I HATE MY LIFE AS LIZ, Part 3

Yesterday, for the first time in YEARS, Daria was on television, IN ENGLISH, at a watchable hour (on Logo, randomly). I WAS ECSTATIC LIKE YOU HAVE NO IDEA FOR REAL.

Daria, as you obviously are aware, was an animated series on MTV of all things back in the 90s, when the M still stood for "music" and not "my God this is terrible." It was snarky, but it was genuine, it was sincere, and Jane and Daria's perpetual cynicism was not unchecked. They were likable, but I think a lot of the time this was despite their raging sarcasm. Of course it's fun to see them get away with their vitriolic, witty quips, but you understand that these girls were not supposed to be models for the viewer. They had flaws. They were real.

Scarily enough, Daria and Jane were even more real than the person that many are touting as their present-day, real-life "counterpart." Guess who that could be? YES INDEEDY, the abominable Liz "Look At Me, I'm So Nerdy With My Makeup and My Expensive Art School and My MTV Affiliation and Hipster-esque Appreciation For Anything Ironically 'Cool'" Lee. How I loathe that woman; her hair, dyed red with the blood of those who fought in the Great War for the Betterment of Teenage Culture, sends me into a murderous frenzy upon sight, for gods-sakes. Unlike Daria, Liz Lee lives in a completely manufactured world where everyone is played by an actor and almost everyone is a self-obsessed idiot. (Oh, wait, that's exactly like Daria. BUT DARIA IS A CARTOON OKAY) This fact infuriates me, mostly because Liz has kept up this ruse successfully for two years now, and is not going away like I so politely ask her to every night in my dreams. And by "polite" I mean "threateningly," but that's besides the point!

What's most infuriating about the Daria/Lee comparison is that Lee herself embraces it, as stated in this new and completely unnecessary interview by CNN (yeah, remember when they were a veritable source of information?). She is deluded enough to call Daria an inspiration, and y'know, as disgusting as it is, it makes a lot of stinking sense. Liz Lee is a cartoon character, through and through. Too bad none of her snark is even vaguely amusing.

The article disgusts me in so many ways. May we count them?

1. This quote: "'The executives at MTV are really smart. The fact that a show like that is on now is amazing and great,' said Fogelnest, who hosted his own show on MTV as a teenager (from his bedroom, no less), 'Squirt TV,' in the mid-1990s. 'My Life as Liz' is 'the one thing where someone's not pregnant or drunk; it's what real people are like.'" Okay, I understand that Jake Fogelnest and Liz Lee are "friends" or something weird like that, but this is some actually scripted nonsense. "Amazing and great"? Huh? And NO, real people are not like this. Honestly, the people on stinking Teen Mom are FAR more real than any person on My Life as Liz. Sorry. (Not.)
2. "But My Life as Liz is unique for another criticism that has been leveled against the show's star: 'My nerd cred is attacked all the time. People think that that was fabricated by MTV. That's the hardest rumor for me to deal with.'...When people (online) say, "You're not a real nerd,"' said Lee, 'I'm sitting in my room with shelves overflowing with stacks of comic books.'" LOLOLOL YEAH OKAY BECAUSE THAT MEANS YOU'RE A NERD. Shelves overflowing with comic books. PUH-LEEZE. Look, maybe Liz Lee DOES read comic books. Whatever. But that doesn't make her a "nerd." That just makes her someone who likes comic books. She is unbelievably image-obsessed, and that just adds fuel to my intense hatred. Which, if you couldn't tell, is super crazy intense, like, whoa.
3. "Benjamin Nugent, author of 'American Nerd,' noted, 'When you have people choosing to be nerds, questions of authenticity can come up. Before, you had no choice to be a nerd. Now that it's an acceptable option, you can accuse someone of being that way just to be cool. When it was uncool, you never had to worry about authenticity.'" I just find this really idiotic while also extremely obvious. What I don't understand is why one now suddenly has an option when they didn't before. You can choose to like video games and what-have-you or you can choose not to. It's that freakin' simple.
4. "'Daria made it cool to be a smart chick,' said writer Jennifer Vineyard, who worked at MTV for eight years. 'Just the presence of people or characters like Daria help make it cool to be yourself. There's a tendency for young girls to play dumb. Characters like Daria show you that you don't have to.'" I mean, I don't know, I don't think that being who you are has to be cool. You just are who you are and you don't complain. Well, you do complain, but then you grow up and you realize that it doesn't matter, these things are forever. Daria definitely is cool, but I don't know why she had to come around to prove to people that being intelligent was something worth being!
5. "Nugent also pointed out, 'Because it's now being put on MTV, teenagers are seeing it as more acceptable. I'm surprised how many kids come up to me and introduce themselves as geeks.'" I don't even know what to make of this. It's just...wow. Um.

