The award goes to Monique for Rock of Love: Charm School: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire

On the other hand, here’s what I loved about the Golden Globes this year:

-Monique’s acceptance speech (way to start the show off right! “You first.” ahhhh I was in tears.)

-rewarding The Hangover (I’m just glad to see comedy, real comedy, not safe romantic comedy drivel, getting any kind of industry recognition)

-that Scorsese montage

-Ricky Gervais’s honesty (love it!)

Take, for example, absurdly conflated categories like “Best Supporting Actor – Series, Miniseries, or Television Film,” which pit Stanley Tucci playing Adolf Eichmann in the TV movie Conspiracy against Sean Hayes playing Jack on Will & Grace and Bradley Whitford playing Josh Lyman on The West Wing. (In 2001.) Incomparable!

Or, take the whole delineation between Drama and Musical/Comedy. Giving out the award for “Best Actor – Musical or Comedy” lets us honor such illustrious winners as Richard Gere in Chicago (2002), Sacha Baron Cohen in Borat (2006), Johnny Depp in Sweeney Todd (2007), and Robert Downey Jr. in Sherlock Holmes (2009). Performances for the ages.

So it’s no surprise that I take umbrage with some of last night’s winners.

Before I get to them, let me also say how persistently impressed I am with my willingness to pass judgment on movies and shows I have never seen.

Best Actress in a Television Series, Drama: Julianna Margulies for “The Good Wife”

Julianna Margulies in "The Good Wide"

I like Julianna Margulies. I like The Good Wife. But, seriously? In its first year? After like eight episodes? I know the Golden Globes likes to honor newcomers, but there was some stiff competition in this category of more-than-deserving leading ladies.

Cases in point: Glenn Close, whose Patty Hewes on Damages is the most thrilling and morally enigmatic TV character since Tony Soprano. And a win for her would’ve made up for Damages’s staggering absence from the Best TV Drama category.

More controversial, I know, is January Jones, who I think is the best thing about Mad Men. She plays a character with no options, with no existing narrative on which to model herself in opposition to her social entrapment — a rare character: one not intellectually or morally strong enough to combat her powerlessness in a way audiences can root for without ambivalence.

The scene in which she confronts Don about his entire identity and her entire marriage — her entire life — being built on quicksand is enough to earn her a Golden Globe many times over, and is certainly more deserving than anything Julianna Margulies has done yet on The Good Wife.

Best TV Series, Comedy or Musical: “Glee”

Glee

I enjoy watching Glee. It’s fun, it’s fluffy, it’s unique. The premise is clever. But it’s not strictly good.

The characters — insofar as they are more than two-dimensional types — have enjoyed little to no development over the first half of the season. The individual episodes’ plot-lines are absurd, and not in a fun way. (Fake pregnancy? A boys versus girls week to spur competitive spirit?) There’s no overall cohesiveness to the narrative or character arc of the program. The raw material is great, but it hasn’t been shaped into anything truly touching or truthful. I do love the musical numbers, though.

Meanwhile, 30 Rock! It’s mature, clever, satirical without being belabored, and eminently quotable. (Liz: “We’re not getting any younger.” Jenna: “You don’t know that thing I sleep in isn’t working!”) The characters are absurd but fully realized — authentic within the skewed world of the show.

Yes, again: beginner’s luck is the Globes’ thing. In that vein, what about Parks and Recreation? Not even nominated. I’m watching it as I type, and I still believe it’s among the best shows on television right now.

Best Actress in a Motion Picture, Drama: Sandra Bullock for “The Blind Side”

Sandra Bullock in "The Blind Side"

I like Sandra Bullock. I enjoyed The Proposal. Miss Congeniality is great for rainy Sunday afternoons. But, come on. I respect her transformation and the grit of her sassy Christian foster mother — still, the competition this year was fierce, and she was definitely not the strongest contender.

I was rooting for Carey Mulligan, for delivering a truly genuine and stirring portrait of a young woman seduced by a worldly outsider in An Education. If not her, I would’ve like to see Gabourey Sidibe win for Precious, just because she seems so cool. And because Precious is a character diametrically opposed to her real-life personality, a character requiring tremendous subtlety and control.

And Helen Mirren! I actually did see The Last Station, and she was, as always, perfect. It’s hard to be perfect in a role.

