EYECANDY
FILM
JOURNALEYECANDY VOL. 26

volume 26

EyeCandy Film Journal

Vol. 26

EDITOR’S NOTE

It’s very easy to describe what EyeCandy Film Journal is - we’re an annuallypublished, student-run journal that takes a critical approach to media and culture.
Done. It’s harder to put that last part - the part about a critical approach - into
practice.
Our goal with this year’s EyeCandy is to go beyond “I love this” and “I hate that,”because that’s not an in-depth conversation. Our goal was to also incorporate
the principles of Student Agency into our organizational structure - whichmeant we made space for our mistakes, made space for our learning and growthin ways that we hadn’t done in any of our classes before. It meant that insteadof having a grown-ass adult tell us how to run, develop, fund, edit, and design
our media journal, we had to figure out the process for ourselves. We had to ask
hard questions of each other and ourselves - What does it mean to be a studentorganized journal that attempts to do hard-hitting film and pop culture criticism?
What does it mean for us, a handful of college students to sit around, write,
critique, and edit in a collective space? Does that kind of scrappy autonomy showin our work? EyeCandy Film Journal isn’t unified in its politics or its theoretical
approaches. It’s a polyvocal and contradictory collective, where we lean into
discomfort and ask our writers, our designers, our artists, and our members to alllearn from each other.

EYEC ANDY MISSION STATEMENT
EyeCandy Film Journal is an annually published, student-run media studies
collection. Our aim is to focus on culturally relevant and compelling topics that
expand our relationships with film, television, and new media forms.
We hope that our publication will motivate readers to engage with media in amore in-depth, critical, and complex fashion, and act as a platform for the UCSC
community to consider new and thoughtful perspectives on visual culture.
EyeCandy provides writers with an opportunity to synthesize interests in film
and television studies. By empowering students to further express their passions
in a hands-on and productive environment, they are encouraged to cultivate theirown critical and professional voices outside of the classroom.
The publication additionally provides an avenue that connects student
discussion to the wider Santa Cruz community, broadening a relationship wehope to foster for the future.

This year, we built a syllabus designed to put our desires for better media,
for better conversations about media, and to engage in different theoretical
approaches to help us understand our relationships with and against the media
we consume on a day to day basis. We did research, we had one-on-one meetings,
we held writing workshops, we confronted our biases, we edited each other’s
works, we discussed and dissected and disagreed. EyeCandy Film Journal has
been on the one hand a pre-professional learning opportunity, and on the other, agoofy group of media nerds hanging out and yelling about pop culture.

45

EyeCandy Film Journal

Vol. 26A

dult Swim is sort of like cable television’s cool uncle.
Without seeming to follow any preset standards ofwhat cable television is—or should be—Adult Swim has always
redefined the boundaries of late night television. Before
discovering the 8pm to 6am nightly Adult Swim programming
block on Cartoon Network, I was under the firm impressionthat late night comedy television exclusively consisted ofHome Improvement reruns and creepy infomercials abouthome exercising tools. I was in fifth grade when I happened
upon Aqua Teen Hunger Force, one of Adult Swim’s mostprominent and influential programs. The whole concept o theshow astounded me—an animated comedy geared towards
adults rather than children? Does this kind of content always air
when I’m asleep? Was this segmenting of my much-treasured
Cartoon Network a mere sleepy delusion, or was it something
bigger?
As I soon found out, Adult Swim is the hub of all that isbizarre, surrealist, and entirely unique. Although founded
as a programming block to appeal mostly to late night,
heterosexual male audiences, Adult Swim immediately became
an irreplaceable comedy television treasure.1 Mike Lazzo, who
initially envisioned Adult Swim while working as Cartoon
Network’s head programmer, had created Space Ghost Coast
to Coast for Cartoon Network—a late-night absurdist, animatedtalk show parody. As one of Cartoon Network’s few adultoriented cartoons, Space Ghost regularly subverted the talkshow format and the typical tropes of superhero cartoons. With
the show’s ensuing success, Lazzo created the framework forwhat the Adult Swim block is at its core—a cultural phenomenon
through its innovative structure nurturing critique and parody.
The refusal to abide by cable network norms and limitations iswhat allows Adult Swim to continually serve as a cutting edge,
wholly original programming block.
In every original program from Adult Swim, parody has
been a defining feature. The prominence of parody throughout
Adult Swim programming has been cultivated in many
ways, whether it is through their fake infomercials (see: viralsensation Too Many Cooks), self-reflexive bumps, or countless
live-action and animated programs centered on bringing
comedy to subjects often taken too seriously. This is part ofwhat allows Adult Swim to be such a necessary, progressive

6

addition to the entirety of cable television. Adult Swim’s selfreflexive comedies are crucial for reminding audiences that it’sokay to laugh at the absurd by highlighting the over-dramatic
soapy hospital dramas, crime shows, and so much more that we
as a television consuming culture love so much yet often forget
to take with a grain of salt.
Within non-parody soapy hospital dramas and modern
crime shows, real world consequences of actions are dismissed.
Two of Adult Swim’s parody shows, NTSF:SD:SUV:: andChildrens Hospital, lampoon these mainstream and wellrecognized shows as a way to show the inadequacies of thehospital or law enforcement. Adult Swim reveals why showssuch as Grey’s Anatomy and Law & Order are ever-so-slightly
absurd in their portrayal of what occurs on a regular basis
in a bureaucratic institution such as a hospital or police
department. Paul Scheer’s brilliant NTSF:SD:SUV::, the obvious
acronym for National Terrorism Strike Force: San Diego: Sport
Utility Vehicle, is an 11 minute short-form satirical response to
the modern, popularized crime drama. Law and Order, NTSF’s
clear counterpart, focuses each episode on an investigationof an especially heinous crime, typically involving murder.
Although cancelled in 2010, Law and Order was revolutionary
in its captivating on-screen depiction of police and legal
action—something typically not often seen on cable in the
1990s. The parody of the “modern live-action crime show”
with NTSF:SD:SUV:: forces a cultural critique surrounding theintensely over dramatic television depictions of real life crisis.
This is also seen within Adult Swim’s Childrens Hospital,
as it creates a finely tuned parody of another staple of overly
dramatized television—the soapy hospital drama. As Law &Order helped define the genre of the police procedural, Grey’s
Anatomy similarly helped define the structure of the soapy
medical drama. Grey’s Anatomy, renowned for its overly
dramatic, sexualized storylines, has become a cultural staple
throughout its eleven years on air. While Grey’s Anatomy focuseson the balance between the professional and personal lives ofinterns and doctors, many of the storylines are very blatantly
over-the-top in their depiction of the hospital drama. While
many have grown up with Grey’s Anatomy and understandmany of the characters on a personal level after having watchedthem evolve for eleven years, it begs the question of what these7EyeCandy Film Journal

Vol. 26

Written and illustrated by Isadora Taam“OMG — You are such a Latina!”

I first heard that six months ago, when I moved from
Brazil to study film at UCSC. It was my first week living in
California, and I heard it from a Japanese-Nigerian friend, who
is also an exchange student. At that moment, I was out of words.
I was caught completely off guard. I smiled. Slowly. I didn’t
agree with her comment, but I didn’t deny it. Being Latina wasnever something I identified with. It seemed to be an American
identity. From that moment on, I realized that—whether or not I
identify with the label—all of a sudden, I was a representative of
an intensively stereotyped group of which I, myself, only knew
distantly through American mainstream media productions.
Therefore, even being South American, the image I have of
Latinos and, especially, of Latinas was constructed from theperspective of American—and probably mostly white andmale—producers (Alarm bells ringing).
Technically, the Census Bureau of the U.S. excludes
Brazilian-American from the Latino American population
because, in spite of being part of Latin America, Brazil has a
Portuguese language culture. However, being here in America
made me question how important that “official” decision isif, apparently, the way I speak or look matters more than myculture or native language. I identify as Brazilian — therefore,of course, Latin American. However, I was raised under SyrianLebanese traditions, and I have a strong connection to my Arabroots. As that culturally pulls me away from Latin America,
should I feel less Latina? Am I not Latina enough for the Latinos
here? Or does it actually matter because I am brunette, love tosing and dance, and that qualifies me enough Latina for the12

white American standards? I had never seen myself as a Latina,
and I admit that at that time, my friend’s comment sounded,somehow, derogatory to me. What I didn’t know was that it
would be just the opening line of a whole new set of questions
for me. Was it only a regular matter of self-identification
because I was living abroad? Or was it a broader problem ofmedia misrepresentation of what it is to be a “Latina”, throughwhich I had formed my own image of them? I obviously sensed
it was the second case. But why did I still feel offended by thatlabel?
The way I reacted after being put in the “Latina box”
immediately points out two correlated problems: firstly, howaggressive the American colonization of Brazilian (or Latin
American, as a whole) mediascape really is; and secondly, how
weak the media relationship Brazil has with the rest of Latin

America. It is so imbalanced that the image I have of a group
geographically and historically closer to mine is shaped by the
Gringa media, and it’s one that I didn’t want to be associatedwith. The reach of American racism is outrageous.
Curiously, the term “race” and all its derivatives are
rarely used in Latin America and, especially in Brazil, there isa negative connotation attached to it. Instead, we tend to use
more frequently the term “ethnicity”, since it encompasses
not only the genetical similarities, but cultural and linguistic
affinities of a human community. In Brazil, we had a terribly
active slavery regime. It lasted (officially) until 1888. They were
mostly African peoples captured and sold in trades that alreadyexisted with the Arab market before European countries decided
to join.1 There was a lot of mixing with other ethnicities, andthat definitely includes Africans (especially through a hideous
history of raping female slaves). We are, genetically speaking,an intrinsically mixed population. Thus, it is complicatedto talk about race, and, even more, about racism in Brazil. It
exists—intensely—but it is opaque and, for me, harder to spot
and approach than the one you deal
with in the U.S. So, how confusing
is it to have American racism so
successfully exported to Brazil? It
is a phenomenon that sustains ahuge global trading market—not thatdifferently from the slavery trade a
few centuries ago—and the episodewith my Japanese friend is proofof its range, beyond merely Latin
American.
Back to my experience
here, I noticed that, working intandem with racism, colorism isalso a problematic issue that has tobe addressed in the cultural values
exported through media—and thatconcept is specially relevant for theLatino group, due to its intrinsic
ethnic variety.
Last quarter, aChicana friend of a friend took us
to her friends party. She promised“lots of fun, Chicano style”—herwords. But I was disappointed: inspite of the Latin music, the placelooked like all the other Americancollege parties I have been to here:
an improvised basement sauna fullof drunk people Snapchatting. I was bored and agitated. When I
was about to leave, one of her male friends started talking to me.
I was speaking in a monosyllabic tone—not a pleasing person
to be around. He was annoyed and all of a sudden, he asked
me: “What is it? I am not white enough for you?” It was hard tobreathe. I babbled an excuse and walked away. I searched for myfriend (who is Dutch) to tell her what happened. Maybe because
she has a different background, she couldn’t understand how
disturbing that was for me. She said it was “weird” and “not“I had never seen myself as a Latina,
and I admit that at that time, my friend’scomment sounded, somehow,derogatory to me.”nice” of him. But that’s not what it was. After that, I rememberedthat the same girl who took us to the party was at the beach with
us and, while we were all lying under the sun for hours without
any protection, she was putting the highest factor sunscreen on
from time to time, overly concerned about getting sun tanned
because she said she doesn’t like to get dark.
I learned the hard way that skin shade is a major
factor when it comes to ethnic identity acceptance for Latinos.
I’m not fair-skinned, but not dark-skinned. I’m of Lebanesedescent, so I have a different skin color from the typical Latin
American population. Still, I am
brunette and Latin American bynationality — but, apparently, notdark enough, or exotic enough, forthe guy at the party. Of course, media
has played a considerable role onthat issue. We have been consuming
racism and colorism through bothforeign—European or American—
and domestic media for decades, so
there is a process of internalisationof those ideals. One can clearly seethat reflected in our media products.
“Embedded in the leftover colonial
structure is a strong and enduring
value of white aesthetics (e.g. light
hair, straight hair, light eyes, narrownoses, and light skin). This is evident
in Latin American popular culture,for example, in the telenovelas,where almost all of the actors lookwhite, unless they are the maids
and are then light brown”2. In Rio—
where I am from in Brazil—Mexican
telenovelas are aired by a TV channel(SBT) that targets the masses. As aresult, most of the Latin American
media products we import—
impregnated with colorism and racist concepts—are consumed
by underprivileged groups that, in their turn,mostly consist ofpeople of color. That way, we ironically help to recolonize eachother, in a racist cycle that does not seem to have an end.
In Brazil, we have a taboo relationship with colorism
with the Black community—an incident with Globeleza in which
Nayara Justino, known internationally due to Lupita Nyong’o’s
support, is a blatant example of that.I Although I am now awarethat colorism is also a problem in the way Brazil establishes its
13

