What I Learned from the Teevee : Family Film Edition

How does it feel to win the Uh Huh Her SXSW Fan Video Contest? Well, after a long day of fielding press requests and receiving Edible Arrangements, I can say: I feel like a pineapple in the shape of a flower. That's how I feel. Speaking of flowers: I am the flower and I want you to know how thankful I am that you helped me to grow. I once was a seed so deep in a pot, but with sunshine and rain, I grew up a lot, I sprouted these petals, so fragrant and GAY, to garden your hearts, and brighten your day.

B. asks: "Did you have any, you know, prior interest? In China?"

"Actually YES," I reply, "I've been interested in China ever since I saw Big Bird Goes to China, one of my favorite movies of all time. I watched that movie like twenty times, when I wasn't watching my other favorite movie The Wizard of Oz. OMG Snuffalupagus!"

I believe that Big Bird Goes to China was a television event rather than a traditional "film," but its quality exceeds the inherent limitations of its format. The performances are so strong, the narrative so engaging, that even were one to watch it on a Zune, it'd feel like IMAX. I feel I could drink milk off this child's skin, and it would be sweeter than normal milk and it wouldn't be weird that I wanted to do that instead of using a cup or a glass.

My childhood fascination with China originated in the following feelings: 50% Big Bird, 50% Sweet & Sour Chicken. Clearly as a pup I hadn't yet experienced the horrors of food poisoning, which're now so near & dear to me that I no longer eat meat from Chinese restaurants. Nor had I grown up and discovered that Big Bird isn't real, just like how Tinkerbell and democracy aren't real, either.

Furthermore, On Sunday I was thinking about how it's entirely possible that my formative desire to one day seek the bright lights of NYC was 50% Broadway, 50% Muppets Take Manhattan. Although I wasn't allowed to watch teevee, we had a VCR and often went to the movies with our Fig Newtons & juice boxes, and I'm 90% sure that most of my ideas about life come from kids movies. Thus today's special topic: "What I Learned [About How to Live my Life] from the Teevee: Family Film Edition."

The original mission of this segment, rambled on about in its first installment, (covering West Wing and The L Word) was somehow related to whatever I thought I was talking about when I "wrote" this paragraph of excellence:

I think the best television writers are also artists/educators, not just comedians/entertainers. Usually they're smarter than their shows imply [unless it is Alan Ball, Aaron Sorkin or Jim Henson, they have smart shows]. That's why TV writers're always dropping allusions to high art, to remind us of their literacy. Nietzsche must've done a triple-somersault in his grave, Mary Lou Retton style, when Jenny Schecter announced on The L Word that her story, "Thus Spoke Sara Schuster" had been published in The Best American Short Stories [Totally impossible, unless the guest editor was Ryan Seacrest or a chimpanzee.] Later, this became just one element of the glory which is Jenny's on-screen literary career, which is one of many reasons why I heart The L Word and it's strange little world of magic and make-believe.

Um, okay. I also did a Second Istallment focusing on the educational merits of The Real World, My So-Called Life, and Queer as Folk.

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Androgyny Rocks!

The Labyrinth frightened me on many levels. Howevs, David Bowie's androgyny wasn't scary at all, it was like "ground control to Ree-Ree!" I think my desire to date boyish girls isn't really David Bowie's fault though, it's probably more related to my deep affinity to Scout from To Kill a Mockingbird. JK, she was like, 10 or something:

Riese, Scout (L to R)
[Actually, there's much better combos of me/scout photos that exist to prove my point, but I don't feel like looking through my photos right now, 'cause I'm trying to be efficient, like a Chinese person, to get practice.]
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The Best Solution to any serious problem is to read a book, 'cause then you'll get sucked into the story and save Fantasia, etc.

I love that writers -- by nature, 'cause they're always readers themselves -- write about nerdy kids who get to crawl into books to escape their life of outcast-hood (See also: A Princess Bride). I still try crawling into books now, except I don't wanna play in 'em anymore, 'cause I'd probs crawl into a lot of tense relationship moments between: 1) Lesbians, 2) Sad/anxious people in cities, 3) Sad/contemplative/drinking heavily people in the midwest, 4)Sad/demented people in the suburbs, 5)Sad/Soulless/Money-worshipping people in L.A., 5)Straight girls and a lesbians, 6) Nate & Blair, 7) Mr. Wind-Up Bird and May Kashara. Obvs, I'd still like to believe that at any moment, if I hitch onto the right story, I could possibly save the world -- that flying begins with a pull, proceeds with a push, and breaks into smooth blue trailsmoke, leaving a momentary but dramatic impact on the sky.

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Being an Orphan and/or Stranded on a Desert Island is endless amounts of ass-kicking, treehouse-building, limb-climbing fun: Swiss Family Robinson, Apple Dumpling Gang
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I spoke of Disneyworld, Swiss Family Robinson house, yes?

This is Where The Swiss Family Robinson once lived.

