THE EPIDEMIC THAT IS SWEEPING THE NATION

Ladies and gentleman, we as a nation of media consumers are faced with a new and deadly threat to the enjoyment of that consumption free from guilt. This threat is known by one name and one name only: HATE WATCHING!! (insert ominous bum, bum, bum). This describes the behavior of someone who consumes something that might not like/agree with and then will run to their blogs, twitter feeds, Facebook, and other forms of media just to complain or critique how much they hated what they just saw. This phenomenon is not only just confined to the more banal forms of social media however, as it has begun to see more and more prominence in the main-stream"gotcha" media, as Sarah Palin would say,  and is seen as a valid and legitimate type of reporting. In my post I want to focus on the television show SMASH!, an erstwhile NBC series about Broadway competition and fame, because it is a particularly egregious example of the kind of hate watching tactics that I am referring to. Beyond that I would like to discuss the Miley Cyrus 2013 VMA incident, as well as the If You Seek Amy controversy as they will help to underscore the point that I am trying to make.

SMASH! SEASON 2 CAST 

(From Left to Right: Anjelica Houston, Andy Mientus, Jeremy Jordan, Katherine McPhee, Jack Davenport, Leslie Odom, Jr., Megan Hilty, Krysta Rodriguez, Christian Borle, Debra Messing, and, Jennifer Hudson)

SMASH!: THE SHOW THAT WASN'T 

Even though I loved SMASH! I will be the first to admit that it was not without its share of problems. It was replete with a bacchanalia of fantasy induced musical numbers that made little sense to the plot that was happening around it, which only served to jar an already dissatisfied audience. Below you will see two examples...

THE 20th CENTURY FOX MAMBO: A NUMBER THAT WOULD APPEAR IN BOMBSHELL

This is The 20th Century Fox Mambo which was originally seen on the second episode of the first season of SMASH!, entitled "The Callbacks." This song occurs as Katherine McPhee's character, Karen Cartwright, vies with Megan Hilty's character, Ivy Lynn, in the final callback for the role of Marilyn in the workshop. We see Karen in her call back for Marilyn and originally she begins the number performing it as just as herself with some minimal props that are created from every day things such as a broom and a swivel chair. However, about half way through the number, we are hit with the first of many fantasy sequences that the series would become known for, as Karen transforms into Marilyn and performs the rest of the number as her. This kind of disjunctive plot upset many of the already alienated viewers who felt that this kind of fantasy hurt the already poorly written story. Below is another example of things even further in decline.... 

A THOUSAND AND ONE NIGHTS: A FANTASY BOLLYWOOD SEQUENCE

A Thousand and One Nights was originally seen in the twelfth episode, entitled "Publicity" in which Karen and Karen's boyfriend, Dev meet Rebecca Duvall, a famous movie star who was courted to play Marilyn, and Dev and Rebecca begin to argue about which one of them is better for Karen, which on its face is absurd but we will get to script and character problems in the next paragraph. Anyways, in an effort to escape the "awkward" (and I mean that both in the real and meta sense), Karen turns to a television that is playing a Bollywood movie and then snaps into some elaborate Bollywood dance sequence. The problem that this sequence presented is that all the main characters were present in Karen's fantasy but some of them, like Julia Houston's son, but she had never ever had a scene with and consequently had never met.    

A MEME ABOUT DEBRA MESSING'S CHARACTER JULIA HOUSTON'S LOVE OF SCARVES 

Which is a perfect segue way into my final point about the reason why SMASH! ended up not fairing well as a series is because the way the characters were written and a general abandonment of any human emotion coming from the characters. Basically, peoples main contentions with the show where that the characters felt wooden and that there was very little continued advancement of them.   

Behind the scenes the problems were many, with jealousy, feelings of betrayal, and, fights crept in and ultimately ended up sabotaging what the pilot indicated to be a successful, cutting edge, musical television show. If you want to find the gossip about it I recommend that you Google it because I refuse to engage with people that want to use this as fodder to claim I hate SMASH!, because in fact I don't. I have nothing but the utmost respect for all involved in the series and what it was able to accomplish.    

