Tag Archives: Entertainment

Marilyn Monroe: That’s (Not) What She Said

4 Feb

Thanks, Abe.

Who doesn’t love a good quote? Sometimes it takes the words of others, famous or not, to sum up our thoughts and feelings when our words escape us. Or, maybe you read something that immediately clicks with you and it becomes sort of a “mission statement” for your life. (After six years in higher education, the thought of a personal mission statement makes me gag a little bit. We love the heck out of our mission statements, apparently.) But, the Internet is a tricky place, and without citations, words are often attributed to certain celebrities or notable figures. The misquote can come from an honest mistake, and after seeing a quote attributed to someone a multitude of times, I can understand that. However, when it comes to things that Marilyn Monroe, Audrey Hepburn, or Jackie Kennedy allegedly said, I become more than a little skeptical, and maybe just a touch cynical.

Thus Sprach Marilyn.

Thus Sprach Marilyn. (You’re welcome, Internet.)

In my research for this post, I came across several Tumblrs and hundreds of pictures on Google Image Search with images of these women, Monroe in particular, with fiesty-sounding quotes superimposed over them in handwriting-style fonts. (Go ahead, look for yourself.) Most of them are about how men ought to love women, flaws and all, or how society is ugly for making a woman feel anything less than pretty. I’m on board with those ideas, but I highly doubt to absolutely don’t believe that the late icon uttered those quotes. I’m not saying that Marilyn Monroe was not bright enough to come up with such, um… philosophical thoughts; I’m saying that others who have done much more research on her, things she’s actually said/written, and speech patterns of her time don’t think she came up with them. The most comprehensive website I’ve come across debunking these attributions is Immortal Marilyn, which, while it looks like a Xanga page from 2000, is quite informative. “Janie’s Take on Marilyn Monroe” discusses five of the more questionable quotes the Internet alleges came from Monroe. Here are a couple of my favorite excerpts:

“I’m selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control, and at times hard to handle. But if you can’t handle me at my worst, you sure as hell don’t deserve me at my best.” — This one seems to be everybody’s favorite Marilyn quote… except no one can find where she actually ever said it. Does it sound like her? Somewhat, although I can not find other examples of Marilyn referring to herself as selfish, insecure, out of control, or anything similar. While she did acknowledge issues such as her lateness, failure to show up on set, or rumored difficult to work with, rather than being defiant she offered both plaintive and valid reasons for her flaws, in the hopes of garnering understanding. Until an interview transcript of Marilyn saying these words can be located, it should be kept in the ‘questionable’ category.”

“Imperfection is beauty. Madness is genius, and it’s better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring.” — Another very popular quote, once it’s parsed it does not sound like Marilyn at all. “Imperfection is beauty”? Marilyn was well known as being an absolute perfectionist, asking for take after take on the movie set until she felt she got her scene just right. She refused to give moviegoers anything less than what she felt was her absolute best. She would apply her makeup only to wash it all off and do it over again, taking hours to prepare so that she presented herself to the public as nothing short of absolutely perfect. After a photo shoot she would pore over contact sheets, destroying any images that she didn’t approve of. In a 1960 interview, she did say: “My one desire is to do my best, the best that I can from the moment the camera starts until it stops. That moment I want to be perfect, as perfect as I can make it.” Hardly seems that someone so hard wired to perfectionism would say “Imperfection is beauty.” As to the second part, “Madness is genius,” this seems even more unlikely. Marilyn’s mother suffered from severe mental illness that traumatized the actress when she was a child. As an adult, Marilyn’s biggest fear was inherited madness like her mother’s. Considering her first hand account with what madness truly was, and her deep rooted fear of it, how likely is it that she would declare it ‘genius?’ Not very.

I tend to agree with those observations. To be frank, they sound more like snarky quips from a teenage girl, using Monroe as an excuse for her behavior. The whole idea of falsely attaching a name to a quote can be summed up in Poe’s Law, which basically states that “ a parody of something extreme can be mistaken for the real thing, and if a real thing sounds extreme enough, it can be mistaken for a parody.” A great example that most people would probably be familiar with is Stephen Colbert’s character on The Colbert Report, which some Political Science students at Ohio State decided would be an interesting subject to analyze. (Unfortunately, the full article is only available for purchase or if you’re logged on through a subscribing university or college’s journal access system, but the abstract will give you the general idea.) We can also learn from the case of the Notre Dame football player and the death of his online girlfriend, who may or may not have actually been a real person: never believe anything online. If those quotes resonate with you, that’s great, but its important to question the source; otherwise, it might as well have come from a snarky teenage girl.

If this keeps up, this is what I imagine we’ll have fifty years from now:

I can't. I just can't...

I can’t. I just can’t…
(Again, you’re welcome, Internet.)

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What Disney’s Buyout of Lucasfilm Means To Me

31 Oct

I can’t take the Dark Side seriously like this.

