This post discusses plot points from the third and fourth episodes of the first season of Veronica Mars.

Noir is mannered, but I admit through the first several episodes of Veronica Mars, the show’s stylized nature was keeping me at a bit of a distance. That all changed with these two episodes of the show. It’s not so much that the cases got to me—I suspect that after the first two episodes, which used crimes to pull the basic cast of characters together, that Veronica’s clients will be a little more disposable. It’s that the, despite its use of private eye conventions, and in fact because of them, Veronica Mars became piercingly emotional in these two episodes, which focused substantially on the relationships between parents and children. In noir, everyone has secrets, but in Veronica Mars, the gap between public and private selves takes less time to unravel, or at least to become apparent. But that doesn’t mean that Veronica is free to send clients on her way faster than Sam Spade—instead, mysteries matter less than the consequences they open up.

In her first case, Veronica is employed by a boy named Justin to find his father—except that as far as Justin knows, his father is dead, and the gig is just an excuse for him to talk to Veronica and to give her mix CDs built around 311 releases. But instead of pulling off a successful ploy, Justin ends up discovering something that requires much more maturity from him than the quota that’s required to hit on a cool, older girl. His father’s transitioned and is living as a woman named Julia, played beautifully by Melissa Leo, who regularly patronizes the movie rental business where Justin works so she can have a chance to talk to him about film and take his recommendations. In one of the slyest, most impressive arguments for tolerance I’ve seen, she is clearly and deeply loved by the man she lived with. And Justin is in terrible pain not just because he’s discovered that his father abandoned him, but because his mother couldn’t trust him to react well to the truth.

“This is hard, I know. I wish I could have found a way to tell you,” Julia tells Justin. “This is something I had to do. This is who I am.” Justin is focused on the betrayal rather than the rare opportunity he has not just to be loved again, but to act like the kind of man Veronica would admire, until Veronica explains what it would mean to her to know that her mother wanted to visit her, even in disguise. “90 miles,” Veronica tells Justin. “That’s the distance your dad travels every week to see you for a few seconds. Look, my mom’s been missing, too, and I would give anything to feel that she cared enough about me to do that.” The case ends, and Justin’s resolution begins, with him tentatively calling his mother to tell her that the copy of Body Heat he recommended to her and special ordered for her has arrived—and giving her his regular schedule. The mystery matters far less than the emotional landscape that it opened up, noir’s secrets giving way to the complexities of contemporary life, which is difficult enough even before you introduce guns, gumshoes, and dames to die for into the mix.

As Julia’s taking the risk that Justin can love her as his mother, rather than his father, Keith Mars is confronting his daughter’s maturity, rather than his worries about her lack of it.
When he’s called into the principal’s office because she wants to tell him “We’ve noticed a dramatic change in [Veronica] over the last year. She’s late, a lot. She has attitude with certain teachers. She falls asleep in class. And socially she seems a bit isolated,” Keith downplays these changes. “I’d say Veronica is doing pretty well given the circumstances,” he tells the principal. “I can handle it, thank you.” But while he can manage Veronica’s behavior in limited ways, he can’t exactly arrest the forward march of time. When he asks Veronica about her first date with Troy, he’s rattled by her explanation that it was “Lousy conversation, but the sex was fantastic.” He gets territorial when the two keep seeing each other. “If he’s going to be kissing my daughter on my front porch for eight and a half minutes, I’m going to have to meet him,” Keith demands. “He’s taking up a lot of daddy-daughter time.” And Keith can even use his private-eye skills to put the kibosh on Veronica’s plans for homecoming. “You won’t mind, then, that I cancelled your reservation at the Four Seasons?” he tells Troy over Diet Cokes. But tracking down hotel registers one at time can only go so far—Keith’s business, in fact, depends on the idea that the world will stay richly supplied in venality. He can intimidate Troy out of sleeping with his daughter on one occasion, but he can’t predict her slipping out of her red dress and racing into the water in Lily Kane’s memory, can’t stop her from being exposed to hurt and seeking out new forms of joy.
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Last week, I wrote that HBO’s idea—I would not yet describe it as a plan—to let consumers buy HBO Go subscriptions from their internet service providers seemed like the most likely way to solve the problem of letting people buy stand-alone HBO Go without subscribing to HBO through a cable package: it would freak out cable companies and lead to retaliation against HBO before the streaming market was rigorous enough to support it. I was writing mostly from a consumer perspective then, but fortunately, friend of the blog Gabriel Rossman is here to write about what this adaptative mindset means for the way we conceive of our ability to freely access content that streams over the internet. He argues that it’s a short-term victory for access to certain content that’s a long-term defeat:

Suppose that your ISP isn’t happy with HBO’s offer to let it keep half the money from IP only HBO Go (which it would price at or above the price it charges tv customers) because it really wants to keep pushing you towards that “triple play” package its telemarketers keep harassing you with? Well, that ISP can just refuse to sell HBO GO to its broadband-only customers. And unlike Netflix, the ISP would actually be able to veto your purchase. It’s structurally very similar to car dealerships, where local brokers are terrified of (and can use their clout to prevent) translocal competition. This one is actually kind of scary. Imagine if you could only subscribe to the New York Times through your condo’s HOA, which would otherwise deny building access to the paperboy?