Best Motion Picture, Drama: “Avatar”

Avatar

Haven’t seen any of the movies nominated in this category, except Up In The Air. Sight unseen, I was rooting for The Hurt Locker, about which I’ve heard only very positive things. Avatar seems so critically divisive and not actually sophisticated enough as a story to overcome that ambivalence. Cf. Titanic, about which everyone was on the same page: Heartbreaking. Beautiful. Epic. Titanic gave us “I’m the king of the world!” and “Never let go” and even “My heart will go on” — what has Avatar given us? Blue cat aliens.

Let’s hope the Oscars get things right. Or at least that I see the relevant movies before judging the Oscars’ outcomes.

Now that we’re firmly 41 hours into the new year, I feel that I can dispassionately pass judgment on the cumulative cultural artifacts of the past ten. Today, movies.

It’s been a bemusing pleasure to peruse critics’ and fans’ lists of their favorite movies of the 00s, the first decade during which I’ve been a fully cognizant person. There have been movies whose persistent presence has left me grimacing (ex. The New World, during which I struggled to stay awake, and actually failed for a few merciful minutes — though, yes, it was pretty) and movies I’ve been pleasantly surprised to see continually making the cut (ex. Far From Heaven, which I remember liking a lot when I saw it in theaters but now feel compelled to revisit with a more attentive critical eye).

Another noticeable aspect of the lists is how quickly the zeitgeist of Oscar coronation fades in favor of lasting quality. Cases in point: lots of Gosford Park, not so much Beautiful Mind; lots of Brokeback, not so much Crash; lots of Wall-E, not so much Slumdog; and, even more, lots of movies never nominated for Best Picture. I guess the Oscars jumped the shark when How Green Was My Valley beat out Citizen Kane in 1941, so Best Picture is no assurance of endurance.

Okay, time for my picks.

These are not the movies I think are the objective “best” of the decade — after all, I’ve seen only a fraction of Hollywood’s annual product. Nor are these just my personal favorites — I know that even though my tastes are impeccable they are not completely generalizable. So, the list is some combination of my interpretation of objective goodness, cultural significance, lasting impact, and my personal preferences. Feel free to disagree in the comments!

In chronological order…

1. Gladiator (2000)

Gladiator

I saw Gladiator at the Zeigfeld Theatre here in Manhattan, on its enormous screen during a packed pre-release showing. Some combination of the electricity of that packed theater, the epic magnificence of the movie, and the fact that I was fourteen at the time have alchemized that experience into an unforgettable cinematic moment. Rarely do such epic, action-packed movies tell a story as compelling as their packaging, but with Russell Crowe’s haunted, ambivalent violence, Joaquin Phoenix’s desperate snarl, and tigers, Gladiator delivered. A decade later, it’s almost inconceivable that a movie with such scale could be produced based on — gasp! — an original pitch, but Gladiator made over $450,000,000 without the built-in fan base of an adaptation or sequel. (It lost the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay, though, to Almost Famous.)

2. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000)

Michelle Yeoh and Zhang Ziyi

For me, a major prerequisite for a movie to be a top film of its decade is some evidence of lastingness, and, when judging movies just ten years old, a prerequisite for lastingness is nostalgia. We’ll remember and pass along movies that gave us a jolt of joy to watch, movies we still remember soaking in for the first time — movies for which we are nostalgic. And a prerequisite for nostalgia is the existence of powerful moments, moments etched into memory. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon has those moments in spades. My favorite: Zhang Ziyi is in her full princess gear, sharing a cup of tea with Michelle Yeoh in the Governor’s compound. Yeoh suspects that Zhang is the thief of the Green Destiny. As they converse, Yeoh lifts the teapot to refill her cup — then suddenly drops it. In an instant, without looking, Zhang catches it, revealing herself. And then there’s people fighting in trees! And the fact that this movie basically singlehandedly introduced Asian films into the mainstream. But more than that, it is a movie of compelling characters and story (Zhang’s governor’s daughter-turned-martial-arts-master Jen is one of the most underratedly compelling characters in film history), which is what makes the moments — and the movie — so enduring.

