as a vehicle for cheap humor, much of which focused on his ethnicity and not his individuality.  If that fact alone doesn't bother more of us than I think it does, then the problem rests not with TBBT or anyone involved with it.  It may rest with all of us, for being content to see Raj as a stereotype, and not as a human being.  If we had asked for more, I think the show would have delivered more.  We didn't.  I think that's on all of us.

In the meantime, best of luck to Kunal Nayyar, who deserves a chance to shine in a role that will give him far more to work with.  And best of luck to everyone involved with TBBT; you made this geek very, very proud.

Saturday, May 18, 2019

My Tribute To The MCU

If you're among the handful of moviegoers who, at this point, have not yet seen "Avengers:  Endgame," there will be a spoiler or two in a paragraph or two.  Perhaps more spoilers and paragraphs than that.  We'll see.  But, in any case, this is your warning just in case you still want to see the movie (and, if you have no interest in comic-book movies, you may just want to skip this post altogether, with no offense on my part).

At any rate.

I discovered Marvel Comics when I was, at a guess from my slowly fading childhood memories, about seven or eight years old (or, about 1963 or 1964).  I'd already been introduced to Superman and the DC Comics world, so I was already hooked on comic books.  But there was something different about Marvel's books.  I didn't know what it was, right away, until 1966 when my family moved to a new neighborhood and, for a time, I felt unmoored emotionally.  A classmate in my new school shared some of his Marvel books, so I began to slowly read more of them.  And soon, I was buying almost all of Marvel's magazines, every month.  Ah, for the days when a dollar could get you eight--EIGHT--comic books, plus four cents that I could give back to my dad.

What I'd figured out at this point was why Marvel seemed different, and more attractive to me than other comic book companies.  Like me, their characters were unmoored.  They had super-powers, but not-so-super personal lives.  Even worse, perhaps, their efforts to save and protect others were often misunderstood, and under-appreciated, by the society they attempted to help with their unique abilities.  They seemingly could only find solace by themselves, for the most part.

And, memorably, with each other.  Marvel created several super-groups that showed these heroes and heroines fighting and suffering together, sometimes breaking apart, but often coming back together.  The Fantastic Four.  The X-Men.  And the Avengers, which, over time, have incorporated almost all of the other characters in the Marvel comic-book universe.

For about three years, I read almost everything Marvel put out, getting into their work so much, and especially their inventive artwork, that I would spend hours copying art by their best artists (my efforts fell very far short, but it was still fun).  Then, I entered adolescence, and my interests changed just a bit.  I gave up comic books altogether, but still followed Marvel's growth into a company that started to branch out into other media, with decidedly mixed results.  I give props to Bill Bixby, Lou Ferrigno, and everyone else for "The Incredible Hulk" TV series, for focusing on the character's human dilemmas and not his rampages.  But that illustrated a problem:  for decades, the technical limits of the medium prevented TV and film producers from exploiting the full potential of the characters in a visually plausible way.

So when the year 2000 arrived and "X-Men" was released, I thought that it might be possible to revisit my childhood.  Not only because the world of special effects had finally caught up to the world of comic-book art, not only because the film had A-list actors, but because the filmmakers took the themes of alienation and flawed personal lives and actually used them in a serious way in the movie.  As did the later "X-Men," "Daredevil," and "Fantastic Four" films.

And on their heels came the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which Marvel used to launch its own studio.  Twenty-two feature films, filled with my all-time favorite characters, telling a unified story across the course of more than a decade.

I was excited, at first, but also worried.  I wasn't worried about how the films or the characters would look.  But I was worried about how faithful they would be to the characters, their concerns, the way they would interact with each other and the non-super-heroic characters in their lives.  I guess that, to a degree that surprised even me, the advent of the MCU managed to wake up the 10-year-old that still resided deep inside of me.

Now that the 22-film arc is complete with "Endgame," I can honestly say that the 10-year-old is feeling very happy for the most part.  I can't honestly say that I agree with all of their choices, and with the leaving-out of some aspects of the books I read.  Nor am I completely happy with the deaths (and, in one case, the transformation) of several beloved characters.  But, to my complete and utter surprise, they moved me in a way I wouldn't have expected in over 50 years.  All while somehow telling a completely unified story.

To paraphrase a line from one of my all-time favorite films, "Lawrence of Arabia":  before they did it, I've had said it couldn't be done.

I don't know what lies ahead for the MCU.  But, whatever it may be, my inner 10-year-old and I will continue to look forward to enjoying it.

'NUFF SAID!