I have to give up because I hate so much about what this article chooses to be. My Life as Liz is a terrible misrepresentation about the "nerd" subculture. It doesn't help. It hurts, and it hurts a lot. Liz masquerades as some teen nerd queen but she's just a robot programmed by Viacom to appeal to the one niche not watching MTV. God, I wish she wasn't succeeding.

"The...Suburbs."

Last night I watched the Grammys for the first time in years. The Grammys are the lest important out of all of the major awards, maybe because they're light on awards and heavy on performance by people I don't care much about. Seriously, they gave out maybe 10 awards last night. It's like a big, three hour concert. However, for some reason we found ourselves watching.

And you know? It wasn't terrible. Justin Bieber was good, and I'm not saying that just because I'm biased because we're best friends or anything; Rihanna was good, and so was Bruno Mars and Janelle Monae. Other than that, the show was kind of dull. I was anticipating Arcade Fire's performance, but then they did "Month of May," which is a great, fun song but I was looking forward to "Ready to Start," or maybe "The Sprawl II."

But then? Right after they performed, it was time for Album of the Year. The awards, in my opinion, don't really matter much. It's all a big popularity contest. "Need You Now" is NOT better than ANY of those other songs (or "records" depending on the category) nominated, but it still won. It's politics. But Album of the Year doesn't usually go with the popular choice, so it's always a nice surprise. This year was no different, as you can see in that video.

Yep, Arcade Fire's The Suburbs WON, and I was just as shocked as you and everyone else watching. I was also ecstatic, because for once it's 1. a band that I like and 2. something that's actually good! (that I've heard, anyway, haha). The fact that these guys even got nominated surprised me, but that they won as well was a really amazing way to end the show. Of course, not everyone felt the same way; I heard people at school today whining about not knowing who the band is, and people took to their Twitters to complain about some "unknown" band winning over Eminem and Lady Gaga. (They also complained about actually unknown singer Esperanza Spalding winning Best New Artist over the Biebs. Whatever, I ain't even mad.)

Arcade Fire might not have been the popular choice, but in my opinion, they were the right choice. Music is a very subjective thing but they just made a very classic-sounding rock and roll album. It's not really heavy stuff, although the lyrics definitely have substance (MAN, I love the opening lines to "Ready to Start": "Businessmen drinking my blood/like the kids in art school said they would." I also love the lyrics to "We Used to Wait"), not that Eminem's raps don't or anything, but this album, in my opinion, was very accessibly, just objectively good music. It's very Americana, and the Grammys eat that crud up, I think.

So congrats to Arcade Fire. Let's hail this as a win for the good and not just the popular.

I don't shine if you don't shine.

Yesterday I went to an awesome party. Whoo. After said awesome party, however, I was unable to sleep, which is always the worst. I went to bed at 11 or 11:30 and didn't fall asleep until after 3. And then I woke up at 6. And now my nose is running and my throat is sore and my back is killing. Ugh.