THE HATE WATCHERS RESPOND

I am going to keep this very brief because I don't want to give them a ton more attention but after SMASH! became train wreck in the eyes of it viewers people began to create scathing and rather hilarious reviews about their opinions of SMASH! as a series. Again you can look these up for yourself because I don't want to be responsible for continuing to propagate them but this negativity often overshadowed the legacy that the show has left behind it. 

THE LEGACY OF SMASH!

BOMBSHELL: A FICTIONAL MUSICAL CREATED IN SEASON 1 AND CONTINUED IN SEASON 2 ABOUT THE LIFE AND TIMES OF MARILYN MONROE

HIT LIST: A FICTIONAL MUSICAL CREATED IN THE SECOND SEASON ABOUT THE PRICE AND COST OF FAME IN THE MODERN ERA

Regardless of whatever hate may be out there about SMASH! I want to take this opportunity to express my opinion of what SMASH! has meant to me and the legacy that this sadly short lived series has left behind. The first thing that is important to remember is that this was not a realistic portrayal of what Broadway is (I'm looking at you learning an entire aerial silk routine the day before a performance) because it is television. If you are looking for a realistic portrayal of what Broadway is you might want to become a Broadway star and live that life, or even better yet go see a Broadway show because that will be packed with all the Broadway realism that your heart desires.  

  THE DIVA (A HIT LIST CHARACTER) PERFORMING REACH FOR ME ON AERIAL SILK

Secondly, this show helped to boost exposure and audience knowledge of what a Broadway musical and what the creation of a musical looks like. This is tremendously pivotal because you are helping inspire people to pursue a passion or educating people about a career in theatre. 

Finally, this show left behind two extremely great original new musicals in its wake, Hit List, and Bombshell. Hit List has seen a concert debut at 54 Below under the eyes of Ms. Jennifer Tepper, the newly appointed head of programming at the venue and there are talks being held to do a concert for Bombshell as well. Additionally, I have written a full version of Hit List and hope to take it to Broadway one day. 

PROMO POSTER FOR THE CONCERT OF HIT LIST WITH STARS KRYSTA RODRIGUEZ, ANDY MIENTUS, AND JEREMY JORDAN

MILEYGATE

On a related note to hate watching, Miley Cyrus' performance at the 2013 VMA's, or Video Music Awards as it is known, bears speaking of because it relates to a larger issue in our culture. Miley Cyrus obviously was being provocative when she did this...

And this... 

But I am about to blow your minds with what I am about to say next. Are you ready? Are you really ready? You sure? Ok then, well here I go. 

IT WAS 100% HER RIGHT TO DO THIS! 

That is not me giving her permission or saying that I agree with what she did, this is me saying that she is a grown woman who is capable of behaving in a fashion she chooses. She doesn't need your approval to do whatever she is going to do. In fact, what bothered me more then her shoving a foam finger around her crotch, or grinding up on Robin Thicke was the people that said the day after, "I had to sit through that trash." NO!!! YOU DIDN'T!!! You could have gotten your lazy butt out of your chair, grabbed the remote, and CHANGED THE CHANEL!!!! (Gasp*, such a revolutionary idea, I know). No one is forcing you to watch this, you chose to watch her do what she did and so you have about zero right to the complain how much you didn't like it because you didn't take the obvious step to correct your discomfort.   

IF YOU SEEK AMY

BRITNEY SPEARS' CIRCUS TOUR PROMO POSTER

If You Seek Amy was a song that appeared on American pop singer's, Britney Spears' album entitled Circus. The title is obviously provocative and shocking and up to the Britney standard of selling sex but I am not going to tell you flat out what the title is, I'll leave that one up to your imagination. Needless to say, controversy ensued when a mother in New Zealand gave the song to her daughter of seven who proceeded to run around saying the title. The mother then got mad because there was no parental advisory sticker on the song. I am going to keep this really simple and just get right to the bottom  line, (1) Britney Spears is not responsible for raising your kids or making music for them, (2) you as a responsible parent should know that Britney Spears isn't appropriate for a seven year old to begin with and then with that knowledge not give the song to them.  