EyeCandy Film Journal
media relations with the rest of the world. Gisele Bundchen
is known world-wide while one of our most famous artists,
Taís Araújo, the first Black Brazilian actress to protagonize
a novela, is unknown to the international general public.
When I mentioned that Bündchen was Brazilian to a friend
here, she was surprised. On the other hand, Alexis Bledel
and Cameron Díaz are immensely famous in Brazil — but
we actually never categorize them as“Latinas” due to their light skin andblue eyes. However, we never hearanything about other Afro-Latina
actresses such as Laura Vélez or
Gina Torres.
However,evenbeing conscious of all thoseoverlapping and interwoven
issues, the idea of “being a
Latina” still felt weird to me.
It hurts to admit that I, selfproclaimed feminist, anti-racist
and anti-classicist (all highlyrecurrent issues in my country),
was serving myself from the same
American racism buffet that thepeople tagging me as Latina were
too. Journalist Tanisha L. Ramirez’s
article for the Huffington Post shedsome light over my questions. She argues
that the problem is that the idea of the
curvy, sexy and sultry Latina denies many
Latinas their cultural identification, simply
based on their physical appearances and sexual
attractiveness, and that this sort of thinking traps
our culture within our bodies. That ignores thevalues, ethics, and traditions that contribute toour sense of culture and community. As a Brazilian
woman, the oversexualization and objectificationof our bodies was the aspect of this article that
got to me. That was when the journey I picked
for myself began. I finally became conscious ofthat ongoing process of image deteriorationof a group that I was now considered partof. Thus I decided to confront what I
thought could be the roots of my own
issue with the same group. I rewatchedsome of the films and TV shows throughwhich I constructed the image I have—or
had—of Latinas.
Surprisingly, from films, I don’t
have as many memories as I thought I did:
Maid in Manhattan with Jennifer Lopez was the only one.
However, when it comes to TV, there are lots of examplesof Latinas I can immediately think of. During my teenage

years, I used to have long afternoons sessions with my friends
watching Desperate Housewives, with Gabrielle Solis (EvaLongoria), the scheming, also oversexed (and oversexing), posh
Latina housewife; Scrubs, with Carla Espinosa (Judy Reyes), thesmart and competent nurse, but still the object of desire of an
entire hospital; Modern Family, a similar but softened/goofy
version of Gabrielle Solis, a single-mom housewife who is warm,
fun, street-smart — but she is also a short-tempered,manipulative, formerly undocumented Colombian
woman that (conveniently) falls in love withan (older) American man—and also,
openly, object of desire of the wholefamily, including the husband ofher daughter-in-law; Will andGrace, with Rosario Salazar(Shelley Morrison, born Rachel
Mitrani), the acid and overcontrolling housekeeper; andFamily Guy with Consuela, theresigned-looking, apparently
slow-thinker, but in fact more
sly and smarter than the family
thinks.
Incredulously, I kept trying tofind any media representationof smart, trendy, well-educatedLatinos I could have had
growing up — if not for myself,
for Latina women in America.
Then, I remembered a TV show
I never watched regularly but,at the time, called my attention
because it casted a Latina actressin a, seemingly, “empowered” role.
The series is Without a Trace, andthe actress is Roselyn Sanchez, playing
detective Elena Delgado. I thought it wasnotable they were acting against the degrading
stereotyping process I knew Latinas struggled with in
the U.S.—even if it wasn’t my personal cause or concern.
From the episode, I could only remember flashes: Elena went
undercover to get a job as a dancer in a strip club, and Danny— the only other Latino detective in the group — pretends to be
one of her clients to keep an eye on her and help her out in caseanything unexpected happens during the mission. Elena and
Danny have a “will they, won’t they” relationship throughout theseries and, in this episode, they finally make out (but, surely, it
was all staged for the purpose of catching a suspect). I recall thatbeing the climax of the episode: all of a sudden, their romancetakes over the narrative to the point that the case being solved
seems entirely secondary to the reason for them — the only
Latino members of the group — to snog, providing titillationand entertainment for the audience.

I. One of the most popular Brazilian TV Channels, Globo, makes a yearly contest to choose a Black (mixed) girl to “samba”, naked – covered only with asparkling paint - in a special campaign for Carnival. In 2014, Nayara Justino won the competition, decided by an artistic jury. However, due to her unpopularity
with the masses, she was removed from the position. According to the public claims, she was not “enough mixed”, or “too black,” to have won the contest.

14

As I rewatched the episode, I had the chance to examine
it from an entirely new perspective: as a film major and, mostimportantly, a newly labeled Latina.4 The set-up for Elena and
Danny’s kiss starts early in the episode, when they put the otheryoung female detective, Samantha (Poppy Montgomery), a
white woman, together with detective Eric (Martin Fitzgerald)— also young and white American — to “officially” visit the strip
club as cops. All the other detectives are back in the office — andthat means: the two Latinos and the stereotypical sassy, bossy,
straight-to-the-point older black woman, Detective Marianne(Vivian Johnson) are doing research for the case. In sequence,
there is a scene in which the owner of the joint approaches
Samantha, asking how much does she make in the FBI. He
argues she could make more money as a stripper and invites
her to work for him. Samantha laughs and says that maybe it’s
her lucky day. Then she glances back at him, as if she had an
insight. Thus, immediately after that, their supervisor, Jack
Malone (Anthony LaPaglia), asks Elena if she feels comfortable
doing the dirty work: going undercover to the club and get a
job there as a stripper. He does this with an artificial tone ofuneasiness, pulling it off with an “I have no other options but to
ask you, I’m sorry” face. However, Elena accepts, submissively
thanking him for “giving her the shot.” That really bothered me.
Living here, closely examining American television,and doing research for this article, I learned this sort of castingis common — and that it is, actually, one of the most fetishistic
Latina type of TV character: the “hot female cop” (together withcriminals, maids and prostitutes).5 At this point, I therefore
realized that what sparked my attention was not the casting, but
Sanchez’s ingenious character building: Elena has this sober
sort of charm that seemed completely different from what I
have seen in other Latina characters on television. Professor
Angharad N. Valdivia indicates that Latinas are usually
depicted under a “binary virgin/whore opposition that womenin general experience as they are represented in the popular
cultural of patriarchal societies. In contrast to the rosarypraying devoted mothers, they get the sexually out of control
and utterly colorful spitfire, an image quite specific to Latinas”—Valvidia also mentions that a large component of this image
is sexually suggestive dancing.6 Therefore, what is peculiar
about Elena is that she shows, during this episode, that she caneasily transit in between those two worlds, if needed. As soon as
job calls her, as if she had a on and off switch, she goes rapidly
from a discrete turtlenecked, makeup-free working single momwhose wardrobe consists only of pale colors to a naughty andsexy professional pole dancer in a revealing short pink skirt andleopard top. Of course because she is an FBI agent, she has tohave special skills and was trained in undercover operations.
But what is glaring about her is the way she assimilates andinternalizes the dichotomy of the “virgin/whore,” smoothly
making use of both sides—as if she had some kind of genetic
predisposition to reach those extreme personas. Elena has atwisted heroic component, sustained by her wicked “Latina
power” of being “a virgin in the street but a whore in the bed”—
or, in fact, whenever she needs to use those cards.
The next scenes of the episode only reaffirm thatVol. 26
impression. Danny bumps into Samantha and Eric in thecorridor of the office. She makes fun of the way Danny isdressing and he replies that it is for the undercover task: hehas to pretend to be one of Elena’s potential clients in the club.
His role: a dangerous, exciting — and, apparently, tasteless —Latino lover-criminal (of course Danny wouldn’t escape theracist gaze either). From that moment on, the sexual tension
between Elena and Danny increases, and a series of small setup scenes in the club are inserted in order to achieve the greatclimax the audience waited for during the whole series. Danny
finally approaches the manager, who turns out to be one of thesuspects of the case, and offers him money to convince Elena(Erica, her “stripper name”) to go out with him. The guy talks
to her and a private upstairs “date” is arranged for Elena and
Danny. That’s when all the fun starts.
Elena is barely dressed, wearing a short pinkskirt and a leopard-print, skin-tight top. She opens
the door and they immediately start to speak Spanish
with each other. As the operation moves into thenext stage, the camera cuts to a detail shot of Elena’s
hand turning up the volume of a sound box. The
radio is carefully inserted as (blatant) mechanism
to reaffirm their sexuality: a sexy Santana-likeguitar soundtrack starts to dictate the rhythmof an intercutting between the other sceneof the other detectives, running throughthe corridors of that same labyrinthic
building, looking for the suspect. As
they increase the volume of theradio, Elena and Danny leadthe race of the protagonismof the sequence. Insteadof using the first scene
to build up the climax
for the “catching thesuspect” sequence, what
happens is the other way
around: it all converges toincrease the “almost sex”
tension in the other room.
The sexy soundtrack
keeps rocking them
all along the sequence,and the discrete counterplongée camera gives her
a dominatrix position
that is also essential
toconstructtheatmosphere.
The
audience has the
feeling the twoareinterrupted
when the theothers — thewhite American
detectives—
15

Vol. 26

STREAMVS.

Why Some Are Predicting the End of Movie Theaters—And Why They Are Wrong

By Joe MulcaireEver since my first movie-going experience at age five –Disney’s Tarzan (1999) in a theater which to me was as massive
and grand as a Greek colosseum—I’ve been hopelessly hookedon the theatrical form of movie-going. I revel in every step ofthe experience: leaving the house; buying tickets; crossing over
the threshold of the lobby and the concessions area; findingseats; the lights dimming; the screen bursting into light andlife as the trailers begin; the film itself; leaving as the credits
roll; and finally, streaming with my fellow revelers back out into
the world I’d left behind over the past two hours. Of course, thequality of the films themselves varies from trip to trip, but theexperience of going to the movies remains a beautiful constant—
one I treasure as much as any other ritual in my life.
As a middle-class American living in the 21st Century,
I am privileged with access to a wide variety of films at a
relatively affordable price, a privilege which I value highly,
and intend on regularly utilizing till the day I die; thus, recent
suggestions that movie theaters are a soon-to-be-defuncttechnology strike fear into this theater lover’s heart. But despite
the recent furor that’s been raised over the future of American
movie theaters, I believe that when one examines the history ofAmerican film exhibition, as well as the role movie theaters playin contemporary society, it becomes clear that the institution of
the American movie theater is here to stay.
Not everyone is quick to agree with me on this point.
Over the past decade or so, as the assemblage of On-Demandand streaming services such as Netflix and Amazon Prime growin financial clout and social ubiquity, the very role of “the cinema”

in modern American society has been repeatedly called into
question. Such questioning has come from every imaginable
corner of society—from journalists to industry analysts tothe filmmakers themselves. Recent headlines like “Where Do
Movie Theaters Fit in the Age of Netflix and HBO?” (Forbes,
July 2015), and “Netflix: The Most Feared Force in Hollywood?”(LA Times, January 2016) illustrate the larger point: there is a
growing sense that digital technologies—predominantly Netflix– pose the latest and greatest threat to the century-old industryof exhibiting movies in large public auditoriums, and there is an
epic battle underway between theaters and streaming services
for the mantle of the dominant format of viewing cinematicentertainment. Theater attendance has sagged over the past
decade while companies like Netflix continue to expand theiruser-bases[i]. And as the demographics of those user-bases
shift towards larger numbers of younger, non-white consumers,
streaming services have provided cheap, easy access to material
like Orange is the New Black and Master of None on Netflix andBroad City on Hulu; many users find these shows more relatable
and relevant to their lives than much of the content that the
Hollywood machine churns out. As a result of all these factors
and more, an historically familiar existential anxiety about
the future of movies theaters has been reignited, and certain
commentators have determined that the end of the movie
theater is nigh. But in fact, these doomsday predictions andsensational headlines are merely the latest iteration of an ageold cycle of speculating about the imminent demise of theaters,a cycle which continually ignores the two things which makemovie theaters an irreplaceable facet of American culture: theuniquely special, ritualistic viewing experience they provide
19

EyeCandy Film Journal
and the invaluable site of public gathering they represent.
Of course, I’d be a fool to say that the increasingly
popular option of watching movie online hasn’t impacted themovie theater industry at all; it has, as evidenced for example by
two of Netflix’s recent original feature film productions, Beastsof No Nation (2015) and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon:
Sword of Destiny (2016). These two films were originally slated
to have simultaneous online and in-theater releases (so-called“day-and-date” releases across platforms). Although otherfilms have tried this in the past (Steven Soderbergh’s 2009 The
Girlfriend Experience was released to Amazon three weeks
before it hit theaters), this would have represented a dramatic,large-scale departure from the decades-old tradition of givinga film a theatrical run of at least a few months before releasing
it for home viewing. The theater industry was not pleased. In
fact, once it became clear that Netflix
would not budge on its plans, themajor American multiplex
chains —Regal, AMC,
and Cinemark —decided to boycott
the films almost
completely (withthe exception ofa tiny handfulof
AMC
IMAX theaters,a move which
AMC
CEO
recently describedas “a favor to
IMAX”).1 For themost part, the films’
domestic
releases
were relegated to smaller,
independent
theaters(although Crouching Tiger
will be exhibited more widelyin theaters in countries such as
China and Brazil).2
There is evidence to suggest that such a boycott fromthe major theater chains, while probably intended as nothing
more than a symbolic gesture aiming to pressure Netflix torelease future films in theaters before releasing them online,
would be a foolish tactic for theaters to employ moving forward.
At least one previous example demonstrates that feature films
can enjoy moderate financial success via a primarily streaming
initial release. After The Interview’s (2015) theatrical release
was temporarily delayed at the beginning of last year by online
hacks and threats of violence, Sony decided to release it online
concurrently with its ultimately small-scale theatrical run. The
result was that The Interview made several times more money($40 million by some estimates) through its online purchases
and rentals than it did from its release in theaters worldwide(where it ended taking in a paltry $11 million).3 Many saw this20