As I’m sure nearly everyone reading this has already heard, Disney has bought Lucasfilm from George Lucas for $4 billion, with plans to release Star Wars Episode VII in 2015. I learned about the buyout this afternoon while I was listening to NPR. This was my immediate reaction:

I’ve seen some mixed reactions about this acquisition on Facebook, and while both sides make decent arguments, I’m firmly in the “this is a terrible idea” category. Let me explain why…

You see, the Star Wars franchise has always been something kind of sacred to me, as I’m sure it has been for countless other fans. I can vividly recall watching Episodes IV, V, and VI with my dad when I was five or six years old. (I also remember watching the Holyfield-Tyson fight with him. Having DirecTV had its advantages.) They set the standard for what “epic movie” meant to me. All of the quotable quotes, the instantly recognizable John Williams score, the Jim Henson-crafted characters… Even then, I knew that there was something important about these movies.

Han Solo was one of my first crushes. In fact, I even had a life-size cardboard cut out of him in my bedroom when I was in elementary school. However, Han isn’t the only good-looking, rugged character in the Lucas universe played by Harrison Ford. I can’t imagine what the Indiana Jones trilogy would have been like if Lucas and Spielberg had been able to hold on to Tom Selleck to play the bad boy professor/archaeologist, but CBS had him locked down for a TV show at the time. (Who would my mom have drooled over on Magnum P.I.?!) Dr. Jones probably definitely had a strong influence on 2nd grade me wanting to be an archaeologist. Raiders, Temple of Doom (scary as it was for a little kid), and Last Crusade were all very important to me growing up, too.

The originals will always be classics for me, and I’m sure a lot of other fans understand what makes both of these franchises special. Personally, I hated the Star Wars prequels; they felt sort of… icky. (Jar Jar Binks, anyone?) I don’t know anyone who prefers Episodes I-III over IV-VI. However, I don’t have any opposition to Ewan McGregor as the younger version of Alec Guinness’s Obi-Wan Kenobi. That worked just fine. Of course, there are all of the video games and animated shows and books that go along with Star Wars, but I feel, if anything, the video games and the animated shows get kids interested in the larger story. Brian has read a few of the books based on the movies, and it seems like they generally revere the original story line, staying true to the plot and characters. In 2008, another chapter was added to the Indy Jones story: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. I only watched this because I felt obligated to do so, but I knew it was going to be terrible. I just didn’t know how terrible it was going to be. While several critics gave it good reviews, the film garnered a largely negative reaction from fans, earning it the 2008 Razzie Award for Worst Prequel, Remake, Rip-Off, or Sequel. Trey Parker and Matt Stone even shared their opinion of it in South Park‘s mid-12th season premiere with “The China Problem.” For those of you who aren’t fans of the show, I’ll just say that George Lucas and Steven Spielberg were not very nice to Indiana Jones. Not nice at all.

Am I the only person who gets the idea of leaving well enough alone? The Star Wars and Indiana Jones trilogies clearly stood the test of time; studio execs know that fans will continue to throw money at the franchise regardless of how lame any of the sequels and prequels turn out to be. When does it stop? Disney should not have made Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. I love the other three, but the fourth one was just bad. Almost all of the Disney “classics” I loved to watch when I was growing up have at least one straight-to-video sequel, but why? I think my disappointment over Disney’s buyout of Lucasfilms boils down to this: I don’t want to see Han Solo become a caricature of who he was to me when I was a kid. That’s exactly what happened with Jack Sparrow in the Pirates movies — he’s a joke. I’ve heard the argument about how Disney has done great things for the Marvel franchise, and I can agree with it, to a point. The Avengers was the second-best movie of the summer, behind The Dark Knight Rises, but were all of the others that (very quickly) led up to it (Thor, Captain America, The Incredible Hulk) really that great? It seemed like it was a “let’s get these back stories out as quickly as possible so we can release a summer blockbuster opposite Batman” situation. I have a hard time judging Iron Man, because, well… Robert Downey, Jr.

I know there’s no stopping the machine that is Disney. If they must, though, make more sequels, I hope they will take these 15 “do’s and don’ts” into consideration, especially the idea of bringing nerd king Joss Whedon into the mix and getting John Williams into a recording studio as soon as possible. Maybe, like this article from The Atlantic argues, Star Wars will survive whatever silly things Disney does to it. However, I can see one positive to Disney’s new purchase:

Disney will finally have a princess who can really kick some Stormtrooper keester, although as far as strong princesses go, Brave‘s Merida , Disney/Pixar’s latest princess, is still my favorite. (Even for a practical, liberated princess, I would still recommend having a tissue handy for this movie.) Besides, who knows? We may even get a follow-up to another Lucasfilm classic:

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Small Screen Crushes and Swoon-Worthy Characters

17 Sep

A crush on Ron Swanson goes without saying. Lots of guys have a crush on him, too. I can’t even handle this picture. I just can’t.