3. The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)

The Royal Tenenbaums

There’s no need to make a movie version of Arrested Development. Or to bring J.D. Salinger’s Glass family to the silver screen. Or to make a documentary about the origins of the hipster. All already exist in the form of The Royal Tenenbaums, a movie whose comically eccentric characters are relatable, pathetic, and aspirational in the same breath. One’s siblings don’t have to be stock-brokering, tennis-playing, or playwriting prodigies for the familial conflicts to ring true. Most of all, though, The Royal Tenenbaums has a remarkably coherent and compelling aesthetic presence — the title cards, the costumes, the music, the character affects all combine to one delicious cake of a cinematic experience.

4. Donnie Darko (2001)

Donnie Darko

The enduring appeal of Donnie Darko might be generational (what better movie to watch premiere right after one’s sixteenth birthday?), but I think it’s more than that. It’s a kind of sci-fi, horror, time travel fantasy that’s essentially just a darker She’s All That. Okay, perhaps it doesn’t have quite as much DNA in common with the 90s teen flicks we grew up on, but I think part of Donnie Darko’s magic is that it’s stranger than we remember it being, because the strangeness is such an organic part of Donnie’s story. It’s DNA is certainly woven into our generational genetics. If you disagree, I doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion.

5. Brokeback Mountain (2005)

Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger

I don’t know what was going on from 2002 through 2004, but for me it was a three-year dry spell. Yeah, I liked Chicago and The Hours, and lots of people think The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King is great, but it wasn’t until Brokeback Mountain was released that we realized anew the profound impact a movie could have on individuals and on a culture at large. It would be nice to stay the uproar about two major male movie stars playing gay seems quaint in retrospect, but what makes Brokeback even more poignant today than it was five years ago — besides the tragic death of Heath Ledger — is that it seems more an anomaly than the herald of Hollywood change. But enough about the culture; the movie is great regardless of its message — it’s a simple love story told with heartbreaking restraint against a strikingly vast landscape. And like The Royal Tenenbaums, Brokeback has a powerfully uniform aesthetics that strengthen the impact of its emotional core.

6. Children of Men (2006)

Children of Men

If I were ranking these movies, Children of Men would be my number one. So bleak, so heart-wrenching, so exciting, so hopeful! One of the scariest things about the Alfonso Cuarón masterpiece is that it depicts such an accessible dystopia; it’s almost too easy to imagine the world looking in 2027 like it does in Children of Men. And the single-shot sequence at the movie’s climax is probably the most affectingly engaging scene in film of the last ten years. Children of Men is political without being heavy-handed, it’s heartbreaking without being manipulative, and it’s hopeful without being sentimental. Overall, a nearly perfect film.

7. There Will Be Blood (2007)

There Will Be Blood

I’m still not completely sure how I feel about There Will Be Blood, which is part of the reason I’m so impressed by it. Usually I rush too quickly to a rigidly crystallized judgment, but There Will Be Blood defied easy classification. It is a film awesome in the purest sense of the word, with gripping performances, and moments that lend themselves as much to pop-cultural memeification as they do to great filmmaking (“I drink your milkshake!”). After I saw it, I rushed to read every review I could, to try to get a handle on what was leaving me unsettled. I agreed with the raves, I agreed with the pans. I disagreed with everything. But maybe it was just the movie itself leaving me profoundly unsettled, and that’s an experience as unique as any I’ve had in the last 10 years.

8. Superbad (2007)

Superbad

Juno was the 2007 comedy about the challenges of modern teen life that eked into Oscar contention, but it should have been Superbad. No one talks like the self-consciously wacky characters that populate Diablo Cody’s world (“That ain’t no Etch A Sketch. This is one doodle that can’t be undid, Homeskillet.” “Honest to blog?”), and while the story is cute and Ellen Page is charismatic, there’s nothing that lastingly rings true about it. Superbad, on the other hand, infuses its absurdity with authenticity. It’s realistically raunchy (Jules: “You scratch our backs, we’ll scratch yours.” Seth: “Well Jules, the funny thing about my back is that it’s located on my cock.”), eliciting laughter more from its truthfulness than its vulgarity. And while the 40-Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up were arguably the decade’s most genre-changing comedies, it is the earnest beauty of the Seth-Evan friendship that makes Superbad the decade’s best low-cultural comedy.

