AudioShocker

Well, dear readers, I must admit that I am still in the death throes of my current semester, wrestling the alligator that is the novels of George Eliot (not a dude), hoping to pry its jaws open and pull out a twenty page paper which, more or less, affects a comparison of the narrators of her to major novels (Middlemarch and Daniel Deronda--Middlemarch, incidentally, is a pretty incredible book; I realize that the only thing that generally gets read here on audioshocker is comics, but its not the worst thing ever to read a Victorian novel now and then). That being said, with my culturological obligations in mind, I did manage to just watch a little bit of television here on the internet, in order to generate a criticism thereof. Now, I don't watch a whole hell of a lot of television, so I may be somewhat off in what I think, but, here's what I think of the first episode of Sit Down, Shut Up, which I just finished watching, like, ten minutes ago.

The reason that this would get me out there into the internet in order to watch this is pretty clear--as an Arrested Development enthusiast (it's not my favorite show ever, but I like it a lot, and appreciate the fact that when I make reference to it in conversation, way more people notice the reference then when I--preferably--reference, say, Mr. Show), I was excited to see that Mitchell Hurwitz was doing another show. Pretty standard reaction, I think. Plus some of the usual voice talents that seem worth listening to, with some obvious overlap with AD in Will Arnett, Jason Bateman, and Henry Winkler. The presence of Tom Kenny (of Mr. Show and Spongebob fame) as a voice talent also scores points.

The show itself, though, was pretty much a disappointment. It wasn't a struggle to watch, for its 20 minutes, but there wasn't much about it that struck me as "good." They seem to be working some kind of meta-show element in there, with various characters having "catchphrases," and there being occasional winks to the camera, and breakings of the fourth wall, etcetera, but given the kind of slackerly vibe the whole show gives off, its disconcerting to me that that element may well turn out to be never more than completely half-assed. Which is too bad, since "meta-" shit is super trendy these days, so it just comes off as so much contract-renewal pandering. Which is fine, shit's gotta pander, I realize that, but hear me out:

in terms of "meta" texts, what tends to work well about them (and I'm thinking mostly of the "postmodern" novels that were popular in the 70s-90s) is their complicating their given medium (whether its a comic, or a novel, or a movie) at the level of plot. When Milan Kundera interrupts The Unbearable Lightness of Being to muse about his own vantage on the characters he's created, he, as an author, is acutely aware of what this intereference does at the level of plot, primarily upsetting the realism of the cause and effect of the plot of the novel, toying with the reader in a novel (pun intended) way, and complicating the reading experience as a whole. Or when Paul Auster inserts a character into City of Glass who is named "Paul Auster" it complicates the relationship between the author and the other characters, yes, but also, importantly, effects the plot, since the reader now has to question whether some characters have more power than others, and whether or not the cause and effect can be taken for granted.

Let's take another meta-textual example, this time one which seems to have less impact on its text: the "Black Freighter" element of the ever-popular Watchmen. Some folks (Neal, for instance) argue that this aspect of Watchmen is completely unnecessary and boring, not even in need of reading. This stance comes about because the meta-comic doesn't really bear any effect on the plot of the comic-as-such; it adds a level of awareness certainly, in terms of the role of Watchmen as a comic about comics, and does a lot of character building, in terms of the men on the street roles of the kid reading the book and the newsstand guy that does all the talking at the same time--more important than you might think, since these two characters are crucial in developing concern in the reading on behalf of the citizens that get killed by Ozymandias's psychic-vagina-squid. The argument against the Black Freighter being, then, that there are other, better ways of building character without being unnecessarily "smart" (i.e. meta) about it. But from another aspect, we can see that the meta-comic actually does play an important role in the plot: its author, who has mysteriously disappeared, turns out to be a crucial aspect of Ozymandias's plan--the writer of the most twisted comic ever is also the author of the nightmare about the extra-dimensional vagina-squid that is implanted into peoples brains when the climactic event occurs. This is why, in one of the books, we actually see this author die, as he and everyone else involved in the project are blown up on the boat, his story--the Black Freighter--causes him to be selected to write the nightmare which is the crux of Ozymandias's plot; that is direct engagement with the plot, if I've ever read it.

But it does straddle the border. I tend to agree with the --generally populist-seeming-- argument that self-awareness in any given cultural artifact isn't necessarily a good thing. Think of the huge number of major studio quasi-"B" movies which attempt to wink at the camera and pull in the recreationally ironic demographic but end up making nonsense movies which fail at all levels. Winking at a two-way mirror on the fourth wall is not the same thing as breaking that wall (I can only imagine that Brecht would find much to complain about in contemporary "meta" culture). So, when Sit Down, Shut Up winks at the camera, especially given that pop cultural stuff has already been doing that move for a long time, it is not only not-fresh, but annoying and off-putting. There's some chance that they develop it further, such that it might turn into a cool thing; I'm not giving up on it yet, but as of now its hard to be optimistic.

Sit Down, Shut Up is not helped by the fact that it appears to be going in the post-Family Guy direction of general plotlessness in favor of snarky jokes, loosely assembled under an umbrella arc on an episode-by-episode basis (ditching plots is what ruined The Simpsons). Here again, if anything of what I've written, in terms of plot-importance being the aspect that makes meta-textuality interesting, makes sense, SD, SU will need to have more plot to work better. Though, one supposes, most humans just like plain old jokes, not plots, in their comedies, so maybe the show'll do just fine.

Speaking of plots, I've also been watching--this too is probably easily predictable--Dollhouse on the internet. Pretty good. Gets a lot better towards episodes 5 and 6, but its worth watching the first few episodes to get to the middle ones; it seems like the show is gonna be solid through the rest of this season, thought it already seems to be headed right for cancellation once this season ends. Oh well.