Oprah & Franzen

I'm sure Oprah & Franzen are old news to many, but I'm in the midst of reading a book Reading With Oprah by Kathleen Rooney; she has a chapter on "Jonathan Franzen versus Oprah Winfrey." The entire book is a fascinating study of the Oprah Book Club and why it engendered such controversy (amongst certain groups).

Basically, Franzen is a literary writer who, before Oprah came along, was selling in the 50,000-100,000 range. This isn't a lot, granted, but it's more than I've ever sold so my sympathy meter regarding Franzen registers somewhere in the nil category. Like many poor but struggling writers (of literary ilk), Franzen bemoaned his lack of popularity, putting it down to a national lack of good taste (it's that whole "most Americans don't know their geography!" argument: once upon a time Americans were educated and listened to their parents and had good taste).

Then, Oprah reads one of Franzen's books (Oprah's tastes don't run anything close to mine; with the exception of Gabriel Garcia Marquez' A Thousand Years of Solitude, I haven't read any of the books on her list. However, Rooney's very, very good point is that within her particular genre--realism--Oprah is fairly ecletic and her taste is no worse--and could be better--than your average high culture critic). Franzen was scheduled to be on Oprah. His book sales immediately shot up (Rooney estimates that Franzen made $1.2 million off of Oprah's decision).

But, and here's the rub, this hurts Franzen's image (or self-image) as a poor, struggling, misunderstood literary writer. Franzen proceeded to make a number of remarks critical of Oprah's Book Club in various interviews. Upon which, Oprah disinvited him. Upon which, Franzen issued a number of sincere (and puzzled) apologies.

Rooney thinks that Franzen was being somewhat disingenuous. (Although she agrees that his apologies were sincere.) Being quite young, she evidently has a higher opinion of the saavy of literary greats than I do. Just because Franzen can write intelligently and insightfully about life, doesn't mean he has a clue how the real world works. I think Franzen really didn't see it coming. And I think that Franzen really didn't make the connection between "my publishers promoting me and putting me on book tours and wishing I would sell more" and "Oprah promoting me." Some kinds of advertisement are okay. Other kinds are not. It's like people who think that Natural Health Food stores aren't out to make a buck--or at least, not in the same way that, shock shock, CHAIN grocery stores are.

To put it simply, Franzen, who isn't as horrible guy as some of the pundits painted him, was self-conscious, like a teenage boy at a dance. He was cool, now he isn't cool (according to the people he likes). How does he get his coolness back? He disses the other clique. And because he is basically a well-meaning soul, he is surprised when the other clique gets offended. So, now he isn't cool to anyone (hint to teenagers: this will inevitably happen: "No man can serve two masters," and although Jesus was talking about God, it works as a lesson in popularity as well.)

Not only does Rooney think Franzen was disingenuous in his protests of surprise, she thinks Oprah could have handled the issue better. Franzen may have been behaving in a silly way, but his attitude is not atypical amongst the kinds of authors that Oprah tended to pick. Why not, Rooney asked, have the guy on her show? Why not air his grievances and discuss them?

I could answer that. Oprah doesn't like that kind of controversy. And she's probably wise. Look what happened when she defended Million Little Pieces guy.

Rooney wishes that Oprah had addressed Franzen's self-consciousness because Rooney believes that the high brow/low brow split is an issue. Rooney has just finished her MFA. The high brow/low brow split is an issue to people who think they are arbiters of literary taste (or should be) and to the people who know the afore-mentioned "arbiters" and think they are nuts. They didn't get the memo: Nobody else cares.

To do Rooney justice, I think she was willing for someone to go on Oprah and say that: Nobody cares. People read whatever they want. People don't listen to the academic world or to literary critics. But I'm not sure that Oprah would be willing to take on the academic world. Like many intelligent people who are not academic, I'm betting that Oprah is a little awed by academic hoity-toityness. She doesn't need to be: it's just bluster. But, to an extent, you have to speak the language before you figure that out.

CATEGORY: BOOKS

Primetime Special

ABC had a "What would you do?" special on last night, where they set up various scenarios (couple arguing in a park; racist cab driver, etc.) and then televised people's reactions (do they intervene? do they agree with the racism?) It was one of those "Isn't society rude and horrible!" kind of specials. It was interesting, but I thought the ABC folks missed some rather obvious clues.

For instance, one of the scenarios was a boyfriend yelling at his girlfriend. Last year, they chose a white couple (two actors); this year, they chose a black couple. The question was: "Are people more likely or less likely to intervene?" the implication being that they will be less likely to stop to help the young black woman.