There are some ways in which this would still create problems for the cable operators, mostly in that it would undermine the two-part tariff aspect of their business model, but I think this is effectively obviated by the local veto aspect of the proposal. Moreover, cable operators are increasingly showing signs that they see the bundling aspect of their business model unraveling (mostly because carriage fees are out of control) and are willing to settle for a role of brokerage, without bundling. (Note that data caps, which don’t apply to content bought from your ISP, help enforce this brokerage role since they effectively let your ISP tax content bought on the open market).

This, of course, is all dependent on a world where high-speed internet access is something we purchase individually. If municipal wireless networks or municipal broadband ever really take off, or we move to the idea that high-speed internet access is a right rather than a commodity, then the broker role of internet service providers would be disrupted. But as long as we’re each paying to get online in the first place, even if we’re paying less money than we used to and for a higher-quality product, we’re in a position where we’ve accepted ISPs as toll-takers. That they’re going to make like Delaware and get every penny out of us for as long as they can shouldn’t come as any particular surprise.

Over at Buzzfeed, Adam B. Vary is absolutely right to suggest that, as the late-night television lineup seems poised for another reshuffle as NBC’s relationship with Jay Leno deteroirates, it would be awfully nice if the networks considered candidates for the positions about to be opened up who aren’t the interchangeable white men who have largely dominated those time slots since time immemorial, or at least since Johnny Carson. And I think it’s worth making a larger point in conjunction with his argument: it’s going to be disappointing if the spaces opened up by Leno’s canning and subsequent reshuffling produce not just the same faces, but the same formats, particularly given the waves of experimentation that have been taking place outside of the major networks for years.

There’s the political model, which started in its current incarnation over at Comedy Central. Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert may not hail from exactly the same schools of comedy as David Letterman, Jimmy Fallon, and Jay Leno, but they’re marked by the same general demographics. It’s what they’ve done behind the desks on their respective sets that’s different. While Stewart and Colbert take on a wide array of topics, they’re doing so not from a general interest perspective but from carefully honed political ones. Their business model aims for ferocious loyalty among a segment of the population they’ve chosen to pursue specifically, rather than pulling from across the political spectrum as a whole. It’s worldview, rather than schtick that’s the initial selling point, Stewart’s righteousness and Colbert’s gleeful satire rather than signature bits like David Letterman’s top ten lists or Jimmy Fallon’s rapport with his musical guests, though of course Stewart and Colbert sold those, too. FX has subsequently taken a step beyond the innovation that Colbert and Stewart represented with Totally Biased With W. Kamau Bell, the intensely political African-American comic who honed his act in the Bay Area stand-up scene before moving to late-night, where he’s ditched the suits and the presumption of white dudeness, and brought along correspondents who don’t look much like the men in ties who largely dominate Stewart and Colbert’s shows, too, like lesbian comic Janine Brito.

And Bell isn’t the only person of color in late night in recent years, nor is Brito the only woman or only non-straight person. Vary called out George Lopez’s TBS show, cancelled when Conan O’Brien moved to the network, as an example of innovation both with hosts and format. T.J. Holmes is attempting to make a go of it on BET. And Arsenio Hall is rolling out a new late-night talk show that will be distributed through CBS syndication sometime later this fall. Wanda Skyes had her shot at late-night hosting in 2010. Chelsea Handler and Kathy Griffin have hosted late-night talk shows, if not the conventional late-night variety standards. And over at Bravo, Andy Cohen has built a successful franchise out of his Watch What Happens Live recap show, which features Bravo talent as well as other guests, and is known for a boozy, playful atmosphere—one of his bits of schtick is to have visitors play games with Cohen as a way of loosening them up. The fact that show has worked is one of the reasons we’ve seen things like The Talking Dead on AMC: as is the case with political shows, other niche late-night programming that lets fans process ideas they’re intensely interested in has become a viable alternative to the general interest show. But these alternative experiments in late night programming seem to be off in their own world, rather than acting as a farm team for the existing business model, which means that diversity of format as well as of hosts is off percolating elsewhere, rather than rising to the networks.

