Paul Waldman is upset by the idea that Elizabeth Warren might get in trouble for misstating one of the years that the Boston Red Sox won the World Series:

Reporters, I beg you: If you’re going to discuss this “gaffe” and others like it, do your audience a service and explain why this is supposed to matter. And I don’t mean just by saying, “This reminds people of when Martha Coakley called Curt Schilling a Yankee fan, damaging her candidacy.” I mean explain specifically what exactly misremembering the Sox series victories as 2004 and 2008 instead of 2004 and 2007 tells us about the kind of senator Elizabeth Warren would be. Does it mean that despite all the other evidence to the contrary, she really doesn’t care about ordinary people and will upon taking office immediately introduce legislation to make the purchase of brandy snifters and riding crops tax-deductible? Then what?

First, I think as long as Warren handles this with good humor and with a characteristic display of smarts on the issue, it will be fine. Martha Coakley seemed out of touch even before she botched the basics on one of the most popular athletes in the state, and had the same kind of work ethic problem that got Ned Lamont in trouble back in the day in Connecticut. Elizabeth Warren has neither of those problems. Second, I don’t actually think it’s irrational to expect that politicians have some knowledge of the big, defining cultural interests of their constituencies. We may want to believe that voters make decisions for entirely noble, upstanding, and substantive decisions. But I’d much rather have smart politicians who recognize the gap between the ideal and reality, and respond to it not by being condescending, but by pairing trivia with intelligent and well-thought-out policy positions. That’s a vastly superior recipe for long-term organizing that just asserting that high culture’s better than low culture, or that people should make decisions in a different way than they currently do. And at the end of the day, sports aren’t removed from the realm of public policy. The Red Sox are looking for $40 million in historic preservation tax credits right now.

Two depressing pieces of news have come down the pipeline for those interested in a comics industry that’s more broadly responsive to and invested in women’s perspectives.

First, Patty Jenkins is out as director of Thor 2, with the reason for the split being “creative differences.” Now that I’ve seen Monster, I’m even more disappointed by this news than I would have been otherwise. Jenkins is pretty extraordinary at getting actors to go to some insanely dark places. The rise of Loki might not have needed something as intense as Charlize Theron keening like an animal in the woods after committing her first murder. But it would have been nice to see a superhero movie with some emotional firepower from someone other than Michael Fassbender and that runs deeper than James Franco’s determined squinting. And second, there was a lot of squandered potential in Thor for the female characters: Darcy Lewis was the sum of her wisecracks, Sif didn’t get to do very much, and Jane Foster spent as much time being googly-eyed as scientifically brilliant. I trust that Jenkins would have bent the arc on that, at least a little bit.

Second, Marvel’s VP for publishing, Tom Brevoort, let all of us know that in the chicken-and-egg conversation about how to get more women reading comics that if women don’t pony up, despite the problems with the products we’re being asked to buy now, the industry isn’t really that interested in us. He said in response to a Formspring question:

I feel like we’ve got a social responsibility to feature characters of all kinds, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that those characters can or have to be headliners. That tends to be defined by the audience and the marketplace. If all of the fans crying for more series with female leads from all of the companies had supported all the ones that were done in the past, this circumstance wouldn’t exist. That said, that doesn’t change the responsibility, but ti[sic] may impact on the manner in which that responsibility plays itself out.

What drives me insane about these kinds of arguments is two things. First, the idea that fans should have to come the entire distance seems like both a social responsibility and capitalism fail. If you’re failing to attract an audience that you would like to have, even if you think that audience is missing the point, means you’re not actually putting out a product that meets their needs. If you’re a company or an industry with a record of particular hostility towards a group of consumers you would like to attract, it seems fairly elementary that you might have to try particularly hard to bring those consumers in the door. Just saying. And second, the idea that “social responsibility” is just about attracting minority consumers is a million kinds of stupid. If you care about getting the most creative possible product to your readers, it’s entirely possible that the way to do that might not be with another super-even that pits one of your established teams against another, but by writing comics from new perspectives and about new issues. Just saying.

No matter how much we love our favorite bits of popular culture, we know that even the best shows — and the best characters — aren’t perfect. Here are 10 shows and franchises that could learn from each other — and that would produce some of the greatest, wackiest crossovers of all time.