Ladies. I don’t know how we’ve gone a whole year without making a single mention about crushes. I’ve mentioned my boyfriend, Brian, a few times in various posts, but now that several shows are returning for their fall season premieres, I’m getting my TV boyfriends back. Yes, Hulu Plus has been a big help, but you know as well as I do how lame it is when the only thing on for the evening is that quadruple rerun of The Big Bang Theory. (But I’ll probably watch it, because, hey… still better than Honey Boo Boo.)

My very first TV crush was Billy, the Blue Ranger, from Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers. (Don’t judge me, I was probably about 5 years old.) Thinking about his character, it’s easy for me to see why I liked him best: 1) his power coin was the Triceratops, and when I was that age, I wanted to be an archaeologist; and 2) he was quite the nerd. My second TV crush was probably also one of your mom’s first crushes: Davy Jones from the Monkees. It was 1997, and Nick at Nite was hosting their “Block Party Summer,” 4 weeks of three-hour blocks of a different classic show every weeknight, and I was glued to the TV for Monkee Mondays. (Skip ahead to about 1:02.) Davy Jones was the British heartthrob of America’s answer to The Beatles, which just goes to show that girls have always preferred a guy with an accent. The very first concert I attended was a summer oldies music festival he was headlining. Much like this blogger, I was saddened to hear of the actor/singer’s passing earlier this year, since he’ll always hold a special place in my little teeny bopper heart. But, I’ve grown up a little, and although I’d like to think my tastes have matured since my first decade of life, I can’t help but notice a trend in the TV characters I like best.

Ben Wyatt from Parks and Recreation (Season 5 premiere on September 20 at 8:30pm on NBC)

Ben Wyatt, played by Adam Scott, from Parks and Recreation is a state auditor who comes in to help fix Pawnee’s budget. I only got into the show this past spring after getting over a slight aversion to Amy Poehler. (I was so wrong about her, why didn’t anyone correct me?) Ben peppers his conversations with references to Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, and comic book characters. Throughout the third and fourth seasons, his relationship with Poehler’s Leslie Knope, the deputy director of the Department of Parks and Recreation, develops as she embarks on a campaign to become a city councilwoman. While I appreciate a good pop culture reference as much as the next girl, it’s Ben’s patience with the extremely driven, hyper Type-A Leslie and the support he gives her during her campaign that makes him crush-worthy for me. That, and the fact that he’s a Batman-loving Model UN alum.

Jim Halpert and Andy Bernard from The Office (Season 9 premiere on September 20 at 9pm on NBC)

Jim Halpert (played by the adorable John Krasinski) and Pam Beesly’s relationship is the standard to which I measure all other TV romances. Jim is the hero for everyone who has ever had an unrequited love, having had to simply stand by Pam’s side as her friend, even when she was engaged to another man. It takes a good deal of intelligence and creativity to pull off many of the pranks Jim has committed against Dwight, and that smirk… But anyway, I also love Krasinski in his role in Away We Go as Burt Farlander, who is kind of a beardy hipster version of Jim — madly in love with his girlfriend and wanting to do what’s best for their growing family. I can’t watch the wedding episode without getting really close to doing the ugly cry. Yeah, ok, I have cried a couple of times watching it, but it’s the best. JAM forever.

Andy Bernard, you dapper gentleman, you. What’s not to love about Ed Helm’s character? He was in an all-male a cappella called “Here Comes Treble,” and he was willing to meet all of Angela’s outrageous demands for their wedding. Now he’s with Erin, creating my second favorite Office couple. Plus, he rocks that New England seersucker-and-boat-shoe prep look, and you have to respect his confidence to wear coral pants. But, what I really like about Andy is that he’s just such a nice guy, almost a people-pleaser to a fault. You know that the Nard Dog will always have your back.

Brian Williams, anchor of NBC Nightly News (NBC)

Brian Williams is the second greatest export of New Jersey, with the first being The Boss, Bruce Springsteen, and the third probably being salt water taffy or something. In fact, I would love to see a Springsteen-Williams ticket for the 2016 presidential elections. You can’t deny it would be the most attractive executive duo ever. He’s a little different from the other gents on this list, since he isn’t a fictional character. With Brian Williams, there’s no need to despair over season finales — he’s my evergreen TV crush, since he’s on almost every weeknight, anchoring NBC Nightly News. There’s something about reporting international news out in the field that I find intriguing, and I think he has that certain… intellectual hotness? Is that a thing? It’s totally a thing, intelligence is attractive. In addition to that worldly demeanor, he has a great sense of humor. Have you ever seen him on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart? Or Saturday Night Live?