9. Wall-E (2008)

Wall-E

How can a love story about two robots with extremely limited vocabularies be the most gripping love story of the last few years? Pitch-perfect storytelling. Wall-E revisited the challenges of the silent film era — without speech, every detail must speak for itself. Wall-E made us look in a new way: each gesture, each shot of the future’s empty wasteland, each playing of Hello, Dolly! plucked a heartstring, combining into a symphonic harmony unlike anything we’ve seen in a long time on screen. Yes, the second half was less compelling; yes, Ratatouille and The Incredibles were also likable animated films; but Wall-E was a thing apart, a universal, gripping love story.

10. Reader’s Choice

I’m leaving this space blank for all the movies I haven’t seen or don’t like in spite of universal acclaim. No Country for Old Men, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Mulholland Drive — still on my to-watch list. The Lord of the Rings, Lost in Translation, Amélie — I don’t get the appeal. Also for this space, movies I love but don’t think make the cut for decade’s best outside of my personal DVD library: Gosford Park, Spellbound, Spider-Man 2, Walk the Line, Notes on a Scandal, Two Lovers. And movies that we may realize in another ten years are more than just guilty pleasures: Mamma Mia!

Coming soon, the Top 10 TV shows of the 00s. In the meantime, I encourage disagreement and — more encouraged — agreement in the comments!

It’s a time of retrospection. Coming soon, I’ll have a post in which I name my top TV shows and movies of the decade; but, before that exercise in deliciously oversimplified value judgment, it’s time to name the pop cultural hallmark of 2009.

One could call 2009 the year of vampires or Lady Gaga; of Kate Gosselin or Falcon Heene; of a resurgent must-see-TV-Thursday lineup on NBC or of Jill and Kevin’s wedding dance; of the recession or of Ponzi schemes.

For me, though, all of those pop-and-wider-cultural phenomena pale in comparison to one important aspect of 2009: it was the year when the right people won. Top Model, Top Chef, Project Runway, The Biggest Loser, So You Think You Can Dance, More to Love, and the Great American Road Trip — even when the shows sucked (Project Runway), all saw their confetti fall on the right contestants.

Let’s recap:

America’s Next Top Model

After calling a Nicole-Laura-Erin final three, imagine my surprise as Tyra’s megalomaniacal irrationality didn’t get in the way of a sensibly progressing cycle! Sure, Sundai lasted a little too long, and Jennifer ‘s charm didn’t always compensate for her lack of editorial ability. But Erin lasted until the surprise pre-final double elimination before succumbing to the fate she secured by walking herself into the bitch edit.

And so the lovable Lauren and striking Nicole were the final two — a perfect CoverGirl (sweet, Southern, with a hint of edge) versus a born high-fashion model (stunning, avant-garde, with an endearing awkwardness). Though I was pulling for Laura, I knew Nicole should win. And, again, shocker, she did!

Nicole, Cycle 13 winner of ANTM

Top Chef

Like Top Model, Top Chef this year had easily distinguishable wheat and chaff. Jennifer, Kevin, and Bryan and Michael Voltaggio were the obviously standout cheftestants, consistently winning challenges and impressing the parade of celebrity judges. The first dozen episodes were merely prelude; once it was down to the miraculously intact fated final four, the show began. (Raise your hand if you, like me, feared for far too long that Robin would sneak into the finale, the Carla of season 6.)

Jennifer let her uncertainty become inconsistency, and she exited stage (or kitchen?) left. Kevin, the huggable muppet of a man from Atlanta, seemed like he could win it all but choked — not literally, thankfully — on his final meal. The brothers V stood before the panel as the results were announced. And, as is always true when justice is done in reality TV land, the more creative, edgy upstart beat out the populist, popular, safer alternative. Michael Voltaggio had won.

Michael Voltaggio, Top Chef 6 winner

Project Runway

This season of Project Runway sucked, as I discussed extensively in my last post (for which the follow-up will be posted shortly). So instead of wasting time recapping the tedious details, let’s get to the point: Christopher was mercifully (for him as much as for us) put down before Bryant Park. Carol Hannah, Althea, and Irina — the three not-terrible designers of the season — made it to the end, and, as is always true when justice is done in reality TV land, the more creative, edgy upstart beat out the populist, popular, safer alternatives: Meana Irina took the title. (Yes, I know I said the same thing above, but it is a reality truism worth repeating. See Project Runway history: Leanne over Korto, Christian over Rami, Jeffrey over Uli — the fashion-forward prevail over the designers whose clothes “every woman would love to wear.”)