Wednesday, May 15, 2019

A Modest Proposal For Mary Bubala

Last week, I wrote a post in which I took Mary Bubala, now a former reporter for WJZ-TV in Baltimore, asked a question in an on-air interview that implied fairly strongly that demographic considerations mattered with regard to qualifying for public office--specifically, in this case, the mayoralty of Baltimore.  In case you have not followed this story, she asked an African-American interviewee whether, after three African-American female mayors of the city left office under ethical and/or competency clouds, it was time for "a different kind of leadership."  On the other hand, I might be surprised if you had not heard about this story, given the level of coverage it's received, even in New York.  Of course, in the case of the Post, promoting a story like this is just one more example of Rupert Murdoch stirring the racial pot for the sake of minimize the paper's losses, even at the expense of promoting long-term racial division in his adopted country.

That said, I've been spending some time talking to people I know locally about Bubala and the controversy over her (without a doubt) utterly inappropriate question.  I've also spent some time on social media (Twitter, specifically, to which my blog is linked) looking at the reactions to this story that people have posted.

And two things have jumped out at me.

First, a number of the Twitter posters have given Bubala a series of electronic high-fives over the racial angle in her question.  I'll spare you the specifics, and even concede the point that perhaps those posts say more about the pollution of social media by white nationalists than it does about anything else.  Nevertheless, it's worth mentioning these posts as a way of illustrating the level of potential harm to all of us--at lease to the caliber of political discourse--that can come from questions or statements like Bubala's.  If nothing else, it should underscore the fact that the question she asked is one that should never be asked by anyone, under any circumstances.

Second, a large number of people have argued that the station's decision to fire her in an attempt to defuse the controversy was unfair, and in fact an overreaction given the fact that nothing in her career prior to her asking the question had shown any animosity based on gender and race.  To the contrary, she worked for WJZ for many years and earned, in the process, an excellent and unblemished reputation as a reporter and an anchor.  To a limited extent, it was because of that reputation that I found watching the video of her asking the question to be especially disturbing and confusing.

And, as it turns out, a number of African-American viewers, some of whom have had personal dealings with Bubala, feel that she is being treated unfairly, especially in light of the fact that Bubala offered her own, unsolicited apology on Twitter for asking the question, one in question she clearly recognized that the question was wrong.  The apology did not deter WJZ from firing her.

All of this has given me a great deal of food for thought, and led me to the following conclusion.

Given the level of offensiveness embedded in the question, and the fact that she did ask it without an immediate attempt to clarify whatever point she was trying to make, Bubala did deserve to be disciplined.  But not to be fired.  From my perspective, the effect of the firing accomplishes nothing except to hide WJZ's own corporate sins in the area of promoting racial tensions, through its police-blotter coverage of Baltimore and its unabashed support of Maryland Governor Larry Hogan and his race-baiting style of politics.  When I heard about the firing, I suspected that the station felt that the controversy invited the prospect of people taking a closer look at the station's failings in its treatment of race in relation to local stories.  The station didn't want anyone to take that closer look, and fired Bubala as a way of deflecting attention from those failings.

I've got a much better idea.  At least, I think it's a better idea.  And I hope that most of you will agree with me.

I think that WJZ should re-hire Bubala, but have her spend a year (at least) on special assignment to cover stories in Baltimore that focus on the lives of its African-American citizens--their accomplishments, their struggles, their needs, and the ways in which those needs require a greater effort on the part of all of us to successfully address them.  I would not consider this strictly a "punishment" per se.  Instead, it would be an opportunity for all of us to take a closer look at the issue of race from the African-American perspective, and to be challenged with regard to a lot of our assumptions about Baltimore and what it needs to thrive.

It would be better for Bubala, for the station, for the city, for the state, and ultimately for all of us.  It would take a moment that has the potential to tear us even further apart, and perhaps do something to bring us together.

So, how about it, WJZ?  Bubala might not want to go back, at this point, of course.  But, if WJZ is not willing to pursue this, I think she should feel free to take this basic idea and run with it at another local station.

I think that, in the end, all of us would benefit.  And, in the process, perhaps a needlessly cruel moment could become the beginning of a healing one.

Sunday, May 5, 2019

America: A Fish That Is Rotting From The (Orange) Head Down

At some point in the past week, I wanted to blame the current state of America, as it slowly stagnates from kleptocracy to full-scale authoritarianism, on the mainstream media, with its penchant for reporting "both sides" and doing nothing to find out which one of them is telling anything close to the truth.  I even made a note to myself that, in writing to start off the month of May, I should spend my time and bytes arguing for the need for this 21st-century Watergate of ours to have its own Dan Rather, someone who would go after the truth regardless of personal cost (and who, in the end, did pay a price through a Karl Rove-created setup that, to be fair, he did not examine closely enough to protect himself).

But Watergate unfolded at a time in our history when there were still media outlets, even ones owned by Republicans, who were committed to letting the truth unfold in whatever direction it needed to do so.  Just as, by the same token, there were Republicans who understood that the best interest of both their politics and their country depended on following the truth to the end, even if the short-term political price was steep.  And just as there were Democrats who understood that advancing their politics and ultimately solving the needs of the nation, involved fighting on behalf of both their politics and their nation, without regard to waiting for an exact match between their politics and the mood of the people.