One day, they'll make The Boxcar Children into a movie (I'm sure they already have, but obvs it wasn't good enough for me to know about it) and then you're all gonna have serious fantasies about totally terrible tragedies that enable you to move to the trees, like Julia Butterfly, who I've also mentioned before. She is the girl that lived in the tree so they wouldn't cut it down, which I think is always a good solution to keep something around: move into it and build bridges and beds inside of it, then it can't leave you without breaking more things than you think can be broken. The results of this strategy have been, throughout time; mixed.

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Decision to move to New York filled with big dreams about making it there & consequently everywhere, etc. The Muppets Take Manhattan

No post-college ennui film (it's its own genre now) comes close to matching The Muppets Take Manhattan's accuracy: its bright-eyed idealism and complicated self-justifications, its shitty jobs & traffic accidents & broken dreams & dysfunctional relationships & the angst, oh, the angst of all its thwarted shots at fame! The naivite -- did they really think a Broadway producer would suddenly pick up their hometown hit musical Manhattan Melodies, without even a connection? We've all got our own Manhattan Melodies, you know, whether it be a book or a dream job, and so our hearts yearn for the troop when they bust into the agent's office, sans-appointment, belting out their opening number.

Any NYC Apartment search veteran does the math when the gang holes up in Grand Central's lockers (25 cents an hour, times 24 hours, times seven days ... midtown, shared bath, not too much crack ... best deal EVER!)
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"Saying Goodbye," though I doubt it touched me then, makes me cry now -- the lyrics really hit home, like a good Ani DiFranco tune. JK! (I mean, that's true, for me, but not for most other grown women not existing in a 1996 time-warp like I am)
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Then Kermie goes to the top of a super tall building, I think, right? And looks out over the city, tries to remember why he came. But he misses everyone a whole bunch. On youtube this sequence is in Portuguese, one of a handful of languages I'm not fluent in.

Miss Piggy's mugged in central park and snaps like we've all snapped -- becomes a monster on roller skates, anxious to retrieve her bag of discarded jewelery, makeup and pantyhose. People would ask if I worried about getting mugged in Spanish Harlem but I wasn't. What would they take? Lip gloss? I was broke with no money in the bank, or in my wallet, my credit cards were maxed out, my ID wouldn't even get you a rental car (I had three moving violations) and I doubt it'd be a viable fake for anyone liable to mug me in the first place.

Kermit's first restaurant job -- the one he accepts, regretfully, while waiting to make it -- again, so relatable. We know his bright-eyed coworker, she's the typified young actress, struggling through school and smiling like a critterish little milkmaid (she's defo got a spot on Top 100 Critters) while she makes bacon for people with real jobs.

And the letter montage! When all the friends split up 'cause they're all out of cash, they need cheaper rents & resume-boosting jobs? And then they all write to Kermit, who's sitting in the diner probs thinking "Sheesh, it's not easy being green." While he's reading, we see each character in his actual environment which of course bears no resemblance whatsoever to their normal lives. E.g., a minimum-wage ticket-taking job at a movie theater becomes a "Hollywood position." 'Cause they should all just tell each other the truth: this isn't going how I planned it, either. Forgive me, I dream the impossible dream, when I close my eyes it's all very clear and when I open them I run into a wall. Literally, metaphorically, all of it.

Then Kermie sells out, obvs, 'cause he got amnesia from getting hit by a car (SPOILER ALERT!), and he becomes like everyone else who dress the same and even all have the same names.

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I don't remember the next part but obviously they all reunite and they get the show on stage and they are a smash success and then Kermit and Miss Piggy (who're basically like the Bette and Tina of the Muppets) fall in love, pick up Angelica from Playgroup and get married, a ceremony I've cited in the past as being much like my wedding might be if I decided to throw a wedding as a joke or something. (Or if someone gets suckered into spending forevs & evs with me.)

Anyhow they all achieve their dreams obvs, just like I will, and also, so will all my friends.
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A bowl cut (w/hoodie and/or t-shirt, sneakers, jeans) never goes out of style: E.T., Flight of the Navigator, The Neverending Story, etc

I'm not lying, lately when I look in the mirror I think "I have 80's sci-fi children's movie lead male protagonist hair." My number two feeling is usually Ringo Starr.

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Developing Close Relationships with Stuffed Animals:
Toy Story, Indian in the Cupboard, Babes in Toyland

As the entire world knows since WE WON THE FUCKING UH HUH HER CONTEST SO ROVE ON ROVERMOM, ROVE ON!!!, Tinkerbell is not a real dog. Honestly though, having Tinkerbell makes me really wish I had a real dog, 'cause she's so cute. You should see her cute little face in the morning when she wants to play. JK, I haven't totally lost my mind. I have a lot of ideas about art as life and the difference between characters and real people and how we turn people into characters and what it means to have a cyber-personality and a real one and what real is and what truth is and what art is and so on so and somehow the existence of Tinkerbell is related to something profound I've yet to reveal/discover. But also I'm 35% positive she'll be coming to life, and then we can go on adventures. We are going to be Best in Show. Clearly Tinkerbell is excited to go China, she's already learned the word for "dinosaur."