The Biggest Loser

The Biggest Loser had a lot to prove this season, after Helen’s disappointing, unhealthily-emaciated win over the phenomenal Tara and Mike last time around. This time, though, the sweet and charming former football-player Danny won the whole shebang, while everyone’s favorite player, Rebecca, took the at-home prize. A perfect finale.

The Rest

Even beyond the shows that have shaped the temporal architecture of my year, I’ve heard that the right people have been winning left and right. On So You Think You Can Dance, rough-around-the-edges fan faves Jeanine and Russell beat the more polished but less compelling Brandon and Jakob, continuing a pattern similar to Project Runway’s (see Sabra beating Danny, Benji beating Travis…). On More To Love (yes, I’m actually including this one), Tali beat Malissa, then she really won when she broke up with Luke shortly after. On The Great American Road Trip, the DiSalvatores took the crown! Brilliant if only to reward father Silvio’s bon mot of the decade — “I do not engulf sugar.”

So, yeah, it’s been a good year. Let’s hope 2010 sees a repeat of 2009′s alignment of the pseudo-stars.

On Thursday, October 25, 2009, at 9:57 PM, Project Runway jumped the shark.

I know ‘jumping the shark’ is a loaded concept that’s now bordering on the cliché. And it’s easy to indict a show that’s having a lackluster season — especially a reality competition that’s suffering from inconsistent and frustrating judging — of having debased itself in some core way. But I think ‘jumping the shark’ is a very particular kind of invalidation, one perpetrated by PR in its last episode.

First, the facts. Spoiler alert.

In the bottom two on Thursday night: feather prince Nicolas Putvinski, with his malproportioned Grecian fantasy; and fragile autodidact Christopher Straub, with his indescribably bad “Sante Fe”-”inspired” “outfit” to match his unfortunate, hairline-thin, jawline-hugging facial hair.

Christopher, an earnest if overconfident soul from Shakopee, Minnesota, was making his fourth appearance in the bottom in just as many weeks. After a strong showing early in the competition, Christopher continued to display an utter lack of taste; it was his third time in bottom two, a perch from which he outlasted better competitors Louise and Shirin.

Somehow, Christopher had continued to squeak by on something — remembered potential? Simple favoritism?

This week, though, the there was simply no way he could get another reprieve after running so long on fabric fumes. Michael Kors described his Sante Fe garment as “costume.” Heidi was more frank: “unwearable,” she said; and, later, “just ugly.”

It was thus with the collective gasp of a million viewers that Heidi announced, “Christopher… you’re in.”

***

This season of Project Runway was problematic far before last week. After relocating to Lifetime and Los Angeles, the show has been unmoored by innumerable absences from New York-based judges Nina Garcia and Michael Kors.

Consistent judging is essential for a show like Project Runway, where contestants prove their mettle and articulate their point-of-view over a season’s worth of wacky challenges. If I had missed school as many times as either judge has abandoned their post (or, more accurately, their runway-side stool) this season, I would’ve never made it past the seventh grade.

There have been other problems, too.

None of the contestants has impressed audiences with innovative design. Each week, the winning designs seem to be the ones conceived and executed with the most competence, not originality.

And none of the personalities has proven exceptionally engaging, leaving an absence of interesting interpersonal dynamics. Yes, Irina is a bitch and Carol Hannah thinks Logan is attractive. But it’s hard to summon hatred for Irina, as she is the most consistently successful of the designers; it’s harder to empathize with Carol Hannah, as Logan is criminally devoid of personality.

So why was Christopher’s third bottom-two survival the moment that marked the jumping of the shark?

***

Let’s take a step back. What does it mean to jump the shark?

Wikipedia defines the term as “a colloquialism coined by Jon Hein and used by TV critics and fans to denote the point in a television program’s history where the plot veers off into absurd story lines or out-of-the-ordinary characterizations. This usually corresponds to the point where a show with falling ratings apparently becomes more desperate to draw in viewers.”

This definition approaches the phenomenon by metonymy: yes, jumping the shark is often found in conjunction with declining ratings, and it often occurs vis-a-vis absurdity or inconsistency. But these are not the ding an sich.

What these associations hint at is the core of shark-jumping: a cultural object’s forfeiture of artistic integrity. A TV show jumps the shark when it ceases playing by its internally-established rules or abandons its foundational premises.