Laura Bennett is right, of course, that the internet and the possibility of content going viral has had an enormous influence on the way late night shows structure their bits—it’s almost a reverse response to Daniel Tosh’s clip shows, where the late night hosts want to manufacture the videos that go huge, rather than discuss and drive traffic to someone else’se work. Jimmy Fallon’s recruitment of The Roots was probably the biggest staffing innovation in recent years, a reason to come for the house band rather than just the host, and in keeping with Fallon’s determination to be a musical tastemaker, rather than simply responding to musical trends. It makes sense that late night hosts would want to be drivers of the culture, active aggregators and curators, rather than simply party hosts riding the hot new trend—you’ve got a better argument that audiences should tune in during the time slot if they might witness the emergence of Odd Future on the national stage, rather than if your’e going to interview Tyler The Creator six months after he emerges onto the national consciousness. But I’m curious to see what different kinds of hosts would choose to elevate if given the chance, and curious for someone who’s going to offer a new way to stage those debuts. Suits, desks, and white guys are all fine on their own. But they aren’t the only way to do things.

The bridge is yours.

-The person who stole a Breaking Bad script from Bryan Cranston’s car really does not care about spoilers.

-The wigs of Phil Spector, as portrayed by Al Pacino.

-Upworthy is a year old today!

-Beyonce is a queen even when she’s animated.

-More Iron Man 3.

The Cosmopolitan Hotel in Las Vegas has made a splash in advertising circles with a racy new print spread that portrays bellhops as a symbol of a very different kind of quality and service:

I’m all for the general recognition that heterosexual women like to look as much as heterosexual men, and that as consumers, we’re not necessarily going to be satisfied by the idea that, say, gorgeous women should settle for funny, schlubby guys who don’t have their lives together. But what struck me most about this ad wasn’t that the bellhop was naked below the waist—it was that we don’t see his face at all. It’s one of the most literal transfigurations of a man—and in particular, a service employee—into an object of consumption that I’ve seen. Men, when they become sex objects, are not generally considered to have handed in their brains in the same way that gorgeous women are often expected to behave as mute objects. Channing Tatum may take his clothes off in Magic Mike, but the whole point of the movie is that there’s a brain and a heart somewhere to the north of that gyrating pelvis. Giving heterosexual women eye candy may seem like a form of third-wave equality. But if the form of that eye candy becomes a race to the bottom where it’s not clear whether women or men are treated worse or presented as more powerless or unrealistic, that doesn’t seem like much of a win.

Mike Freeman from CBS Sports reported Monday that “a current gay NFL player is strongly considering coming out publicly within the next few months — and after doing so, the player would attempt to continue his career.” That’s a move that would break one of the biggest barriers in American professional sports, which have never had an openly gay male athlete.

Last month, I talked to Travon Free, a former basketball player at California State-Long Beach who came out as bisexual after his career ended, about what an openly gay athlete would mean both to sports and to the overall movement for equality, and he told me that the first openly gay male athlete would be equivalent to Jackie Robinson. But the NFL may be even more ready for an openly gay player than baseball was for Jackie. Players like Scott Fujita, Brendan Ayanbadejo, and Chris Kluwe have endorsed the fights for gay rights both in and out of sports, and players pushed the league to add sexual orientation to its nondiscrimination provision in 2011. Even negative events — Chris Culliver’s anti-gay comments before the Super Bowl and reports that teams were asking draftees like Manti Te’o if they “like girls” — were greeted with positive responses from players, the union, and the NFL itself. And NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, who has a gay brother, could see the breaking of this barrier as a positive part of his legacy.

With that in mind, here are four lessons from Jackie Robinson’s integration of baseball that could allow the first openly gay player to overcome challenges and have the broadest impact possible:

Be a quality player: Being a top-notch player isn’t a requirement for the first openly gay player, but it would maximize the social impact and minimize the risk of facing backlash from management, fans, and opponents. Less prominent players may run into problems with their teams or fans as the first open player, but no one will care about sexuality if, say, a gay wide receiver catches 85 passes and scores 10 touchdowns next year. A recognizable player also would broaden the social impact, both inside and outside sports, of having an openly gay athlete, just as Jackie Robinson’s breaking of the color barrier would not have had such an immediate impact had he not also become a star. Robinson won the Rookie of the Year award in 1947; by 1949, he was the game’s Most Valuable Player. In three years, Robinson proved not only that blacks could compete with whites but that they could be the best player in a league full of people who thought blacks were racially inferior, and that star power stretched his outcome outside the game as well. A prominent player won’t only face less risk, he’ll make it easier for others to come out in his wake while boosting the LGBT movement outside of sports as well.