This may be true (although it was disproved in this particular case), but the scenarios weren't fair. In the first, the girlfriend was sitting on a bench. The boyfriend leaned over her; he often grabbed her wrists; she was hemmed in. She kept her face down and didn't answer back. In other words, she appeared to be a victim. In the second case, the couple both stood (most of the time). The girlfriend had room to walk away, and she did occasionally, but more often, she faced the boyfriend and often, even, closed the gap between them. She raised her voice. She told him off. When he picked her up, it looked like he was horsing around. ("No, it didn't!" exclaimed the Primetime people. "Here's another shot." Oh, that's a good argument: when people are walking in a park, they always have multiple camera angles from which to comprehend an event.) Also, he was slightly taller than her, but not by much.

In other words, the body language of the second exchange was totally different from the body language of the first. Although the same number of people intervened in the first as in the second, in the first they were more likely to walk up and intervene directly. Interestingly enough, the one direct intervention in the second scenario occurred when the girlfriend sat down on a bench, and her boyfriend leaned over her.

(The Primetime people also didn't ask whether people were more worried, in the second scenario, about being racist or appearing racist: i.e. Am I just assuming that this is bad because the two people are black? This is a bigger concern, I think, than they allowed for.)

Another 2-part scenario was bullies in a park: would people intervene to help a young boy being bullied by three other boys? People did intervene, the majority of them women. The Primetime folks then changed the dress of the bullies so they appeared like gang members (these were 11/12 year old boys). Oh, my, wasn't Primetime surprised by how many more people intervened!

But again, the scenario is problematic. The boys were all of a height and similar in appearance. In the first case, it was difficult to tell (despite Primetime's aggressive assertions that it wasn't difficult to tell) which kid was being bullied. Are these other kids his friends? Classmates? Is the bullied child going to turn around in just a sec and bully the others?

In the second case, the difference in clothing (more, I think, than the clothing itself) signified that the bullied child was not one of the group. Again, again, body language makes a difference. I think this is important. Do we really want a society where people automatically assume negatives when they look at a scenario? Isn't it better to have a society where people aren't sure what the entire facts or story of a situation might be and are reluctant to pass judgment?

Which isn't to defend bullying or to negate the positive example of the adults who did intervene and tell the bullies off. But as with the fighting couple scenario, I think people aren't always quick to sum up situations; they are quick to react to perceived victimization.

As for the racist cabbie driver, also an actor: he did manage to solicit racist comments, but again, the various encounters struck me as more complicated than the Primetime people realized. (They wanted immediate aggressive responses: "Why didn't the passengers stop the cab and walk away!"). We live in a society where we are expected to ignore race and yet talk about it. What I saw going on was a continual effort at negotiating the fine line between these two expectations. Also, Primetime labeled racist ANY passenger's comment about race when, in some cases, the comments were no less or more innocuous than saying, "The English can't cook," or "The French are snotty." Not very nice statements maybe. Inaccurate statements maybe. But I wouldn't deem them racist.

In fact, I was impressed by how many people were willing to deal, in some fashion, with the experience. It wasn't this knee-jerk--oh, racist comments are occuring, let's shoot the driver--reaction; they were trying to understand their driver on a non-racist, non-judgmental level. Which was rather extraordinary. (The Primetime people pointed out that the drivers in Savannah, Georgia didn't get as many arguers because they were a bit too charming.) When the woman in my master's program sneers about Christians and damns them all with generic statements, do I get offended (as a Christian), do I exercise tolerance (as a Christian), do I start an argument, do I take issue, do I sue the school, do I walk out of class, do I support her right to free speech? It isn't that easy an issue, and the Primetime people, in their search for THE TRUTH ABOUT AMERICANS, totally missed how well people in general handled the driver.

But then, it is television.

CATEGORY: TELEVISION

TV Again

I absolutely adore the Nimoy Aleve commercial, where he does the "Vulcan thing."

I've also developed an appreciation for the Outback commercials. Maybe I just like Aussies since I think the new Aussie gecko (for Geico Insurance) is hilarious.

Saw John Denver on PBS last night. I know it's common to make fun of Denver; what impressed me (it's all that American Idol I've been watching recently) is what a mighty fine tenor the man has. He CAN sing.