1. Sons of Pawnee: I originally got this idea while talking to Maureen Ryan about who seems to have better stimulants: the Sons, or Leslie Knope. But it makes sense that Charming’s family-oriented motorcycle gang and Pawnee’s relentlessly cheery city government would go great together — if you could figure out which one represents the immovable object and which the irresistible force. First, Pawnee has a ridiculously traumatic history, from massacres to Death By Ice Flow for indecent exposure. SAMCRO’s arrival in town would just continue that noble tradition, and the creators of Pawnee’s public art could make up for the fact that Clay Morrow is pretty terrible at graffiti. The gang could carve Leslie up a new table to commemorate the City Council seat she’ll inevitably win. Gemma and Leslie could collaborate on a Taste of Pawnee. Chris could date Tara, who is literally the best small-town doctor on television. Joan Callamezzo and Tig Traeger can carry on a torrid affair. Now that Ben’s out at City Hall, he could take care of the Sons’ books. And if things went sideways, Ron would make sure that the Parks Department wasn’t short on guns, the Tammys could throw down with the SAMCRO Old Ladies, and Leslie and Tom could do surveillance and plan efficient, stylish counterstrikes.

2. Breaking Bad and Breaking Dawn: One of the most notable things about the Twilight books and movies is how bad Bella Swan’s parents are at their jobs. Renee, her mother, is a flake who basically dumps Bella with her father Charlie so Renee can gallivant around with her younger husband. Charlie has essentially no way to respond to Bella’s severe depression except by hoping she’ll end up with a different guy who can cheer her up. Neither of them is capable of having a real conversation with Bella about the fact that she’s not going to college and is getting married as a teenager, just as they did. Now, Walter White is no great shakes as a father either, whether he’s getting Walter Jr. drunk to the point of vomiting, buying his son a car the family can’t keep, or exposing his infant daughter to the dangers of meth dealing. Skyler White is a world champion self-deceiver, and only a mediocre plotter. But I bet the One Who Knocks, and the woman Who Protects This Family From the Man Who Protects This Family would have things to say about their daughter getting married out of high school to a totally mysterious dude who wrecked her emotionally. And failing that, some chemicals strong enough to blow up a vampire or dissolve him in a bathtub.

3. Doctor Who and Ugly Americans: I’m fond of the Doctor, but man does that guy get himself into a lot of trouble with all his gallivanting around. Clearly, what he and the Daleks need is a social worker with extensive experience in alien mediation and an integrationist approach to sharing a galaxy and a planet. Plus, it might be refreshing for him to have a male companion for once: less sexual tension, more TARDIS mini-fridges and dude-bonding. So the Doctor should totally rescue poor Mark Lilly from his zombie roommate and his terrible Craigslist New York apartment. But even then, there’s the risk that the Doctor and Mark would make a new enemy, one very irritable half-human, half-Devil supervisor at the Department of Integration.

4. Game of Thrones and Revenge: A Lannister always pays his debts. So, it turns out, do the Clarkes. Except they’re way more organized about it. While Cersei Lannister is revenge-fucking her brother to pay back her terrible abusive husband, turning into a drunken sot to get back at the people who doubt her, and continuing a pattern of humiliating her younger brother for the sin of being born; and while said younger brother is grousing about how he wants to rape and kill his older sister while tramping all over Westeros and Essos, Amanda Clarke is getting stuff done. Her training at the hands of a mysterious Japanese man appears to have been much more efficient (and less painful) than Arya Stark’s education in Braavos. And while it’s admittedly easier to wreak havoc on a bunch of unsuspecting rich people in the Hamptons than it is to take down a bunch of paranoid and heavily fortified nobles in Westeros, girlfriend is getting it done. Amanda should really set up an academy somewhere and get the Starks and various and sundry other heavily wronged people ready to kick ass for fun and profit.

5. Glee and Party Down: As graduation approaches for some of the members of New Directions and the Troubletones, their perpetual freakouts about what they’re going to do for the rest of their lives is getting more intense. The Party Down crew could explode all of their illusions, reminding them that even if you make it to the big city, sometimes you end up catering an eccentric array of parties rather than hoofing it on Broadway or the sassy gay friend on a Bravo show. Glee is at its best when its all kinds of dark. And while teenagers may not need their illusions crushed and then milled into a fine, tragic grain, it’s probably worth a reminder that a decent job and a good relationship aren’t failures.

I’ve said this before: the British miniseries State of Play is one of the all-time great pop culture looks at journalism and a fantastic murder mystery. And I’m saying it again because BBC America is airing the original, starting tonight, and you’re nuts if you watch anything else this evening — particularly because it gives us a chance to erase the memory of the totally mediocre American remake.