That being said, I have no interest in writing an elaborate post today. So, instead, here, watch Thursday's Parks and Recreation (BEN AND LESLIE AAAH) and 30 Rock (I will miss you forever, Carol):



"Ron and Tammy, Part 2" (Parks and Recreation)



"Double-Edged Sword" (30 Rock)

Ironically, the Super Bowl Got Me Thinking

Thought: Last night, Christina Aguilera, who, if I may comment, and I may because there are no rules here, this isn't Fight Club, although it would be cool if it was, except I wouldn't have lasted this long, I would probably be like Jared Leto's character and Edward Norton would take his anger out on me because Brad Pitt had a crush on me and then I would be disfigured and scary-looking, looked like her face had been stretched out completely, sang the National Anthem at the Super Bowl. It was terrible. (I heard it playing in the other room and wondered if our neighbors' cat was being murdered or something.) Xtina screwed up some of the words, and that's...yeah. Bad.

Of course, I don't even know the words myself but I assume you're expected to know what you're singing before you go out and sing it? Maybe they just saw Christina and her melting stretchy face in the stands and said, "Oh my god! Christian Aguilera! Even though she's totally irrelevant she's like the most famous singer here! Let's have her sing the Anthem! Maybe people won't be able to tell that it's her and not Lady Gaga, who kind of looks like her! Man, this is genius! I smell a bonus! I think? Or is that a hot dog?" and that's why she sucked so hard.

Personally I'm not offended when people screw up the Anthem. I don't understand why we need to sing it at all our sports games. I guess the majority of the people watching sports are from middle America where you're shot if you don't greet people by yelling, "HECK YEAH, AMERICA!" and smacking them on the butt in a totally non-homosexual way. (Note: I'm a naive, over-generalizing East Coaster. Duh.) Also, why is the "Star-Spangled Banner" the Anthem? I think "America the Beautiful" and even "God Bless America" are better songs, objectively, although I don't think it's a good idea to have a Christian-themed anthem. And why the crud do we need so many patriotic songs, anyway? I get it, really: the USA is pretty spiffy or whatever. I'm not down on it. We have the best cable channels, after all. But I think instead of singing these really boring and stupid America songs before games we should just be given ice cream in red, white, and blue cups. I love ice cream, and so does every other patriotic person; eating ice cream should only reaffirm our patriotism, then. HECK YEAH, ICE CREAM! IN AMERICA!

Thought: After the Super Bowl I screamed at my dad for half an hour, "IS GLEE ON YET? IS GLEE ON YET? HELLO? CAN YOU GET ME SOME ICE CREAM? OH, AND IS GLEE ON YET?" Yes, I scream in CAPITAL LETTERS GRRR. You see, Glee was the post-Super Bowl show this year. Was it The Office last year or two years ago? Because that was the last show that I cared about that aired after the game. I have low expectations for Glee, since it's one of the most infuriatingly overrated things in the history of infuriatingly overrated, a canon that also boasts U2 and Twilight. Last night's episode probably met my expectations: it was boring, the characters were either not there or acting strange (since when has Chord Overstreet a.k.a. "Sam" been so terrible? That broke my cold, dark little heart), but at least the songs were mostly good and it was kind of funny. The best song for me was not the overhyped "Thriller"/"Heads Will Roll" mash-up ("Heads Will Roll" was so underused! But I loved when one of the football players asked who the Yeah Yeah Yeah's are), but the random and unnecessary a capella cover of "Bills, Bills, Bills" by Blaine and his gang of the Gay-Friendly Non-Gays, Featuring Ex-Glee Member Kurt. So good, yet so, so, so pointless.



As he was singing and dancing and being generally enviable and awesome and talented and my future best friend-like, I realized that Blaine is not doing his whole singing and dancing act for the guys. He's doing it, it seems, for the ladies. Blaine is supposed to be gay but I don't get that vibe from him, maybe because his actor Darren Criss is straight and not able to communicate otherwise well. Maybe I'm being stereotypical, but I don't think it's about stereotypes; despite the fact that they're setting up Blaine and Kurt's future relationship they really have no chemistry whatsoever. In fact, maybe Blaine is asexual; he just does not give off the sense that he's ever had romantic interest in anyone, neither female nor male. I don't know if it's the writing or what. He just exists to sing and dance and all of the girls swoon when he does.