I think the overwhelming theme among all of my TV boyfriends is that they’re all lovable dorks… although Brian Williams seems pretty smooth. That, and they’re all from NBC. I’ll be sad when The Office is over, but Parks and Recreation is still there, and something else may come along next fall to fill the void. Here are a few runners-up:

Phil Dunphy from Modern Family
I probably only like Phil because he and his wife, Clare, remind me so much of Brian and myself. If you’ve seen Modern Family, you know that I’m basically Clare.

Leonard Hofstadter from The Big Bang Theory
Again, lovable nerd and he’s able to deal with Sheldon. That takes a lot of willpower.

Liz Lemon from 30 Rock
Girl crush! I’ve already spoken of my admiration for Tina Fey, and unfortunately this will be 30 Rock’s last season, too. True story: I had a dream where Tina Fey named me the next head writer of SNL. Best dream ever.

Frank Reagan from Blue Bloods
Well, obviously — he’s Magnum P.I. (And my mom has a mad crush on Tom Selleck, anyway.)

Who are your TV crushes?

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“I Have a Master’s Degree in Fierce, I Should Be a Professor!” – Life Lessons from Drag Queens

3 Sep

I can’t lie, readers… I have been very excited to write this post for quite some time. I’ve already written about how I’ve spent my summer, and one of the best parts has been catching up on all of the TV shows I missed while in grad school. While I took Joni’s suggestion and started watching Once Upon a Time, I also followed my sister’s suggestion and started watching RuPaul’s Drag Race on Netflix. One episode in and I was hooked. But, that shouldn’t be a surprise; I think I’ve always been at least a little fascinated with drag queens. When I was a kiddo, I received my introduction to the idea when we watched The Birdcage, starring Robin Williams and Nathan Lane. Later on, it was To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar, but I just couldn’t get behind Patrick Swayze and Wesley Snipes as drag queens. (However, John Leguizamo as Chi-Chi Rodriguez was believable.) It was never something weird for me, seeing a man dressed up as a woman. It was just different, and that was ok. Still is. When I got to college, I loved that YSUnity hosted a drag show during Welcome Week. As entertaining as these ladies (and some gentlemen) were, I appreciated how open they were to any questions the audience had about the lifestyle.

So, back to the Drag Race. I figured I would just have something funny and interesting to watch/listen to while I worked on my craft projects, but I was wrong. Just like any great book, movie, album, or show, there are lessons to be learned that you can apply in your own life. Let me give you the t…

Aaaaaand suddenly, I’m a young Dame Edna.

1. “Don’t be shady, be a lady.” – Venus De-Lite, S3E3

Have you ever thrown shade? Yes, you have. You just didn’t know you were. You “throw shade” whenever you insult somebody else. It doesn’t take much to insult someone — just borrow your 3rd grader-cousin’s book of Yo Momma jokes. A real lady doesn’t stoop to weak insults or general shadiness. But, there’s also reading. As RuPaul said, “Reading is fundamental.” For a good read, a lady must be creative, smart, and witty, but never malicious. Jujubee from Season 2 reads at a college level:

“Legendary, you think you are! Legendary? Looks like leg… and dairy.”

The lesson here is, don’t lower yourself to play at someone else’s level, but always be on your toes.

2. “You better work.”

Obviously. You’ll get nowhere if you’re just sitting around. Work for what you want and give it your all, so when you get it, you deserve it. There were a couple of weeks where my job search was particularly depressing, and I don’t think I applied for a single job during that time. The next week, I wrote in my planner my paraphrase of a famous Wayne Gretzky quote: “You miss out on interviews for one hundred percent of the jobs you don’t apply for.” I applied for five jobs that week. This brings us to our next lesson…

 3. Consistency

Much like any adjudicated tv contest (America’s Next Top Model, Top Chef, Design Star, etc.), contestants must be consistent in their performance every week to proceed. Whether you’re competing for a promotion, or aiming to improve something about yourself, it is important to always bring your A-game, so to speak. Once you’ve proven your talent with a certain skill time and again, others will begin to associate that achievement with you. From here, the only way you should go is up. Always be looking for ways to better yourself and go to the next level. While consistency is great, it takes a little something extra to be a champion.


Featuring my personal favorite Drag Super Star, Raja (the Professor of Fierce)

4. Sashay Away

After the bottom two contestant are called out to “lip sync for their lives,” RuPaul chooses which queen will stay, and who will sashay away. While one could leave a negative last impression on others (see: Mimi Imfurst), a real lady displays class and poise whenever it’s time for her to leave. Sure, you could go for the “memorable” route of jumping down into a full split as you exit the runway, but I think it’s a little tacky. And, painful.