Vol. 26
as a harbinger of a future practice of day-and-date theaterand online releases—the very format which the major theater
chains are boycotting with regards to the aforementioned
Netflix originals—or even a new practice of eschewing thecomparatively unprofitable theatrical releases entirely.
The Interview accentuated a growing sense that American
audiences could not be relied upon to drag themselves to aphysical exhibition site, and would much rather enjoy an atyour-fingertips home experience to a theatrical one.
Of course, besides the anecdotal example of a film
like The Interview, it’s hard to precisely measure if, and to what
extent, any film’s theatrical run is threatened financially bystreaming services. But the 2014 MPAA Report on TheatricalMarket Statistics, a summary of US and Canadian movie
attendance and profits released in March 2015, does provide
some elucidating information. With data dating back 10 years,
the Report outlines adecline of roughly 16%
in average per capita
visits to the theater—from 4.4 movies perperson in 2004 to 3.7
in 2014.4 Whether
this drop is down tointernetstreaming
providing a cheaper,
more
convenient
alternative is ultimately
speculation,butitdoesn’t seem like a bad
bet. The percentage of box
office sales comprised of 3-Dmovies—a recent revival ofan age-old gimmick intended
to entice audiences awayfrom home viewing and to themultiplex—also fell steadily from2010 to 2014, suggesting audienceswere not entirely convinced by thislatest innovation cinemas have tooffer.
Meanwhile, another internet-enabled alternative togoing to the cinema – online pirated copies of theatrical releases– has emerged as a constant scourge to the film industry
over the past 10 years. As theaters worldwide completed thetransition to digital projectors which played digital copies ofthe film as opposed to a physical reel of celluloid, the risk ofillicit bootlegs doing the rounds on the Internet skyrocketed. A
paper published in the economics-based Journal of Marketing
all the way back in 2007 predicted that online piracy could
be “considered a major threat to the movie industry,” onewhich risked “…cannibaliz(ing) commercial channels” such as
theaters.5
With all these recent developments in mind, the futureof the cinema experience—the one which had me enraptured

as a five-year old seeing Tarzan—might reasonably seem bleak.
But I don’t think it is, for two central reasons. The first is thatthe narrative described by headlines asking “Where Do Movie
Theaters Fit” in the modern age—the narrative of a new hometechnology spelling doom for movie theaters—is nothing new;in fact it’s nearly as old as movie theaters themselves. The
second is that the American movie theater as a public setting
has a singular and inimitable role within contemporary society—that of a large communal arena for collective gathering andshared artistic appreciation—which by its very nature can’t becasually replaced aside by new personal home devices andtechnologies.
Exhibition halls for motion pictures, which dateback to the first decade of the 20th Century, have gone
through various evolutions over the century: the cheap, urban
Nickelodeons of the 1910s and 1920s; their operatic, high end
counterparts the Movie Palaces; the Drive-In theaters in the
1950s; the widescreen roadshow theaters which displayed theepics of the 1960s; and the more familiar multiplex which isthe dominant theater format of the modern day. But what allof these particular iterations share is the basic form of a publichall in which movies are projected for a paying audience. This
format of exhibition represents the core of the theater industry,
and it has endured in the United States for a century, as theworld around it has undergone huge changes in culture, politics
and technology. Specifically, the theater industry has endured
several cycles of dramatic technological threats—dating backto half-a-century before the earliest digital streaming tech wasavailable—and with each cycle it has proved that movie theaters
can more than compete in a changing technological landscape.
Perhaps the best-known historical instance of a newtechnology inciting a firestorm of anxiety and pessimism in
the theater industry is the advent of the home television in the
1950s. In the era of the “studio system”—between the 1920s andthe 1940s—film production companies were entirely verticallyintegrated, meaning they owned their own theaters; this led

to a consistent and profitable flow of films from production to
exhibition, uninterrupted by outside competitors. But coming
off these two decades of Golden Age filmmaking, Hollywood
was shaken by the 1948 Paramount Decree, a Supreme Court
decision which mandated that the production studios divestof their national theater chains. This, combined with changing
audience demographics as America adjusted into a post-Warsociety, meant theaters were suddenly in unfamiliar territory,
without a model of reliable product to provide the American
public. And as more and more middle-class Americans moved
to the suburbs and installed a personal TV in their homes, thesite of the urban cinema appealed less and less to families
who were first discovering the allure of I Love Lucy and The Ed
Sullivan Show. Just as streaming a movie via Netflix is a more
personalized and convenient option for many consumers intoday’s market, the TV and its enticing new content seemed
like a logical improvement on the theater; after all, who
wouldn’t prefer entertainment delivered right to their livingroom over entertainment located in increasingly remote urban
centers? Television, whose threat was such that it was creditedwith forcing the closure of movie theaters across the country,
seemed the way of the future, and suddenly the movie theater
was looking like yesterday’s news.6
Of course, the movie theater didn’t wither away inthe 1950s, as some feared. Hollywood eventually responded
to the perceived crisis by producing high-budget, widescreen
epics to distinguish itself from the black-and-white cube of the
television, as well as joining forces with the television industry
to air old films and create new content for the small screen.
By the 1960s, neither the film industry nor the movie theater
were viewed as under threat and the era of “New Hollywood”
revitalized American movies.
But no more than a few decades has passed whenthe earliest home video technologies emerged in the 1970s
and 80s, and a similar cycle of nervousness and handwringing manifested. The rise of VHS and VCR tech took
the place of the home television as thelatest development which would spell
demise for the movie theater. Just likethe television before it, the VCR was“blamed for shuttering theaters at home
and abroad,” as well as a 25 percent
decline in box office receipts in thesummer of 1987.7 Even more recently, theinfluential writer and filmmaker Susan
Sontag wrote in 1996 of the “Decay ofCinema,” a trend she largely attributed tohome video technologies like the VHS.8
Twenty-years ago, Sontag saw VCRs as
an obstacle to the future of theatricalcinema, in the same way many saw
television 60 years ago. Speaking of the
1970s and 80s, the decades she identifies
as the beginning of the end of cinema,
Sontag writes that, “theaters continued
to close—many towns no longer have21

EyeCandy Film Journal

even one—as movies became, mainly, one of a variety of habitforming home entertainments.”9 Again, a new home technology
was supposedly decimating the theater industry, and public
exhibition halls seemed under threat.
And yet here we are in 2016, and the movie theater
hasn’t croaked yet. Why? What allows theaters to routinely
persist when constantly confronted by newer, more convenient
home technologies? A central part of this answer lies in the
totally distinct and invaluable viewing qualities a movie theater
can uniquely provide. In his 1992 “Elegy for the Movies inthe Era of Video,” author Roger Gilbert identified the movie
theater’s “placeness” as central to these qualities. Writingfrom a similar historical perspective to Sontag’s, in a time inwhich home video stores were seen as the primary alternative
to theaters, Gilbert brilliantly captures what makes seeing amovie in a theater a wholly different experience to watching thesame movie at home. Seeing a film in a public movie hall is,
he writes, an experience, “consecrated to a single ritual,” onewhich “emanate[s] particularity” in a way home video cannot.10
In other words, there is a fundamental and desirable difference
that leaving one’s home at a predetermined time to participate
in a public screening of a film, as opposed to watching that filmat one’s convenience at home. Going to a movie is a practice
imbued with qualities of mystique and adventure, and a cinema
is a space whose architecture—the staggered seating, the velvet
curtains, the high-ceilinged lobby—exudes splendor and history.
Gilbert is, like Sontag and many of those who came before
them, writing from a place of pessimism and nostalgia for a
supposedly dying tradition, but his description of the distinct
phenomenon of movie-going, written years before I was evenborn, echoes what I experienced when seeing Tarzan and what
I’ve experienced countless times since. The “placeness” Gilbert
describes was certainly not drowned out by the advent of VCRs
or DVDs, so why would it be by digital streaming services in the
future?
But the movie theater’s significance goes even deeper
22

Vol. 26

than what it provides in terms of unique viewer experience; italso operates as a site of civic gathering and group ritual inways that virtually no other institution does. I was granted afront-row seat to the unique social qualities a movie theater
provides when I began work at my local multiplex theater a few
years ago.
The work itself was pretty basic—selling concessions in
the lobby; ripping tickets at the front door; sweeping up spilled
popcorn in the empty theaters – but it allowed me to play voyeurto the thousands of people who streamed in and out every
weekend. As I watched people of every shape and size come andgo, I realized that this building was more than its sticky floors
and its burned-out lights. It was a unique site where a veritablecross-section of the community met to share a collective artistic
experience. In the box office, I could one minute sell a ticket toGuardians of the Galaxy (2014), to a recent young immigrantfrom Mexico who didn’t speak any English and paid entirely in
one dollar bills, and the next sell a ticket to the same movie toa well-off 50 year old white man with a Diamond-Preferred Citi
credit card. The Roxy – and the ideal of the American movie
theater by extension – seemed to me to be a great equalizer, aplace where anyone could come to enjoy a distinctly public anduniquely singular viewing experience.
These qualities of ubiquity and community aredescribed in the book The Great Good Place; in it, the Americansociologist Ray Oldenburg describes the importance of the“third place” – i.e. not home, not work – in cultured civilization,and provides a passionate defense of its role in modern
American society. Oldenburg argues that,“…when the good citizens of a community find places to spend
pleasurable hours with one another for no specific or obvious
purpose, there is purpose to such association… the mostimportant of the purposes or functions served by informal publicgathering places cannot be supplied by any other agencies inthe society.”11 In these third places, citizens can ideally gather
in neutral ground, relatively unbound by the typical constraints

and barriers imposed by economic class, race, or political belief—a kind of civic utopia is momentarily achieved.
Movie theaters, the ones which are being eulogized incontemporary op-eds and blogs with every passing day, are inmany ways the seminal third place of our time. In fact, the same
MPAA Report which detailed the decline in overall box officereceipts over the past decade also compared annual data ofmovie ticket sales to sales for other forms of communal public
entertainment such as amusement parks and sports events.
It found that movie theaters, by far the cheapest per-ticket
option, “continue to draw more people than all theme parks
and major U.S. sports combined.”12 The cinema experience thus
continues to be the most affordable and the most ubiquitous
form of public entertainment in the country. And its relative
affordability increases the fundamental nature of democracy
which the theater embodies; where else can such a melting potof the American public gather together
for non-utilitarian ends?
So what does the future
truly hold for movie theaters
as we move ever more deeply
into the internet age? Of
course, digital streaming
and other forms of new
media will continue toimprove and expand,
but probably not atmovie theaters’
great expense;
as author Kevin
Corbett describes
in his 2001 article“The Big Picture: Theatrical
Moviegoing, Digital Television,
and Beyond the Substitution Effect” forCinema Journal, “Instead of digital television
emerging as a substitute for the movie theater,
it is much more likely that the two technologies-plus
computer technologies will interact with and transform
each other.”13 In other words, the proliferation of companies
like Netflix doesn’t spell the end for movie theaters any morethan the explosion of home televisions in the 1950s did; the twotechnologies are perfectly capable, and in fact likely, to coexist
side-by-side.
Several pillars of the old-school Hollywood
establishment have come forth in recent years with public
predictions of a shift in the future of movie theaters. Some are
more cynical than others; Steven Spielberg spoke in particularlyominous terms, alternatively prophesizing a “meltdown” and an“implosion” while speaking in front of press at a panel discussioncommemorating the opening of a new facility at USC’s Schoolof Cinematic Arts in 2013. George Lucas, speaking at the same
event, forecast preventative future prices of “50 bucks or 100 or
150 bucks, like what Broadway costs today, or a football game.”(I’d quarrel with that particular prediction; I think history showsthat one of the cornerstones of movie theaters’ continued andunique success is their open access and relative affordability,
qualities which Broadway shows and football games don’t
share).14
On the whole though, there
is some consensus thatmovie theaters will endurein one form or anotherlong into the future. As
James Cameron said in
the wake of the releaseof his Avatar (2009),“I think there will bemovie theaters in 1,000
years. People want thegroup experience, thesense of going out andparticipating in a film together.
People have been predicting thedemise of movie theaters since I
started in the business.”15 Testimony
like this encourages lovers of moviegoing like myself to no end. Movies
may change, technology may change, theworld itself may change, but I’ll be satisfied
if generations from now, in an unfamiliar
future world, one cultural constant will haveremained: crossing that magical threshold thatcinemas represent and going to a movie.

