Four of the new shows’ advertising, promos, and paratexts have been pretty much dedicated to a simple message: our show stars this one person. It’s a risky move, since you’re banking on the audience caring about that star, and you’re going all-in on the hope that he or she is enough enticement for enough people to watch the show. Compare, for instance, with Person of Interest, which mixes Jim Caviezel and Michael Emerson, which is a pretty decent pairing – Christ and Ben Linus! – but its publicity has been quite keen to let us know its creator, too, namely Dark Knight’s Jonathan Nolan.

So which are these shows that think they only need the one star, and what can we say about their chances?

Neatly, they divide into two groups of two: the two that are bringing back television stars of yesteryear (even if that yesteryear is just 8 years ago) – Last Man Standing and Ringer – and the two that are working with relatively new talents – The New Girl and Whitney.

Ringer is perhaps the most overloaded in terms of its star, if for no other reason than Sarah Michele Gellar plays TWO characters. Three of the four posters therefore show not one but two images of Gellar, with two showing little more than the Chrysler or Empire State Building as accompaniment.

The buildings suggest power (phallic, and of New York), as does her dress, and the night-time setting suggest intrigue, mystery, or such, but otherwise we know little more than that Sarah Michelle Gellar is in the show. Watch the trailer, too, and note how prominent images of Gellar are, especially in the earlygoing (the scene with two Gellars in a hall of mirrors is especially amusing, as if two weren’t enough for the producers and assumed fans).

The trailer’s also interesting for an early snippet of dialogue exchanged between Gellar’s two characters:

“I was wondering how you’d look after six years”

“Not nearly as good as you”

Granted, Gellar’s actually been off-television for eight years (Buffy the Vampire Slayer ended in 2003), but she’s been absent to the world for about six. The line’s amusing, therefore, since it sees Gellar comment on her own absence from television, while reassuring both herself and us that she still looks good.

And if Ringer’s taking a “she’s back” strategy, it’s certainly worked inasmuch as the press have picked up on this and run with it. Gellar’s face adorned Entertainment Weekly recently, with a feature article about her return and comments from her that suggest her sisters are like her characters from Buffy and Cruel Intentions, and almost all reviews I’ve seen have focused entirely on Gellar being back on television (even when the show also brings back Lost’s Nestor Carbonell.

This seems an especially risky move for The CW, though. Gellar’s return may well be hotly anticipated, but many of these articles have been written by writers in their thirties and forties. The CW has only just eeked out a living in the last couple of years, relying on anemic ratings that stitch together teen girls and slightly older women enjoying teen(ish) fare. That second group might be attracted to Ringer, but Gellar’s star likely means nothing to the average teen. Heck, most of my students don’t know Buffy, and it hasn’t had great play in syndication in the US, so I don’t imagine their younger sisters will. Hence Ringer’s pitch of “she’s back” risks being foolishly broadcast to many audiences who don’t know or care about her in the first place. Put simply, I don’t think that a network whose key audience is this young can wisely afford to use the “s/he’s back” strategy, unless the s/he in question would have been popular with ten year-olds eight years ago.

Contrast with the other returning star, Tim Allen, who stars in Last Man Standing, and we have an entirely different situation. Allen’s returning to a big(ger) tent network after having been on one, and is returning to a sitcom that’s clearly aimed at an older audience anyways. Add some possible post-Home Improvement family fame garnered as Buzz Lightyear, and I don’t worry anywhere near as much about his ability to sell this show. By most accounts, the script is lame, so Ringer may well defeat it in the end, but Ringer’s going to have to move uphill all the way, whereas ABC isn’t stuck with such a young generational cohort as its intended audience, and thus would seem to be on safer ground by using the “he’s back” promotional strategy.

Turning to the shows heralding new-ish stars, Whitney and The New Girl, once again we have an interesting tale of contrasts. Perhaps it’s just that I and everyone I know is dreadfully out of touch, but I’ve yet to hear almost anyone who knows who the heck Whitney Cummings really is. We’re all supposed to know her, so suggest the ads, and their reliance on plastering her and rather tepid one-liners posit her as some comic genius (while proving she isn’t), but I don’t believe many people really do know who she is.

The New Girl plays it safer. On one hand, Zooey Deschanel is likely much better known. She’s been in Weeds, is the sister of Bones’ Emily Deschanel, is in the Cotton ads, starred in the critically successful (500) Days of Summer, played Dorothy in Tin Man, the odd Syfy remake of Wizard of Oz last year, and has been in other films including Yes Man, Elf, and the recent Our Idiot Brother. She’s also got a cool name, let’s face it, and the kind of one you remember.