Happy Days jumped the shark when Fonzie literally jumped a shark on water skies (still in his trademark leather jacket), but it jumped the shark because in that moment it gave up the pretense that it was a naturalistic representation of the lives of Richie Cunningham and his 50s teenage friends.

Cousin Oliver came to stay with the Brady Bunch because of their declining ratings, but the show jumped the shark because his arrival fundamentally altered its premise as a sitcom built on the foibles of what happened after a lovely lady bringing up three very lovely girls married a man named Brady who was busy with three boys of his own — this was a show with its premises built right into the theme song!

When Christopher lived to sew another day after first taking up residence in the bottom and then living their comfortably for a month, it wasn’t just an opportunity to scream at the screen — it marked Project Runway’s loss of artistic integrity.

***

Much of the best cultural criticism being written today can be found on a blog called FourFour, where Rick Juzwiak meditates on music, web culture, and, most prominently, reality TV. (His recaps of America’s Next Top Model offer enough motivation in themselves to continue watching.)

On the occasion of Project Runway’s sixth season premiere, he wrote about the show he once recapped but never fell in love with:

Project Runway has a reputation for being a high-brow reality show, probably because of its supposed investment in talent, its tempered contestants and its consistent pacing. I think assigning high- and low-culture status within the genre of reality TV is like assigning a hierarchy of pork products, from, say, belly to scrapple. In the end, it’s all fucking pig…

I don’t mean to hold its hype against it, and it’s not like Project Runway ultimately does that great of a job in avoiding being what it is, anyway. People are not there to make friends, they throw each other under the bus, this isn’t the last you’ve heard of them when they’re bounced. As though sniffing out truffles, the casting agents fill the show with types…

There is an androgynous, aggressively coiffed pseudo-intellect who described his design as “ineffable,” but was unfortunately incorrect as he didn’t then shut up.

In response to the task of designing for the red carpet, this one also said “I don’t differentiate between different colored carpets,” which, uh, yeah you do because you just called them “different.” It was here that I was reminded of maybe the main reason I stopped watching this show: I find humorless snobs too excruciating to even laugh at, and as a fashion-design competition, pretension runs thick on Project Runway. It’s not the show’s fault, per se, it’s just how it works out.

Juzwiak has never been able to sign onto Project Runway’s premises — that it is a cut above the typical reality competition, a true search for the best that rewards the excellent and dismisses the dilettantes — but these are its premises indeed. These are the reasons discerning viewers, who would never deign to watch Top Model, have fawned over Daniel Vosovic and Jeffrey Sebelia and Christian Siriano and Korto Momolu for years.

But Juzwiak is right: Project Runway was never perfect, and it has always had more base reality conventions sewn into the muslin core beneath its silk exterior. Yes, contestants who make for good TV might outlast their less interesting competitors. Yes, the challenges with their money- and time-limits are contrived.

Still, the internal logic of the competition demands that continued ineptitude be punished. The show is built on its premise of pretension, of being the highbrow reality competition that may give a second and third chance, but never a fourth.

***

At the beginning of this season, there was a contestant named Mitchell, whose last name I forget. Technically talentless, he seemed constitutionally incapable of assembling a wearable garment by the time of the runway show.

He was in the bottom two in week one, but was kept over the otherworldly Ari Fish. He was in the bottom two in week two, but was kept over the ineffable Malvin Vein. Viewers were frustrated, seeing admittedly eccentric designers leave before the bungling Mitchell.

But, then, justice.

In week three, Mitchell found himself in the bottom two for the third time — and this was after a challenge in which his team had won!

It was unprecedented, but clearly required by the logic of the show — his continued failure could not be countenanced.

Heidi made the awaited pronouncement: “Never in Project Runway history has a team member for a winning design been eliminated. Three strikes and you’re out.”

Flash forward to October 22. Christopher sews together fabric that leaves fellow designer Althea dumbstruck: “If Christopher can put that garment down the runway and not get eliminated, then I don’t know what’s going on.” We all agree.

He lands in the bottom two for the third time. The logic of the competition, the internal rules of the show articulated by Heidi herself, demand his expulsion.

But he survives. And he’s not even good TV.

The rules are broken. The premises are thrown over. The foundation collapses.

Project Runway jumps the shark.