I ended up watching 60 Minutes last night, not something I usually do. It was a pretty good 60 Minutes. One of the sections was about the NYPD and how they have expanded their police force to include a lot of anti-terrorism intelligence gathering. The 60 Minutes host kept saying, "So, you are saying that the FBI and CIA are incompetent?" and the police chief kept saying, "We just like to have the information quicker." Watching it was a libertarian's dream come true. Yes! Small city organizations are more effective and more easily streamlined than large bureaucratic organizations. Yes! Yes!

The second section I watched was about donor babies (male donates sperm to a sperm bank) and how kids are seeking out both their half-siblings and their donors. The 60 Minutes guy kept saying, "So, you really think of yourselves and brothers and sisters?" to half-siblings which was stupid because technically, they are brothers and sisters. What I thought most amusing was a lesbian couple who had picked a donor because he was a doctor of critically ill children "so he must be kind," and they wanted to raise a sweet, kind child, etc. This guy has come forward, and he is exceptionally handsome, very articulate but shall we say . . . a trifle self-centered. It wasn't so much the matter of his donations that struck me. He was very forthright about his sense of responsibility for "his" kids. He's willing to bridge the information gap, but they aren't his problem. Which, legally, they aren't. Nevertheless, there was something a bit chilling about this abundantly confident, excessively handsome man, who refers to himself as a hunk, shrugging over the number of children out in the world that he has sired. Not exactly someone whose genes I would pick if I was trying to raise a "kind" child. (If I was raising an ambitious, self-interested guy, well, yeah, maybe.) But I thought it was amusing that the lesbian couple had made all these assumptions about this guy based on, mostly, his own description. He was also a very popular choice, so he's got a lot of kids out there.

And then they showed a clip of Andy Rooney's diatribe over the ickiness of governments supporting the lottery which is being played mostly by low-income individuals and individuals on welfare. He's right, of course, but I don't see the lottery going away any time soon. Playing the lottery, as I argue in one of my folklore papers, is like believing in Marxist theory: it's a comfortable performance that softens the hardship of one's financial state. (While doing absolutely nothing about it.)

Cold Case was also different from usual. Cold Case is possibly the most romantic show on television. Every week, it's a new couple who loved each other in the past but were divided (by prejudice, hatred, jealously, etc.) after which one of them died. 15, 20, 30 years later, that death is being investigated. Like if Hamlet decided to look up the reasons for Romeo & Juliet croaking. Romance is all very well, but Romeo & Juliet gets tiresome after awhile. This Sunday's episode was somewhat different from usual since it involved a serial and a current-day rescue. Nice change.

I still can't believe in Courting Alex. I don't think the sexual tension is there. They need to stick Jenna with someone like the young guy from Out of Practice (which is coming back). Courting Alex seems to be building off of the old Dharma & Greg idea of two incompatible people (easygoing individual and uptight individual) nevertheless being smitten with each other, but the boyfriend on Courting Alex doesn't seem different or unusual enough; he doesn't wear suits--big deal. And it's not easy to believe that Jenna Elfman's character is a tense person; she simply doesn't exude tense. (Unlike Gibson--Greg--who did and still most effectively does.)

New great show (well, great show on DVD): Rosemary & Thyme, which is kind of a modern Miss Marple, only with two Miss Marples (in their 40s) who run a gardening business (and happen to stumble over buried bodies and poisoned victims, etc. etc.) A sort of Cadfael meets Miss Marple meets Cagney & Lacey show.

CATEGORY: TV

My Theory About the Purpose of Higher Education

I've been thinking about this a lot lately. If you read this blog, you know that I often complain about my college. However, I'm not opposed to the existence of higher education, I just think it has gone hay-wired. (Or never had what I wanted--also possible.) So I'm going to try to put down here what I do think the purpose is supposed to be.

First of all, I don't think it is supposed to pompous (think Harold Bloom), either loaded down with academic verbiage or devoted only to the study of particular kinds of culture. On the other hand, I think the academic world is based on a belief: that it is possible to teach stuff over time, and that stuff will still be there every time you teach it. And instead of apologizing all over the place for this...this...dare we say, conservatism, the academic world should just say, "Look, this is what we do. We teach that there are things that can be taught."

For example, in my current class on folklore, we have read a number of articles and had a number of interesting discussions, but the professor hasn't taught us any of the theories of folklore that have influenced scholarly opinions.

Now, as you may know, I'm not a big believer in using hypothetical theories to find hypothetical profundities, and if that was the professor's feeling as well, I probably wouldn't care, but it isn't; we spend many classes having hypothetical discussions about hypothetical profundities. If we're going to do this, I think we should know the scholarship that makes it possible. (Then we can decide whether the scholars are right or not.)

