The Sequel Week 8
Oct. 9th, 2019 11:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seekingferretWeek 8 Draft
The premise of the 'comedy' Jewtopia was not promising from the beginning. Said the summary: A non-Jew recruits his Jewish friend to teach him how to pretend to be Jewish, in order to date Jewish women. It was even worse than I feared. The film is built on just about every negative stereotype of Jews. The reason why the non-Jew wants to date Jewish women is because that way he'll never have to make a decision again in his life. Because Jewish women are bossy, you see. And sadly the most credible and interesting performance in the film comes from the bossiest of the Jewish women, Jamie Lynn Sigler's gynecologist fiancee to the Jewish friend. She is portrayed as a shrewish control freak obsessed with having babies... but if you ignore the misogynistic slant of all of the film's jokes, she is a talented career woman who cares about her life, cares about her family, and cares about her fiance. Naturally the movie punishes her for that, not even bothering to give her a pair the spares matchup in the astonishingly racist, sexist final act after her fiance abandons her for the Mongolian therapist who has been unethically sleeping with him during his therapy sessions. (I don't think it's a coincidence that I gravitated to Sigler, who of the film's lead Jewish characters was one of two played by a Jewish actor. Sigler manages to lean into the stereotypes as hard as the script unfortunately requires, while still retaining some sense of authentic personhood. Other actors ineptly playing Jewish characters in the film: Jennifer Love Hewitt, Wendie Malick, Tom Arnold, Joel David Moore, Rita Wilson, Crystal Reed... If you have the casting pull to grab actors of their name recognition, are there seriously no Jews in Hollywood who could have played some of their parts?)
After all that, Jews do not dance in Jewtopia.
But I had better moments this week. I grabbed Season 1 of Beverly Hills 90210 and got both David Silver and Andrea Zuckerman dancing at the Spring Dance. David Silver dancing is a trip and a half. I found it hard to reconcile with my previous experience of Brian Austin Green, which is limited to Derek Reese in tSCC. It was kind of charming to watch the episode, too... Not that it's at all my kind of show, but it was fascinating to see how much The OC is built on the DNA of 90210. There's other dancing in other seasons of Beverly Hills 90210, but I'm unlikely to seek it out. I will grab the dancing of David's half-sister in the sequel serie 90120.
I also watched the Boynton Beach Club, about sexagenarian and septuagenarian widows and widowers dating in Florida. There's less Jews in the movie than I expected (I can't figure out if Dyan Cannon's character is Jewish), and I was starting to think I wouldn't get any dancing, but it cropped up finally. Andbessyboo got me the Schitt's Creek episode where David acknowledges how deep he has fallen in love with Patrick by dancing ridiculously to "Simply the Best".
I'm not fully committing to any of these changes, but I started to do some rearrangement of the timeline for better structure. A lot of my ideas are still waiting on source collection, though. I'm up over 60 fandoms on the timeline, and I'm trying to get a sense of what a good stopping point was. Last time around, it was 94 (the remaining 10 fandoms after that were admittedly gratuitous), and my rough intuition here is that I want to at least include more than 80. So that's another 20-30 clips I'll need to have a full sense of what's available to me.
fandoms I have clipped
Caddyshack
Bruriah
The Good Fight
Life During Wartime
Destination Wedding (bad rip)
The Good Wife
The Women's Balcony
Northern Exposure (1.2, other episodes not yet clipped)
Barney's Version
The Sitter
How to Make it in America
Late Marriage
Marvelous Mrs. Maisel
While We're Young
Seinfeld
Hello, Goodbye
This is the End
The Campaign for Camelot
On the Basis of Sex
Modern Romance
The Wonder Years
Hart of Dixie
Community (Annie)
Call Me By Your Name
One Small Hitch
High Maintenance (Derech)
Mean Girls
The OC
Russian Doll
The In-Laws
Parks and Recreation (Jean Ralphio in End of the World Party drumline)
Hedwig and the Angry Inch
Full Court Miracle
Mr and Mrs. Smith
Wonder Boys
Harold and Kumar go to White Castle
Superstore
Runaways
Starsky and Hutch (original)
New York I Love You
An Emmy for Megan
Red Sea Diving Resort
The L Word (Jenny Schecter)
Andi Mack
[redacted]
Private Benjamin
The Birdcage
Caddyshack 2
Pinsky
Love, Simon
Big Mouth
The League
The Princess Diaries
Have Gun Will Travel
Marjorie Morningstar
Burn Notice (Season 1 episode 5)
Rugrats
An American Tail
Arthur the Aardvark
Boynton Beach Club
Beverly Hills 90210
Schitt's Creek (The Olive Branch)
Fandoms I know have Jewish dancing, but haven't yet clipped
The Pickle Recipe
Biloxi Blues
Love Comes Lately
The Year of Spectacular Men (bathroom scene)
The Crazy Ones (S1E19)
Falsettos
Plus One
The Simpsons
Unreal
90210 (S5e8)
Fandoms that might have Jewish dancing, but I haven't checked yet
Man Seeking Woman
Beauty and the Baker
Shtisel
Legends of Tomorrow
Thirtysomething
Being Erica
The Naked Brothers Band
Lanigan's Rabbi
The Spy
An Awkward Sexual Adventure
Red Oaks
Gravity Falls
Duck Tales
Difficult People
The premise of the 'comedy' Jewtopia was not promising from the beginning. Said the summary: A non-Jew recruits his Jewish friend to teach him how to pretend to be Jewish, in order to date Jewish women. It was even worse than I feared. The film is built on just about every negative stereotype of Jews. The reason why the non-Jew wants to date Jewish women is because that way he'll never have to make a decision again in his life. Because Jewish women are bossy, you see. And sadly the most credible and interesting performance in the film comes from the bossiest of the Jewish women, Jamie Lynn Sigler's gynecologist fiancee to the Jewish friend. She is portrayed as a shrewish control freak obsessed with having babies... but if you ignore the misogynistic slant of all of the film's jokes, she is a talented career woman who cares about her life, cares about her family, and cares about her fiance. Naturally the movie punishes her for that, not even bothering to give her a pair the spares matchup in the astonishingly racist, sexist final act after her fiance abandons her for the Mongolian therapist who has been unethically sleeping with him during his therapy sessions. (I don't think it's a coincidence that I gravitated to Sigler, who of the film's lead Jewish characters was one of two played by a Jewish actor. Sigler manages to lean into the stereotypes as hard as the script unfortunately requires, while still retaining some sense of authentic personhood. Other actors ineptly playing Jewish characters in the film: Jennifer Love Hewitt, Wendie Malick, Tom Arnold, Joel David Moore, Rita Wilson, Crystal Reed... If you have the casting pull to grab actors of their name recognition, are there seriously no Jews in Hollywood who could have played some of their parts?)