***

In my next post, I’ll explore what Project Runway’s shark-jumping says about the state of reality TV — a genre built on the premise of representing “reality” that may be increasingly incapable of fulfilling its foundational requirement.

Note that this series is also being posted on my personal blog, Urbane Sprawl. It was relevant to both blogs’ interests, and I couldn’t choose just one place to post. And some cross-blog promotion never hurts.

dress like your favorite wild thing

I’m fairly certain I was profiled yesterday– not for the color of my skin but perhaps because of the jauntiness of my knit newsboy cap.

Okay, I’ll admit it– it was probably my own fault. I was, after all, attending a 10:20 showing of Where the Wild Things Are. So maybe the ticket-taker had just seen one too many couples roll up in matching American Apparel hoodies and skinny jeans. But that didn’t take away from the fact that he looked me up and down, rolled his eyes, and said “Lemme guess… Theater 8?” before taking my ticket. When I asked him what he meant by that, he said, “Oh, nothing. I’m sure you just really like the book.” WTF? Should i be offended?

On a different note, I’m in love with this movie. A lot more so than I thought I would be (Ryder, you’d probably hate it). At a certain point, I think we all start thinking too much about movies and forgetting how a movie can make us feel. The way the right song can sneak up on you and without overanalyzing it, it just makes you smile or cry. My hope is that this film will break down the shell of ironic detachment that the majority of our generation is now wearing like a vintage Members Only jacket and inspire us to feel again. Unapologetically, un-self-consciously, unflinchingly. But that might be asking for a lot…

No, not you, dear readers.

I’m just incanting my favorite catchphrase from the brilliant, sharp-as-a-tack, gray-streaked style guru Stacy London. London, with former cruise ship singing waiter Clinton Kelly, is half of the duo of fashion mavens who guide the ignorant from schlep to chic, from frumpy to fashion forward, on TLC’s What Not To Wear.

What Not To Wear is amazing. Another time, I’m going to write a post about how WNTW, The People’s Court, and The Suze Orman Show are the three most underrated shows on television. For now, I’m just going to complain.

Usually I jeer. Today, I tear.

WNTW reruns used to play three times a day on TLC — at 11am, 12pm, and 6pm.

Starting last week? One. One episode a day.

That is not enough DVRed programming to get me through a workday. And what comes in its place? Reruns of John and Kate Plus 8. Marathons of Say Yes To The Dress.

John and Kate are over, TLC. And no one cares about these rando women’s wedding dresses.

If you’re listening, John Hendricks, founder and chairman of Discovery Communications, bring back three daily reruns of What Not To Wear!

Parks and Rec has been getting a lot of good press this season, praise for a clear improvement in the consistency of the writing and an increase in the laughs-per-minute rate. And I’m laughing more during Parks than I am during a lot of other shows, including The Office and Community.

My favorite exchange so far this season took place on Parks, after Amy Poehler’s Leslie Knope became the hero of the young April Ludgate and her boyfriend Derek and Derek’s boyfriend Ben after performing an accidental gay marriage (of two penguins) at the Pawnee Zoo. When they decide to throw a party in her honor at the local gay bar The Bulge, the flyers feature a Shepard Fairey-ized likeness of Leslie in blue and red that reads “Knope” instead of “Hope.”

Leslie: Who made this?
April: We did.
Leslie: How?
April: Photoshop.
Leslie: What?
Ben: Computers.
Leslie: Oh.

But I think the emerging brilliance of P&R is due to much more than just tighter writing: it’s the first half-hour comedy in a long time, probably since The Simpsons, that is able to seamlessly and effectively make comedic hay out of contentious social issues.

It’s hard to deal with “issues” in a genuinely funny way on a half-hour comedy.

There are “very special episodes” like the abortion arc on Maude or the child abuse episode on Full House (Stephanie, there are some secrets you just can’t keep!) that use the forums of a popular shows with wide audiences and relatable characters to confront more serious aspects of human experience — and hopefully score some laughs off of their undeniable reality.

And then there are shows like South Park that seem more concerned with dealing with the hot topic of the day with “issue” episodes than they are about organic, character-driven comedy. There are hits like season 6 and 7′s “Red Hot Catholic Love” (organized religion), “I’m a Little Bit Country” (patriotism and pacifism), and “All About the Mormons?” (Mormonism); and then there are the misses, like season 10-12′s “MeanBearPig” (climate change), “With Apologies to Jesse Jackson” (the racist Michael Richards rant), and “Britney’s New Look” (the cult of celebrity).