So I think the academic world shouldn't apologize for being scholarly. It shouldn't be obnoxious and ivory tower-ish about it either. But it shouldn't apologize. The academic world should accept that it has a purpose. It might not be a particularly noble or relevant purpose but who cares. Its purpose is to teach scholarship, teach what people have written about what other people have written and done through time.

In promoting this, I feel that I'm some kind of throw back to medievalism. Or maybe I just read WAY too much C.S. Lewis as a kid. (Probably.) Lewis was a big fan of the narrow and deep approach. In my case, I feel that the Humanities (in particular) went off the rails when they thought they had to come up with teaching styles that covered economics and race and gender. And then they decided they had to be diverse, which meant they had to be sorry that so many of their texts were written by men and were written, not oral. Shock. Shock. I'm not opposed to reading things by women nor am I opposed to reading/studying oral cultures. But I don't think the academic world should abandon what it is in order to show how sorry it is that it isn't something else. Because if it keeps doing that, it's just going to vanish.

To my own subject: I think when literature is taught, it ought to be taught for/as what it is. I mean, nobody expects Stephen Hawkins to explain the particular importance of his universe model in terms of the economic realities of minority single mothers living in urban centers. (And his theories might be amazing, but they have very little relevance to the day-to-day.) As a teacher myself, I'm not a big fan of enlightening people or engendering appreciation or whatever. I just want to teach people to understand a subject, and I think it would be fantastic if the Humanities could reach the point where people would talk about, say, Homer, just because he's dead, and he wrote great poetry and here's how he did it, and here's why people cared, and people may not care anymore, but they should still know that once someone did care just because it's good to know stuff like that about books, like it is good to know about Newton and Galileo. Not even because it makes us better people. Just cause knowing stuff is good. (I'm going to print that on a T-shirt: Knowing Stuff is Good.)

But maybe I'm expecting too much. Is it better to have people vaguely educated in a lot of things with a lot of vague concepts rattling around in their heads or is it better to have people know a lot of information and context and specific details about a very few things?

Actually, I don't know the answer to that.

CATEGORY: HISTORY & LEARNING

Chick Flicks

One of the main problems with chick flicks (which in general I enjoy) is that the resolution often doesn't compensate for the trouble you've gone through.

Typical chick flick plot: boy meets girl, misunderstanding arises and continues, confrontation occurs (about 3/4ths of the way into the movie), boy and girl fight, boy and girl resolve differences.

It's a fairly respectable plot. Shakespeare used it. What Shakespeare understood, and what so many film makers don't appear to, is that the resolution has to be worth it. All the convolutions and misunderstandings have to have a resolution worthy of so much wackiness. Good grief, Shakespeare had statues come to life and twins show up and people sleep with other people without knowing they were sleeping with other people and lovers getting enchanted and so on and so forth.

I came to this conclusion after watching How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days. It's a cute movie. I enjoyed it. It followed the chick flick plot, but the end just didn't work. And I determined that it didn't work because the end wasn't as creative as the middle. It was the "Oh, they fought and she's going to leave town and he runs after her" ploy: blah blah blah. Where's Claude Rains when you need him? Shoot some Nazis already!

The other solution, of course, is to have the confrontation and the resolution occur at the same time. This is the end of Good Fairy (wonderful, wonderful old film, by the way). It is also the ending of You've Got Mail (actually, You've Got Mail uses both techniques since he knows about the misunderstanding, but she doesn't). I consider You've Got Mail one of the most satisfying chick flicks of all time and a great deal of that has to do with the resolution, which is allowed to underwind slowly and naturally (naturally for a chick flick film). Too abrupt and you feel like you've missed something; uncreative and you wonder why you bothered. Why should these people get together? They didn't work for it!

Some good chick flicks:
You've Got Mail
Say Anything
Notting Hill
Jane Austen
Shall We Dance (Japanese Version)
Ballroom Dancing
The Mirror Has Two Faces
Born Yesterday (the new version which, surprise, surprise, I far prefer to the older version)
While You Were Sleeping
The Beautician & the Beast (a surprising amount of fun)
Untamed Heart

Could Have Been Better:
How to Lose a Guy
Alex & Emma
10 Things I Hate About You
Sabrina (I prefer the black & white version, but even that is kind of a strange movie: mostly, I just like watching Humphrey Bogart jump up and down on a large piece of plastic; Greg Kinnear is excellent in the new version)
The Truth About Cats & Dogs

Chick Flicks I Never Saw and Don't Want To or Saw and Didn't Care For:
Sleepless in Seattle
Bridges of Madison County
Beaches
My Best Friend's Wedding (except for Rupert Everett)
As Good As It Gets (It's a good movie, but I don't much like Jack Nicholson)

Not Really Chick Flicks but Great Romances
Princess Bride (of course!)
Good Fairy
Joe versus the Volcano
Casablanca (naturally!)