State of Play is one of the only cinematic explorations of journalism that works, precisely because it gets at how drawn-out the process of nailing down a good story is. Nailing down two murders, a corruption narrative, and a story about political maneuvering takes five reporters, with five different sets of sources. The story emphasizes that it takes different skills to work with disenfranchised residents of council housing than it does to massage a prime minister or browbeat a corporate executive. And State of Play recognizes the costs of doing that kind of work, of having a fidelity to the truth that overrides relationships or practical accommodations. How far can you pursue a story when you’re an editor with a wife who needs expensive medical care? What kind of person do you become when you subordinate past and future romantic relationships to your needs as a journalist? How justified is it to worry about your personal safety when you’re in pursuit of a story of national importance? It’s a vision of crusading journalism that’s unglamorous and deeply human, that recognizes that not everyone can bear the costs. Reporters like Cal McCaffrey are the elect not because they’re capable of goodness, but because they’re capable of its inverse.

It’s also a thrilling and effective look at the power and hollowness of political theater. We all love the idea of Congressional hearings where honest lawmakers take down corrupt witnesses, or noble witnesses reveal the pretentions and vanity of preening lawmakers, but State of Play shows us the choreography that goes into the rare moments when something like that happens. If you’ve ever wanted to see a political wife do something other than stand placidly by her erring husband, State of Play will let you watch one stick a knife in and twist it. And if you want to know what it’s like to be the press flack for some truly disgusting people, Michael Feast is pure acid as a man pushed to his absolute limit by the lies he’s supposed to tell.

This is not a comforting story. It’s not an argument that the political system is purifiable, or that the truth will set you free. State of Play is an argument for doing the best we possibly can, recognizing the costs that other people will pay to keep the rest of us as honest as possible. I don’t know that a standard that depressing is ultimately the one we should really be setting. But it’s probably worth acknowledging that in our present environment, it’s often harder and less rewarding to do the right thing, and we shouldn’t make false promises to the people who want to do it.

After a sojourn in the 1990s and oughts, we’re going back in time next week to discuss the 1962 movie adaptation of To Kill a Mockingbird. Get ready to get your Gregory Peck on.

This was my introduction to Oz, which all death penalty politics aside, was a fascinating experience. I tend to think of Breaking Bad as the most self-consciously artsy show on cable, particularly with the way it uses color. But Oz feels vastly more deliberately artificial, from Harold Perrineau’s narration and the backdrops thereof, from the way the show uses super-woozy shots to try to communicate what it feels like to be high. And the episodes are set up to feel like short story collections. Which makes it interesting to pick the story of Shirley Bellinger out of the fragmented glimpses we get of her.

She’s an interesting case: clearly and unrepentently guilty, but not particularly sympathetic, either. Some of the reason she’s off-putting is the way she performs her chilliness. “How comfy,” she says when she’s introduced to her cell. The facade of normality she puts on her imprisonment is downright unnerving. “Please, be seated. Would you like some tea? May I call you Tim?” she asks one of the prison administrators, immediately establishing that she’s in control. “The warden has informed me that I may choose the means by which I will die, and I thought you might be able to help me pick one out.” You’d think she was in denial, except then she simulates her own hanging with the yarn she keeps in her room. When another death row inmate asks what she had for her last meal, she tells him, “A nice Slim-Fast milkshake. A girl’s got to protect her figure, even if she’s a corpse.” Her composure is aimed at treating her jailers — and ultimately, the people who will execute her — like they’re the crazy ones, particularly when it lets her play with them and deny them information. “My lover was Satan in the form of a man,” Shirley says on her way to the gallows. “A lady never reveals such secrets. But I’ll give you a hint. Neither rain, nor snow.”

And that facade of normality, that attempt to put everyone else on edge, makes her less sympathetic when she tries to connect or to play for sympathy. “I’m wondering why anyone cares what my thoughts were,” she tells the news team interviewing her right before her execution. “Sure as hell didn’t didn’t care when my husband was drunk and beating me. Or when my father-in-law raped me. It wasn’t until I killed my daughter, that I did something horrific.” Shirley is living in a logic of her own making, where the failure of the system and the rules of society to protect her justify any attempt to be, as Augustus Hill puts it, “remembered for a thousand years. The things you did reaching across time and touching people not yet born…that’s why people write books, start religions, find cures.”
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The bridge is yours.

-Verizon may get into the streaming content market.

-David Fincher would like to ban all early screenings for critics.

-Now I really want a journalism-during-the-apocalypse movie.