After all that, Jews do not dance in Jewtopia.
But I had better moments this week. I grabbed Season 1 of Beverly Hills 90210 and got both David Silver and Andrea Zuckerman dancing at the Spring Dance. David Silver dancing is a trip and a half. I found it hard to reconcile with my previous experience of Brian Austin Green, which is limited to Derek Reese in tSCC. It was kind of charming to watch the episode, too... Not that it's at all my kind of show, but it was fascinating to see how much The OC is built on the DNA of 90210. There's other dancing in other seasons of Beverly Hills 90210, but I'm unlikely to seek it out. I will grab the dancing of David's half-sister in the sequel serie 90120.
I also watched the Boynton Beach Club, about sexagenarian and septuagenarian widows and widowers dating in Florida. There's less Jews in the movie than I expected (I can't figure out if Dyan Cannon's character is Jewish), and I was starting to think I wouldn't get any dancing, but it cropped up finally. And
bessyboo got me the Schitt's Creek episode where David acknowledges how deep he has fallen in love with Patrick by dancing ridiculously to "Simply the Best". I'm not fully committing to any of these changes, but I started to do some rearrangement of the timeline for better structure. A lot of my ideas are still waiting on source collection, though. I'm up over 60 fandoms on the timeline, and I'm trying to get a sense of what a good stopping point was. Last time around, it was 94 (the remaining 10 fandoms after that were admittedly gratuitous), and my rough intuition here is that I want to at least include more than 80. So that's another 20-30 clips I'll need to have a full sense of what's available to me.
fandoms I have clipped
Caddyshack
Bruriah
The Good Fight
Life During Wartime
Destination Wedding (bad rip)
The Good Wife
The Women's Balcony
Northern Exposure (1.2, other episodes not yet clipped)
Barney's Version
The Sitter
How to Make it in America
Late Marriage
Marvelous Mrs. Maisel
While We're Young
Seinfeld
Hello, Goodbye
This is the End
The Campaign for Camelot
On the Basis of Sex
Modern Romance
The Wonder Years
Hart of Dixie
Community (Annie)
Call Me By Your Name
One Small Hitch
High Maintenance (Derech)
Mean Girls
The OC
Russian Doll
The In-Laws
Parks and Recreation (Jean Ralphio in End of the World Party drumline)
Hedwig and the Angry Inch
Full Court Miracle
Mr and Mrs. Smith
Wonder Boys
Harold and Kumar go to White Castle
Superstore
Runaways
Starsky and Hutch (original)
New York I Love You
An Emmy for Megan
Red Sea Diving Resort
The L Word (Jenny Schecter)
Andi Mack
[redacted]
Private Benjamin
The Birdcage
Caddyshack 2
Pinsky
Love, Simon
Big Mouth
The League
The Princess Diaries
Have Gun Will Travel
Marjorie Morningstar
Burn Notice (Season 1 episode 5)
Rugrats
An American Tail
Arthur the Aardvark
Boynton Beach Club
Beverly Hills 90210
Schitt's Creek (The Olive Branch)
Fandoms I know have Jewish dancing, but haven't yet clipped
The Pickle Recipe
Biloxi Blues
Love Comes Lately
The Year of Spectacular Men (bathroom scene)
The Crazy Ones (S1E19)
Falsettos
Plus One
The Simpsons
Unreal
90210 (S5e8)
Fandoms that might have Jewish dancing, but I haven't checked yet
Man Seeking Woman
Beauty and the Baker
Shtisel
Legends of Tomorrow
Thirtysomething
Being Erica
The Naked Brothers Band
Lanigan's Rabbi
The Spy
An Awkward Sexual Adventure
Red Oaks
Gravity Falls
Duck Tales
Difficult People
(no subject)
Date: 2019-10-13 06:50 pm (UTC)(horrible) trip, ick.
Not that it's at all my kind of show, but it was fascinating to see how much The OC is built on the DNA of 90210.
Oh my god, yes, 90210 is very much the teen soap blueprint. That gif you posted on discord makes me super nostalgic. Bring back 90s dance moves!