CATEGORY: MOVIES

Show Intros

Another list. It's mid-terms, which is one of the hardest times of the semester; it's when I have to stand up and explain to my students (again) that intent is not the same as work; you may have meant to be in class, but that doesn't mean you were in class. You may have great reasons for not being in class, but . . . that still doesn't mean you were in class. You may think I'm mean for not understanding what great reasons you have for not being in class, but . . . that still doesn't mean you were in class. Like American Idol contestants, they confuse the quality of their characters with doing the work that will enable them to pass the course. And I have to get up and say, "Look, if you aren't going to come to class, just drop the course. And don't negotiate with me." I'm beginning to think that the primary purpose of a High School education is to teach students to charm or otherwise maneuver their way into grades (which reminds me of that scene from Clueless where the heroine does precisely that and her lawyer father commends her).

Anyway, not a relaxing time of year so I watch television, which is enormously relaxing. The following are a list of various show intros that I like, that I don't like, etc. in no particular order.

1. Again, Enterprise, which I didn't watch while it was running. But I would often watch the intro. One of the best Star Trek intros ever. Okay, okay, I do get a kick out of the intro for Star Trek: Original--all that goofy singing. But in general, I consider Star Trek intros fairly dull. Enterprise was a nice exception.

2. Criminal Minds needs a better intro. Cold Case is good. CSIs are good. Bones is okay. NCIS is okay. But Criminal Minds is really awful.

3. I love the intro to House: I'm afraid they are going to change it, which often happens after Season 2 of a show. Although CSI: Las Vegas only changed a little bit (thank goodness). So perhaps, House will stay as truly awesome as it is.

4. I liked it when Monk changed its intro though. I didn't mind the original, but I have tremendous respect for Randy Newman songs.

5. The American Idol intro confuses me. Is it a girl who walks out? Or does a guy walk out and then turn into a girl? Or do they change it every other night? Or what? (Speaking of American Idol, I don't care for Ryan Seacrest at all, but he is an excellent host. Also, speaking of American Idol, if they didn't have Simon on there, what a gooey, pointless show that would be.)

6. One thing I wish is that DVDs with multiple episodes wouldn't play the intro every single time. I think the intro to Dead Like Me is very clever, but I get sick of watching it time after time after time after time. Since I can never find the "turn the intro off" button, methinks it may be a legal thing.

7. And I really get annoyed by intros that recapsulate the plot. The early Buffy DVDs do that. Okay, by the time it gets to DVD, and I've rented it, I think the marketers should assume I'm passably familiar with the show. The Quantum Leap intros on DVD, for instance, are something like three minutes long. Actually, television intros in general have improved enormously since the 80s.

8. I must mention the PBS intro for Mystery with Gorey's figures. A true classic. Many PBS shows have classic intros: As Time Goes By, Red Dwarf ("It's cold outside . . ." or is that the end?), Black Adder(actually, I'm thinking of the end credits again, especially in the Regency Era episodes).

9. Not really an intro, but I quite like NCIS' technique of snapshotting the end of a sequence and then playing the scene through to that snapshot--a tad contrived but effective.

CATEGORY: TV

Canon Couples

My favorites. My least favorites. And so on and so forth. In no particular order. WARNING: Spoilers.

1. Trip & T'Pol. I didn't watch Enterprise when it was running, but I've picked up on some of the general plot lines recently. Our Fox station here shows the 2-part episodes over and over and over. I've been pleasantly surprised that they stuck with the Trip/T'Pol relationship (which, eh hem, I prophecied from the beginning). It is also one of the few times that I think killing off a character was appropriate. After all, T'Pol/Trip can't be the first Vulcan/Human couple. That's Sarek & Amanda.