Endnotes
1. Ben Popper, “Netflix Stumbles On Profit, But Subscriber Base Swells To
Nearly 70 Million,” The Verge, October 14, 2015.
2. Joan E. Solsman, “Netflix’s Crouching Tiger Sequel Made It Onto AMC
Screens After All,” The Wrap, February 29, 2016, accessed March 2, 2016.
3. David Lieberman. “AMC Joins Opposition To ‘Crouching Tiger 2’; IMAX
Chief Urges Theaters To Reconsider.” Deadline, accessed September 30, 2014.
4. Brent Lang, “‘The Interview’ Makes $40 Million Online and On-Demand”
Variety, January 20, 2015, accessed February 20, 2016.
5. Thorsten Hennig-Thurau , Victor Henning, and Henrik Sattler, “Consumer
File Sharing of Motion Pictures,” Journal of Marketing 71, no. 4 (American
Marketing Association 2007): 1–18.
6. “Television and the Movies,” The English Journal 40, no. 3 (National Councilof Teachers of English, 1951): 170–70.
7. Richard De Atley “VCRs Put Entertainment Industry Into Fast-ForwardFrenzy” The Free Lance Star, published September 7, 1985.
8. Susan Sontag “The Decay of Cinema,” The New York Times, February 25,

1996, accessed February 20, 2016.
9. Ibid.
10. Roger Gilbert. “An Elegy for the Movies in the Age of Video”. Southwest
Review 77, no. 4 (Southern Methodist University, 1992): 444–65.
11. Ray Oldenburg, The Great Good Place: Cafés, Coffee Shops, Bookstores,
Bars, Hair Salons, and Other Hangouts at the Heart of a Community. New
York: Marlowe, 1999.
13. Kevin J. Corbett, “The Big Picture: Theatrical Moviegoing, Digital
Television, and Beyond the Substitution Effect,” Cinema Journal 40, no. 2(University of Texas Press, Society for Cinema & Media Studies): 17–34.
14. David S. Cohen ,“George Lucas & Steven Spielberg: Studios Will Implode;
VOD Is the Future.” Variety, June 12, 2013, accessed February 20, 2016.
15. Lorenza Muñez. “James Cameron on the Future of Cinema.” Smithsonian.
August 2010. Accessed January 24, 2016.

“Going to a movie is apractice imbued withqualities of mystiqueand adventure...”Original photography by Joe Mulcaire

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EyeCandy Film Journal

Vol. 26

Skyler White and Betty Draper:
An Ode to Difficult Wives
By Alyssa McDougle
Illustrations by Heather Rose
“Oh, what a great time it is to be a woman in media.”This statement must be true if it keeps being repeated by people
working in television. It seems to be reiterated in conjunction
with the phrase ‘strong female character,’ as it seeks to draw
audiences in. Granted, this is something that can be seen
as quite positive. The fact there is a demand for developed
female characters in order for a show to be successful does
indeed reflect a promising trend in the television industry andsociety. However, as these characters begin to become very
complex or do not fit within character archetypes, the genderbiases audiences still have become shockingly evident. No two
characters are better at emulating this than Betty Draper andSkyler White. Mad Men (2007-2015) and Breaking Bad (20082013) are two shows that are considered cultural phenomenons
within modern television. They have been lauded for theirability to capture the sociopathic darkness of the male antihero, and how this dismantles the trope of the perfect suburban
husband. Yet as much as these shows destroy the audience’s
pre-conceived notions of the husband’s patriarchal role, they
never had the same success when it comes to the wives of theseanti-heroes.
Walter White and Don Draper are both seen as
captivating men who deconstructed the idea of the providing,
patriarchal figure as they took their families and themselves
down destructive, violent paths through their selfishness andrespective vices. However, as Betty Draper and Skyler White
rejected the same constraining roles within the suburbanhousehold, they became two of the most hated charactersin television. While neither of these women are necessarily
morally sound characters or easy to like, their actions arenothing when compared to the deplorable behaviour of theirhusbands. However, the wives are the ones that receive all of thehate throughout both of their series. Audiences seem willingto destroy the old perceptions of the male provider but expect
the wives to follow their traditional “angel of the house” type of
24role, often expressing these expectations with vile, vehemently
hateful language. This overwhelming hatred that is directed atSkyler White and Betty Draper for rejecting the typical trope ofa loyal, perfect wife forces an acknowledgement of the genderbiases that still weigh down on female characters in television.
One can argue that these hateful audience responses to Betty
and Skyler are due to being written by misogynist writers.
However, this doesn’t account for the fact there are well
written female characters in both of these series and they do
not receive this same sort of hate. When it comes to Breaking
Bad, there are characters like Jane, a short-term girlfriend ofJesse’s, who is still sympathetic even as she falls back into
her heroin addiction and takes Jesse with her. However, Janeis still a “cool girl” - not a housewife like Skyler. In Mad Men,many people share Emily Nussbaum’s opinion when she
explains the show’s ability to portray “the way female identity
can wiggle and reform in even the narrowest spaces.”1 This canbe seen through Joan and Peggy, two of the most complicatedcharacters who perfectly embody this, and (most tellingly) haveaudiences rooting for them throughout the series. They areseen fighting the patriarchal hierarchy of the many different
advertising companies they work at, and we see them becoming
complicated characters - ones that resist any perfect archetypeof the female. To say that either of these shows are merely sexistor have sexist audiences would be too simple of an answer to
why Skyler and Betty are hated.
What really makes Betty and Skyler so different
from these other women is their connection to the figure of
the wife. Complicated female characters resisting patriarchal
archetypes are rarely introduced as the main wives of the story.
Instead, they are typically single women that either have abadass, sexually powerful side to them, and they only decide to
be tied down by the end of the series. Betty and Skyler are neverable to fit in this role because they are introduced as women
who have settled down and become mothers. This is why
characters like Jane, Peggy, and Joan connect with audiences ina way that Betty and Skyler cannot. The first three women are all
allowed to be difficult or stubborn because they are all womenthat are single and childless at the beginning of their stories.
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EyeCandy Film Journal
They are introduced as characters that do not have a malepresence connected to them from their inception. They are able
to go out and have fresh, exciting aspirations that televisionmothers are not traditionally seen possessing. Andrea Press’
observation that television almost always has “ single womenin career roles.”2 As soon as a man is introduced into a female
character’s life—especially if he is the main character—her
presence is validated by a man’s interest and proximity. Peggy,
Joan, and Jane are all characters that the audience feels allowed
to validate through their own means due to their sexual andromantic separation from aleading male character.
Even as theirshows develop and the female
characters find men (the shows
only seem to acknowledge
heterosexual females), noneof these women ever havethe same correlation with themale protagonist in the ways
Betty and Skyler do. It seems
to be the only reason they areallowed to get in the good
graces of most audiences.
Betty and Skyler have not been allowed this sort of freedom in
the audience’s minds because they are expected to accept theirrole in the patriarchal unit, especially because it is shared withthe male protagonist. They would typically be associated with
television wives who are expected to find fulfillment throughloving their family, radiating warmth, and fulfilling theirdomestic duties.
However, when Skyler and Betty do not possess
these characteristics entirely and suddenly, the audience can’t
handle it. Skyler and Betty are desperately trying to escape theirpatriarchal units and do so in a manner that is hardly seen on
television. Betty does this through her actions and emotional
state, constantly implying she never wanted to be a mother orwife. She slaps her children, tells her friends that her biggest
fear is having a fat daughter, and is characterized as incredibly
emotionally unavailable. She is the beautiful picturesque imageof a mother and wife; but audiences become enraged to discovershe is in no way happy in this role. When Don confides in her
about his true identity, she does not do as her role of supportive
wife would expect (offering comfort), but asks for a divorce. AnnePeterson explains, “Don spends everyday attempting to recoverfrom the trauma of his childhood. But Betty spends every day
recovering from the quieter, but no less emotionally violent
trauma of her deeply unfulfilling life.”3 There is some sympathy
for Betty having such an unhappy state of being. However,this sympathy for Betty seems to stem from the desire to seea female character that loves to be within her matriarchal role.
She is not seen as merely sad, she is seen as deeply repressedand bitter about her unfulfilling role. This suggests she is not an
unhappy housewife, but instead a woman unhappy after being
forced into this life and it is why she is met with so much more
hate than sympathy.

Skyler White is seen in a similar context whenlooking at reviews and online. There are thousands of hatefulcomments that are directed at her, mainly for never letting
Walter off the hook for any of his actions. She is not seen as his“better half,” or someone who is going along with his charades.
In television shows, the women are expected to be the “brighter
wives” that put their husbands to shame.4 This type of wife
can be seen in comedies like King of Queens: the much more
attractive, intelligent wife is seen putting up with the actions ofher buffoon-like husband. Skyler is a character that never allows
herself to become this trope.
She is a roadblock for most of
the things that he tries to do
and it infuriates audiences.
Even Anna Gunn, the actress
who plays Skyler White,understands how, “as the one
character who consistently
opposes Walter and calls
him on his lies, Skyler is, ina sense, his antagonist... I
was aware that she might not
be the show’s most popularcharacter.”5 Still, the hatedirected towards Skyler does not just stem from standing in
Walt’s way. It is the fact that the audience is watching a wife
impede the progress of her husband. Television’s matriarchal
figure is typically someone who would allow their husband to
be comfortable with their actions as she displays her die-hardsupport of him. Skyler never allows this to happen. For example,
in season four when Walter is in deadly conflict with the cartel
she tells him, “Someone has to protect this family from the man
who protects this family.”6 Instead of being a steadfast wife
that stood by her husband as he creates his meth empire, she
acknowledges the fact that Walter is a murderous criminal. Her
ability to see in a lens outside of the trope of the wife forcesaudiences to see through this lens as well. Skyler’s presence
never allows audiences to completely be comfortable watching
the journey of Walter without deeply questioning his actions.
Her refusal to happily stand by what he is doing complicatesthe male voyeuristic pleasure that comes from Walter rejecting
his role within society. The pleasure seeps out as the audience
begins to realize his and her role are deeply flawed.
David Halle describes visual images as being very
important in “documenting the American dream of happinesswithin the nuclear unit.”7 If this happiness is not seen in any
part of this unit on television, there is suddenly this recognitionof the fact that the entire patriarchal system is flawed. Thiscan begin to help explain the reasons for a growing trend ofpeople patting themselves on the back for developed female
characters and simultaneously hating characters like Betty
and Skyler. It displays the audience’s refusal to acknowledge
a visual representation of flawed patriarchal tropes without
a male narrative portraying it and how these tropes are
not something society truly wants to dismantle. These arecharacteristics that are typically only seen through the husband
and father’s perspective within a show. Betty and Skyler are

Betty and Skyler are the ones
who initiate divorces with theirhusbands, fight with them, andlong for a sort of autonomy thatwives are hardly ever given accessto in television, especially thesetelevision shows that are branded
as “cultural phenomenons.”26

the ones who initiate divorces with their husbands, fight withthem, and long for a sort of autonomy that wives are hardly evergiven access to in television, especially these television showsthat are branded as “cultural phenomenons.” While Breaking
Bad and Mad Men display the rejection of the perfect maleprovider, this only rejects one half of the patriarchal family andis something that occurs through Walter and Don’s eyes. As
their wives fight against their traditional roles as the woman
within the household and in a manner that is typically in
opposition to their husbands, their fight becomes something
impossible for audiences to accept. When Don and Walter
question their traditional roles, it only shows one side of thepatriarchal perspective. However, as Skyler and Betty also resist
their expected roles in their respective shows from a completely
separate viewpoint, it finally allows this “forgotten” half to beheard.
The way audiences have reacted to Skyler andBetty’s suggestion of dismantling this unit proves the validityof this suggestion and how much society does not want toacknowledge it. One of the most significant ways to see this isthrough online comments about these characters. Even in two of
Skyler and Betty’s best scenes in their shows, the comments thatcan be found about them are incredibly disgusting. In the scene
where Betty shoots pigeons in her yard with a rifle, one Youtube
commenter wrote, “Am I the only one who wanted to smack
her upside the face for this? She had a thousand ways to takeout her frustration.”8 For Betty, this scene is a moment when
she is both showing her strength, stubbornness, and her
deep unhappiness from a life without any fulfillment. Don
is able have sex with countless women and drink himself into
oblivion because of his repressed life and be loved for it. When
Betty is expressing this same helplessness over a repressed
life, according to fans, she deserves to be slapped in the face.
Skyler’s reception in most videos online is evenworse. In season five of Breaking Bad, Skyler’stransformation into the money laundering
wife of a criminal has completely