I like Blaine a lot but he just is this sexless being. I actually respect that about him, because most people his/my age play up their sexuality in a really obnoxious way, although that's not as true for gay people, I guess. What I don't like is that he's supposed to be some role model for all of the gay boys that watch; they either have Kurt, who is flamboyant and kind of terrible, actually, and just embodies every stereotype ever, or they have Blaine, who must hide his homosexuality really darn well or something despite attending his charming all-boys school, or "Tolerance Narnia," as the AV Club hilariously puts it. I guess I don't have to care this much but if I didn't I wouldn't be me!...

Thought: ...Although that probably wouldn't be a bad thing. (Haha, us teenagers are just so self-deprecating and down on ourselves, it's adorable.)

L'illusionist

We saw this, The Illusionist, last night. So now I've seen all three of the Animated Film nominations. While this is my least favorite of the three, that is not because it isn't good. Actually, it's great, so, nomination well-deserved. While Toy Story 3 and How to Train Your Dragon had great CG visuals, nothing beats a beautiful hand-drawn, 2D film, and this one was one of the best-looking I've seen. The Triplets of Bellevile always creeped me out but this film is a must-see. Very funny, very touching...also very sad, let me tell you. I mean, if you cried at the end of Toy Story 3 (which, c'mon, you did) wait until you see how this one ends. Man.

Scholastic Art and Writing Awards, With Jesse Eisenberg

My sister is a better writer than me. You could replace "my sister" with anyone, except maybe Snooki and her ghost writer, and this statement would be true. However, humility and self-consciousness aside, my sister is assuredly a better writer than me. (I will, however, say that I have better grammar than her. And a little grammar goes a long way. I hope.)

The Scholastic Art and Writing Awards are made for people who are not only better at writing than I am, but also just better at writing than most people. Well, most people in grades 7-12 anyway. There are different levels of recognition, regional and national, and my sister just got the highest regional recognition today, the Gold Key! Winning the Gold Key moves you on to the National competition, where you are entered for the chance to win some pretty meaty scholarships.

Since I am a really amazing person, I am very supportive and wish my sister the best of luck. This is all well and good, but you may be wondering how this relates to my blog. My blog allegedly has a theme/purpose, so darnit I will honor that or I will die trying! Like 50 Cent! Blargh!

The relevance is this: as I mentioned before I think Jesse Eisenberg is awesome! He's a great actor and seems like a good person, too! This is evidenced by his association and sponsorship of the very same awards organization that just honored my sister!



What a wonderful coincidence! So not only does Jesse wholeheartedly believe in this organization, he also is willing to participate in their fundraisers. He (and the non-Asian but very Asian-looking Lili Taylor) will be doing a "literary reading" in the NYC on March 9th. Unfortunately, the bleeding thing is 1. on a Wednesday and 2. for people 21 and up. CURSES. Why does it have to be at a bar, you guys?! This organization celebrates YOUNG writers! Ugh. So close, yet so far.

If for some reason YOU are 21 and/or older and are reading this blog and feel a desire to torture me, then by all means go. You can buy tickets here. But don't think I'll be happy for you.

Edited to add: Maybe one day Jesse will read my sister's winning short story. At any rate, here is his excellent reading of this brilliant essay that won the Gold Medal two years ago.

Relevant Things Going On in My Life Right Now #6

So, a couple of things. Obviously I have a new layout. Yay! (?) I really liked the old one but I feel like this one goes more with the spirit and the tone of this very silly web log. Second, that above is Johnny Weir. Is it just me or does he look slightly like Christian Bale there? Anyway, I just watched this documentary about him, Pop Star on Ice. It has a 17% on Rotten Tomatoes but I actually enjoyed it, even if it was mostly because Johnny is hilarious. His Russian accent is awesome.

Other than that, a lot has happened since my last post, so I thought I'd do one of these to cover everything. (Also I have a Snow Day, A-STINKING-GAIN, and I want to do other things and this is easy-ish.)