-If SOPA fails in Congress, the courts could take up the cause.

-I feel like there are pretty strong incentives not to mouth off to your captors while in jail in space:

It’s the holiday season, which means it’s time for a bunch of people to release parody songs, try to rile folks up by getting edgy, or simply to make their share of the annual market. Here are the contenders so far:

1. Johnny Depp, making a cameo on Babybird’s “Jesus Stag Night Club”: Oh, people, this is not good. If you’re at the level of describing Jesus as having “hair like a lady/ Bloody thorns round his ear like he was a crazy,” you’re telling us a lot more about your powers of observation and ability to write creative lyrics — and apparently, your fondness for Tucker Max-inflected bros’ nights out. Take one of this article for The Onion and call me when you have better ideas. And Christians who are offended? Let this one go. It’s not going to find legs:

2. In the parody category, “You’re A Mean One, Newt Gingrich“: Points off for sexist and creative fail referring to Callista as a “bimbo,” and for the media criticism fail of missing the Judd Apatow revolution in telling us “Unless you’re there for pity or laughs, a portly man will never find success on TV, unless you’re Santa Claus, of course.” That said, it’s a decent facsimile, of course. And given the depths that the Republican presidential field has sunk to, musically, this is fitting. Still, it’s hard to beat Adam Sandler for loose, goofy holiday parody.

3. She & Him, “Baby It’s Cold Outside”: My extreme dislike of New Girl doesn’t mean my heart is too stony to occasionally be softened by the dulcet tones of Zooey Deschanel’s side hustle. As Bitch points out, the song doesn’t get any less date-rapey when you swap the genders (the parts in the original song are labeled “mouse” and “wolf”). But the light touch and the creepy material still make this nicely unnerving in a way Johnny Depp and his pals could only dream of:

4. Yoko Ono and the Flaming Lips, “Atlas Eets Chrismas”: They go all Kings’ Chorus and world-historical empathetic on this, and I’m not going to lie. It’s both totally corny and kind of great:

After Kate Cox’s guest stint here, you all should know how phenomenal she is. But I wanted to pull out this passage from a recent post about why the idea that we can “just play” video games, or “just enjoy” any form of popular culture, is a privilege, not a default setting:

The ability never to be alienated by the games we play or by the people who play them is the very core of privilege. Bust out that p-word and gamers get riotous, but there’s no way around it. Despite all of the crap that’s been handed to me over the last three decades, I have privilege by the metric ton. I’m as white as white can be, identify perfectly well with the sex and gender I was born with, and have almost exclusively heterosexual attractions. In those senses, I’m pretty thoroughly represented in game worlds, plots, narratives, and characters. Further, I have two good hands, two good eyes, and two good ears — so I’m pretty thoroughly catered to in terms of game mechanics, audio-visual design, and control schemes. For a number of my friends and peers? The layers of crap to deal with just never end.

The golden days of everyone being able to “just play a game,” if any such days exist, are ahead of us still, not lying dormant in some sepia-tinted past. They are the same as the golden days of all our other pop culture and pop art: lying in a society that’s come to terms with understanding sex, gender, race, and a whole lot more.

And beyond that, I think it’s important to point out a larger assumption behind that language, which crops up periodically here in comments, when someone wants to tell me that Twilight is “just a movie” or that I’m “overthinking” something: that art is meant to reaffirm our sense of the world and to make us comfortable, rather than to shake us up. There’s no question that art can be used that way — looking at British painters in India makes it clear how eager the British were to reaffirm their own sense of their colonial project. But does that mean that’s the highest function to which art can aspire? I don’t particularly think so. Art can entertain and push at the same time. Telling the same old stories and reaffirming the same old ideas isn’t just boring. It’s anesthetizing.

I was glad to hear that Pixar was letting a girl have an adventure in Brave, its first movie with a female protagonist. But I think their next project with a girl as a main character might be even more important: their teased movie set inside the human mind is going to be inside a girl’s brain and “is about her emotions as characters.” First, it’s just really nice that Pixar isn’t assuming that the default brain is a guy’s, which is honestly what I would have expected, given both their track record of having more male heroes and the assumption in the industry as a whole that the default perspective is male. Second, while I don’t like the Twilight books or movies, I agree that there’s a bunch of under-explored pop culture territory to get inside women’s heads, not just their closets. Girls have competing priorities, social anxieties, and joys even when they’re very young. A movie that gets at and honors that complexity, rather than giving this representative girl one emotion and one object of desire, is important.