#6 // Who's Afraid of Serial TV?
#6 // Who's Afraid of Serial TV?
Hello, friends! So, last week, I started writing a piece for this newsletter that was, in part, a discussion of an essay I've been writing for an anthology about "The Televisual Novel," and in part a discussion of a recent essay by the one true New Yorker film critic Richard Brody. To summarize: 1) I think the "televisual novel" is a crappy meme for reasons that will soon become clear; 2) Even though Richard Brody is one of my favorite film critics, I think he gets TV really wrong in his essay. I was writing and writing, and the piece was getting longer and longer, and it was starting to feel weird to send a 2500-word, mildly peeved email into the boxes of you, my closest and dearest friends.
So, today, that essay appears in The Los Angeles Review of Books "Dear Television" column. It's called, "Who's Afraid of Serial TV?" And this is a small chunk of it:
The primary issue is the equation of “depth and sophistication” with “the novel.” The essay itself is actually a fairly insightful assessment of the state of the serial drama in the nineties, but it is cloaked in this protectionist panic about the novel’s superiority as a form. I have no issue ascribing “depth and sophistication” to either the novel or the TV serial, but I do have an issue with employing one to confer “depth and sophistication” upon the other. (See here and here for recent iterations of this argument.) And it’s worth noting, on this point, that McGrath only barely makes any comparison between TV and the novel on formal grounds: he doesn't talk about seriality or the management of time, even the kind of cross-media analysis of montage in novels and films that Sergei Eisenstein did in 1944. Nope. TV is the New Novel because it’s “sophisticated” and it doesn’t make you feel guilty about liking it the way maybe it used to. TV is the New Novel the same way that Shake Shack cheeseburgers are the New Novel or haute couture hoodies are the New Novel.
Anyway, you should read the whole thing here! I wrote it for you, and then chickened out.
Finally Started // Atlanta (FX)
I saw the pilot for this a couple of months ago, and I remembered almost nothing about it except for the fact that I liked the feel of it. We watched the double-episode premiere, which was really funny and dreamy, and Keith Stanfield is just stealing everything there is to be stolen onscreen. This week's third episode was a little weaker, I thought. This show has been great so far with small details, and the third episode was a little broadly situational, but, overall, I'm in.
Flagging // Outlander (Starz)
Yes, still!
Finally Finished // The Get-Down (Netflix)
This show is a crazy mess, and you can almost see the production problems onscreen, but the kid ensemble is terrific—this, along with all the comic book series and Stranger Things, solidifies Netflix's strategy of going after nerds from the late-seventies and early eighties. And that, I think, is one of the most unusual and compelling aspects of this series: that it's about how the coolest thing you can think of is born from traits that society classes as nerdly (obsession with pop media, scholarly focus, being skinny and uncool). Anyway, I really flagged during some of the Jimmy Smits scenes, but the set-pieces are amazing, and the rap battle that ends the short season is just stunning.
Recommendations //
I love reading about GIFs, and there have been two fun articles recently: one on the great new site Real Life and one on Mashable.
My friend Shonni Enelow wrote a long essay on contemporary acting in the re-designed Film Comment, and it is jaw-droopingly good: "In short, there’s something deeply suspect, in the world of The Hunger Games, about expressive performance. Inscrutability is a virtue. And the acknowledgment that being able to perform for the camera is a basic survival skill in a surveillance state is countered by the insistence that a true heroine wouldn’t be able to fake it."
I also really like reading essays about Instagram.
If you aren't already reading Lili Loofbourow, then this essay about Tom Hanks' upper lip is a good place to start.
The great Sarah Blackwood—of Avidly fame—has a new parenting column at The Hairpin.
Jamelle Bouie at Slate has been unbelievably sharp on all things Trump v. Clinton, but this might be one of my favorites.
This piece on cinematic walking is an example of what I really like about Richard Brody's criticism.
Jia Tolentino has been on another level recently, and her essay on Carly Rae Jepsen's B-Sides is maybe a perfect piece of pop criticism.
Oh, and Sarah Mesle and I wrote about Sunday Night Football for LARB this week. MARTELLUS BENNETT!
Finally, for this week's recipe, this isn't exactly what I did, but the idea is, grate some potatoes, add herbs and spices you like, mix in some leftover fish, make yourself a *specialty mayonnaise*, and fry it up like hash browns!
No offense to Shake Shack,
Phil.