Vol. 26
Skyler on the other hand was a pouty bitch, who even went
as far as smoking WHILE she was STILL PREGNANT.”9 This
scene defines her transformation into a money-launderer for ameth empire, and how Walter’s choices have deeply changed
her. Yet, all the commenters are merely concerned about how tofurther revel in the hatred of her character.
In both of these scenes pivotal layers to these
women’s characterizations display how they have becometrapped within lives they never wanted to be in. Their methodsof coping and resisting their domineering and selfish husbands
are always castigated by the audiences. Instead of being met
with any sympathy, commenters shame them for not being thestereotypical matriarchal figure. Betty is attacked and told sheshould take out her frustrations in kinder ways, and Skyler isseen as a bitch because she is angry at being put in the worst
situation imaginable. The fact that these comments attack
their lack of kind, motherly attributes furthers this attempt toreinsert these women within their expected roles. To see Don’sor Walter’s actions as manly or protective while Betty andSkyler are bitches is a disservice to all four of thesecharacters. It is an obvious attempt to reinsert
patriarchal order into shows that suggest arejection of it.
However, the misogyny andhatred towards Betty Draper and Skyler White
is not limited to the shows they exist in - hatred
was spewed towards each of their actresses aswell. Anna Gunn explains how she would findcomments online asking, “Could someone
tell me where I can find Anna Gunn so I
can kill her?”10 The creator of Breaking
Bad Vince Gilligan also remembers times
at Q&A’s where people would directly ask
Gunn, “Why is your charactersuch achanged her as aperson. In one scene
when Skyler’s sister Marieis trying to understandwhat is going on with her,
Skyler repeatedly screams
at Marie to shut up. Whenlooking at this scene on
Youtube, most commentssound something like “Skyler
was a baldfaced [sic] bitch.
Yeah Walt was a murderer
and a drug lord, but what hedid he did for his family or atleast that was his original intent.
27

EyeCandy Film Journal
bitch?”11 When searching for the actress that plays Betty, one of
the first articles that appears states, “I Knew It! January Jones
Is A Bad Person!”12 There is this masochist punishment thatpeople want Betty, Skyler, andthe actresses that play themto go through. They do notwant to appreciate the talentof these actresses or allow thecharacters to find happinesswithin their storylines. It is adesperate attempt to thwart
the character’s happinessand reinsert them into spaces they are expected to inhabit intelevision. The realities of the patriarchal unit are so real thatthe actresses must be torn apart in order for society to feel they
can diminish what these characters are implying.
This rejection of their happiness is also seen
through the progression of their storylines. One of the mostpopular memes in Mad Men is “Fat Betty,” and revolves aroundpictures of the weight gain Betty experiences in season 5 of theseries. This is around the time Betty is seen moving on fromDon and is comfortable in her marriage to another man. Betty is
hated when she’s skinny, referred to as frigid, but the minute she
gains weight she becomes a joke. Either way, Betty can’t win.
When it comes to Skyler, Jen Chancey explainsthat when discussing her with a male friend he argued how “thereason she bugs him is the same reason that Hillary Clinton
bugs him,” and he would have more respect for Hillary andSkyler “if they had just gotten out of their marriages.”13 In thesame manner Betty is hated when she moves on from Don’s
marriage, Skyler is hated because she tried to find autonomy
within a marriage she could not escape. Her response was towork around it in the few ways she could. She bought a car wash
to launder money in an attempt to keep her and her family safe.
What made this so angering to audiences, was the fact thatshe found her own way of navigating a world that Walter was

supposed to be in control of. Ultimately, the fact that both ofthese women are trying to find a sense of themselves within
imposed, repressive roles is what makes them upsetting.
As Skyler andBetty are within their final
moments of the show, it may
seem that the hate directed
at them has won. Skyler isleft with nearly nothing, while
Betty faces a swift death with
her lung cancer diagnosis. Is
this their final punishment for
their imperfect matriarchal role? For some people watching, it
could be. However, it instead seems to be the final destructionof their roles and a direct way of addressing a society that neverenjoyed these characters. In Skyler’s last scene she finally getsto hear Walter admit his actions were for his own selfish gain.
The pain she went through and everything she fought againstis acknowledged. With Betty, she is promised the tragic deathof an anti-hero and is finally released from the unfilling world
she was forced to live in. In fact, both of their endings are tragicand not easily brushed aside. This is no punishment for eachdifficult wife—if anything it is a punishment for audiences thatwish they could ignore them.
Audiences can hate them, but they will neverdisappear from either of the narratives. For Skyler and Betty’s
entire series, they consistently forced a society that is arrogantly
congratulating itself on the treatment of women to confront
how incorrect this is. From beginning to end, Betty and Skyler
fight against their roles and suggest the complete derailment of
patriarchal order. While it may fuel hate, this only helps cement
them as characters that display a steadfast portrayal of how
women are still far from the equality they deserve.

For Skyler and Bettyʼs entire series,
they consistently forced a societythat is arrogantly congratulating
itself on the treatment of women to
confront how incorrect this is.

Endnotes
1
Emily Nussbaum, “Why do the Mad Men Writers Make Betty Draper Such a
Monster’, Vulture, Oct. 15, 2010, accessed January 29, 2016.
2
Andrea Press. “Gender and Family in Television’s Golden Age and Beyond”.
The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 625,
(2009) 139-150.
3
Anne Helen Peterson. “In Praise of Betty Draper, Difficult Woman.”BuzzfeedNews, May 11, 2015, accessed January 20, 2016.
4
Richard Butsch, “Ralph, Fred, Archie and Homer: Why Television Keeps
Recreating the White Male Working Class Buffoon”, Gender, Race and Mediaa Text Reader, 1 (2003) accessed January 20, 2016.
5
Anna Gunn. “I Have a Character Issue”. New York Times. Aug. 24, 2013
6“Cornered.” Breaking Bad. AMC. Directed by Micheal Slovis. Written by
Vince Gillian, Gennifer Hutchison. April 21, 2011.
7
David Halle, “Displaying the Dream: The Visual Presentation of Family and28

Self in the Modern American Household” Journal of Comparative Family
Studies: The American Dream of Family Ideals and Changing Realities, 22.
no.2 (1991) 217-229.
8
Wellworm, February 2015, comment on, altgirl, “Betty Draper hate pigeons”,
Filmed [September 27, 2007]. Youtube video, 0:48. Poster [October 6, 2010].
9
Stetanugaz, November 2015, comment on Maiapare, “Breaking Bad S5E3SHUT UP”, Filmed [July 29, 2012]. Youtube video, 0:21. Posted [July 30, 2012]
10
Gunn.
11
Lane Brown, “In Conversation: Vince Gilligan”, Vulture. May 12, 2013,
accessed January 20, 2016.
12
Matt Joseph, “I Knew It! January Jones Is A Bad Person!”, We Got This
Covered. March 2011, accessed February 20, 2016.
13
Jen Chaney. “Why You Hate Skyler White.” Esquire. Sep. 5, 2013, accessed
January 20, 2016.

SUBMISSIONS

2016

submissions

Dream Boy

Alia Griese

Stephen de Ropp

Rolf’s Cabin (Egegik, AK)Bioluminescence
Elli Levin

Bodega Bay is home to millions of dinoflaggelates, small organisms that briefly “light up” when disturbed. Duringcertain times of the year, they are visible at night, glowing beautifully beneath still waters.

Thousands of souls ignite,
Twinkling in the black.
Around me fields of stars,
Cold to the touch, pass through.
My fingertips rejoice.
Tingling with strange delight,
They dance alongside them,Calling more to the waltz
Before they lose the will.
“Come join us,” they whisper.
A need rises in me
To fall within their midst,
To gently twirl in darkness,
To see their sparkling joy,
To know I’m not alone
In the inky water.
Yet I wonder just what else
Could be enjoying all
My mermaid dance brings forth
Before the spectacle ends
And I am blind again.

My role is undefined,
As it always shall be.
And I begin to wonder,
As below, so above?
Do higher beings stir digits,
And thus our selves arise?
Does a human’s brief lifetime
Bring joy for a moment
Before we too go out?
Our time here must be small
To their infinity.
Do they yearn to join us,
Held back by chains of knowledge?

submissions

Gazing at single cells,
I have never felt so small.

But I remain where I am,
Settled in what is known.
I am not part of them.
They cannot understand.
To them I am foreign,
With power they have not.
A disturber of peace?
A bringer of the light?
Or of dark after light?

Deep Blues

John Furth

CloseJulissa Sanchez
White light frees the small globe
And sets hearts to beat
It whispers secrets to the brain
Slandering what we see in the mirror
In glossy brown eyes
Its created in me
A cursed fish
In sparkling waters
Where emerald weeds and lilipads sway
It rises each morning
Sunkissed
HatefulOf the glittering temple it resides
Lying to and lied toIt swims back underTo waters cloudy and black
Hiding from its reckoning
And all that gives it life

Mid-Meltremy dixon

I am Everything in Between

Carson Blumen-Green

Climb Those Mountains

Dylan Weightman

fight me

Mikaela Axton
Nightmare on Elm Street
3: Dream Warriors, the best
movie ever made.

Naranja

Ricky SolisEyeCandy Film Journal

Vol. 26

THE GEND
ERING OFTELEVISIOTHE CREA
N AND
TION OFTHE

By Emily Millard Murphy
Illustrations by Robert CardinalEver since I was a kid, people have felt the need to let me know that thetrying to say is I love
television shows I watch were not very good.

I always seem to be drawn to television shows that focus on the exciting to watch soap operas, but why isand overly dramatic lives of fictional teenagersI, and people have always found it a common conception that if a show can beit easy to express their thoughts on what I watched, despite the fact that I never characterized as a soap opera, that means it is a
asked. Because I was always criticized for what I watched, I started feeling very “bad” show? I have seen a recent trend in television
guilty, as if my taste in television was not good and that I should no longer in which critics seem to favor “masculine” content
get pleasure for watching the things I loved to watch. So I started calling all yet condemn the “feminine” equivalents, which
my favorite shows “guilty pleasures.” And I’m not the only one. So many compels the viewers who like the feminine content
people are pressured into feeling guilty about their favorite shows to the to thence classify their favorite shows as a “guilty
point where “guilty pleasure” has become a ubiquitous cultural term. But pleasure.”Ever since television has come into production
in recent years, I’ve realized that these shows that are often placed in the
category of “guilty pleasure” tend to be more feminine in nature, and and became a popular viewing medium, the content onfunction almost as the modern equivalent for the 1950s soap opera. With television has been evolving. More recently, television
this in mind, looking back on this title, I’m faced with a dilemma: Should has shifted into producing content that can be describedpeople feel guilty about consuming these shows? I don’t think so. It is as masculine, in contrast to content that is generally
human nature to love gossip, emotions, and disaster and so it makes considered more feminine (i.e. the classic soap opera).
sense why people are attracted to shows that contain these things. Due to this progression, television now seems to contain
These serial dramas are made to tie us in, engulf us in detailed plot more and more content that expresses masculinity, whileand complicated situations. So why should we feel bad about that? more feminized shows collect to create the sub-genre of
I’m so tired of people telling me to be contrite. Basically, what I’m television known as the “Guilty Pleasure,” which consists ofhighly addicting shows that a person may enjoy consuming
despite the fact that the show is not generally viewed in highregard.
MORE ʻFEMININEʼ SHOWSIn order to continue discussing this, I must properly
COLLECT TO CREATE
explain what I mean by masculine and feminine in terms
THE SUB-GENREof the soap opera, as well as what it means to be a soap opera.
Althoughthe term soap opera tends to be culturally connotated as
OF ... “GUILTY
something that is feminine, the actual attributes of the soap opera
PLEASURE”
are as follows: the show contains a single set of characters, it has an
ongoing plot that spans multiple seasons, and its nature is episodic,
each episode generally ending with some sort of cliffhanger. The soap
opera is connoted as feminine because this genre of television
began and was marketed to the female viewer, specifically the
1950’s housewife. Now, shows that seem to be more feminine are
the shows that are generally similar to the original soap opera
format. So these shows tend to focus on female characters,
the domestic sphere, and the emotions of the main
characters. The shows I am advocating for, like Degrassi,
fall into this feminized category of television. Television
I’m guessing this is due to the fact that I was such a nauseatingly boring teenager and these shows help me compensate for that.