So long, Mystique Summers Madison…

5. “If you don’t love yourself, how the hell you gonna love somebody else?” – RuPaul

Miss Ru says it at the end of each episode, and it is perhaps the most essential lesson of them all: the most important love is self-love. Several of the beautiful queens who compete on Drag Race tell stories about how members of their family don’t accept them for being gay, let alone being a drag queen, and the other girls reach out to support them. There are a lot of reasons why a person, gay, straight, purple, etc., could have a hard time loving themselves, especially when it seems that those who matter most don’t show them love and acceptance. If you can’t love yourself for who your truly are, it could be difficult to let someone else in and love the real you. I’ve always, always believed that you have to know who you are and what you want out of life in order to love yourself as a complete person. Then, instead of needing others to feel whole, you can simply allow them to be a wonderful complement to the already-fabulous you.

While there are other lessons I could have mentioned, I felt that these are the most easily translatable. I’m currently catching up on Season 4, and I can’t wait to watch the All-Stars Season. I’d like to add, though, that I’ve learned that it wouldn’t kill me to throw on a little more makeup from time to time. If these men have an easier time turning into an attractive woman than I, a biological woman, do, I think I could step up my game a little bit.

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Tackling the Cookie Table in 2012: Thank God for Pinterest!

29 Feb

It’s hard to believe that it’s the end of February. It seems like 2012 just started and now we’re already 2 months in. Crazy. I have a lot of things to accomplish in the next 2 months including: decide what the heck I’m doing with my life, finish my thesis, take comprehensive exams, and find something awesome to wear to 2 different weddings (one for the sister of a fellow Dame and one for my cousin).

But a smashing outfit is not the only thing I have to worry about when it comes to weddings, my cousin’s in particular. No, I have time to worry about a dress and shoes. Right now, my main concern is cookies.

Yes, cookies. Lots and lots of cookies.

You see, here in Northeast Ohio (Western Pennsylvania too), we have this tradition at weddings called the cookie table. And it is epic.

This is one example of a wedding cookie table. Cookie tables range in size and arrangement, but a traditional cookie table is laden with dozens of cookie varieties.

While the wedding cake is still a mainstay of the wedding reception, the cookie table is equally, if not more, important. A traditional part of the wedding reception in the Northeast Ohio/Western Pennsylvania region of the United States, the cookie table is truly a force to be reckoned with. No one is really sure of how it got started or where it actually began, but it’s easy to make an educated guess.

Most likely, the cookie table tradition became prevalent from a combination of the high influx of immigrants that came into this region in early twentieth century and their baking traditions, the expense of an elaborate wedding cake, and the hardships caused by the Great Depression. For a more nuanced explanation, one of my history professors (a Youngstown native) explained that the cookie table was (and still is to a certain extent) all about social power and social debt.

Mothers, aunts, grandmothers, friends, cousins, etc. spend months before a wedding baking and freezing cookies for the big day. Requests go out – “Can you make cookies for s0 and so’s wedding?” The number of cookies you display and the number of people you can get to bake them for the occasion says something about your social power, but it also puts you in debt to the person baking the cookies. They call in that debt later when they need cookies for a wedding.

As for where the cookie table exactly originated, both residents of Youngstown, Ohio and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania both claim their city to be the birthplace of the cookie table. We’ll probably never really know, but I’m betting on Youngstown.

Today, cookie tables are different at every wedding. It depends on the bride and groom’s preference, the number of cookies people have time to make in this busy world, the size of the wedding, ethnic and religious traditions, and your family’s past usage/experience with the cookie table. My family definitely adheres to the cookie table tradition, but we don’t have anywhere near as elaborate a cookie table as some others do.

That doesn’t mean the cookies are in short supply though. Recipes won’t just be doubled or tripled. Some will be octupled. (Yeah, I know this might not really be a word. But for my cousin’s wedding 5 years ago, my Mum made 8 times the normal recipe for one cookie alone.) Needless to say, I didn’t eat any of those cookies at the wedding, nor do I have an easy time even looking at them now, 5 years later.

So, it’s full speed ahead with the cookie baking. And, all I have to say is: Thank God for Pinterest!

Over the next few months, I’m going to be using Pinterest to seek out some new (to me at least) cookie recipes to make for my cousin’s wedding in June.

I’m going to catalog my cookie baking progress on here where I’ll share the recipes and my take on the cookies I try.

First up is Lemon Burst Cake Mix Cookies.

Here’s a picture of what they’re supposed to look like:

I hope to make them this weekend, so check back soon to see whether they are cookie table appropriate.

:-)

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“Who Do You Think You Are?” — No, Really.

9 Feb

Life just gets more and more hectic, doesn’t it? Between classes, thesis, worrying about PhD applications (I’m a finalist at one school – invited for an all expenses paid on-campus visit in 2 weeks!), trying to be a good Dame, and everything else I have to do, it seems there’s no time in the day. Certainly not enough time to take for yourself.

The idea of taking time for yourself, of understanding yourself, is partly where the idea for this post came from…

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Who do you think you are?

I’m not asking this sarcastically, I’m asking this in earnest. Who are you? And why are you who you are? How did you become this person?