On the other hand, though, and even if you have no idea who she is, the title of her new show covers its ass here. She’s not just “the new girl” in the apartment on the show, but is also being put forward as the new star for television. And if USA Today is anything to go by, at least some are eating this up. They write:

Let’s hear it for the girl. If New Girl is the season’s most promising new show – and boy, is it – much of the credit goes to the almost irresistibly adorable lady in question, Zooey Deschanel. [….] she’s poised to become something she hasn’t been before: a big, new TV star.

There’s also the issue of how the two shows’ promos are selling Cummings and Deschanel, and to whom. Deschanel is very much being marketed as cute, adorable, and vulnerable. The relationship between her and her three male minders suggests that, yes, she is the new girl, as the promos make an obvious pitch for male protection … while still trying to hold onto her as identificatory character for women and throwing in several, “oh, men!”-style jokes in the trailer. Turning to Whitney, though the promos certainly sexualize Cummings, they also sell her as loud, abrasive, and in charge. She is the new woman therefore, and she’s being sold to women more than men, with almost all of the humor in the trailer being of the “girlfriend, am I right or am I right?” variety. FOX is hedging its bets, in other words, going for men and women. NBC is going mostly for women, all-in on the one star and all-in on one gender as audience.

As with all of the above shows, the script will matter a lot. But at this point, the four shows are making it all about the star. So place your bets on who is more loved – Deschanel, Allen, Cummings, or Gellar, and, especially in the case of the latter two, who knows where to find them on struggling networks. But that’s the other part of the networks going all-in on the star – if any of these shows dies before it hits five episodes, that’s a huge grenade in the star image of the actor or actress in question. Let’s see who is left standing.

By now, you’ve likely heard that Jay Leno will be taking over a third of NBC primetime next year. Most of the reaction I’ve read is along the lines of David Bianculli’s, that this will be “good for business, bad for TV.” I disagree.

The “good for business” line looks at the relative cost of production. Jay himself costs a lot, but the show is dead cheap in Hollywood terms. The “good for business” line also counts on Jay being able to bring his Nielsen audience to NBC primetime. Bianculli adds that this helps NBC keep Jay (though at what price?). And Derek Kompare speculates that NBC could lock down an older audience rather than chasing a fickle younger one with various scripted options.

But, as I said, I’m not convinced. Why? More below …

First, I think this reeks of waving the white flag. They’re suffering, and now they’ve confirmed that they’re suffering more than anyone else. Even if adding Jay pays off for their 10-11pm slot, what’s the cost? They’ve effectively announced, to advertisers, to viewers, and to writers, that they suck at scripted (or even reality) television to the point that they’ll axe a third of it. They’re telling us that they’re the GM of TV. How is that meant to inspire confidence for advertisers (especially when, as Amanda Lotz’s work on Upfronts points out, a lot of ad selling is about building confidence in supposedly bright futures)? How is it meant to assure viewers of the strength of the NBC brand, especially if that brand was supposed to be about quality television? And how is it meant to invite writers to bring their A-material to NBC first (“sorry Mr. Sorkin, we like your work, but we decided instead to feature an interview with Rob Schneider about Deuce Bigalow: Medieval Gigolo”)?

Second, I don’t believe that people want to watch Jay at 10 pm (or, much less, 9 central). This isn’t a comment on how unfunny Jay usually is (though, hey, since I brought it up, let’s add that to the mix). But some television is made for specific times of the day. Did NBC look at DVR figures, for instance, and see how many people watch their recorded Jay or Conan or Letterman at 9pm? Please correct me if I’m wrong, but I doubt they’d find a landslide. Late night talk shows are designed for the end of the day, and they fill that timeslot very well. Roger Silverstone did excellent work on the ritual value of television, observing how we often ask it to offer ontological security, to tell us everything’s alright in the morning, and to reassure us with banal chit chat late at night. These are shows to watch before one goes to bed, or at least before one turns off the television and starts to wind down.  So what NBC is betting on, I believe, is how many people want to go to bed early … and, as a correlate, how much advertisers want to talk to those people.

Third, and to respectfully disagree with my buddy Derek Kompare, I’m not so sure that an older audience will follow Jay to 10 pm. CBS traditionally does great business in that 10-11 pm timeslot, and that slightly older audience is one that CBS knows and has cultivated. Derek himself predicts that CSI: Miami will make a killing on Monday nights, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see CBS rule supreme in that timeslot throughout the week. Quick, check, did Sumner Redstone recently purchase a lot of NBC shares?

So, I don’t think it’s good for business.

