My Ramblings on Pop Cult, Entertainment and Media- I
In case you have accidentally stumbled here, either through the algorithm or through your network, you must be wondering….what the hell is this about. Is this something that you should care about..
The answer is an emphatic No. This new thing is a space for me to ramble about the various content I consume across the various forms of media present nowadays. It could be a book (fiction or non-fiction, e-books or printed), films, television shows, music or content from the social media I still use. And no, I don’t cover anime/manga, K-Pop or gaming- or atleast not yet.
To be clear, I am not going to do a thing where I cover the latest stuff from across these spheres. All I will be writing about are things that I have consumed, and I do not intend to schedule my free time to go through the latest ones and do it for others. My motivation is pretty simple, actually. You see, I am not often in the mood to talk to people but when I am, social distancing ensures spontaneous talks about various aspects of pop culture and entertainment are limited. It’s not like I can just ping someone and go- hey, what do you think about this thing you read or watched? Or atleast I don’t feel comfortable. What if this person is busy? What if they leave me on read or not even acknowledge my message, making me go into a spiral of thoughts leading me to conclude that they don’t like me anymore?
So to put this in a short manner, I am just going to post my thoughts on different things I like, without any attempt to proof-read my writings or caring about building an audience. It’s basically for me, by me. If you got this far and still are bothered to read this week’s entry, know that you have a special place in my heart. So let’s get cracking!
Disclaimer: I am from Kerala, India so I will also be including stuff from that part of the world. I know you probably haven’t reached this part, but if you have, just keep this in mind.
The Sitcom way ahead of it’s time
While watching the latest episode of Friends vs The Office: The Fans Show (which is basically a dick-swinging contest to see which fanbase mocks the other more), I wondered why there wasn’t much love for the first three seasons of Arrested Development. Unlike the aforementioned shows, AD got cancelled by Fox after three seasons, despite the fact that the writing of the show was one of the best I have seen for American sitcoms. Some have gone on to say that Fox was relying on outdated methods to measure a show’s success, with AD getting retro-actively popular in the years that followed it’s cancellation in 2006 (premiered in 2003).
This led to Netflix deciding to bankroll the fourth season of the show. Many hailed this, as they felt that this was the kind of show that would be a roaring hit if Netflix was around. And they had good reason for saying so. Unlike many of the sitcoms in that era, Arrested Development wrote jokes a bit differently.
This was a show that would set up a joke in one episode, but it would not be until later in the season, or in the next season that the punchline would appear. And if you had been following the show regularly, those jokes (which come at a very fast rate) would resonate with you faster. They also would do variations on a joke in a previous episode, changing the context or subverting expectations, making it a rewarding experience. But if you miss a few episodes, it can be a hard watch. AD’s first run was between 2003–06, when they did not have an OTT where you could binge multiple episodes at a time, and if you missed one week’s run, you might miss some running gags in later episodes. It doesn’t actively ruin your watching experience, but without the context, you can easily be lost.
Anyways, the fourth season ended up being a bit of a mixed bag in terms of the reception to it. I loved the writing style personally, with each of the 15 episodes being written from a character’s perspective, with new information that changes the whole season coming each time. But many people missed the point of it, leading the makers of the show to release a chronological cut (which would ruin half the jokes basically)..and by their fifth seasons they had lost their magic. I didn’t watch much of the final season because of that.
Oh wait, I did not mention what this show is about…let the narrator of the show do the talking: Now the story of a wealthy family who lost everything, and the one son who had no choice but to keep them all together. It’s Arrested Development.
Maybe in a future post, I will share some of the funniest gags and characters from this show. But hopefully more people see how golden the writing for the first few seasons are.
The realistic, hard-hitting movie that makes you ponder
Okay, I am late to the party on this. But damn, the movie The Great Indian Kitchen, opens one’s eyes to the seemingly invisible yet ever-present effects of a patriarchal society on the female members. I cringed really hard at many of the scenes, because they don’t look out of place or feel like they are fiction. You would have witnessed something similar, if not exactly as depicted, in and around your homes. There is no spice or superfluous scenes here. It’s grounded in reality, and shows the need for us to ‘do better’ (to quote the Captain Falcon).
Nimisha Sajayan plays the pivotal character, an educated dancer who gets married off to a ‘good family’, with Suraj Venjaramoodu playing the husband. In fact, they don’t ever name any of the characters as far as I can remember, which just goes to show it could be anyone who could be in these situations. Her dreams of being a dance teacher are suppressed, and the husband’s family find fault with any change that the new member of the house brings, eventually coming to heads on her ‘purity’.
If you are from Kerala, you may recall the entire debate and storm around the purity of a woman being ruined by periods, and hence not being permitted into the Sabarimala temple. This story ties into that aspect, and hence many of the big OTT platforms were reluctant to air this movie. A smaller platform called Neestream picked it up, to great positive reception, from where Amazon picked this up and added it to their catalogue. Not much to say other than watch this, and start doing things that your mother would not make you do. Let’s do better for our mothers.
Annoying social media trend
Let’s start this weekly thing with the most annoying Tiktok/Reel format: the first half could be like ‘I don’t believe in love but….’ and then plays a part from the song Aankhon Mein Teri from the 2007 hit film Om Shanti Om. That part is ‘ Teri nazron ne dil ka kiya jo hasharr Asarr ye hua’. Like every reel, it is fun the first time, gets old by the third and by the fifth time some influencer copies this trend, you just want to deep fry your mobile phone, take that and put it into the oven and heat it for 3 hours and break it into 12 pieces and serve it as phone fries.
The sad part is that the song is actually really melodious and I love all the tracks from that film. On that note, I am going to make that my music recommendation for the week. Say what you want about Bollywood, but they can get their song tracks really well done and have diversity in tunes. From the who’s who of 2007 Bollywood dancing together and singing to the tune of Om Shanti Om (Deewangi Deewangi), to Shahrukh Khan dancing in sweltering heat and an exciting beat in Dard-De-Disco, which is balanced out by the melodious and slightly sombre ‘Main Agar Kahoon’ and the already-mentioned ‘Aankhon Mein Teri’ and more, the music just bops.
And the film wasn’t bad, I mean at that time I loved it. But I was also 9 at the time, so. It’s not the greatest script ever, but I would like to think it would still be a decent way to pass time if you didn’t have much going….so there’s that.
So I guess, I will conclude this first experimental write-up…if you want you can send me feedback at akbgunner4ever@gmail.com. I may or may not consider it, because like I said, this is just like a diary kind of thing, but I can always consider something if it’s worth doing so.
That is….. assuming you actually read through this crap. I will start adding books and Youtube recommendations from next time (if there is one, of course). Also, I wanted to make this a separate publication, but god damn Medium has changed the rules so I have to pay to do that now, so I won’t! Get a grip, Medium.