Now, the answers to these questions are complicated. In fact, there’s more than one answer. There are many. But, seriously, think about it. Who are you? Is who you actually are different than who you think you are?

I think so. No, scratch that.

I know so.

It’s no secret on here that I’m studying to be a historian, and that I, well, love history. So it should come as no surprise to you when I tell you that your history — your family’s history — is a big part of you and why you are the way you are.

When I was in seventh grade, I had to research my family tree for Social Studies class. At age 13, I knew nothing about my family tree. Talking to my parents and my grandparents yielded some information — enough to present on my poster for class — but not enough to satisfy my interest in my family tree.

This project started a 10+ year odyssey of family tree research that will probably never end.

My interest and, at times, obsession with genealogy (the proper name for researching one’s family history) has largely been a personal venture and not one that I publicized to my friends. I mean, I admit to being a nerd in high school, but I sort of figured that admitting that I had a subscription to Ancestry.com wouldn’t help my popularity any.

I wasn’t always dedicated to genealogy either, in spite of how much it interests me. Researching your family tree isn’t easy. It takes time, patience, hard work, perseverance, luck, and a little faith. Because of this, genealogy isn’t a constant for me. I pick it up, I put it down. I’ll work feverishly for months and then not look at it again for months or a year.

So, imagine my surprise and my envy when genealogy took America by storm.

Two years ago (in the Spring of 2010), Lisa Kudrow, the actress who played Phoebe on Friends, decided to help launch a new show on NBC called Who Do You Think You Are? — a program, already several years old and very popular in the UK, that followed celebrities as professional genealogists helped them trace their family trees.

The first season followed 8 celebrities: Sarah Jessica Parker, Matthew Broderick, Lisa Kudrow, Emmit Smith, Brooke Shields, Spike Lee, and Susan Sarandon. The second season followed: Vanessa L. Williams, Tim McGraw, Rosie O’Donnell, Kim Catrall, Lionel Richie, Gwyneth Paltrow, Ashley Judd, and Steve Buscemi.

Each celebrity discovered something about their family, and in turn something about themselves, that they previously did not know. But, the message of the series is that it isn’t important who you’re related to. It’s about how we perceive ourselves in reference to where we and our families came from, and how that knowledge changes us.

It’s about the sense of guilt Sarah Jessica Parker felt before she knew whether her ancestor was an accuser or a victim during the Salem witchcraft trials, the sense of amazement of Brooke Shields when she learned she was a direct descendant of the French royal family, Matthew Broderick’s disbelief when he helps solve the mystery of an unmarked Civil War grave, or the sadness and anger of Kim Catrall when she learns the fate of her wayward grandfather.

The third season of Who Do You Think You Are? is currently being broadcast on Fridays at 8pm on NBC. If you’re not home at this time (don’t worry, I’m not usually either), you can catch the episodes on NBC.com or on Hulu. Here’s Lisa Kudrow’s (the show’s executive producer) preview of Season 3:

Of course, everyone’s family tree will not be filled with such “extraordinary” tales. There are many celebrities whose stories don’t make it on the show because they’re not interesting enough. My family tree certainly isn’t this fascinating. But that doesn’t matter, because your family tree doesn’t have to be full of royalty or heroes or famous people to be important and interesting.

You wouldn’t be here without that family tree.

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So, think about it.

Who do you think you are?

I can tell you who I thought I was.

I was Joni. White girl with curly brown hair and freckles from working-class Ohio with college educated parents and working class grandparents who were all born in this country. I was Slovak and Lebanese and Croatian and something called (as my Mum puts it) “Heinz 57″. When my Gram would talk about how one of her ancestor’s married a Native American woman, my cousins and I thought you could quantify that — like we’re 2% Native American somewhere in that Heinz 57 mixture. Now I know that it doesn’t work like that.

Because your ancestry isn’t so simple.

With a lot more digging, a lot more questioning, several hundred dollars worth of subscription fees to Ancestry.com, and a whole lot of luck, I know a whole lot more.

Because who I am is about  a lot more than simply ethnicity percentages. It’s also about more than those ancestors that are long dead. It’s about those still alive.

I am 25% Slovak. I am 25% Lebanese (perhaps originally Syrian). I am 25% Croatian. But I’m not Heinz 57.

I’m English, Welsh, and Irish. My Gram’s ancestors were original Americans. From Jamestown, Virginia circa 1620.

You learn through the genealogy experience that it’s not all about the ethnicity, not all about where you’re from. It’s about how your family got to where you are.

It’s about the journey.

And you learn the strengths and hopes and dreams and character traits and struggles of these people who you wouldn’t be here without.

I learned that it took a lot of bravery for my Grandfather to survive a German POW camp, that it took a lot of bravery for his mother to cross the Atlantic Ocean by herself at 14. I learned that my Gram’s family were some of America’s first settlers, starting in Virginia and New York, moving to Maryland, then to West Virginia and Pennsylvania. I learned there are historical markers at some of the places they lived.