But maybe it’s not all that bad for TV either. If I’m right (and that, admittedly, is a big if), with The CW and FOX not broadcasting from 10-11 pm, one’s choices for traditional network fare will soon be reduced to CBS or ABC. Which, the way CBS and ABC are going, this will mean one option that’s traditionally “guy TV,” one that’s traditionally “chick TV.” How many people will ask what else is on? With a growing number of excellent shows to be found on cable, maybe NBC has just done a great favor to cable channels. If the Prime Time Access Rule once closed 7-8pm to the networks, I wonder whether this move will contribute further to closing 10-11pm to them, encouraging people to explore deeper into their menu of 100+ channels. While that process may hurt the big bucks financing model of network primetime television, if cable can offer such fare as Mad Men and BSG, and if audiences can at times get edgier, more boldly creative material as a result, maybe it’s about time the networks shifted to a similar model?

I don’t like the idea of Jay Leno getting all that time on television. But if he gets it, nobody watches, and it helps TV get better, maybe a Jay (and a peacock) falling in the forest with nobody hearing will be fine.

UPDATE: Ken Levine has a nice script treatment of the decision over at his blog, well worth the read, especially for Simpsons fans.

My initial interest in Boston Legal was twofold.  First, I always loved The Practice, and after its cancellation, I was hoping that spin-off Boston Legal would provide my needed David E. Kelley legal fix.  Second, I’m a sucker for William Shatner–especially in his self-parodic mode–and I was curious to see what he would do with the DEK formula.

Unfortunately, I was only satisfied on one of these accounts. I know many Practice viewers ran as far away from BL as possible, finding its shift in tone to be an insult to its parent series.  While The Practice offered a serious, melodramatic treatment of Boston lawyering, its spin-off embraced comedy and pushed the eccentricities of DEK’s Ally McBeal to a whole new level.  The nose-whistling and toilet-dismounting antics of Ally’s John Cage seemed to be the template for an entire firm of characters at BL’s Crane, Poole, and Schmidt: Alan Shore (James Spader) is a sexist afflicted with night terrors and word salad; Denny Crane (William Shatner) is a gun nut with Alzheimer’s (also a sexist); and Jerry “Hands” Espenson is a lawyer with Asberger’s syndrome, causing him to stomp, purr, and hop through his court appearances.  Though the Shore and Crane characters were spun off from The Practice, their real parent was Ally.

So while my hope for more Practice would end in disappointment, the eccentricity offered a consolation prize: Shatner let loose. From his portrayal of a woman trapped in Captain Kirk’s body to his Priceline commercials, Shatner has always excelled at playing twisted versions of himself, and if there’s one thing Boston Legal has done right, it’s allowing both Shatner and James Spader to dig deep into their characters.  So while the actual court cases became quite perfunctory over the course of four seasons, the series has successfully built a compelling friendship between these men of equal eccentricity, captured visually by the cigars and odd-ball discussion they share on their balcony each week.

The problem, however, was that strong friendship was so easily turned into formula.  By my memory, only one very early episode does not end with Shore and Crane sharing drinks on the balcony, and their strong personalities tend to overwhelm guest stars/opposing counsel, making legal victory almost assured.  Complicating matters, David E. Kelley’s penchant for recasting actually made it far more difficult to shake up the formula.  At the start of season two, season one characters like Lori Colson were dropped and replaced without explanation.  By mid season, many of those new characters were gone too.  That cycle would be repeated several times, and given all these inexplicable, drop-of-a-hat cast changes, viewers like me had to give up on an hope of long term logic, continuity, or serialized storytelling, and settle instead for the comfortable antics of these two focal characters. The writers had established them as the best and closest of friends, and with such an unbreakable bond between them, basking in their shared, perfect wackiness would have to suffice.  Often times, it wasn’t, and as the series aged, my interest waned, and I found myself watching out of obligation and a sense of time already invested.

In these final thirteen episodes, however, all this has begun to change.  It’s as if the writers are working from a Bucket List to be completed before the end of the series’ life.   There’s no more time for business as usual–it’s time to get things done!

First and foremost, the series has grappled with its own mortality as a television program through the character of Denny.  While his struggle with Alzheimer’s served from day one as the basis for “Mad Cow” jokes and an excuse for crazy behavior, the disease did not have any real impact or affect any change in the character over the course of four seasons.  But now, at the end, Denny’s condition has worsened, and the character has had to come to grips with the nearing end.  The status quo, so upheld for four years, is changing, and the writers are using that as a lens to comment upon their own loss.