Be in a conducive locker room: One of the lasting images of baseball’s integration came when Pee Wee Reese, the Dodgers’ white southern shortstop, embraced Robinson in the middle of the field. It was a message to players and fans that Robinson, no matter his skin color, was welcome to play the game. How white players would accept a black teammate was certainly a major concern then, and much has been made of football’s “locker room culture” preventing the game from becoming an inclusive place for gay athletes. This is somewhat overblown, in my view, and Free told me that he never heard teammates say they wouldn’t play with a gay teammate and that blaming the locker room culture was a “cop-out.” Still, it would help the first openly gay player to be in a locker room that is as welcoming as possible. That could be in a locker room with a fierce advocate for LGBT equality, like Minnesota, Baltimore, or Cleveland, or in any other where the player knows he has support. Having both the public and private support of teammates is paramount to help address issues and opposition the player may face from other teammates, opponents, and fans.

Be able to ignore fans (and opponents): Robinson was famously told by Dodgers general manager Branch Rickey that early in his career he had to ignore the racial slurs fans and opponents hurled at him and prove them wrong on the field. That same dynamic will come into play for the first openly gay player, and Freeman reported that the “true concern” of the player who is considering coming out is that he “fears he will suffer serious harm from homophobic fans, and that is the only thing preventing him from coming out.” That’s understandable. But as Free told me, taking verbal abuse from fans is part of the game. Players already hear nasty taunts about their supposed sexual preferences, their mothers, and anything else drunken fans can come up with. Opponents will also say anything — no matter how nasty — to get under a player’s skin, though the NFL can easily enforce harsh penalties on players who utter gay slurs at opponents. It will be up to franchises, stadium security, and other fans, meanwhile, to make sure that slurs and unruly behavior that may threaten a player’s safety aren’t tolerated.

Be willing to be an icon: As easy as that sounds — aren’t all professional athletes aiming to be icons? — it isn’t easy for a player to carry the burden of an entire movement, especially one that is inherently political in nature. When activists were asking Latino baseball players to take a stand against Arizona’s anti-immigrant SB 1070 law during the 2011 All-Star Game in Phoenix, David Ortiz, the Dominican star of the Boston Red Sox, responded, “I ain’t Jackie Robinson.” Fair or not, breaking this barrier will mean more media attention, more heckling from fans, more worries about being a distraction to the team. Not all players are Jackie Robinson. But the first openly gay athlete in major American professional sports has to be.

In a (not surprisingly) depressing post railing against equal marriage rights over at National Review, Maggie Gallagher, the founder of the misleadingly-named Institute for Marriage and Public Policy, quotes an anti-equality speaker who argues that “Only one creature has been known to calm men down into faithful and stable relationships since the dawn of time — a woman.” What makes that attitude so sad is the low estimation in which it holds men, an attitude reflected in the hysterically angry reaction to the idea that men can play a role in stopping sexual assault. To different degrees on the same spectrum, these views both agree that men are not particularly in control of themselves, and that if they are to be tamed into monogamy and consensual sex, women will have to do a sometimes enormous amount of work, at great expense to their own expectations and personal liberties, to bring about those outcomes.

These views are very sad, but part of what’s depressing about them is that they aren’t necessarily exceptionally marginal. The idea that it takes a woman to tame a man is at the core of an enormous amount of popular culture—particularly culture aimed at women.

One of the most prevalent arenas for the idea that men need to be tamed by good women, and one of the places where that trope has evolved most, is in romance novels. As I wrote at Slate last week, that genre’s evolved from its earlier reliance on character arcs in which the heroine would be seduced, ravished, or outright raped before winning over the heroine to one in which the rakish hero, whether he’s seducing opera singers in the Edwardian era or dating hotties in contemporary Cleveland, meets the woman who makes him realize that monogamy isn’t just socially acceptable—it will make him happier than he’s previously been tomcatting around. These men in contemporary romance novels are rarely as repulsive as their earlier counterparts, or as profligate as Gallagher and her ilk might make them out to be. But there’s still an air of condescension operating there: it seems to have never occurred to any of these otherwise smart, handsome, and professionally adept men that their own behavior might be causing their unhappiness. And often, rather than being truly responsible for their romantic and sexual choices, romance novel heroes are broken in a certain way that can only be fixed by the ministration of heroines whose value was previously overlooked: often they had cruel or absent parents, particularly fathers, who damaged their ability to connect, and rather than seeking out therapy or staring their own deficiencies straight in the face, its up to women to give them the love they were previously denied.
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