Your ancestors are not simply names and dates on a page. They were live people living in a present that only happens to now be the past. They passed on ideas, traditions, traits, and wisdom that, whether you realize it or not, is somewhere in you and in your family.

So.

Who do you think you are?

Who are you, really?

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If you’re interested in researching your family tree, the internet is your best friend and Ancestry.com is the best website to get started. Although I said that I’ve spent hundreds of dollars on their services, you can use the website for free to access basic information. My suggestion is to use the free services and search some of your grandparents or great-grandparents. If you find a lot of information and want to know more, I suggest trying out a subscription for a month or two. (There’s a 2-week free trial too!)

Happy Hunting! (And don’t forget to watch Who Do You Think You Are? on Fridays at 8pm on NBC! You won’t regret it!)

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Welcome to the Real World, Snow White; Or How Fairy Tales Have Taken Over My Sunday Nights

23 Jan

Do you believe in fairy tales?

I do.

But, let me clarify. I don’t believe in fairy tales literally. I mean, we can talk about how the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge live a fairy tale romance and lifestyle all we want, but in the end they’re normal human beings with highs and lows just like everyone else.

So, to say I believe in fairy tales doesn’t mean that I believe they actually exist. I do believe that everyone can have fairy tale moments in their life. But, mostly, I believe in the escapism of fairy tales, the mechanism they provide for children and adults alike to imagine and dream, and I believe in their entertainment value.

The last six months have been big for fairy tales, and it looks like the trend is going to continue.

In particular, it’s been a big year for fairy tales on network television where  two different series focus on them, one on NBC (Grimm) and one on ABC: Once Upon a Time.

While I’ve heard good things about Grimm, I’m not going to talk about it here, because I’m not a viewer.

I am, however, going to talk about Once Upon a Time and how it has filled a void in my Sunday nights that I didn’t know existed, since I (as discussed in a previous post) devote my Sundays nights to PBS’ Masterpiece.

Not only is this a big year for fairy tales, it’s also a big year for Snow White. Not only are there two feature films coming out soon focusing on Snow White (Snow White and the Huntsman and Mirror Mirror), but Once Upon a Time builds upon Snow White and Prince Charming’s story, allowing for a whole new take on the land of fairy tales, how its characters are all interconnected, and how they’re not all quite what they seem.

I had seen the previews for Once Upon a Time online and on TV early in the Fall and was waiting excitedly for it to premiere — I may claim that I don’t believe in fairy tales, but that doesn’t mean I’m not a sucker for them. :-)

I knew from the beginning that Once Upon a Time was going to be interesting, not only from what I knew of its basic premise, but also because its two creators were once writers on the JJ Abrams’ series Lost. 

To explain that basic premise of Once Upon a Time , I need to take you back to the beginning of my post. I asked you whether you “believed in fairy tales,” but what I should have asked was “What if fairy tales and all their characters were real?”

This is what Once Upon a Time is all about.

As I said before, Once Upon a Time, at its core, is about Snow White. Most of us know the story. Snow White loves Prince Charming, she makes the Evil Queen mad, the Evil Queen poisons her with an apple, the Seven Dwarfs place her in a glass coffin, Prince Charming finds, kisses, and saves Snow White and they all live happily ever after.

Or do they?

Once Upon a Time begins with a wedding. Prince Charming has rescued Snow White and they’re getting their happy ending — until The Evil Queen shows up and vows to destroy the newly married couple’s happiness.

Ginnifer Goodwin as Snow White and Josh Dallas as Prince Charming

 
Lana Parrilla as the Evil Queen.

Our stay in “fairy tale land” (real name: The Enchanted Forest) doesn’t last long and before we know it, we’re being introduced to Emma Swan, a bad ass bailbonds-woman living in present day, modern Boston.

Jennifer Morrison as Emma Swan.

It’s her birthday – her 28th – and she’s alone in her apartment, just having blown out the candle on her cupcake when the doorbell rings. Her unexpected guest is 10 year old Henry, the son she gave up for adoption, who says he’s come to get her and bring her back to his hometown of Storybrooke, Maine. Freaked out by his appearance and willing to do anything to shove this skeleton back in her closet, Emma agrees to take Henry home.

Jared Gilmore as Henry.

Henry doesn’t keep the motive for his visit secret long. He’s brought a book with him, one whose stories, he claims, are true, and in which he says his birth mother is a character.

Henry tells Emma that she is the daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming, and she is meant to save the residents of Storybrook — all fairytale characters from the Enchanted Forest — who were cursed by the Evil Queen. She was born shortly before the curse was enacted and her parents found a way to send her out of the Enchanted Forest in time. Since then, all of the Forest’s residents have been trapped in Storybrook, where time stands still and no one except, it seems, for Henry, can leave. No one knows who they are either, or how they’re related to one another. They are “normal” people who go on with normal lives and don’t notice that no one ages and nothing ever changes.  The Happily Ever Afters are over.

