I’m headed off on vacation, but I’ll be around, though at a reduced rate, over the next week and a half. I promise not to do what I did over Thanksgiving and get too sick to do anything but read The Diana Chronicles and drink tea!

And for those of you celebrating the second night of Hanukkah, have nerdy Jews riffing on Taio Cruz:

Because if there are two things this blog loves, it’s colorblocking and deeply cheesy pop.

In my column for The Loop 21, I revisited John Howard Griffin’s Black Like Me 50 years after he published his account of going undercover as a black man in the South. I was particularly interested in the way contemporary critics treated the project, which has queasy elements of blackface read today, even if it produced interesting moral revelations:

That basic challenge for the project isn’t something that’s simply evident now. In 1964, Brendan Gill wrote a scathing review in the New Yorker of the movie based on Griffin’s novel, arguing:

He is…rather simple-minded, for though he intends to turn his findings into a series of sensational pieces in a national magazine, he considers his ‘passing’ less a journalistic stunt than a self-imposed spiritual ordeal, the harsh consequences of which, in middle age and with many years of reporting behind him, he surely had little reason to be astonished by…he makes considerable trouble for his new-found Negro friends in the course of a masquerade that necessarily takes greater advantage of them than it does of whites, and that, in the end, merely confirms what has been a fact accepted for generations, however little it may have been acted on: that life for the Negro in a small Southern town is made tolerable only by his extraordinary feats of accommodation, most of them continuously humiliating.

But Dan Wakefield, in a New York Times review of the book published on October 22, 1961, suggested that such understanding wasn’t nearly as widespread as the New Yorker would suggest four years later. He wrote:

The daily indignities of living as a Negro in America are not ‘news’ and are seldom written about. Dramatic outbreaks of racial conflict make the front-page stories, but in order to begin to understand them—and what lies behind them—it is necessary first to be aware of the routine torments of discrimination as they plague the everyday life of particular individuals.

If fifty years has convinced some people that putting on blackface is an innocuous act, it hasn’t lessened the desire to see what happens when white and black Americans switch roles. FX repeated Griffin’s experiment and fused it with reality television in 2006 in a six-part series, Black.White., that not only had a black and white family exchange races, but had them live together in a more sedate version of a Real World house.

It may be easier to be a tourist in someone else’s life today than it was during John Howard Griffin’s expedition, and there may still be uncomfortable truths to be gleaned from those experiences. But all these experiments assume that visiting another country—even if it’s your own—will actually teach you what it means to live there. Sometimes the greatest possible act of sympathy is to acknowledge that you can’t understand the entirety of someone else’s experiences.

There’s something interesting about the fact that we’ve gone from blackface as an act of sympathy with a despised class to blackface as act of cultural appropriation. But gaining cultural capital doesn’t mean you’ve beaten discrimination. And assigning cultural capital can be a form of treating people as a monolith rather than individuals.

My friend Rhome Anderson has an intriguing piece up on the Root about Common’s latest dilemma. The rapper, who’s struggled to reconcile his conscious and club-friendly sides, asked Maya Angelou to contribute a verse to a song on his new album. And unshockingly, the doyenne was apparently distressed by the use of the word “nigger” in the song, though she released a statement late yesterday explaining that “I will not be divided from Common. By anybody’s imagination, he is brilliant and even genius, maybe…But certainly smarter than us to know that he’s in process…It may even take two or three weeks, or a month. But I’m not going to be separated from him.” Rhome points out that absorbing Angelou into a semi-predictable declaration-of-greatnesss banger is part of a larger challenge:

Why can’t a reasonable individual enjoy both books and booty — or spiritual pursuits and pursuit of spirits — and channel them into his or her music? In a post-Outkast-and-Kanye West world, that tired question shouldn’t have to be asked anymore. But In the case of The Dreamer/The Believer, the integration isn’t working. Common doesn’t sound as if he’s sharing the naturally variant facets of who he is; he sounds like he’s trying too hard to convince the listener of their plausibility.

Earlier, Common regularly mixed raw couplets with his thoughtful ones and rarely struck an awkward note, at least not until a pair of unfortunate clunkers that he delivered on Kid Cudi’s 2009 “Make Her Say,” when he instructs a sexual conquest to “get up on this conscious d–k.” Today Common is struggling more acutely with topical tone deafness.

