Chloe Angyal and Jessica Wakemen, two feminist pop culture writers of whom I’m quite fond, went on Fox to declare that the ban on abortion in prime time television is officially over, and Jessica makes a particularly valuable point: “There is not much variety in abortion plot lines on TV. Too many shows fall prey to the ‘I was considering an abortion but then, oops, I fell down the stairs and lost the baby’ plot line, which is a total cop-out. Abortion should not be something that TV writers only bring up as a vehicle to make the woman have a miscarriage.”

And I think this is exactly right. Abortion shouldn’t just be portrayed as something that’s considered and then abandoned. Abortions shouldn’t only be performed by monstrous people — as they were in a recent episode of American Horror Story, which increasingly seems to suggest that the end of a pregnancy before term, whether by miscarriage, abortion, or murder, is the ultimate expression of evil — or even necessarily morally conflicted ones. And a character having an abortion shouldn’t always have to result in an emotional trauma plotline. I’m okay with all of those storylines — except for maybe the monstrous abortionist in the basement alternating between performing Frankenstein operations on pigs and performing abortions on starlets — but only if they’re not the only thing on television.

When arcs like these are balanced with stories about women who get abortions and treat them like the routine medical procedures that they are, then we’ll be making the kind of progress we need most. Much as is the case with getting diverse actors on television, there’s more to being truly diverse than checking off quota boxes. There is diversity within the black community. People have a range of experiences with abortion. We need this sort of second-order thinking for lots of kinds of stories, not just ones about pregnancy.

I got behind today, and I’m not finished with The Confession. So we’ll discuss it next week. I’m so sorry. But, I have something to make up for it instead!

I’d like to invite all of you in the area to a screening of Werner Herzog’s new documentary on the death penalty, Into the Abyss, on Thursday, Nov. 10, at 7 p.m. at Gallery Place. I’ll be there, and if enough folks can make it, we can turn this into a Cavalcade of the Nerds discussion over beers afterwards. If you can come, RSVP to intotheabyssdc@gmail.com to get on the list, and comment here if you’re up for post-movie drinks. The movie is fascinating and powerful, and I can’t wait to discuss it with all of you in person and online.

I saw Tower Heist, Brett Rattner’s financial-scam thriller, last night, which was both better than I expected and confirmed a definitive trend: our movies are moving away form narratives of individual or localized hardship, like the foreclosure in Drag Me To Hell or the layoffs in The Company Men and Up in the Air, and towards identifying individuals and institutions responsible for the downturn and making them pay. So I was interested to read a bibliography put together by Loren E. Miller, a PhD Candidate at American University, and forwarded to me by a generous reader, tracing the evolution of financial regulation in Hollywood movies from 1914 on. Miller writes about the evolution from a moral and individual perspective from an institutional one:

The earliest silent films, created during the 1910s, depicted financial misdeeds as stock speculation and manipulation, as well as embezzlement…However, there is no real institutional punishment for financial misdeeds. Characters are punished by fate and misfortune, but there are few government repercussions…

During the 1920s, many of the same types of misdeeds are depicted in films; however the reasons behind the crimes and the punishments shift. Characters often have good intentions and noble reasons for committing misdeeds, such as helping an impoverished family member. These characters are often redeemed in the end of the film, perhaps because of the good intent behind their actions…

The 1930s is by far the decade with the largest number of films focusing on financial regulation. The increase in movies on this topic provides insight into the historical moment; the country faced the Great Depression after the stock market crash of 1929, and at the same time film technology grew. The motion pictures of the 1930s reflect the country’s preoccupation with the stock market crash, and the influence money can have on people. Many movies in 1930s include crimes such as embezzlement. There are also a fair number of films that survey past financial panics. During the 1930’s, characters that perform these misdeeds are subject to governmental punishments instead of moral ones. For example, The Gorilla mentions an SEC agent investigating a financial crime.

It’s not surprising that we’ve been here before. The question is whether a public passion for some sort of reform, or at least, for making the bastards pay — I haven’t heard a crowd cheer as loudly as the one did at the end of Tower Heist in quite some time — will actually translate into enforced regulation. Dodd-Frank’s still tied down in all sorts of missed deadlines and Republican obstructionism. Richard Cordray still hasn’t made it to his office at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. And we’re not getting New Deal levels of public investment. Obviously robbing Bernie Madoff isn’t a possible solution or a systemic one. But I sort of see how it would resonate when institutional change doesn’t seem like an available option.

David Roberts unleashes a righteous rant on the disaster that looks like it will be a new adaptation of The Lorax:

While I agree with a lot of David’s criticism, including of the transition of the Lorax to a comedic figure, the personification of evil in a way that doesn’t require collective blame, and the insult to children’s intelligence, but I’d be curious to hear his thoughts on a couple of questions.