It seems odd to say it, and certainly odd to feel the need to do so in the first instance, but all of the forgoing almost makes me nostalgic for the Watergate era.  Not the scandal itself, of course, but the fact that, in those days, there were enough people in positions of power to give our Constitution, and the institutions it established, the kind of weight on behalf of the powers and ideals contained therein to truly protect the public from internal threats, as well as external ones.

I still believe that people like that exist, and that they exist on both sides of the Great Ideological Divide that remains the obsessive focus of the MSM.  For my part, I do the best that I can to try to be one of those people.

But I'm no longer certain that their are enough of us to make a real difference, must less even make a successful attempt to bridge the divide at all.

Why?  For the simple reason that I think the rot from decades of largely unquestioned right-wing extremism, coupled with more than two years of T****, has seeped into our institutions to the point at which the institutions, and perhaps even the Constitution, are no longer capable of serving the functions for which they were designed.

And make no mistake:  the rot has seeped across the national level, and all the way down to your local TV news station.  In fact, let's start there:  at the proverbial bottom of the food chain.

This past week, a reporter at a local Baltimore television station insinuated that demographics are actually a qualification for political office, by asking whether the city, after having three African-American female mayors, needed to go in a different direction when choosing its next leader.  Even more egregiously, she posed that question to an African-American woman.  You don't need to take my word for it; you can check this out right here.

Again, to be fair, the reporter apologized on Twitter for asking the question, with an explanation that seemed less than completely convincing.  But she works for a station that views Baltimore as something that should be covered only with police-blotter stories, along with the ubiquitous sports and weather coverage.  I have made the observation to others that, if you relied only on the station's footage, you would expect to be ensnared in yellow police tape every time you tried to cross the city line from the suburbs.  Baltimoreans of all colors should boycott and demonstrate against the television station until the reporter is disciplined.

Now, for the national angle, let's move away from Baltimore 40 miles south to Washington, D.C..  To the House of Representatives, its Democratic majority, and its leader, Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

For a long time, they were willing to wait for the results of Robert Mueller's investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election before moving ahead with any attempt to impeach T**** for his many and various sins against our democracy.  Those results are now available, and they show without any honest question that the T**** campaign worked with the Russian government in its efforts to win the election, and that T**** himself, in a variety of ways, actively attempted to interfere, and in some cases did interfere, with Mueller's investigation. 

In the process, it has become painfully clear that Robert Barr, the Attorney General, has been acting not as the nation's chief counsel, but as a ribbon-clerk for T**** and his various unsavory interests.  Barr has even gone so far as to suggest that a President (actually, he means this "President") can shut down an investigation of his or her actual wrongdoing based upon a sincere and unilateral belief in his own innocence, and to imply that he might shut down the investigations Muller farmed out to U.S. attorney offices throughout the country.

Pelosi and the House Democrats, in other words, now have enough of a predicate in actual testimony and investigative work to commence impeachment proceedings without being worried about the appearance of being motivated by partisan spite.

Or so one might think.

Instead, we have the spectacle of Pelosi and her Democratic counterpart in the Senate, Chuck Schumer, joyfully announcing an agreement with T**** to advance a $2 trillion infrastructure bill--with a promise to figure out how to pay for it later, and with congressional Republicans already balking at the proposed size of the spending.

We also have Pelosi herself talking about moving to stay in the political center lane, or T**** will carry out a coup d'etat against any 2020 election results he does not like.

To describe this kind of thinking as unbelievable is to be too kind by far more than half.  Pelosi and her Democratic colleagues in Congress are effectively telling all of us that they would like to do their job in guarding the hen house, but they have to wait until the fox is willing to let them in it.

This is the same Nancy Pelosi who, only a few months ago, said in a New York Times Magazine interview that power is never given, and must always be taken.  What the hell is stopping her from doing that right now?

In both of these cases, I have to contend that we see the corrupting influence of a "President" who does not govern by the rule of law and the interests of all the people, but by what he can get away with for his own private, personal benefit.  And Presidents, as all of T****'s predecessors have been willing to concede, lead by example.  A President sets the proverbial tone not only for his or her Administration, but for the entire nation.

Whoever said a fish rots from the head down (besides Michael Dukakis in 1988) was right.  It most definitely does.  Even when its head is orange from spray-tanning.

On a slightly more positive not, Pelosi and all of us should take a look at this.

And realize that a hopeless cause isn't truly hopeless, so long as you're willing to fight for it.

And, if you'd like to take a small step in that direction, click here, and let Mother Jones (a publication well worth supporting, and with which I have no connection) give you the opportunity to do so.