Now it’s true that no matter the genre, we tend to see artists in terms of their key concerns, whether it’s Cameron Crowe’s Manic Visionary Dream Boys, Roman Polanski’s obsession with claustrophobic spaces, Neal Stephenson’s tech geniuses, Neil Gaiman’s deities, Michael Chabon’s angsty Jews. But we also tend to appreciate artists who can successfully jump genres or obsessions. We like Joan Didion because she can do boardrooms and squats and murder scenes and her own husband’s death. If someone tries to make that leap and fails, it’s one thing, but if they can do it successfully, that would seem to be praiseworthy rather than an identity crisis.

I also wonder if the perceived kerfuffle between Angelou and Common has anything to do with shifting norms in hip-hop. I’m not any sort of expert on how this works behind the scenes, and would welcome input if anyone out there wants to offer it. But is the sense when Angelou does a guest verse, or Rihanna shows up to sing the hook on “All of the Lights” that they have input in the overall shape of the song? Or is it just a matter of the main rapper engineering rather than searching for the perfect sample? I’ve always been interested in whether the replacement of samples of women’s voices with women singing hooks specific to new songs gave women any more actual voice in the production of individual tracks.

Tim Carmody on NBC’s announcement that they’ll live-stream the Super Bowl for those unwilling or unable to gather around a truly giant flatscreen and risk stroke for the big day:

Last week, when the NFL announced renewed multimillion dollar broadcast deals with NBC, CBS and FOX, league commissioner Roger Goodell promised more digital innovation from the NFL and its TV partners. “The networks will continue their outstanding coverage of the NFL,” Goodell said, “while also helping to deliver more football to more fans using the best and most current technology.”

“We don’t want to limit ourselves to people not in front of the TV,” NBC Sports VP Rick Cordella said in a story for NBCSports.com. “The playoffs are appointment viewing,” Cordella added. “People schedule their day around it.”

If NBC’s Super Bowl experiment is a success, what other tentpole events could benefit from the same treatment? Besides other sports staples like the World Series, Wimbledon or the World Cup, you could also imagine popular interactive events like the American Idol finale or must-see award shows like the Oscars migrating to viewers’ iPads.

Remember two years ago, when ABC and Cablevision’s brinkmanship in a dispute over broadcast fees nearly kept the Oscars off the air for millions of New York-area cable customers? That entire dispute could have changed completely if ABC had simulcast the awards show online.

I still think that most viewers who actually consider these events appointment viewing will try to be in front of big screens. But if big events producers want their stuff streamed online (and I assume they’d be starting to build those demand into contracts, though I could be wrong), it’ll be a good spur for networks to build out their apps, websites, and capacity to handle significant simultaneous traffic. Not to mention, a great hook for audiences who might not have been watching online to get introduced to well-built, legal ways to get access to the content that they want.

We’ll resume on January 4 with Judgment at Nuremberg.

12 Angry Men is a wonderful movie, from the way it captures conversational rhythms (“That’s not bad, considering marmalade.”), to the careful way the jurors break down the case. But it’s a film that’s much more frightening than it is affirming. Lots of people have bad lawyers. Not everyone has an architect in white sweep into the jury room like an angel and do the work that defense lawyers and judges don’t. And it’s an illustration of how our assumptions about justice have become twisted, and how to reverse them a bit at a time.

It’s fascinating to watch Juror 8, a typically magnificent Henry Fonda, prosecute his case and to reverse his fellow jurors’ assumptions. When the jurors fist vote, a number of them don’t vote guilty until they see how the trend is going among their fellow jurors. They think it would be hard to be alone, but Juror 8 suggests that they’re doing the more difficult thing by consenting, telling them: “It’s not easy to raise my hand and send a boy off to die without talking about it first.” Then, there’s the assumption that doing due diligence as jurors is a form of sappiness rather than responsibility or sign of strength. “Why don’t you donate $5 to the cause and maybe it’ll make you feel better,” one of his impatient fellows grumbles at Juror 8, while another suggests that a jury trial is a privilege not to be expected: “He got a fair trial. What do you think that trial cost? He’s lucky to get it.” But eventually, Juror 11, a naturalized American, articulates why doing their jobs is a powerful thing. “That we are notified by mail to come down to this place to decide the guilt or innocence of a man we have never met before,” he tells his fellow deliberators. “This is one of the reasons we are strong. This is not a personal thing.” Gradually, almost all of them begin looking for clues, a critical turn in the case coming when the timid little man who goes along with the crowd notices the glasses marks on a fellow juror’s face that discredits the last piece of evidence standing.