• The NGP: No, it's not some kind of government branch that's out to get you. It's the name of what is more commonly known as the PSP2! The NGP was unveiled last week and it basically is a fatter PSP with two joysticks and better graphics. This is enough for many people to rejoice over, but I remain unconvinced. It's not that I don't think the NGP looks cool, because it definitely does, and it's not that I don't think it will be successful, because I know there are a lot of people who want to buy it; it's just that, in terms of innovation, it seems like it's lacking in that extra "wow" factor. I mean, I have a PS3 to play my PS3 games. I don't need a portable for that. What it means for me, though, is that soon the PSP will finally be low enough in price that I can buy one! Yay!
• Jesse Eisenberg on SNL: I am a Jesse Eisenberg fan, and his episode of SNL was the funniest in ages. I watched the entire show, live, and that is something I never do! It was worth it, though. The best sketches were the Don't Forget the Lyrics! one, which awkwardly didn't get as many laughs from the audience as it did from me; the one with Bill Hader as Herb, the old and bitter newscaster who kept hitting everyone in the face (I'm sorry but his constantly hitting everyone in the face with the microphone was extremely amusing, especially when Bill Hader started cracking afterwards); the Lonely Island song, "Do the Creep;" and the Bride of Blackenstein, which featured the best line of the night from Jesse Eisenberg: when asked where he got the bride's mouth, he replied, "From a ho who didn't know her place!" Weekend Update was also amusing thanks to Kenan as Tyler Perry: "My best friend is Oprah!" It wasn't all kittens and cupcakes, though: the fake commercial was incredibly offensive and all of Kristen Wiig's turns were awful. But Jesse Eisenberg was able to bring his antsy energy and host a fun show. Watch the episode here.
• The new series of Skins: It premiered over in jolly old England last Thursday. I watched it over the weekend; it was my first time watching the British Skins in a decent amount of time, since I never watched the third or fourth series besides some clips. Okay, so there were definite shades of Mean Girls, but Franky and Grace and Rich and maybe Alo (which is a stupid name) seem awesome. Matty had potential also but his acting was terrible. I'm excited to see what happens this season. Err, series.
• "The Trapeze Swinger": is a beautiful song, by Iron & Wine. He wrote it for a movie that stars Topher Grace (and, disgustingly, Dennis Quaid):
• No Color by The Dodos: I posted about them last month, but today you can now pre-order their album! There are four different options: digital-only, CD, vinyl, or deluxe, which includes all of the above plus a shirt, a poster, and some other stuff. Also, you can get any of the first three options with a shirt, and the CD and the record also come with digital downloads. I'm conflicted over which package to get. I'm thinking CD, but I kind of want the shirt as well. However, the CD plus the shirt is $30, and that's way too much. I think I'm just going to get the CD. Also, when you pre-order you get a download of the first track, "Black Night," which you can listen to on the site. I listened to it and it is INSANE. In a good way! So. Do that.
• Bioshock: I got it for Christmas and my friend and I started playing it yesterday. Okay, I mostly just watched and yelled, "Welcome to the Circus of Values!" But I got to play a little. It's fun times, but also really scary. I'm not good with scary things. Thankfully, I got over my fear of the screaming, gory splicers kind of quickly. Sort of. Also, the game has the most stupidly easy trophies out of any PS3 game I've ever played. Awesome.
• RuPaul's Drag Race: So the Johnny Weir show was on Logo, and now RuPaul's show is on and we haven't bothered to change the channel. I'm not really paying attention but I see that SUTAN, the make-up artist from America's Next Top Model, is competing, and that is REALLY COOL. His drag queen persona is Raja. This should be fun. Also, watching the show is reminding me of how Tobias would mix up his pronouns a lot in Arrested Development. I'm planning on rewatching that soon, maybe when the AV Club starts its alleged Classic recapping of it.
• Sundance: This year's Sundance has been one of the most-hyped in years, in part because of the wealth of nominations movies from last year's have earned recently (see: Winter's Bone!). I'm going to write an article about it later today; maybe I'll post it on here sometime. I'll at least get around to talking about the movies that intrigued me. One of my life dreams is to go to a film festival (yeah, I totally dream big, right?), so I hope to attend Sundance one day. Maybe as press!
• Zombieland: is sitting in my DVD drive. I've been meaning to watch it for over a year now. Today, I finally will. So I'm going to go do that.

Have a splendid day.