Mary Margaret is drawn to the comatose John Doe.

Snow White is Mary Margaret, a lonely teacher who spends her spare time volunteering at the hospital where she dotes on a comatose “John Doe” (Prince Charming). Rumpelstiltskin is Mr. Gold, the town pawnbroker. Granny and Red Riding Hood are Granny and Ruby, grandmother and granddaughter running an inn and a diner. Jiminy Cricket is the town psychiatrist, Dr. Archie Hopper.

She doesn’t believe Henry and takes him home. He claims his adoptive mother, Storybrooke’s mayor, is evil.

Does the Mayor remember who she really is? Does she know who Emma is?

Turns out she is, because Mayor Regina Mills happens to be The Evil Queen.

Emma drops Henry off and when she tries to leave town, “something bad happens” — just as Henry tells her it will — and she is prevented from leaving.

So, Emma stays, and again, just as Henry predicted, things begin changing in Storybrooke.

Broadcast on Sundays at 8pm on ABC, Once Upon a Time is my new obsession. It perfectly blends fairy tales, with their romance and fantasy qualities, with a great mystery.

Each episode takes place both in Storybrooke and in the Enchanted Forest. The action is Storybrooke drives forward, while the backstory in the Enchanted Forest doesn’t always take place in order.

If you’re interested in watching, I definitely suggest starting from the beginning. This is a show that builds upon its previous episodes, like puzzle pieces being fit together.

If you don’t have access to previous episodes, then you should catch up via recaps on the internet.

Have fun in Storybrooke and the Enchanted Forest. But watch out for The Evil Queen/Regina — her dishes are deadly.

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Nothing on TV, you say? Turn on PBS! – Part 2

7 Oct

I don’t know about you, but it’s been a busy couple of weeks. I took the GRE for the second time last Friday — which thankfully went well, but left me feeling like a zombie afterwards — and have been extremely busy with schoolwork and grad assistant duties this week. Unfortunately, a Master’s thesis does not write itself and is proving to be more stressful than I imagined — but that may just be because I overthink everything. :-)

As promised, here is the second (and final) part of my post on some of the excellent and entertaining programs that you can find on PBS.

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Last time I mainly devoted my post to the Masterpiece program on PBS which provides the majority of the channel’s fiction-based programming. Today I’m going to tell you about some of PBS’s other programs.

If you like politics, health, education, or other news based topics, definitely check out Frontline. Broadcast on Tuesday nights at 9pm, Frontline has presented a multitude of well-produced and interesting documentaries since 1983. Some of the best recent programs have been on the 2008 Financial Crisis, September 11th, and the controversy of for-profit colleges.

 

If news based documentaries aren’t your cup of tea, but you’re still into historical or political things, you may want to watch American Experience. Whereas Frontline is more of a strictly educational, interview and fact based documentary, each episode of American Experience is like a film. The majority of American Experience episodes are 1 to 2 hours in length, however some films are multiple hours that are shown in installments.

Recent 1-2 hour episodes have centered on: The New England Hurricane of 1938, Music of the Civil Rights Movement, Dinosaur Wars, J. Robert Oppenheimer, and War Letters.

Recent multi-hour episodes include: Abraham and Mary Lincoln, The Kennedys, Reagan, and God in America.

 

If History or related topics aren’t to your liking, but you like music, art, and acting, then you’ll probably enjoy either American Masters or Great Performances (one of my favorites).

American Masters is a documentary series that chronicles the creative genius of some of our most talented artists, whether they work in the world of music, art, dance, theater, or film.

Some of the recent and upcoming episodes focus on: Pearl Jam, Carole King and James Taylor, Elia Kazan, Woody Allen, and Jeff Bridges.

 

While American Masters goes behind the scenes of artistic genius, Great Performances puts you in front row of some of their best artistic offerings. From Broadway musicals and Opera to Pop Concerts and Symphonies and Orchestras, Great Performances is an excellent way to spend a few hours — especially when you would otherwise have to travel thousands of mile and spend hundreds or thousands of dollars to see the same performance in person.

Recent and Upcoming episodes feature: Eric Clapton, Billy Joel, Hugh Laurie (he sings the blues in New Orleans), “Macbeth”, “Hamlet”, various performances of the Metropolitan Opera, David Foster, Sondeim’s “Company”, “Chess”, Andrea Bocelli, and Michael Buble.

 

Don’t worry if your turn on PBS and aren’t interested in what you find. Sometimes, just like other network or broadcast channels, what’s currently on doesn’t interest me. However, PBS offers a lot of great programming on a variety of topics that are wonderfully entertaining.

Happy Watching!

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