I

40

claim that TV is better than cinema.II
shows can be determined as
Shows like those mentioned by Lynch“masculine” when they focus
IS THIS ADVOCATING THAT
perpetuate a praised yet distorted form
less on domestic roles and more
SHOWS THAT TREAT
of masculinity, but seem to be feminine aton what it means to “be a man” inheart, because they don’t stray far from thethe role of a father, breadwinner,
FEMALES LIKE HUMAN
classic soap opera equation.
or outstanding citizen. For example,
BEINGS ARE THE
There are so many shows out there
popular shows like Breaking Bad
ONESthat follow this formula; shows that use theirand Mad Men celebrate a definition ofcelebrated portrayal of masculinity in attempt to
TO STEER CLEAR
masculinity that seems to be focused on
keep
its roots in the classic soap opera hidden. Thisauthority, power, and violence. These shows
FROM?
trend is so pervasive, that I find it quite surprising
are still “masculine” soap operas, however,that this concept of masculinity being used as a veil
due to the definition of the soap opera. Thisfor the soap opera content has not been revealed byis how television shows are gendered based on
critics yet. Only recently have some critics admitted thatthe content of said shows, but shows can also be
television’s most popular shows are just soap operas. For
coded a specific gender in other ways as well. The
example, from comedic actors like Jack Black5 to the father
increase of the production value on a show, includingof the modern horror film, George A. Romero,6 televisionbetter cinematography, which makes the show moreviewers are affirming that popular show The Walking Dead,cinematic, is considered a masculine attribute. This is
is just a glorified soap opera with the occasional zombie scare.
because cinema has been and is still, male dominated.
Which is absolutely true. Although it is a masculinized show
Through allegorical images of masculinity (which includes
because it focuses on violence and killing zombies, it is, at thethe camera and male genitalia), cinema has defined theend of the day, a soap opera. The show’s combination of theaction of looking or gazing as masculine, henceforth cinema
horror genre with soap opera tropes, makes the show both
becoming a male medium, since cinema requires the constant
addictive and compelling. This supposed criticism of almost
action of looking or gazing.1 In order to better understand thisevery masculinized soap opera is now surfacing online,
movement towards the masculine, it is important to know how the
because more everyday television watchers and critics
television industry started. Television began as a space for women.
alike are noticing the hidden connection between
A medium that women could watch while stuck in the house, doing
modern popular/quality television to the classic soap
chores and waiting for the family to come home after a day of school/
opera. The television show Game of Thrones is also
work. Television was so concerned with revolving around women and theirboth criticized and complimented for its clear
daily activity that “television producers designed daytime programs they
relationship between the show and the classic
believed conformed to a homemaker’s distracted state.”2 Since this medium
soap opera. In one blog article, the writer
was a place for women, it always struggled asserting itself as an art form, insays that “structurally it’s essentiallycontrast to how cinema was generally deemed as an artistic and articulated
media. This debate is ongoing; scholars are still trying to determine if television a soap opera and before you
is a worthy medium to be studied liked film. In a 1984 Cinema Studies Conference, get all up in arms over mypeople expressed a “fear that the study of the ‘vulgar’, popularized medium of seemingly reductive
television would undercut the artistic and educational goals of film study.”3 The c o m p a r i s o nfemale form has always been considered the lesser medium, which makes the new you should
trend that praises masculinity on television consistent with how the feminine
medium has been examined in the past. Still, this argument seems to be outdated,because now, a widespread of people, from critics to the movie-makers themselves,
are advocating for the idea that television is the be all and end all, and it willbe the medium that makes cinema obsolete. The acclaimed director andscreenwriter David Lynch goes as far as saying that cinema has no future
and that “it seems like the art house has gone to cable.”4 And Lynch
is using shows like Breaking Bad and Mad Men to support his

I find this quite ironic (and not to mention, pretentious) because Lynch is saying that the television that is made to stylistically reflect cinema is the epitome of
television and consequently, will be what ends the movie industry.
II

41

EyeCandy Film Journal

Vol. 26

By Brian DeAngelis
Bam! Pow! Kaboom! Nothingis more exhilarating than watching
your favorite superhero beat the living
adamantium out of a supervillain.
For decades, Americans across thesociopolitical spectrum have gawked
over the colorful, action-packed pages ofclassic American comic books. There’s
just something about those supernatural
battles of good versus evil that Americans
simply cannot seem to get enough of.
From Captain America to Jessica Jones,
superheroes have always somehow
captured the intrinsic values of American
culture. They tell the story of our past,present, and future in a way that is not
only captivating, but truthful. The Greeks
had their gods, and we have mutants inspandex. Modern superhero comics andtheir adaptations are easy to perceive as
throw-away pop culture, but within their
historical context, there’s something
super about the medium itself.
Take Marvel. As a major
player in American comics, Marvel’s
stories are empirically reflective of
their historical context. Every swell in
Marvel’s popularity has been catalyzed
by its ability to accurately echo attitudes
and trends among the American public.
Peek beside this article and you’ll find
not a bird, nor a plane, but a timeline.
Give it a scan, Cyclops. Throughout
each movement in comic history, Marvel44

has supplied the American public withstories which reflect their social, political,
and economic context. The Golden Ageof Comics brought us anti-fascist war
heroes, the Silver Age brought us greater
diversity and format adaptation, theBronze Age brought us a transition into
the digital age, and the Modern Age, with
its focus on medium adaptation, brought
us a very particular success: the anti-hero.
Ah yes, the anti-hero. The Merc
with a Mouth, the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen,
Old-man Logan. Anti-heroism has
certainly burst in popularity as of recent
times, but it isn’t something new; it’s beenaround since Homer wrote Thersites into
the Iliad. Even Marvel has previously
created anti-heroes with The Punisher
and Wolverine, both who first appearedin 1974—the same year that President
Nixon resigned as a result of Watergate.
The Marvel anti-hero has always stoodfor counter-culture, revolution, and antiestablishment; significant attitudes intimes of social, political, and economic
unrest.
Alright, well, slow down there,
Quicksilver. If Marvel’s anti-heroes are
becoming the new staple of American
superhero comics, it’s important to know
where the term comes from. In 1868 theword “trickster” was added to the English
language to express a “prankster andculture-hero who embodied both thesacred and profane … Neither saints nor
45

EyeCandy Film Journal

Vol. 26

devils, neither good citizens nor psychopaths, tricksters disturb
fixed categories and modes of thinking, and get folks ‘unstuck’
from usual routines.”1 The trickster’s duty is simply to “buckthe system, which does not have his [or her] interests at heartin any case,”2 so as to provide opposition to administration(administration being a body of institutional control). In an
American culture where many forms of administration are
oppressive toward various major and marginalized populations,the trickster becomes heroic in his/her chaotic resistance towardit.
The “heroism” of a trickster, however, is unconventional.
Iconically, the hero performs the mechanism of defending thesystem; upholding values of strength by appealing to logic andrules. In the scenario of the classic hero, the administrator of
institution cannot be the enemy, as it is the very system the hero

popular present forms as film and television adaptations, aresignaling an important shift in consumer tastes; a shift which ismost visible in Marvel’s Daredevil and Jessica Jones.
The two Netflix series are branches of an initiative
to produce a streamed adaptation of The Defenders storyline,
which includes characters Luke Cage, Elektra, Punisher, and Iron
Fist. All of these characters are well known for their anti-heroism.
Their presence in mainstream episodic shows compliments
their distribution format. As Daredevil, Jessica Jones, and therest of the gang fight the establishment to preserve humanintegrity, Netflix’s online media streaming takes a swing at film
and broadcast television to preserve artistic integrity. That’s
not to say that the MCU or ABC’s Marvel broadcast line-up
aren’t well-done. However, in addition to being beautiful andwell-written, Daredevil and Jessica Jones engage with stronger“streamed content relies on subscription dollars rather than commercial advertisement to turn a profit”
aims to protect. The hero is always “good,” whether or not theobject of his/her heroism is constructive or harmful. Conversely,
the trickster is neither “good” nor “bad,” yet they are always
authentic in their values. From the authentic trickster, upholderof truth, enemy of administration, is born the “anti-hero.”With that definition in mind, it’s clear that anti-heroism
in modern Marvel adaptations is one Colossus of a category.
In fact, over half of Marvel’s current projects (Daredevil (2015), Jessica Jones (2015-), Captain America: Civil War (2016),
Deadpool (2016), Black Panther (2017), Guardians of the Galaxy:
Vol 2 (2017)) revolve around an anti-hero protagonist. This is no
coincidence. With any level of social and political awareness,
one can discern that attitudes in the twenty-first century UnitedStates have become weary of purchased politics, corporate
oligarchy, patriarchy, and various other forms of oppressive
administration. Not only this, but the nation is vastly divided
on a number of these issues. There becomes a call to transformthe hero, “who embodies and preserves the highest values of thecommunity,”3 into the anti-hero, “who marches, or dawdles, to adifferent drumbeat, the cadence of his [or her] own iconoclastic
sensibility.”4 This means that modern Marvel stories, in theirFilm & Radio (1895 - 1920)

World War II (1939 - 1945)

THE GOLDEN AGE
46

Captain America #1 (1941)

political messages which, since the The Golden Age, have been
largely lost in translation from the comic book page to the silver
and small screens. Considering that these shows are episodic,
they most directly take aim at broadcast television.
Media streaming services like Netflix have produced
a format of media unlike anything before it. A viewer can now
pay a subscription to receive personalized content delivered
straight to any screen, stationary or mobile, and enjoy it with
comfortable privacy. This format differs starkly from broadcast
media in the sense that streamed content relies on subscription
dollars rather than commercial advertisement to turn a profit.
This allows streaming-service producers to take greater creative
risks in their production content. Therefore, subscribers receivea relatively cheap, mobile medium, that provides a frameworkfor stronger social and political commentary. This sounds anawful lot like American comic books of the 1940s. Here’s wherethat gets interesting.
The technological and economic innovation of
Netflix’s mobile streaming platform has allowed MarvelNetflix’s Defenders initiative to closely imitate the original form
and function of American comic books. Subsequently, shows

Vietnam War (1955 - 1975)

THE SILVER AGE

JFK & MLK (1963)

The Defenders (1960 - 1975)

like Daredevil and Jessica Jones have quickly become some of
the most watched series cross-platform, imitating the popularityof its paper ancestor. The combination of gritty realism andanti-heroism has created an appealing aesthetic to American
audiences who crave something super, but human; somethingthat faithfully depicts adversity in the world. Marvel’s popular
Netflix anti-heroes have become transformative surrogates forpolitically engaging messages within the superhero genre bothby means of their content and by their deliberate adherence tothe streaming format.
Take another gander at that timeline. The VHF
television of the 1960s predominantly ran three major networks:
ABC, CBS, and NBC. Due to its radio transmission nature,
network television is incredibly accessible, allowing thesestations to grow powerful throughout the rising popularityof cable. Networks profit by auctioning off commercial spots
during their programming. In order for a series to survive on a
network, it must maintain high ratings and viewership, making
its commercial airtime valuable. Additionally, the success of
network shows is partially dictated by its time-slot. An adultthemed show may be less profitable than a family-friendly
series as the former must be broadcast later in the day whenless viewers are watching, whereas the latter will enjoy primetime. This type of market often garners pressure from network
executives against showrunners to tailor their content in a way
which guarantees a broader audience. In other words, broadcast
television is a volatile market which secures a profit by avoiding
risk, and catering to proven creative tropes (such as the family
dynamic, romance, sitcom, magic, and moderate politicalundertones).
Take for example Marvel’s Agent Carter (2015-),
a property owned by ABC. In 2016, pressure from network
executives to focus the show’s second season around awkward
romantic subplots and CGI science fiction plummeted the show
to series-low ratings, forcing one of Marvel’s most beloved
female role-models into cancellation. Conversely, Daredevil
and Jessica Jones have enjoyed single-release streaming, timeslot exemption, nearly risk-free production (due to subscription
funding), and greater creative freedom (they are produced inassociation with but not for ABC Studios), allowing showrunners
Drew Goddard, Steven DeKnight, and Melissa Rosenberg tomore aptly pursue their visions for the shows. Daredevil, thefirst Marvel-Netflix original, is acclaimed by The Huffington Post
to be the most watched show on Netflix in 2015, the year of its
release.5 It’s safe to assume that viewers are drawn to the formand content of the Netflix’s original series over its broadcast
cousins. There are two likely reasons for Daredevil’s success:accessibility and depth.
Goddard and DeKnight have produced a show that is
not only fully accessible through any device with a screen andan internet connection, but also speaks candidly on the subjectsof corporate corruption and urban gentrification. Daredevil, or
The Devil of Hell’s Kitchen, is not called into action by aliens
or monsters, but by the threat of real issues that place pressure
on many marginalized Americans, making the show a reflectionof real-life, material conditions. In episode five, “World on
Fire,” Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox), encounters a Guatemalan
woman named Elena Cardenas who complains of her landlord, Armand Tully, sending men to destroy the low-income,rent-controlled apartments she resides in, as a way to force out
tenants so the land could be bought and renovated by villain
Wilson Fisk. Daredevil’s decision to pin its superhero against
real world issues, in addition to classic supervillains, makes theseries more appealing to a socially conscious, contemporary
audience. In fact, Elena Cardenas’s story is nearly allegoricalto the gentrification of San Francisco’s historically Latinx
Mission District.6 This contextual awareness, in addition to
the fact that a lack of time-slot politics makes for beautifully
messy fight scenes (the most notable of which is episode two’s
masterfully choreographed three-minute hallway long-take)allows Daredevil to thrive as an homage to the original appealof socially reflective American comic books.
Meanwhile, Melissa Rosenberg’s Netflix adaptationof the 2001 comic book character Jessica Jones brings yet
another powerful yet complex anti-hero to the screen. In a malesaturated series of on-screen Marvel adaptations, Jessica Jones
stands out as being just the third Marvel woman to command
her own on-screen adaptation (after Elektra (2005) and Agent

Commercialization (1971 - 1981)

9/11, Iraqi War (2001 - present)

Cold War (1985 - 1991)

THE BRONZE AGE

Marvel Bankruptcy (1996)