And on a higher level, 12 Angry Men does a tremendously powerful job of making the desire to execute our fellow citizens, no matter their offenses, look perverse and unreliable rather than admirable, particularly in the climactic exchange between Juror 8 and Juror 3. “Are you his executioner?” Juror 8 asks the man who is most determined to convict no matter the evidence. “I’m one of them,” Juror 3 says, and when Juror 8 asks if he wants to pull the switch on the electric chair himself, insists, “For this kid, you bet I would.” Juror 8′s contempt is withering: “I feel sorry for you. What it must feel like to want to pull the switch. Ever since you walked into this room you’ve been acting like a self-appointed public avenger. You want this boy to die because you personally want it, not because of the facts. You’re a sadist.” I worry that a speech like this today would come across as the rankest liberal condescension. But it’s a critical point to make, that bloodlust isn’t admirable. Even if a dispassionate examination of the facts reveals someone to be guilty, there’s nothing attractive about wanting to kill them.

I have mixed feelings about the way the movie ultimately treats Juror 3. Humanizing him may make it easier for death penalty opponents to sympathize with him and his conversion. But not everyone who gets irrationally enthusiastic about the prospect of executions has a reason, however specious, for that sentiment. If it was just victims or parents of criminals who enthusiastically supported the death penalty, there would be a rationality to it. But it’s rooted in something broader in our culture, something less explicable, and less easy to contain. “Administration of justice is the firmest power of good,” is inscribed over the courthouse where the trial and deliberation take place. But it’s not necessarily clear that we believe it, much less that we’re willing to remove obstacles to that administration.

The bridge is yours.

-Me. Maureen Ryan. Ryan McGee. Todd VanDerWerff. Homeland. Parks and Recreation. You know what to do.

-Some of the best television lines of the year.

-Brave‘s fired female director talks Belle, her daughter as inspiration, and her split with Pixar.

-Super-cute Game of Thrones house banners.

-Art, healing, and the Happy Valley.

When I was writing yesterday’s post about dictators and culture, I was reminded of how fascinated I’ve always been by the women who the partners of authoritarian or repressive leaders. They’re a fascinating reminder that second-wavey ideas about women being more peaceful or nurturing than men can be entirely and terrifyingly untrue. And they’re a great way of examining the moral choices that allow such regimes to thrive.

1.The Director: Jiang Qing. I should have mentioned this former actress as a perfect example of the dictatorial effort to set up the government as a source of joy by dominating culture, and you could tell a fabulously scary story about her through a look at a single production. She interfered with the Beijing Opera, interfered what she called “revolutionary plays” ran the film section of Communist China’s propaganda ministry, and even discovered Joan Chen. Glee and Smash would have absolutely nothing on her in a story that could be about both the coercive power of government and the tyranny of people who are convinced they’re artistic visionaries.

2. The Escapee: Malyamu Amin. To a certain extent, The Last King of Scotland is an exploration of the life and death of Kay Amin, Idi Amin’s youngest wife, who is said to have had an abortion go wrong. But the movie isn’t from Kay’s perspective — her mutilated body is the means by which an arrogant young Scottish doctor comes to consciousness. And wouldn’t it be fascinating to see a tyrant through the eyes of his first wife, to try to understand what it must be like to see your husband become a monster — and to watch her make the decision to get out?

3. The Mother: Sajida Khairallah Talfah. Gillian Darmody and the other nightmare mothers of antihero television have precisely nothing on Saddam Hussein’s first wife in terms of producing deeply messed-up. One of her sons, Uday Hussein, was apparently a serial rapist and killed the man he believed introduced Saddam to his second wife at a party for another authoritarian leader’s wife, Suzanne Mubarak. He also ran a nasty little sideline torturing Iraqi athletes who underperformed in world competitions. Her other son, Qusay, managed to keep his crimes at the level of the state, wiping out the environment that was the home to the Marsh Arabs and rare bird species, and cracking down on dissidents. Her husband may have also murdered her brother. What can it be like to be the widow to such a man? The mother to such dead sons? She does play a role in House of Saddam.

4. The Pretender: Magda Goebbels: In a sense, she was the closest thing Germany had to a first lady, because Adolf Hitler hid his relationship with Eva Braun to avoid putting anything in the way of German women’s fantasies. A wealthy divorcee when she married Goebbels, she was humiliated by his affairs (though she had her own) and asked Hitler for permission to divorce his propaganda minister. Ultimately, they stayed together, and Magda supported the regime even though she privately doubted it, made no move to save her Jewish stepfather from death in a concentration camp, and helped kill her six children before killing herself with her husband. Again, it’s not as if there haven’t been portrayals of her on film before. But it would be fascinating and dreadful to see the story from her perspective, to see Magda go from bourgie flirt to participant in a genocidal regime.