And it’s not just Denny.  Though the series has always teased viewers with the possibility of intra-firm conflict (particularly over the desire to oust Denny as a named partner), I long ago gave up hope that the writers would actually engage these kinds of ongoing storylines (a particular strength of The Practice).  But now, at the end, we learn that in this recession, the firm is bankrupt, and will presumably face some major shake-up (if not closure) before series end.  I don’t know what that change is, of course, because this is actually an ongoing storyline!

Add to this a long-overdue willingness to shake up the series formula.  There’s no getting away from that balcony scene at this point, but recent episodes have done what I would have thought impossible at this point so late in the game.  Lawyers from Crane, Poole, and Schmidt are actually LOSING their cases.  Last week’s “Thanksgiving” episode, perhaps one of the best of the series, did not feature a single scene in a courtroom, and instead put the characters together for an explosive series of revelations about Denny’s health, ongoing romances, and the firm’s economic health.  This might not seem like much for Lost fans, but for a series this formulaic and repetitive, this is a major paradigm shift.

But most of all, DEK and his writers have realized that they are literally living on borrowed time, and anything they want to say they’d better say now.  This has of course produced more of the political preachiness DEK is famous for, and what has become another predictable staple of the BL formula.  But with the certainty of death comes a certain freedom.  Last night’s episode featured guest star Betty White as a senior citizen suing the television networks for discriminating against older viewers in favor of younger viewers.  DEK and his writers used this storyline as a forum to express their own disgust with the network, their own pride in fielding a cast of 50+ actors, their own concerns over the future of the television business in which aging means irrelevance.  BL has always been a self-referential show; recently, the characters have referred to being in the middle of their “last season.”  But last night’s episode broke the fourth wall by allowing TV creators to directly address their own cancellation (a la Arrested Development’s brilliant “S.O.B.s”)

There are, of course, hiccups in this transformation.  The series did not suddenly turn into a well plotted, serialized masterpiece.  I’m still wondering, for example, what happened to the disbarment proceedings that Alan Shore was supposedly going to face five or six episodes ago.  In its final weeks, however, Boston Legal has changed in a way that is going to make me miss it after next week.  While I opened by suggesting these developments might offer insight into the better show BL could have been, it’s also possible that this creative evolution is only something that can happen with the conscious knowledge that the end is near, and it’s now or never.  In that sense, then, I’m glad for the cancellation, and for the first time in many years, I’ll be watching next week unsure of what will happen to these characters.  Personally, I’m hoping that as oft-requested and promised, Alan will shoot Denny to spare him a debilitating illness, and must then defend himself in court.  Formula may win out–and the two may close the series on the balcony as always–but for the first time ever, I have to say “We’ll see!”

Okay, so to summarize, we have endorsements for Obama from Clair Bennet from Heroes, Dan and Serena from Gossip Girl, The Fonz and Richie Cunningham from Happy Days, Opie and Andy Griffith from The Andy Griffith Show. Jed Bartlet is for Obama, or for Paris Hilton, depending on who you ask. Which got me thinking about which other television characters might be inclined to endorse. Some suggestions:

• I see McCain as likely to be able to count on endorsements from Lucille Bluth; Boss Hog; Dr. Bob Kelso; Dwight Shrute, Angela Martin, and Andy Bernard; Victor Newman; Daniel Linderman; Eric Cartman; and Statler and Waldorf.
• Maybe not so keen on McCain, but brought in by Palin are Michael Scott, Borat, Denny Crane, and the one person who will always find something positive about something horrific, Paula Abdul.
• Jessica Fletcher was swayed by Joe Biden.
• John Locke’s in it for Bob Barr.
• Tobias Funke is all about Ralph Nader.
• And I see Lester Freeman, Kermit the Frog, and Lisa Simpson as Obama voters.

Joking aside, how does Roseanne Conner vote? If Andy Griffith can pack a punch like few other than Ralph Stanley, Roseanne and Dan’s endorsement could be a neat one.

I find it interesting that it’s the pro-Obama side that’s calling up images of the all-white sitcom (supposed) wonderland. As amusing as the clip is (and as surprised as I was to see Griffith endorse Obama), I find it a little worrisome that the strategy aims to make Obama seem safe by surrounding him with these images of white small town nostalgia. It’s a little too close to the insistence that Obama is not a Muslim — ideally, just as I’d love to hear more of a defence of Muslims as real Americans who aren’t all hell-bent on destruction and spousal abuse, rather than a quick “no m’am, no m’am, he’s a decent family man,” I’d rather that we fight for the image of a diverse, open America that I think Obama represents, rather than surrender to the Mayberry model (cf. Pleasantville). I’m not blind to the rationale behind the strategy, or to its tactical importance when it’s the independents and undecideds who are left, but I’d rather see and herald a Lt. Cedric Daniels, Sergeant Carver, and Detective Freeman for Obama PSA.