1) Collective responsibility is an important principle, but isn’t identifying specific villains also sometimes necessary? As with the financial crisis, there’s space between the “we’re all to blame” perspective and the “Bernie Madoff is the sole villain” view that’s pervading popular culture. Someone like Don Blankenship is uniquely evil, and worth calling out specifically, both for his environmental degradation of the Appalachians and for his disgusting record of disdain for his workers’ rights and safety. Does it make sense to draw general principals from specific examples, to illustrate a web of environmental interconnectedness? Villains can be a hook, rather than a distraction.

2) When it comes to kids, what should our asks or action items be? Getting children to start making responsible choices when it comes to sustainability, reusability, and the environment is important, but when they don’t have that much consuming power, what should the message be? I don’t think the overall framing of the movie is brilliant, but the idea that it wants to communicate a sense of wonder about a natural world kids may take for granted is not a bad one.

3) How do we draw the balance between respecting children’s intelligence and overwhelming them? If I read The Lorax to a young child, I’m not sure I’d expect them to get the argument that the vanished trees are an anchor species for the ecosystem. Instead, I’d focus on a sense of wonder and inherent value for the trees themselves. But if anyone here has a better grasp of early childhood education and elementary learning than I do, I’d be curious as to your thoughts on when these kinds of concepts are likely to stick and how we achieve that balance. At the end of the day, this is a mass market entertainment. I’m eager to respect children and young adults, and deeply appreciative of fiction that does. But I think the best tends to work at different levels for readers of different ages and often to reward re-reading, so I’m curious as to where folks thinks we might most productively aim certain messages.

I am pleased as punch that Homeland, which is the best new show of the year and may be the best show currently airing, is getting a second season on the air. To have a program that was good on the war on terror, on torture, on gender, or on workplace dynamics alone would be a excellent, but to have a show that is all of them at once makes me feel lucky. James Poniewozick, however, is worried that the show, which has set up a tense cat and mouse game between Carrie’s relentless CIA agent and Brody’s cagey former prisoner of war, is a mini-series rather than a multiple-season show.

As for Homeland, I could watch a show built around its characters endlessly. In particular, I love the dynamic between Carrie and Saul, who are meant to work together for the same reason everyone else has problems working with them: they can each be an incredible pain in the ass, in spite or because of their dedication. Terrorism aside, Homeland is one of the best workplace dramas I’ve seen in a while. (The last comparable one, maybe, being Rubicon, which was also partly about people damaged by the demanding job they do—or who are so well suited for that job because they are damaged.) And the two damaged terrorist-hunters are chasing an equally damaged quarry in Damian Lewis’ Brody.

But Homeland’s premise itself would seem to have a sell-by date. Brody is sort of like AHS’s house: at some point we must find out that he’s real or that he’s not. It doesn’t necessarily need to be at the end of the first season—I am willing to grant this show more time that The Killing—but if it’s the same cat-and-mouse game forever, it becomes Reverse Dexter.

I actually think this is a problem that’s quite easy to solve in a number of ways that would be creatively and politically rich. One option would be to have Brody be innocent, but to have Carrie’s investigation into him turn up actionable intelligence in another area, and to pull Brody into her team, creating an uneasy alliance that also forces the CIA to confront its prejudices around converts to Islam. Another could be to have Brody be guilty, and to have Carrie’s vindication propel her to a place of new responsibility and realigned tensions in the team, concentrating more closely on gender politics and the treatment of mentally ill employees in intelligence agencies. I didn’t really see it in their vibe, but some readers and friends have suggested the possibility of sexual frisson between Carrie and Brody, which could be interesting, if off in a totally different direction. We could see her build a team that involves Virgil and his cousin — Virgil may be my favorite supporting character of the new season, and their debates about the ethics of surveillance could be wonky and tense all at the same time. All of which is to say the great thing about Homeland is that both Damian Lewis and Claire Danes are fantastic, and the competition between them is nervy and beautifully acted. But it’s not the only first-class thing about the show, and I think not the only first-class the show and its fine actors are capable of telling.

The bridge is yours.

-I would have been fine with it if J.K. Rowling had killed Ron Weasley.

-Scarlett Johansson has the best reaction to a leaked nude photos scandal of all time.

-Ron Howard goes from the Dark Tower to NASCAR.

-Summer Glau has literally become Sarah Marshall.