FINAL THOUGHTS

So what is the conclusion/moral to this post: 

IF YOU DON'T LIKE SOMETHING DON'T WATCH/CONSUME THAT VERY THING JUST TO GO AROUND SPREADING HATE ABOUT IT! 

South Park - 6 Days To Air

Last week I watched a documentary about Matt Stone and Trey Parker, the creators of the hit animated comedy series, South Park. The documentary was titled, "6 Days To Air" and It followed the South Park creators over the six days that it took them to create the season 15 premier episode for the show. The documentary took the viewer through the entire pre-production, production and post production process and explained just how an episode of South Park is created. I think the most interesting thing about the documentary was that Parker and Stone created an entire episode of South Park in just 6 Days! It usually takes similar shows, like Family Guy and The Simpsons, approximately 9 months to create a whole episode and they are doing it in less than a week.

Trey Parker and Matt Stone had just finished making their new Broadway musical, The Book of Mormon. I saw the musical over the summer by winning lottery tickets to the show. I won 475 dollar tickets for only 30 bucks, it was sweet! The Book of Mormon was without a doubt the funniest show that I have ever seen, better than any TV show or movie. The songs were incredible and the acting was great. It was hilarious and I highly recommend it to everyone. I also recommend trying to win the tickets through the lottery because they are very expensive.

After completing The Book of Mormon, Parker and Stone had to get back to focusing on South Park. The documentary took you into the writers room and showed the viewer how they came up with the ideas for the episode. The documentary also took the viewer through the storyboarding process, voice recording process, the animating process and the distribution process. I thought that it was incredibly how these guys could create an entire episode in under week. They worked day and night for that week but were able to pull it off.

The episode was called, "Humancentipad" and it made fun of Steve Jobs and Apple. I thought that it was one of the best South Park episodes of all time. This documentary was very interesting and I really liked how it took the viewer through the whole process of creating an episode of South Park.

Broadway, Here I Come

Season 2 of NBC's musical-drama SMASH premiered 2 weeks ago, to an average size audience.  The premiere was a 2 hour spectacle full of guest starts like Oscar winner Jennifer Hudson and Tony winner Harvey Fierstein.  The show was largely revamped from last season's disastrous mess of characters that no one liked, story lines that were too ridiculous for soap operas, and writing that was so over the top even greeting card companies would have made fun of it.   Show creator and writer is Theresa Rebeck a well known playwright.  Add executive producer Steven Spielberg, actresses Debra Messing and Angelica Houston and you would think the show could survive right?  Well last weeks episode was rated an all time low for the series with 3.3 million viewers and .9 million in the 18-49 age range.  But what makes this show so undesirable?

A musical TV show is obviously a very difficult task to accomplish, having rarely been successful.  For example, Viva Laughlin, the Hugh Jackman casino themed musical TV show which was canceled after 2 episodes.  Smash aims to take viewers into the world of Broadway while following a young singer who dreams of singing on the big stage, as well as the crew and producers who try and turn their dream musical into a reality.  But this is no Glee where a bunch of 30 year old professionals attempt to play 16 year olds in a mis-fit Glee club.  This show uses real broadway experienced actors, performers and names in their show to really portray the world of show biz, in NYC.  It's sexy, sophisticated and the original music is phenomenal.  It's main song "Let Me Be Your Star" was nominated for an Emmy and a Grammy.  The music is written by Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman (of Tony winning musical Hairspray and Catch Me If You Can)