2. Buffy & Angel. Buffy & Spike. I'm okay with both of them. I do think that Buffy & Spike had a lot of potential which was totally misused. One of the most common arguments made by the Buffy producers (about Buffy & Spike) was that, come on guys, Spike is a bad guy. Yes, he is, but they romanticized him too much to make that argument believable (besides, if you want bad, check out Angel). On the show Dead Like Me, Eric McCormack (Will of Will & Grace) shows up in a couple of episodes as an abusing boyfriend. His performance is so subtle and yet so craven, you really do believe that this guy is a horrible, horrible person. (And I must say, I was impressed by McCormack's acting. He took nice-smiley-guy Will and transformed that charm into something almost grotesque, but it wasn't overplayed either.)

3. B'Elanna & Paris. The thing I really like about B'Elanna & Paris is that they have a continual relationship. (They don't get together, break up, get together, break up a la Friends.) Check out As Time Goes By for more of the same. Dharma & Greg are another good example. And Margot & Jerry in Good Neighbors (Barbara & Tom are, of course, the heroes of the show, but the thing I like about Margot & Jerry is that their relationship functions successfully on a day-to-day basis without them resorting to psychological insights and conversations about "our feelings.")

4. Speaking of Friends: Chandler and Monica. I believed in that relationship in a way that I never believed in Ross & Rachel (the problem with Ross & Rachel is that Ross' character started out as smart/sarcastic and a little goofy. By the end of the show, they had turned him into a whiney jerk: the butt of all the jokes; he simply wasn't as funny.)

5. Al and Trudy. Speaking of butt-of-the-jokes: Tim was always making fun of Al on Home Improvement, yet it never was reduced to kick-the-guy-while-he-is-down humor. And they let Al get married. (To an heiress: how cool is that! Also, Trudy is kind, happy and matter-of-fact: a perfect fit for Al.)

6. Chakotay & 7-of-9. Believe it or not, I'm beginning to understand this relationship. I've been watching Voyager DVDs over the last year and a half. I'm about 2/3rds of the way through. It is astonishing. I thought I was passably familiar with the show, but I think, altogether, I saw about 1/8th of the episodes the first time around. I'm really enjoying seeing them all now. And I'm beginning to believe in Chakatoy & 7-of-9 as a couple. Chakatoy kind of grows on you. I'm willing to accept, much more than with Riker, that this laid-back guy is truly not interested in his own command. He didn't become a Marquis because of authority issues (although some Marquis probably did), and he is more than willing to serve under Janeway. (I never, never believed that Riker would keep giving up command positions).

7. Riker & Troi & Whorf. Speaking of Riker . . . I may be one of the few people who believed in that triangle, although it was inevitable that Riker & Troi would get together. By the time they did, however, I really didn't believe in their relationship anymore.

8. Jane & Rochester/Elizabeth & Darcy, etc. The historical romantics. I believe in them more or less based on the actors. I believe in the Dalton/Clarke Jane & Rochester. I don't believe in the Welles/Joan Fontaine Jane & Rochester (although Welles is perfect as Rochester). I haven't seen the new Pride & Prejudice yet, so I can't comment on that. And yes, I absolutely believe in the Firth/Ehle combo. I don't really believe in the Olivier/Garson combo, although I like the movie, but that's because I keep thinking Greer Garson will dump the lot of them and go off and start a business somewhere.

9. The winner of the Great If Dysfunctional Award: Grant & Bergman (with Rains as the third party) in Notorious.

10. Most touching, even transcendent: Mikako & Noboru of Voices of a Distant Star. Check out my brother's review of Voices of a Distant Star here. You can usually find Voices at Blockbuster or through Netflix.

11. The couple I would like to see: Grissom & Sarah--oh go ahead and promote the May/December relationship already. One of the negatives about cultural sensitivity is that it has become very un-okay for dramas to link up older men and younger women or, even, older women and younger men (except in a comedic sense). So much for Jane & Rochester.

12. The relationship that is doomed to occur: Hotchner & Greenaway on Criminal Minds (that's Gibson & Glaudini). I could be wrong about that; I'm hoping that the show doesn't go the Without a Trace route; I think soap operas and forensics should not mix. But if it does, that's the relationship that I'm betting will occur. (I don't mind CSI: Las Vegas' implied relationships; I do mind when the relationships begin to manage the plot, rather than the other way around. I don't watch shows like Sex in the City for a reason: oh, gag.)

13. The relationship that was doomed even though it didn't need to be and was handled totally stupidly by the producers: Assumpta & Father Clifford.

14. Greatest couple of all time: Powell & Loy in the Thin Man series.

CATEGORY: MOVIES