5. Eva Peron, again. Sure, we’ve got Evita. And yes, her husband is nowhere near as bad as the spouses of the other women on this list. But in some ways, the more interesting story about Eva Peron is what happened to her after she died. Her enbalmed body was supposed to go on display in a monument that would rival the Statue of Liberty. Instead, it vanished for 16 years, and she ended up buried under another name in Milan. Tomás Eloy Martínez’s Santa Evita turns the mystery into a macabre and fascinating horror, complete with wax replicas and corpse desecration. But either way, it’s a fascinating illustration of how an even more restrictive regime tried to erase the memory of the one that followed it, and to dismantle a cult of personality.

I didn’t write anything on the occasion of Christopher Hitchens’ death, because I didn’t feel like I had much to add. I never met him, though we were neighbors, and I occasionally saw him getting out of cabs. There are candles, flowers, and bottles of whisky in a makeshift shrine outside his building. And I wasn’t overly influenced by his writing, though this line from a review of Philip Roth remains an all-time great: “When Raymond Chandler felt things going limp in a story, he would have the door open and then it would be: Enter a man carrying a gun. When Roth is in the same fix, we know that some luckless goy chick is about to get it in the face. Exit reader.” But I’ve rather enjoyed watching the people who did know first Hitchens glorify him — and by extension themselves — and then dissect him. And I love this parody, by Neal Pollack, of the whole arc:

Christopher Hitchens and I were friends for 40 years, plus another five when we were enemies. He took ideas so seriously that if he disagreed with you on a matter that he deemed important, he’d literally throw you in a ditch. It was 1972, the height of our mutual virility. He and I went to a pub to celebrate his most recent intellectual victory over the establishment press. I intimated that sometimes women could be funny on purpose. Even back then, the thought enraged him. Hitchens threw a drink in my face, pressed a lit cigarette into my neck, and hit me over the head with a barstool. The next thing I knew, it was two days later and I was lying hogtied and naked beside the M5. Hitch had already severely damaged my reputation in a vicious essay in the Guardian. But that’s how he operated, and that’s why we loved him.

It’s rather wonderfully reminiscent of Woody Allen’s “A Twenties Memory” (and by extension Midnight in Paris):

I remember one afternoon we were sitting at a gay bar in the south of France with our feet comfortably up on stools in the north of France, when Gertrude Stein said, “I’m nauseous.” Picasso thought this to be very funny and Matisse and I took it as a cue to leave for Africa. Seven weeks later, in Kenya, we came upon Hemingway. Bronzed and bearded now, he was already beginning to develop that familiar flat prose style about the eyes and mouth. Here, in the unexplored dark continent, Hemingway had braved chapped lips a thousand times. “What’s doing, Ernest?” I asked him. He waxed eloquent on death and adventure as only he could, and when I awoke he had pitched camp and sat around a great fire fixing us all fine derma appetizers. I kidded him about his new beard and we laughed and sipped cognac and then we put on some boxing gloves and he broke my nose.

Hitchens seems to have been singularly successful at setting up his approval and friendship as highly valuable commodities, less Orwell than the version of Gertrude Stein in Allen’s story. I can understand why, I suppose. In an age of specialists, generalists hold a special fascination. A capacity for alcohol can seem like an important marker of physical tolerance in an intellectual community (though I think Katha Pollitt does a particularly nice job dismantling why that should be true). And if you know someone with the capacity to pronounce loudly and emphatically on your fitness as a person and a thinker, all the better to have them pronounce in your favor. It’s fun being a sage or judge. But I’m always curious about the impulse to make yourself an acolyte.

I’m obviously thrilled to see good ratings for Homeland‘s first-season finale: I like seeing pop culture behave like a meritocracy once in a while. But it got me thinking about whether or not Showtime’s new hit is trading off with All-American Muslim, which is seeing a downturn in viewership. 10 p.m. on a Sunday is obviously a tough time for a family-oriented show in any case, and I’d be curious to see how the show did in another slot, like 8 p.m. on Fridays. But it also meant that a show specifically designed to dismantle misconceptions about American Muslims by showing them living and debating their faith was running against a show that poked holes in stereotypes about Islam and terrorism and gave one of its main characters space to explain his conversion and show him at prayer. It would be great to open up new audiences to that conversation. But that takes time. And it’s too bad to have two shows with those themes competing with each other.