Lively and Badgely’s ad mocks the “talk to your kids about drugs” PSAs by imploring young viewers to talk to their parents about voting McCain. Lively and Badgely are Gossip Girl’s resident good kids (well, as good as one could be in that show, I guess), and their make-believe school suffers from substance abuse aplenty. Thus, one can imagine them to be called upon to deliver the “don’t do drugs” message; instead, a more sinister behavior concerns them – voting McCain. One could imagine a more conflicted ad if the stars were replaced with Gossip Girl’s resident bad kids, Leighton Meester (Blair) and Ed Westwick (Chuck).

Hayden Pannetiere’s piece also plays with her character. In Heroes, she’s invincible, and fighting to save the world. Moreover, as anyone aware of this thing called “popular culture” knows, Heroes’ catch-phrase in Season One was “Save the Cheerleader, Save the World,” and Pannetiere was the cheerleader in question. So, when she warns of how “we’ll all probably die,” there’s a (playful) added level of horror, as if the only thing worse than Sylar, Adam, or another Ali Larter character is McCain.

I realize now that my last post was also about stars using their characters to add weight to a political message. And, of course, the obvious other example is Martin Sheen, who got many years worth of political rallies and stump speeches out of being the beloved Jed Bartlet. All are interesting examples of how to use one’s stardom as para/inter/extratext.

This coming week, I’m off to the Flow Conference in Austin, TX. I’m on a panel about women in comedy, and my primary interest lay in discussing women in animation. But I’ve been wanting to talk about Tina Fey and her excellent Palin impression instead. And so I thought I’d write on that topic latter here.

Let’s start by making something clear. I am not a fan of Saturday Night Live. Most of its humor is tepid and puerile. They might have a funny nugget, but it’s five seconds worth of a five minute skit. SNL has had some funny people, yes, but they’re nearly always considerably funnier off the show. Also, while I’m sure its defenders will point out some of its fantastic skits over the years, and while I too think they’ve had some brilliant moments, their failure to success ratio is huge.

More specifically, I have a beef with SNL’s fans who misuse the word “satire,” by suggesting that many of the show’s rather lame impressions are in any way satirical. Dana Carvey did a good George H. W. Bush, but there was no satire. Fred Armisen’s Obama isn’t even good, let alone satirical. Satire scholar George Test notes that satire must have play, aggression, laughter, and judgment, and too often SNL lacks all but play. I could put on a dress and say I’m Laura Bush, but that wouldn’t make it satire. Perhaps the best test of an impressionist’s satiric skill is whether the person being impersonated would be offended or uncomfortable watching it; if yes, bravo.

But Tina Fey’s recent impression of Palin is a refreshing change of pace for SNL. As a result, she’s become what a good satirical impression should be: a nasty, unshakeable paratext hanging around the candidate’s official appearances, and standing between the citizen-viewer and the candidate. I don’t think it’s too much of an exaggeration to say that Tina Fey is, right now, the most socially relevant and important comedian on television because of her impression.

More after the fold…

From a paratextual and intertextual standpoint, I’ve been fascinated to see how successful her impressions have been. Blogs and op-ed pieces everywhere are quoting Fey when commenting on Palin, sometimes with no seeming awareness of the slip. Thus, for instance, the “can see Russia from my window/backyard” comment crops up all over the place, many times without direct invocation of Fey. Ironically too, as eerily on-the-money as Fey’s impression is, many people’s impressions of Palin are in fact impressions of Fey’s impression. Thus, Fey’s impression has definitely become a dominant frame through which many people are viewing, talking about, and thinking about Sarah Palin.

Obviously, Fey has the physical likeness working for her. Freud notes that tendentious humor is aggressive, releasing anxiety, hence our proclivity to laugh at people. Since Fey looks so much like Palin, it allows one to engage in a censorious laughter at Palin while watching Fey, in a way that we can’t laugh at Bush so easily when Ferrell does him or at Obama when Armisen does him. She also has the voice down, or, rather, she offers a lovely mix that’s close enough to Palin yet pulling it slightly closer to Fargo, and hence to further silliness.