-I may find Odd Future tiresome, but Syd the Kid’s video for her debut single “Cocaine” starts out undeniably adorable and then gets genuinely disconcerting:

A storm of nonsense has descended on this blog over the past couple of days, inspired, apparently, by the idea that I’m just reading things into Donald Glover’s Childish Gambino lyrics and the belief that Charlie Sheen is a kind, compassionate individual who is the victim of a frame job by vindictive women. So let’s get a couple of things straight for when we’re talking about sexism and mass media:

1. Just because women buy misogynistic products, or sleep with artists of misogynistic products, does not mean that those products don’t express misogyny. Wesley Ambrecht, who is apparently a big, big Childish Gambino fan, tweeted at me: “Drake has this fantastic line on his song ‘Paris Morton Music’ that summarizes why he, Donald and other rappers of their ilk employ that types of lyricism. ‘I hate callin’ the women bitches, but the bitches love it. I took some sense and made a nickel of it.’” (A point he expanded to no particularly more productive effect in a longer blog post.) First, the idea that Drake has some sort of comprehensive knowledge of what “bitches” love is laughable. Second, even if some women like products that say horrible things about them, that doesn’t mean that those things aren’t said, or aren’t horrible. We live in our contradictions. That doesn’t mean that exploiting them or making money off of them is admirable. Just cynical.

2. Some women behave badly. That doesn’t mean that you can extrapolate rules about society from their behavior, or because you’ve been wronged, that you have a right to judge the behavior of the many by the actions of the few. Commenter Michael Tollefsen wrote in to inform me that “Childish Gambino repeatedly states how he raps about things that have happened in his life. So when he talks about how women only like him now after he has money, this is based on events that have happened to him. So your anger for these remarks should be based towards all the women who chase him for his money, not towards him. Him pointing out how poorly women treated him in the past is not a random attack on women, and should be seen as such. If you don’t like these statements you should be critiquing the women who view money as a leading qualifier for a man.” First, this is weak-sauce cultural analysis. Everyone who creates art draws on their personal experiences. That doesn’t mean that Childish Gambino’s songs are literal recountings of events from Donald Glover’s life. Second, even if they were, it’s pretty sad to extrapolate from a couple of burnings and failures the idea that all women are against you. Anger and hurt don’t justify stupid stereotypes. Having been wronged doesn’t make all your work going forward conscious. And stupid stereotypes don’t make you look sophisticated and strong.

3. Accusations that famous men abuse women are not inherently false, and not inherently motivated by the prospect of a payout. I had no idea that there were so many people who believe that Charlie Sheen is a nice guy who is being set up, but Kimberly Jenkins writes about his “alleged abuse of women,” and Tabitha-Renee Parsons wants to know “If Charlie had a violent character, why didn’t he appear as rowdy, who beats women as a youth and a young grown-up? Especially, since we all know how success can spoil a young man’s brain. Not all women are angels, and the least during a custody battle. Charllie claims, never to have beaten a woman. Wouldn’t he be honest about it, if he did, just like he was about his drug and alcohol abuse?” As it turns out, Charlie Sheen has been honest about his abuse of women, at least as it pertains to his court proceedings. A no-contest plea, which he entered into response to allegations that he battered an adult film actress, may not be the exact same thing as a guilty plea, but it has the same effect. He also pleaded guilty to holding a knife to his ex-wife’s throat. It is an accepted fact that he shot his ex-fiancee. Even if you dismiss cases where he settled out of court, or where, like the shooting, the violence is explained away as accidental, or where he’s denied he was guilty, Charlie Sheen has admitted to violence against women.

4. Feminists are not always looking for something to be angry about. But it’s hard to overstate the sexism in American popular culture. Mr. Ambrecht tweets, “I’m of the belief that ‘misogynist’ has become overused. I don’t think Donald ‘hates’ women.” Mr. Tollefsen writes “Trying to make it appear like that song is directed towards women is selfish, get over yourself.” Do I think Donald Glover inherently and consciously hates all women? No, I don’t. Do I think that reducing women to their genitals, reducing women’s motivations to greed, and referring to them repeatedly as bitches, springs from a place of deep contempt for women? Yeah, I kind of do. These are not casual or neutral sentiments, however much our culture has suggested that we see them that way. Glover has the right to say whatever he wants. He is not entitled to always benefit from the most charitable interpretation of that speech, which given his work on 30 Rock and Community I was inclined to give him.

5. Demanding better isn’t trolling. Ms. Jenkins writes of Sheen’s new show, which I will not be watching, “Well, good for you and your convictions… but as an average person, in the average world… we will all watch it.” Which independent of the idea that Charlie Sheen is a dreadful person who I don’t want to get a penny of my money, whether it’s from direct purchase of DVDs or eyeball-supported ad dollars, makes me sort of depressed. The idea that it’s elitist, or high-horsey, to want entertainment that’s high-quality and not dreadfully racist, sexist, homophobic, or demeaningly stupid says everything you need to know about why Hollywood gets to keep doing what it’s doing.