Recession (2008)

New Marvel (2008 - present)

THE MODERN AGE
47

EyeCandy Film Journal

:
e
or
h
l
t
e
h
d
c
n
a
The Btructing Gender aCons “Ordinary”
Written and illustrated by
Sarah Ainsworth

The young woman steps out of the limo, wearing a
sparkly, floor-length evening gown. She smiles at the tuxedoclad man waiting for her, and they exchange pleasantries—thisis the first time they’ve met, and you can tell that they’re nervous.
Is this the start of a beautiful romance novel? A Lifetime movie?
No, this is what you see when you tune in to see The Bachelor
on ABC, Mondays at 7/8 Central.
It’s hard to explain why I like watching this show. Not
only does it exist within the category of the frequently shamed
genre of reality television, most people’s reactions to it can be
described as a collective eye-roll. But what I find fascinating
about the show is not only the experience of an energetic andparticipatory collective viewing that you watch with friends, butalso how the show manages to reveal so much about heterosexual
cultural norms and, more specifically, implications about genderand the “ordinary.” Deconstruction of the symbols on the show
and Judith Butler’s theories on the performativity of genderreveal the constructedness of The Bachelor’s heteronormative,
traditional, whitewashed “ordinary” romantic ideals.
The premise of the show is relatively simple: one
man is the titled Bachelor for the season. He’s on the show tofind fairy-tale love with one woman, but to find this love, hesimultaneously dates twenty-five women, all of whom live
together in the Bachelor mansion. Each week there is a “roseceremony,” during which the bachelor gives roses only to the50

women who are moving onto the next round and the next
week’s episode, gradually narrowing down the pool of attractive
women. The bachelor gets to know the women by going on on
dates, both one-on-one and in groups. Through this process,the bachelor will supposedly find the love of his life, with theAmerican people carefully watching at home on television.
Some might say that this is an unrealistic and even absurd wayof meeting the love of your life, but the twenty seasons of The
Bachelor and its spin-off shows, both domestically and abroad,clearly show that people enjoy watching it, year after year.
The Bachelor’s popularity can be found, much likeany other reality television show, in its status as a “self-service”
television program. As Laura Grindstaff observed in her
analysis of MTV programs, “reality television is precisely aboutcelebrating ‘ordinary’ people while at the same time offering
an escape from that ordinariness via the celebrity frame.”1
People watch The Bachelor because it puts “ordinary” people
in extraordinary situations, and in this way the audience has a
way of relating to these “real” people and even living vicariously
through them. The Bachelor operates like many reality TV shows
do by acting as a “site for identity construction that combines
the sacred and the mundane.”2 By combining contestants thatseem “authentic” and “ordinary” with cultural markers thatsignify wealth and traditional (white) romance, The Bachelor
achieves a perfect mix of what is familiar to the viewer on an

Vol. 26
everyday level, but enough unusual, special aspects to keep pajama outfit in the first episode predictably did not receive
them tuning in every week.
a rose from Ben. An exception to this rule was Jojo’s decision
With that said, even the most dedicated and hopelessly to wear a funny silicone unicorn mask on the first night ofromantic viewer must admit that The Bachelor uses its share Ben’s season; however, she did not forego the elegant, figureof clichés. While some might just ignore the tired visual and revealing dress, and so was able to make it far in the season.
narrative references, a semiotic analysis shows how much the While in their fancy dresses, the women also sip white wine
clichéd symbols represent and uphold traditional, narrowly from enormous glasses throughout the night. This not only
defined narratives of romance and even success. Most noticeable makes for a more interesting evening, as everyone except foris the constant presence of the rose. In this season’s promotional the Bachelor appears to be a bit tipsy, it also is further proof thatshots, the Bachelor, Ben, holds a rose out to the audience, looking the producers of The Bachelor infuse their show with symbols
at the camera with big eyes that seem to demonstrate his desire that try to recreate the clichéd idea of romance that a typicalto find (and give) love. And, of course, the rose ceremony itself American imagines. Instead of showing the women drinking
is a perfect example of the somewhat arbitrary cultural meaning a less romantic alcohol, like beer or hard liquor, The Bachelor
inherently present in an inanimate object. The women who tries to make their depiction of romantic love more legitimate
receive the coveted roses have somehow proven themselves to by putting in as many symbols of wealthy sophistication as
Ben—those who haven’t must return home, usually humiliated and they can manage.
in tears. The red rose inevitably makes one think of the history of
The Bachelor also suggests that the American ideal of
its use in romantic settings—from Beauty andromance can be achieved through capitalist
the Beast to corny old sitcom jokes about
consumption of these “correct” goods—
a husband buying red roses for his wife
beautiful dresses, wine, and expensive
after committing some kind of social sin.
cars. Companies often pay for product
The rose as a symbol of love is just one
placement on the show, eager to reachof the many visual reminders that The
such a large audience. Ironically, theBachelor gives to comfortably situatecompanies that usually buy the productus within the cultural expectations
placement are not typical signifiersof the love story we are supposedlyof wealth and romance. Instead,watching unfold throughout the season.
companies like Honda and McDonald’s
To analyze the frequent use
feature prominently on several episodes,of symbols and clichés in addition to thegiving the majority of the viewing publicrose on The Bachelor, we can turn to thea taste of their “ordinary” (and accessible)
theory of semiology. Semiology is the study ofdisplay of products in the extraordinary situations
signs, and has a tradition that dates back to Fernand
on The Bachelor.6
Saussure’s theories in the early twentieth century, andThe overwhelming whiteness of The Bachelor also
has been built upon by later theorists, including Roland
has semiotic significance and reveals the show’s depiction ofBarthes.3 According to Barthes, “since our society produces
whiteness as being both normative and the ideal of romantic
only standardized, normalized objects, these objects arelove. Even as many people have noticed and complained, in its
unavoidably realizations of a model, the speech of a language, twenty seasons on the air, The Bachelor has overwhelmingly
the substances of a significant form.”4 In other words, even been white, and there have even been lawsuits against thethe most banal, “normal” objects contain significant cultural show because of it.7 By only showing white people engaging inmeaning. In the world of The Bachelor, that means that the the romantic competition of the show, The Bachelor not only
symbols that appear on the show every week—the roses, the promotes whiteness as normal, but also equates it to fairy-tale
dresses, the cars, even the exotic locales—are coded with romance as well as the high status of wealth (in the form ofenormous semiotic significance.
products) seen on the show. As Rachel Dubrofsky notes in her
Roses certainly aren’t the only symbol that can be analysis of the show, a key component to succeed is to appear
interpreted through Barthes’s theories; the prevalence of fancy “natural,” but “the requirements to appear natural, to appear as if
dresses and expensive wine also contributes to the idea of one is not performing, are also the markers of whiteness, because
love and success as synonymous with financial wealth. From these qualities are more easily performed by a white body inthe first moments of the show, we see the female contestants the space of white-centered reality TV shows.”8 In the world ofwearing stylish, usually cumbersome evening dresses, adding The Bachelor, the “normal” ideal of romantic love seems to be
to the mood of sophistication that the show wants to convey. white people sipping white wine wearing expensive dresses
These dresses, which the women have to provide themselves,5 and driving fancy cars. When the show does have contestants
not only show off the contestant’s beauty, but also hint at her of color, these people are often eliminated from the show earlysophisticated taste, implying that her “classy” appearance on, or seem to be strung along for the purpose of keeping
proves she deserves to be on the show. If a girl fails to abide some diversity on the show. But when a contestant of color
by this dress code and instead chooses to go a “fun” route, she calls this out, they get sent home immediately, as in the caseis usually punished—this season the girl who wore a onesie of Kupah on Kaitlyn’s season (season 11) of The Bachelorette.

“the bachelor wil
l supposedly
find the love of his
life, with
the American peop
le carefully
watching at home”51

EyeCandy Film JournalThis season of The Bachelor featured Jubilee, a black war
veteran, whose time on the show was, as Akemi Johnson notes,“coded with euphemisms… she was ‘layered’ and ‘complicated’and ‘different.”9 In other words, she was not able to perform the“normal” romantic behaviors as well as the white contestantson the show. However, Johnson observed that biracial Asianwhite women tend to do well on the show, like Caila from thisseason, who made it to the top three, aided by the stereotypes of“whiteness as a standard of beauty… [and]Asian women as sexualized, exotic andsubmissive.”10 Light-skinned and whitepassing women of color are still coded as“Other,” but can still perform on the show
in a way that is considered “normal” andeven desirable.
In addition to presenting awhitewashed and normative view ofsuccessful romantic love through coded
cultural symbols, The Bachelor also
conforms to traditional gender roles.
Judith Butler’s theories of gender can help
us analyze the cultural constructions of theshow. Butler built upon existing ideas offeminine identity from Simone de Beauvoir
and theorized that gender is “a constructed
identity, a performative accomplishmentwith which the mundane social audience,
including the actors themselves, come tobelieve and to perform in the mode of belief.”11 In other words,
the idea that gender is “natural” is socially determined—theconcept of gender has been constructed throughout history,
and we continue to uphold it by performing our roles in abinaristic society. While it may not be the first thing to cometo mind when discussing Judith Butler, The Bachelor in factdemonstrates many of her ideas about gender.
The behavior and appearance of the women on theshow demonstrate the ways in which they perform their role asa woman on-camera. Even from the appearance of the female

52Vol. 26

contestants—the liberal use of heavy make-up made for TV set
lighting, and their strategically fancy and revealing dresses—
point to the fact that they know all too well how they are
expected to perform as a woman, and especially as a desirable
woman. As Butler puts it, “gender is an act which has beenrehearsed.”12 Through previous knowledge of social interaction
and the prevalent images in media of what it means to be awoman today, these women conform to their expected televisionand social roles, thereby upholding theheteronormative system. Their behavior
and hostile interactions with each otheralso reveals their participation in society’s
idea of “women.” As the contestants all livein the same giant mansion, they are forced
to interact with one another far more thanthey do with the eligible bachelor. This has
inevitably led them to engage in arguments
or feuds that viewers are quick to label as“catty”—they fight among each other, in part
because they are reproducing what they see
in the media with girls fighting amongst
each other instead of getting along or, Godforbid, helping each other out.
While the women perform anduphold their gender roles at the behest of
the show’s producers, that isn’t to say thatthese women don’t have any choice in how
they portray themselves as their gender. As
Butler observed, “the gendered body acts its part in a culturally
restricted corporeal space and enacts interpretations within theconfines of already existing directness.”13 Though there certainly
are differences in how these women interpret their gender roles,
there remains an underlying complicity in their interpretations
to stay within the boundaries of what is culturally acceptablefor women, and even what is desirable for men. In this season,
the contestant Amber angrily walked off the rose ceremony set
after being eliminated and immediately took off her high-heeled
shoes and carried them. Since she was not deemed “womanly”

enough and desirable enough in Ben’s eyes, she likely knew that
there was no point to maintain her impeccably designed frontof being a “woman,” and removed the part of her costume thatmade her physically uncomfortable.
However, the women are not the only actors that playinto their gendered role. The bachelor also sticks within thesocially dictated boundaries of male behavior. This season’sbachelor, Ben, is no exception. Ben represents the wholesome,all-American boy from the Midwest who just wants to find love.
He’s what you’d expect—he’s white, conventionally handsome,and he played football in high school. Ben plays the role ofman effectively, though he doesn’t conform strictly to themacho, man-of-the-land, playboy roles that bachelors are often
expected to perform. Instead, he plays the moresensitive “nice guy.” But while he has a
harem of women14 trying to prove to himthat they are worthy, he gets to sit backand choose his favorites. SNL expertly
mocked the show this season by calling
it “Bland Man”—not a completely
unfair comparison, as the women getmuch more airtime and attention.15
In fact, the entire Bachelor
franchise makes sure to stay within thecultural limitations on gender roles.
While on The Bachelor, Ben has the ability
to propose to the woman that he ultimately
chooses, this role falls on the last man standing
in the gender-reversed The Bachelorette. While
the woman is the star of that show, she is not given the
power to end the show in the way that her male counterpart
on The Bachelor does. There’s no guarantee that the last(male) contestant will propose to the bachelorette, even though
this is what audiences expect. This is because she isn’t allowed
to step outside of her gender-specified bounds, especially not
on national television, as the show requires her to play the roleof subservient, proposed-to woman.
It’s easy to watch a show like The Bachelor that pretends
to be “reality” but that dishes out a comfortable narrative (or“journey,” in the words of the show16) to follow along with athome. This journey is of course mediated through the show’s
construction with elaborate sets and producer intervention. The
Bachelor, despite its flaws, provides a revealing window into
the cultural landscape of our modern age and reflects many ofour values and assumptions, especially regarding gender, race,class, and sexuality. I think the show could
take many steps to be more inclusive — The
Bachelor has always and continues to put
forth the ideal romance as between
a heterosexual couple that is white,
upper middle-class, young, and ablebodied. While some strides have been
made in representation on television
today, The Bachelor clearly still has along way to catch up. However, I thinkit’s possible to watch and enjoy The
Bachelor with a critical eye—not taking
it at face value, but instead, examining its
promotion of traditional Western genderroles, its depiction of whiteness as normal,
and its failure to reflect the romantic ideals of all
viewers.