There are still great episodes in these later seasons, like “Cartman Sucks” and “The List” — and these also draw from cultural issues and artifacts (“Cartman Sucks” peripherally but pointedly mocks the ex-gay movement) — but they are resolutely character-driven in the vein of what was arguably the series’s best episode, “Scott Tenorman Must Die.”

In the three episodes of the new season that have aired so far, Parks has struck upon a brilliant, seamless integration of “issues” into its plot lines.

The first episode didn’t take a stance on gay marriage as much as mock the way divisive social issues can monopolize the cultural conversation: Leslie accidentally marries two male penguins in an innocent publicity stunt for the zoo and is stunned when she becomes the target of family values Indianans, who let the reverberations of one gay penguin marriage drown out Leslie’s tireless public service. She’s an unlikely hero (she really did think one of the penguins was a girl), but she won’t back down to calls to annul the marriage or resign. Key to the episode’s success is that it isn’t about gay marriage — it’s about Leslie and how she confronts small-minded public pressure against her.

The last two episodes were even less explicitly about “issues,” but they both dealt better with race and gender than most sitcoms do when trying to finesse the subjects.

In the second episode, Leslie is staking out a date between her ex-flame and best friend in the truck of her South-Asian-American colleague Tom Haverford (Aziz Ansari). When Tom gets locked out and tries to jimmy his way back in, he’s confronted and arrested even though he shows his ID — an allusion to the Skip Gates scandal that never mentions it. Tom’s arrogance and the cop’s likely racism are both lampooned but not “problematized”; we’re told something real about the state of America but, more importantly, we laugh.

The most recent episode saw Leslie and Tom judging the local beauty pageant. While it’s clear to the crowd and the rest of the judging panel that the vapid, talentless “hot one,” Trish, is the clear frontrunner, Leslie pushes for Susan, the slightly-dowdy-for-a-beauty-pageant classical pianist. Trish takes a question from Leslie about De Tocqueville’s take on national improvement and makes her answer about the lamentable birth rates of immigrants, but still she gets raucous applause. Leslie demands that the judges actually deliberate about what qualities the ideal Pawnee woman should represent, and though we cross our fingers for a 12-Angry-Men-style turning of the tide, we’re not surprised that Trish is declared the winner. The show doesn’t have to “say something” about gender to say something about gender.

The statement is in Leslie’s idealistic insistence on earnestness and belief in the face of apathy and cynicism. Since Parks & Recreation’s protagonist is a public servant, the character of Leslie Knope makes more of a statement than any contrived hot-button plot line ever could.

Old shows:

• 30 Rock
• The Office
• Mad Men
• Lost
• So You Think You Can Dance
• Saturday Night Live
• How I Met Your Mother
• The Big Bang Theory
• Parks and Recreation
• Project Runway
• Gossip Girl
• America’s Next Top Model
• Dollhouse
• Californication

New shows

• Community
• Modern Family
• Bored to Death
• Flash Forward (haven’t watched it yet, but planning on it)

Something had to go. As depressing as that sounds. So I cut out ANTM from my life and I feel no worse for it. Gossip Girl I’m still on the fence about. I watched the first three episodes of the season and found myself bored with the Serena storyline, uninterested in Vanessa’s extremely pretty but no-personality boyfriend/Dan’s long-lost brother, and missing the drama of my favorite storyline– Chuck’s pursuit of Blair. So I’m taking a break… I think I’ll be okay.

What? You’re in on a Friday night watching the pointless semi-spinoff of a reality show? No way!

It’s true.

Here’s what I’m thinking, and it’s something that’s been on my mind for years: Heidi Klum speaks excellent English. When she’s judging the designers, she critiques the garments with eloquent, pithy panache.

Yet every week, without fail, after debriefing the designers on their weekly challenge — and now also after forcing a dull 90 seconds of conversation with the models — she says: “I see you on the runway.” Yes, she sees them sitting in front of her; and, yes, she’s on the runway looking at them. But I don’t think that’s quite what she means.

Heidi is a beautiful, talented, and articulate woman. Why can’t she internalize the future tense?!

Oh, and re: Models of the Runway? Celine for the win!