Television

is coming back, according to Yahoo! News. I'd like to see the same happen to Jake 2.0!

A new collection of essays, Reading Sex and the City, has just been published, and you can read an excerpt of one of the chapters by David Greven on representations of men in Sex and the City. It's quite a scathing critique of the show, and it really makes me look at the show differently. This claim is particularly thought-provoking:

The freakshow mentality of Sex and the City ends up being neither a post-feminist nor post-gay interrogation of privileged white male heterosexuality - despite the depiction of members of this group as freaks - but a reification of the very privileged status of the category. It is the women themselves, shakily stuck in their haunted liminal position between representing both "real" women and gay men, who are ultimately revealed as the chief freaks.

Looks like Enterprise might get cancelled, sigh.

This my second beef with UPN. I was all excited about the return of Jake 2.0, which was scheduled for tomorrow night. Then, I was watching a show on UPN tonight and saw a promo for Enterprise and then America's Next Top Model! Immediately I consulted Google and learned that they have cancelled Jake 2.0. I know not many people watched it; indeed, I, my roommate, and our friend Lynda's husband were the only people I know who ever watched it, but it really is a great show, and I encourage you to help salvage what we can of it.

Mike asks: "What the hell was that?"

Well, I'll say right off the bat that I didn't see it, as I was watching Queer Eye at the time, but my roommate was watching the game in the next room and stuck her head in my room when it happened. Her initial reaction was to be disturbed by it. When she told me about the baring of the breast, I had an immediate flashback to the Halle Berry and Adrien Brody kiss, which I still think was disturbing and inappropriate, but I'm glad Queen Latifah retaliated, heh. By the way, I know this situation is completely different and that Jackson was complicit. Anyway, the link roundup: Feministe, Echidne, and Christine all have thoughtful comments.

Update: Larry Lessig reminds us what really matters in this debate.
Uh, link isn't showing up. What I mean to say is that Lessig reminds us what really matters in this debate. The link is to http://www.moveon.org/cbs/ad/. I don't know what's going on! I did the code right.

Thank you, NBC, for guessing just what it is that I, not a football fan, would like to watch tonight: three back-to-back episodes of Queer Eye.

And for aphthous ulcers, Kanka is sweet, sweet relief. Finally, I can talk without pain again.

Edited to add: The most fascinating Google query ever to point to CultureCat (as the #1 hit, no less!) is: "You don't just talk the talk. You rock the rhetoric. You're deft with the discourse. Your vocab speaks volumes."

In the speech class I teach, the first presentation the students do is an "X>Y presentation," in which they compare one person, place, or thing to another and take a qualitative stand favoring one over the other. Since this is a very short speech (3-4 minutes), the content needs to be light and fluffy--something that everyone in the audience can recognize. Therefore, we turn to mainstream popular culture. I've assigned some reading in the textbook on planning speeches and transforming ideas into speech points, which entails some brainstorming, idea mapping, and outlining. Tomorrow in class I'm going to try out this exercise, which I thought of sometime during The Apprentice. I'm going to put the students into their peer groups and give them a selection of five topics. They will have to use the planning techniques in the reading to compose an X>Y speech on the topic, present the speech, and describe their planning process.

The other day, I posted about my love of 80s TV theme songs. In fact, that was exactly one week ago, and I was experiencing some Monday gloom. It's Monday again, and I'm slightly less gloomy, but I find myself thinking again of an 80s TV theme song I love, this time the one from "The Fall Guy":

The Fall Guy



Well, I'm not the kind to kiss and tell,

But I've been seen with Farrah.

I'm never seen with anything less than a nine, so fine.

 

I've been on fire with Sally Field,

Gone fast with a girl named Bo,

But somehow they just don't end up as mine.

 

It's a death defyin' life I lead,

I take my chances.

I die for a livin' in the movies and TV.

But the hardest thing I ever do

Is watch my leadin' ladies

Kiss some other guy while I'm bandagin' my knee.

 

I might fall from a tall building,

I might roll a brand new car.

'Cause I'm the unknown stuntman that made Redford such a star.

 

I never spend much time in school

But I taught ladies plenty.

It's true I hire my body out for pay, Hey Hey.

 

I've gotten burned over Cheryl Tiegs,

Blown up for Raquel Welch.

But when I end up in the hay it's only hay, Hey Hey.

 

I might jump an open drawbridge,

Or Tarzan from a vine.

'Cause I'm the unknown stuntman that makes Eastwood look so fine.

I can blast that song in the car, sing along, and just generally rock out to it! What's the matter with me?