So what makes this show so unlikable by viewers?  My guess would have to be the characters.  I can't say there is a character whom I wouldn't care if they died or were written out of the show.  They already have written a few characters off of the show since season 1, but they still have a lot more work to do if they plan on maintaining viewership.  I think characters are what keeps the audience for a Tv show, you come back each week to check in on your favorite characters.  They should be relatable and dynamic characters the audience can follow and cares about.  New to season 2 is Jeremy Jordan an Ithaca College grad.  He graduated IC with a BFA in musical theatre.  I'm so proud to see an Ithaca alum on the TV screen, even if I do happen to hate his character.  I think Smash needs to get it's act together before NBC cancels yet another one of it's shows.

from film, to stage, back to film, and back to stage

I'm going to go ahead and assume that some, most, or hopefully all of you have seen the movie Little Shop of Horrors. This is a great film directed by Frank Oz, who has a pretty outstanding resume. Some of you may know him as a puppeteer and voice actor for The Muppets, or the voice of Yoda in Star Wars. He does not have much of a directing background, but this hit movie has been deemed a 'cult classic,' which is good, I think. But, where did this all start?

Way back in 1960, a man named Roger Corman directed and produced a movie in only two days. For those of you keeping score at home, thats a 70 minute feature-length movie that was shot in 48 hours. This was the last two days before the set that was used was to be taken down, as in the previous 5 days, Corman had just filmed another feature-length movie called Bucket of Blood. Wait, what?! That's right, Corman shot TWO movies in ONE week. Mind you, these were very low-budget films, and not highly enjoyable by today's standards, however I still find this a great feat. So I guess to get his money's worth out of the set, he decided to film a second movie rather than let the set go to waste with its final two days. Somehow, they wrote a script and shot the entire film in these two days, and the result was a far-fetched, quirky, interesting, and entertaining film. It even features a very young Jack Nicholson in his third Hollywood role he had ever played.

Next, this odd little movie became far more popular than they ever anticipated it to be, and years later (1982), a man named Howard Ashman adapted and wrote it into an off-broadway musical. Again, this production became far more popular than anyone had ever imagined, and was quickly re-adapted to film in 1986. This is where Frank Oz picked it up and made it into the film everyone thinks of today when they hear of Little Shop. Oz's rendition kept the stage style of the musical by using a limited number of sets, and lengthy wide shots, which Oz refers to as "master shots". One of these shots includes a ginormous crane up while a character runs up a flight of stairs mid-song. Unhappy with the first 31 takes, the 32nd was finally used. Anyways, this film had quite a historic journey before it came to be what we know today. Also, with the success of Oz's movie, the stage musical was then picked up by Broadway.

I can't decide what part of that history that I find most fascinating, but it does put into perspective how one seemingly small production can become such a big phenomenon.

That scary post-graduation question...

In class today we talked about what we ultimately see ourselves doing post-graduation. As a Junior, this isn't very far away and that post-graduation question always sounds somewhat scary. I don't really think about it too much but when I do this is what I come up with. When I first graduate I'm expecting an entry-level position as a PA but down the road I see myself producing. My ultimate goal would be to somehow combine my love of broadway with video production by video packages for broadway.com. Although this is the dream as of now, it may change as I continue to explore what it is I like about television and hopefully intern in LA.

HEYY EVERYONE!!!

Hola everyone!

I didn't really know what to put in this blog post but everyone else is introducing themselves so that works! My name is Jenna Boswell and I'm a junior TV-R major with a video concentration! I transferred to IC in the fall after going to community college on Long Island for two years. I'm not really sure exactly what I want to do in the television field but I'm hoping either something with production or casting! I'm planning on studying in Los Angeles next Spring semester to get a better idea or what I truly want to do when I grow up. My favorite television shows are Community, Vampire Diaries, Parenthood, and The Office. I recently discovered the show Chuck and can't stop watching it! Theres something about a show with a Nerd Herd that is very appealing! Besides television I also love Broadway plays and musicals! Living a train ride away from NYC I've been spoiled by live theatre since I saw Phantom of the Opera in the eighth grade. Thats about it... See ya in the AM!