It’s also a well-timed impression. By the time Carvey did Bush, Sr., we all knew who he was. Chase hardly introduced us to Ford. But Palin is still such an unknown to much of the world outside Wasilla. In my book, I distinguish between entryway paratexts and in medias res paratexts, the first grabbing us before we’ve seen or heard a text, the latter in the middle. Entryway paratexts can create the text before we’ve got there, and set early frames, while in medias res can shift and toggle, especially if there’s more of them than there is of the show itself. Fey’s impression is likely darn close to entryway for most citizen-viewers. In part due to the McCain campaign’s sexist strategy of acting like Palin needs protecting from the media, we haven’t seen all that much of Palin. One big speech. A few soundbites from her train wreck interviews. And now the debate. Using the analogy of the paratext, it’s almost as though we’ve seen a sneak preview for a television show, watched an ad or three, and read the reviews, but the show hasn’t quite started, or has only just started. At such a point in a text’s birth, paratexts have all the more power. So whereas it would be a lot harder to reframe Obama or McCain, the text of what Palin is and what she represents can be toggled with considerable ease. It’s all the harder for Palin to lay claim to being a serious candidate when Fey’s impression keeps coming back each Saturday night and on Hulu quickly thereafter.

For those who watch 30 Rock, or even for those who have seen Mean Girls, the impression is all the more stark for how un-Fey-like it is. Fey is a smart woman, and her characters are usually smart. But her Palin is abjectly stupid. Fey’s Liz Lemon can be neurotic and unsure of herself, but she is full of depth. Her Palin is sure of herself but shouldn’t be. Lemon is a little uncomfortable with adulthood at times, but Fey’s Palin thinks she’s all grown up, really just Ralph Wiggum. Fey has worked her way up to where she is. Her Palin has been thrust into an undeserved limelight. Thus the intertextual weight that is Tina Fey is important in tempering the impression. After all, the right wing’s key attack against anyone who has dared to suggest that Palin may be unqualified has been that this is sexist and demeaning to women. But ghosted behind Fey’s impression is a legitimately strong, smart, qualified woman, and thus her impression carries with it the haunting reminder of what Palin is not. In the character’s first appearance, SNL placed her alongside Amy Poehler’s Hillary Clinton for contrast, but Poehler isn’t needed for those who know Fey’s work: Fey provides contrast enough.

I’m also intrigued by the economics of the impression (and by a certain irony in it). Fey is a star, both more talented and more acclaimed than many of SNL’s cast. Her impression has become hugely popular. And with SNL trying to make the move to Thursday night, where 30 Rock and The Office have conditioned viewers to expect smarter humor than SNL usually offers, the show really needs its big guns right now. So there is a lot invested in her impression for them. Traditionally, SNL has been so unsatiric because, as a network show, they don’t want to offend anyone. Hence their ultimately unoffensive impressions. Now, though, they have good reason to keep coming back with more.

Meanwhile, the real Palin (if such a being exists. At times I wonder if she is, like Paris Hilton or a boy band, just an amalgam of marketing ideas!) really only has one strategy open to try and explode the impression. Complaining about satire only makes one look stupid, and while complaining that Katie Couric was too tough on you is already laughable, if Palin and McCain wanted to complain of victimization from SNL, that hardly gels with their gun-toting, “we don’t blink” image. Instead, if she wants people to see her and not Fey’s impression, Palin must hold some press conferences. If the paratext is becoming the text, if she and the McCain campaign still want to reassert their right to author her as text, they need to do so, not just in rallies in small towns, but on the big stage. Right now, as suggested above, the text of Palin risks being swallowed by the paratext of the impression. Kudos to Tina Fey for finding the satiric punch to do that.

Just to situate things a bit, though, this is drawn on observations from myself and from my research assistant. I was in one town (Liwonde) in the South for two weeks, with small visits to Balaka, Mangochi, and Monkey Bay, then in another town (Rumphi) in the North for another two weeks. I hired my research assistant, Stanslous Ngwire, in Rumphi, and hired him for a month of visiting video shows (more on these below), places where television is played, and CD/DVD stores/stalls, and to conduct, translate, and transcribe interviews in English, Chichewa, or Chitumbuka (the first two being Malawi’s national languages, the third the main language in the North). Stanslous has experience interviewing and is a marvel. But I also chatted a heck of a lot with many people: Malawians are some of the warmest people I’ve met on the planet, and anytime I walked anywhere, I would often end up with someone accompanying me on an ad hoc basis, simply to chat. That said, I’ve yet to really dig into the interviews yet, so these are rudimentary observations. And they’re not based on years in Malawi, so take everything with a grain of salt, yeah?