Endnotes
1. Laura Grindstaff. 2012. “Reality TV and the Production of ‘Ordinary Celebrity’: Notes from the Field. Berkeley Journal of Sociology 56. Regents of the
University of California: 22-40.
2. Grindstaff, 36.
3. Roland Barthes, Elements of Semiology (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1968), 9.
4. Barthes, 40.
5. Laura Stampler, “Here’s What it Really Costs to Get Dressed as ‘Bachelor’Contestant,” mic.com, January 26, 2016.
6. Lane Terralever, “Honda uses ‘scripted’ product placement on The
Bachelor,” laneterralever.com (blog), January 20,2012.
7. Karen X. Cheng, “Minorities on The Bachelor: When Do They Get
Eliminated?,” karenx.com (blog), January 26, 2015.
8. Rachel Dubrofsky, The Surveillance of Women on Reality Television:
Watching The Bachelor and The Bachelorette (Plymouth, UK: Lexington
Books, 2011), 20.

9. Akemi Johnson, “What Would It Mean to Have a ‘Hapa’ Bachelorette?”,
NPR, March 14, 2016.
10. Johnson, NPR.
11. Judith Butler, “Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay inPhenomenology and Feminist Theory,” Theater Journal 40, no.4 (Dec., 1988):
520.
12. Butler, 526.
13. Ibid.
14. “Series - The Bachelor,” tvtropes.org (blog), accessed February 22, 2016.
15. Dubrofsky, 3.
16. Lynsey Eidell, “Six Secrets You Never Knew About the Bachelor, Courtesyof Sean Lowe (Plus, a Life Update from Him and Catherine!), glamour.com(blog), January 28, 2015.

“in the worldof The Bachelorthe ‘normal’
ideal of rom ,anticlove seems tobe white peoplesipping whit
e wine wear
ing
expensive dresses and dr
iving
fancy cars.”

53

EyeCandy Film Journal

THE UPRIGHTCITIZEN’S BREGADEBECOMEUPRIGHT CITIZENS
OF A

By Asher Guthertz

My obsession with the Upright Citizens Brigade
Theatre started with a Google search. Listening
to a comedy podcast with two of my favorite
comedians, I sensed a strong familiarity between
the two; it seemed like they knew each other. So I googled:“Jason Mantzoukas Jessica St. Clair.” The results of this search
confirmed my suspicions that the comedians Jason Mantzoukas(Rafi from The League) and Jessica St. Clair (Creator of Playing
House) had known each other for a long time, and used toperform together as a comedy team atthe Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre, an
improvisational comedy theater and school
in New York. On the podcast Cry Babies,
Jason Mantzoukas said, “When I started
at that theater before it was even a theater,when I started going to shows and taking
those classes and performing in that world...
it felt like we were all these people whowanted to do this thing, and we were really only doing it foreach other.”1 There is something magical to me about the UCB
in the mid-nineties. I have this notion in my head that I can’t
54

shake, that there is art people do for each other and art thatpeople do for money, and the early days of the UCB Theatre
represent a moment in time in which people made art for eachother. The theatre, however, becomes a perfect representationof what always happens to a noncommercial site of art: good art
gets made there, and then is transformed into a commercially
viable product. The UCB Theatre today is no longer just a place
where people make comedy for each other; now they also makecomedy for money.
The Upright Citizens Brigade began as aloose group of sketch comedians in Chicago
in the early nineties, who were heavily inspired by the improv teachings of Del Close,
a comedian famous for perfecting and teaching the HAROLD improvisational form.2 In
1999, the Upright Citizens Brigade, at thistime comprised of Matt Besser, Amy Poehler, Matt Walsh, and Ian Roberts, opened
their first permanent theater space in New York, where improv
comedy was taught and performed.3 Many famous comedians
today learned improv comedy at the theatre, comics like Rob

There is something
magical to me
about the UCB in
the mid-nineties.

Corddry, Ed Helms, Jason Mantzoukas, Jessica St. Clair, Paul
Scheer, June Diane Raphael, and Aziz Ansari. The classes were
free, and performers at the theatre did not get paid. Unlike
Second City, the famous Chicago comedy theatre where John
Belushi, Bill Murray, and Harold Ramis had honed their craft,where students would move up in the ranks of theatre until they
could be paid performers in the Second City touring company,
the UCB theatre was an art space that was not a capitalistic venture. There was no monetary reason to take classes at the UCB
theatre in the late nineties.
However, it wasn’t long before the UCB became aplace where comedians could go to get discovered. Economic
opportunity, as it does, invaded the site of artistic expression.
In 2001, Amy Poehler went to work for Saturday Night Live.4
The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and Saturday Night Live both
started to scout the UCB theatre looking for talent. The theatre
started hosting auditions for SNL.5 By 2006, Rob Corddry, Rob
Riggle, and Ed Helms, all UCB alumn, had been correspondents
on The Daily Show. In 2007,
MTV aired the sketch show
Human Giant,starring
Paul Scheer, Rob Huebel,
and Aziz Ansari, all UCB
alumni.6 In 2005, the UCB
opened their first theatre in
Los Angeles, giving them aneven more direct route to themainstream entertainment
industry.7
In 2011, the UCB
opened a second New
York location, the UCB
East Theatre.8 The theatre
showcased more standup
performers than the othertheatres had, and this new
venture introduced criticismsof the UCB’s business model.
The theatre’s policy since thebeginning has been to keep ticket prices extremely low (five toten dollars), which they can afford because they do not pay theirperformers.9 The theatre’s justification is that the UCB Theatre,
both in its performance space and in its classes, offers a spacefor performers of all levels. Most of the people who perform at
the UCB., at least when they start out, would not have the ability
to perform on any other stage that would give them the samelevel of exposure. The only way the UCB can afford to host allof these performers and keep ticket prices low is to not pay
anyone. “There’s a creative vibe at UCB, and to maintain it, we
can’t pay people... If you pay, then you have to assign worth toshows, and then people will resent that,” Matt Besser, one of thefounders of the UCB, said in an interview.10 This is their defense,
and it makes sense if the UCB is a purely artistic space, whose
goal is to teach and perform comedy.
The business model came under scrutiny starting in2011 because the UCB has grown so much from its inception
and because the UCB’s business model is drastically different

Vol. 26
than the conditions under which standup comics are used toworking. The standup comedy route is very different thansketch comedy, and standup comics typically get paid for theirsets. While the standups’ complaints were specifically about the
UCB’s handling of standup comedy, it also introduced wider
criticism. In 2011, The New York Times published an article
entitled “Laughs Can Be Cheap at A Comedy Theater,” which
was a critical examination of the UCB’s policy of not paying
performers. In the article, writer Jason Zinoman notes that,“This controversy [of the UCB’s new model] is just as muchabout growing pains when a scrappy theater matures into an
institution. But when a prominent, popular theater keeps prices
low by not paying performers, competitive pressure is put on
the entire scene.”11 There is a reason that the New York Timespublished an article about the theatre’s policy in 2013, not in
2001. The UCB, which the Times notes is a forprofit theatre,
has become an institution that is directly intertwined with theAmerican capitalist system.
The UCB Theatre’s
businessmodel
hasstayed the same from the
beginning, but the context
for that model is drasticallydifferent now that the UCB
is not a fledgling improv
theater but a Hollywood
comedy institution. It is the
only accredited school in the
country that teaches improv
and sketch comedy. “Onany given night,” says Matt
Walsh, another founder of
the UCB, “there are casting
agents or scouts going
through that audience.”12Cast and crews of popular
television shows are filledwith UCB alumn. Shows like
Broad City, The League, P
arks and Recreation, and Children’s Hospital all employ many
people who used to perform at the UCB Theatre. Christina
Gausas, a former teacher at the UCB Theatre, says “Charna[Halpern] and Del [Close] always told us, ‘what you’ve learned,
it’s your obligation to pass on.’ But I don’t know how to teachgetting an internship on a TV show. It’s the reason I stopped
teaching.”13 It isn’t hard, I think, to read the story of the UCB
as an allegory for what happens to anyone who wants to makeart. You start out chanting death threats at state representatives,and you end up being criticized in the New York Times foryour labor policies. Art cannot be separated from business in
America.
This year, the Upright Citizens Brigade releaseda brand new television show, called The UCB Show, whichshowcases improvisational and sketch comedy performances at
the UCB theatre. While the original Upright Citizens Brigade(Amy Poehler, Matt Besser, Ian Roberts, and Matt Walsh) are
not really integral to the show, they appear at the beginning of55

EyeCandy Film Journal

the first episode, standing outside of their Los Angeles theater.
They are all clad in tshirts and jeans as rock music plays andMatt Besser shouts: “Let’s get it going!” As the theme song plays,a picture of the four founders in their twenties is presented. A
New York map pointing to the location of the original theatre isfollowed by a map of America, with the words “expands to fourtheatres.”14 The message is clear: “We have grown, but we havenot changed. We are still here,” the UCB Four seem to say, as
they stand outside of one of the four locations of their theater.
However, the UCB cannot be what it was twenty years
ago. The UCB Show is only available on Seeso, a new subscriptionbased online streaming
service owned by NBC
Universal.15 Amy Poehler
has worked for NBC forthe last fifteen years.
I have no evidence
that there’s a directconnection
between
Seeso’s investment in
the UCB, and NBC’s
investment in Amy Poehler, but the link isn’t hard to make.
Regardless, in building a financially viable online comedy
platform, it is telling that Seeso has turned to the UCB. Not only
The UCB Show,but other new shows on the network, including
Bajillion Dollar Properties, have ties to the UCB theater in termsof its cast and crew. The UCB and its talent are a marketableproperty. The comedy created at the theater is comedy that canbe sold to the American public.
My obsession with the UCB, I think, comes from thesense that for a moment, a bunch of people can come together
to do something that they think is worth doing, just for thesake of doing that thing. I have a lot invested in this idea. As

an aspiring screenwriter, I go to film school because I want tobe around other people who want to make things, and I wantto make things with them. Sometimes, this dream is a reality.
In college, I am around people who direct gender-swapped
performances of True West and write strange animated sitcoms
about verbally abusive crocodiles. But even now, when some of
my friends talk about their projects, they talk about it in termsof getting their work noticed, being recognized and valued byfinancial institutions like a television network. I understand thisdesire, and on some level I want the same thing, but when I lookat the UCB, the beauty in it is the beauty of making art for yourfriends. I want to beable to do that, and I’mscared that if I find thatmoment, it’ll disappear
before it’s really begun.
If there’s hope,
I find it in the worldof comedy podcasts.
Those two comedians
I mentioned earlier,
Jason Mantzoukas and Jessica St. Clair, performed together
before they got paid to be on television—but they still perform
together, on Jessica St. Clair’s podcast, Womp It Up. St. Claire
plays a dramatic teenager named Marissa Wompler, obsessedwith show business and Digiorno pizzas, and every few
episodes, Jason Mantzoukas shows up as her on-and-off-again
boyfriend, Eric “Gutterballs” Gutterman. I find hope in the way
these Guthertz 6 comedians can continue to come together andperform weird improv that isn’t particularly marketable, thatwill never be anything more than something that makes somepeople laugh.16

My obsession with the UCB, I think, comesfrom the sense that for a moment, abunch of people can come together todo something that they think is worth
doing, just for the sake of doing that thing.

56

Endnotes
1. “Jason Mantzoukas,” Crybabies, Earwolf, August 20, 2015
2. Raftery, Brian, High-Status Characters: How the Upright Citizens
Brigade Stormed a City, Started a Scene, and Changed Comedy Forever(Megawatt Press, 2013), chap. 1, Kindle edition.
3. Raftery, High-Status Characters, chap. 3.
4. According to IMDB, Amy Poehler’s first episode on SNL aired in 2001.
5. Raftery, High-Status Characters, chap. 5.
6. Again, information taken from IMDB for both Human Giant and T
he Daily Show.
7. Raftery, High-Status Characters, chap. 7.
8. Raftery, High-Status Characters, chap. 6.
9. Jason Zinoman, “Laughs Can Be Cheap at a Comedy Theater,” NewYork Times, February 19, 2013, acessed March 18, 2016
10. Ibid.
11. Ibid.
12. Raftery, High-Status Characters, chap. 9.
13. Ibid.
14. The UCB Show. Episode no. 1, first broadcast 7 January 2016 by Seeso.
15. Neil Genzlinger, “NCB’s Seeso Looks to Be MustSee TV,” New YorkTimes, January 6, 2016, accessed March 18, 2016, http://www.nytimes.
com/2016/01/07/arts/television/reviewseesonbcstreamingsite.html.
Extra gratitude is due to Brian Raftery, whose wonderful book HighStatus Characters: How the Upright Citizens Brigade Stormed a City,
Started a Scene, and Changed Comedy Forever, the most comprehensive(if not, the only)account of the history of the Upright Citizens Brigade,made this essay possible.
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