6. Liking art that is misogynist, racist, sexist, or homophobic doesn’t necessarily make you those things, and indictment of that art doesn’t have to be an indictment of you. This seems to be a stumbling block for a lot of people. But let me be clear: if you think Donald Glover is a great MC, I don’t think that means you beat on women or that you hate them. I think Eminem’s Slim Shady persona is virulently misogynist and disturbing, but I still think Em is a ridiculously gifted MC, and I’ve struggled with this since I was in high school. Tower Heist contains an utterly ridiculous but entirely hilarious extended joke about what Eddie Murphy thinks about lesbian sex. Is it problematic? Absolutely. But it’s also one of the funniest bits in the movie. Folks need to breathe a bit. I think our conversations about culture would be a lot healthier and more interesting if we could hold two thoughts in our hands at the same time and acknowledge that we like problematic stuff. Because really, we all do. I’m not aiming for purity. Just awareness and debate. On the other hand, if you begin your defense of Donald Glover with “First off, you are a dumb CUNT!” as one now-banned James Jones did, that is not a productive road for us to travel down, and says a lot more about you and your defensiveness than about anyone else’s interpretation or the art in question.

Amanda Seyfried has apparently officially taken the role of Linda Lovelace in a biopic of the Deep Throat star that’s been in development for a long time and been through multiple recastings. I’ll be curious to hear what folks who work in or closer to the industry think of the casting and the project, but I’ve always found Lovelace fascinating — she was, as Daphne Merkin pointed out in her obituary, at the crux of every major debate about pornography since she helped the genre go mainstream, or close enough to it, in Deep Throat, and through her conversion and years as an anti-port crusader, and her withdrawal from a feminist movement she felt used her and into an accommodation with her past — in other words, sort of where society as a whole is today. Given the breathless and panicky debates we have about pornography, it’s worth a serious and considered look at that history in its context. The People vs. Larry Flynt is a great movie, but it’s largely from a free-speech perspective, which isn’t the only one worth considering here.

I also really like Seyfried, who’s very good at playing ingenues with more going on beneath the surface than she lets on, whether in Mean Girls or Big Love. I don’t think In Time gave her very much to do, but it proves she can put on a bit more of an edge. I hope the script is enough to do the issue and the actress justice, and to make clear the distinction between the idea that doing porn is inherently oppressive and the idea that forcing people into porn and taking their compensation from them is oppressive.

I was talking to Foster Kamer yesterday about my post on Childish Gambino when one of my colleagues forwarded me Seyward Darby’s critique of Zooey Deschanel, and somehow, the combination of the two things made me realize that I feel essentially the same way about the giant-eyed gamine Hollywood phenomenon and the hip-hop collective from Los Angeles, Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All: I’m just really bored by what they think are meaningful efforts to break the mold or challenge norms.

Darby writes:

My problem with the actress du jour has to do with a message “New Girl” pushes implicitly, but incessantly: that the measure of a person’s character—the test of what makes him or her nuanced and compelling—is the magnitude of endearing personality quirks…It seems she’s confident, though confidence is defined largely as wearing fake buck teeth to a wedding and picking up a guy with the line “Hey Sailor.” And I guess you could say she’s passionate, though our only clues are that she sobs over Dirty Dancing after her boyfriend cheats on her and sings to herself—even making up personal theme songs—anytime, anywhere. And it’s possible she’s creative, but the only evidence we have are things like her personally concocted version of the Chicken Dance.

There’s something weird about the sense that quirk, or the right of women to be as girly as they please, are somehow under attack. When New Girl, the show that’s making Deschanel a national star rather than an object of niche hipster-worship came out, I wrote that I had no idea what the show was making a stand for. Was the defense of Deschanel’s quirkiness meant to be a a rejection of gender norms? The right to wear hillbilly teeth at a wedding doesn’t demolish the female beauty complex, especially when you do it wearing expensively maintained hair and a gorgeous dress—instead, it’s the kind of thing models do in spreads precisely to call attention to how beautiful they are otherwise, and it buys into weird, classist assumptions. Access to dentistry is a big health issue. Similarly, I don’t know of any organized campaign against the right of women to like Dirty Dancing. It’s entirely possibly that my non-quirk privilege blinds me to deep and endemic prejudice against people who have as their highest value the right to be a little wacky, but I’m reasonably confident that I’m not missing something.

Similarly, I don’t deny that Odd Future has a right to be mad about things, whether it’s that Tyler’s father is epically awful, or racism, or how much it sucks to be a teenager. But the collective’s antics, whether they’re beating down photographers or treating service workers terribly, aren’t related to any of the things they could possibly be angry about. I’m not shocked by it: people who unexpectedly get a lot of money and attention aren’t guaranteed to act like saints or with great dignity, no matter where they come from. I’m bored by the idea that it’s supposed to be meaningful, or rebellious, or anything other than, as Steve Albini put it, “It’s being an asshole about being an asshole.” And Zooey Deschanel is being adorkable about her own adorkableness. They’re both endlessly self-referential systems that we’re being told are supposed to be about something larger.