FILM

Movies in Malawi are seen either via satellite, or in “video shows.” Both usually involve small televisions (ie: if you’d consider it for the foot of the bath, that’s the one). The video shows are usually in a one-room mud-brick building with a few plastic crates or planks of wood for the adults to sit on, and a piece of cardboard for the kids. A few that I went into shared the space with a rat or two, and with the occasional hornet or wasp nest. They usually house around 20 to 30 viewers at any given time. Admission is either 5 or 10 kwacha (3.5 or 7 cents). Usually, “show times” are outside, with a makeshift piece of cardboard telling you the times and the DVD or VCD covers telling you what’s on. You pay to walk in, not for the show, and I found it rare for people to arrive dutifully on time, instead walking in or out as time commitments or interest dictated. Malawi only has five films of its own (I’ve yet to confirm this, but about 6 people gave me this number independently), so almost all movies were American or Nigerian, in English (English is widely spoken in Malawi, though not at an advanced level). English subtitles were usually left on, which helps because the sound systems are pretty awful and cranked up to the point of creating audio crackle. People tended to watch observantly, the quiet in the room interrupted only by occasional comments, by kids coming in to sell snacks such as beans or sugar cane, or when the funny-looking azungu (white person) entered the room, becoming cause for intense amusement and curiosity.

What was on? For American movies, almost exclusively action films (though I’m told that Zomba, the university town, has a video show or two that play the detective and spy dramas/thrillers that the students are supposed to enjoy). Also, almost everything was old.  A few titles include Shoot Fighter, Street Fighter, First Blood, Con Air, Terminator 2, Game of Death, The Return of Swamp Thing, Predator, Red Heat, The Last Hunter, and Barbarian. Jean Claude Van Damme, Sylvester Stallone, Steven Seagal, Bruce Lee, and Arnold Schwarzenegger featured prominently, sometimes even painted on the side of the building. All of the films were pirated, and often took the form of coming in a package with several films. Most such packages were grouped by stars, as star culture is clearly central to viewing. Other names included Wesley Snipes, Nicholas Cage, Bruce Willis, and Tom Cruise. Snipes’s addition to this A list reflects the interest in African-American stars and culture, as movies with white stars and African-American settings featured especially prominently, and as the occasional drama snuck into the mix when featuring an African-American star such as Denzel Washington.

And for the only exception to the American-Nigerian monopoly on eyeballs, plenty of kungfu films were there too.

Overall, though, it was an old collection of films: I never saw a film made after 2000 either playing or advertised as on deck for the day. When I spoke to Malawians, some were quite shocked to hear that Van Damme, Seagal, Schwarzenegger, and Stallone aren’t big stars any more.

The Nigerian stuff tended to feature stories about love, betrayal, witchcraft, and dancing. Acting was usually horrendous, as with all production qualities (in my audience research, many told my research assistant that the shows actually hurt their eyes … and I’m glad I’m not the only one). But for this reason, they had great camp value to me. One, for instance, followed the story of a woman trying to get another woman’s man by any means. First she commissions a witch doctor to poison the woman, to no avail, and so she then asks a bad guy called Bubs to knock her off. When characters go to dance (in deus ex machina style, no less: Bubs, for instance, spuriously demands that they go dancing before he kills the woman), there is often traditional African dancing, or at least hybrid dance styles. There are also long drawn out scenes (well, all the scenes are long and drawn out. I hear that David Bordwell loves films with long shot length, so he’d looooove these) of familial discussions about love. Titles are campy too, such as Lover’s Revenge 5, and King of All Virgins.

Whereas the American action films get a lot of laughing and so forth, the audience is often more reflectively involved in these films (my audience research suggesting at the moment that some Malawians regard them as significantly closer to lived experience, and thus, despite their poor quality, they may be a little more “useful”).

The video shows I attended were frequented only by men, though my research assistant insists that some welcome women too. Malawian women do a heck of a lot of work, mind you, so leisure time for Malawian women isn’t all that common. Also, since some video shows double as “bottle stores” (pubs), or are seen in a similar light, women’s attendance can cast doubt on their values. Clearly, then, movie-watching is more easily a male activity. Within that context, though, the range of viewed material is rather bipolar by American gender standards: hyper-masculine, violent, beat- or -shoot-em-ups on one hand, and hyper-feminized soaps on the other. None of my respondents suggested that watching love stories was “only for girls” or anything like that, suggesting the degree to which the gendering of melodrama is quite culturally specific.

Finally, DVD sales more or less echoed what was playing in the video shows, with American action films, Nigerian love stories, and kungfu flicks filling most of the shelf-space. However, South African films made a bit of an incursion into the market (as they did on television), with a few South African comedies being added to the mix. And foreign films from any nation set in and about Africa broke the action-or-love story hegemony, with The Gods Must Be Crazy and Hotel Rwanda both capturing my eye in a few stores and stalls.

Next up … television

[spoiler-free]. Thanks to the tip-off from Jason Mittell, I braved the wind and a long line forebodingly underneath a pigeon fly-over to see three of The Wire’s stars today. The billing promised Seth Gilliam (Carver), Michael K. Williams (Omar), and Tristan Wilds (Michael), though we were quickly informed that “Tristan couldn’t be here, so Marlo is instead.” [I love the mixed register there: "Actor A can't be here, so Character B will be instead" ... but it's also fun to think of Marlo playing second fiddle to anyone] Fine with me: Michael’s great, but to be in the presence of Marlo? Cool. More below

I couldn’t resist telling Marlo (Jamie Hector) that he really scares me, which got a warm and hearty laugh from him and from signing neighbor Seth Gilliam. It was profoundly odd to see Marlo smile, much less make non-threatening eye contact with me. Luckily, too, it allowed me to convince him to sign “My name is my name” instead of just that name itself.

All three were really pleasant and down to earth. Michael Williams was by far the most stylishly dressed, with the more palpable aura (aided by occasional yells of “Omar’s comin’!” from someone in the crowd). The line had to keep moving, and the HBO lackies weren’t allowing us to have pictures with them, meaning I lost out on the chance to look like Marlo’s new lieutenant for a day. There go my dreams of being a gangster.

The line of people was itself telling, a truly multiracial group, ranging in age from about 18 to about 68, and clearly representing different class backgrounds. Yet another sign of what a great show The Wire was to address such a diverse group.

Significant pleasure exists simply from combining actors and projects in one’s head. Who would you cast in the Star Trek movie? Or, if Trek isn’t your thing, pick any movie and recast it, pick your favorite novel or comic book and think of who you’d cast in the movie version, or simply think of who you’d like to replace in an existing television show or movie. Speaking personally, for instance, I remember well the joys of discussing who should play whom when Lord of the Rings and X-Men were announced; and though I liked X-Men, I probably had more fun casting the film than watching it. Even hearing about upcoming new films’ casting can be intriguing (a buddy film with Dolly Parton and Snoop Dogg?? A new drama with Kevin Spacey, Steve Carell, Javier Bardem, and Denzel Washington? Etc.)

Hence, in part, the huge industry of entertainment magazines, television shows, and websites that peddle casting information, and “exclusives” on what projects are occurring. See Comingsoon.net, in particular. And hence in part the popularity of trailers, not only ensuring that many an audience member gets to the theatre twenty minutes early, but also that many go surfing for trailers online, making trailer viewing one of the more common activities on YouTube, IFilm, and company.

What the joys of speculative casting seem to speak to, on one hand, is the degree to which star images can operate as texts independent of even a film, scandal, or latenight talk show as site, and, on the other hand, the significant pleasures of anticipation.

Regarding star image, though it is the acting projects and public appearances that largely author the star as text, the meaning and utility of that text extend far beyond those projects and public appearances. Stars come to represent ideas, ways of being, styles of acting, beloved or detested genres, political causes, personal motifs, and so forth, all or many of which have value and meaning outside of the moments of performance.

This then leads to the pleasures of anticipation, since combining actors is an act of combining these ideas, ways, styles, genres, causes, motifs, and so forth. While not as dramatic or camp as the late television show Celebrity Deathmatch, there is nevertheless the element of a battle of images and texts. Or a dance and an intricate, artful mixing (Dancing with the Stars?). Much of the most important cultural work of stories lies in how they make us think or conceive of the world, and thus anticipation of stories, and of casting combinations, often engages front-on with that cultural work. While we contemplate what it would be like for Pacino and Keaton to share a scene again, for instance, their acting histories to date are summoned, complete with potentially all of the textual meanings of their work, and thus the contemplation of what we think of such casting stands to invoke and focus a vast collection of textual responses.

In this respect, thinking about casting, and playing the casting game, can be quite stunningly intricate tasks, important correlates to the work of stories, even if they seem mundane and trivial. It can be fun to play this game not just because it can quickly get silly (my all-time favorite being someone’s pre-Peter Jackson Lord of the Rings suggestion that Calista Flockhart should play Golem), but also because it’s in the thinking about casting that we continue the work of stories.

With this in mind, here’s the task. Recast Star Wars. Or find a fresh cast for a West Coast Avengers or Excalibur film. Or any other project. Clive Owen as Captain Britain, and James Marsters as Nightcrawler, perhaps? Or Christian Bale as Han Solo? Clint Eastwood as Obi-Wan Kenobi? Okay, just kidding with that last one. Your thoughts?