fashion clothes

About two years ago, I was cleaning out the toys in the basement with the hopes of donating some that weren't played with anymore.

Pinkie Pie Freckles

Twilight Sparkle Mini-me

Last spring, my husband signed up to volunteer at Comic Con. You should have seen the look on the girls' faces when he told them both that there would be a MLP panel at the Con.

At some point last night, I put my phone down and sighed. It seemed like everyone on the internet was completely and totally preoccupied with the controversy over the words spoken by Phil Robertson and the resulting moves A&E made in their wake. 


I would like to discuss the First Amendment issue here since that seems to be the most talked about online. Essentially, there isn't one. Really. I say this not just as an opinion based on what he said and whether I think it should be protected speech, but as someone who has actually studied Constitutional Law in depth.

The First Amendment protects against governmental intrusion upon the freedom of speech. Phil absolutely has the right to say whatever he wants to here. He has not been arrested, detained or silenced by the government for doing so.

What he doesn't have the right to, is to say whatever he wants to say without consequence. His public persona is one that A&E has a right not to do business with, and if he says something they take issue with, there is no obligation on their part to keep employing him.

Their decision to suspend him from filming in the wake of these events is purely a business one...and in all likelihood a smart one, at that. Those who call for public support of the Duck Dynasty show, those who are going out and purchasing DD merchandise to show their solidarity are actually supporting A&E, who has the licensing rights to the merchandise, and who should be the target of their frustration.

In fact, this controversy has resulted in a huge amount of publicity for both the show and the network, which makes the cynic in me wonder if it wasn't all staged.  Particularly since it's a week before Christmas. Hmm.

It is the industry, after all.

If you want to make the argument that their personas aren't manufactured (or at least embellished) for television because it's a reality show, you should check out what the family (already wealthy from the duck call sales) looked like before they were on TV. Go look at that, then tell me it's not all for show.

Told you I am a cynic.

I have had a few people ask me if I am annoyed that he was even asked what he was in the interview in GQ. The short answer is no. I'm not surprised by much, actually, and it's pretty clear that the questions were asked because they would be answered, and those answers would get a lot of attention. Reporters like a story with traction, and this one had a ton of it.

Personally, I wasn't surprised by what he said in the GQ interview. Frankly, I'm not sure that A&E was. They certainly shouldn't have been. I will not even get into what he said or didn't say, because at the end of the day, that's not important. He has his views, he is entitled to have them, he is entitled to speak them, and though I may not agree with him, that's not important to this discussion.

Trust me when I say that those discussions are all over the internet right now if you are interested in finding them. I'm not about to start one here.

Being entitled to having and speaking those opinions, though, doesn't confer any protections in the private world of employment.

It seems that some of the people rushing to his defense, as well as those in a hurry to attack him haven't read the article itself. Whether he should say what he did is a subjective question, but whether he can is an objective one. He can and he did, but that doesn't mean that he should be insulated from the effects of his words. The lack of said insulation isn't a Constitutional issue.

As a writer, words are my medium. I say things. I have opinions. I write them and put them out there for the world to see. I don't get to tell the rest of the world that they have to listen to what I say, but they can't decide not to associate themselves with me based on what I write. Neither does Phil. The people who read what I write can absolutely choose to stop talking to me, stop reading what I write, stop being my fans, even stop being my friends.

It has happened before, it will happen again.

I don't live in a fantasy world where I am covered in bubble wrap and fully insulated from the effects of what I do and say.

Neither does Phil.

A&E can decide they don't want to do business with him moving forward.

And it has nothing to do with the First Amendment.

Now that the show is officially in it's mid-season hiatus and I am desperately holding out on catching up with the last two episodes from season 3 I haven't yet watched, I thought it was time to finally write about this show.

I am going to attempt to write this in such a manner that it won't spoil anything for people who haven't yet seen it and plan to. It really is one of the best shows on television right now, and you really should be watching it. I also don't want to go through just rehashing the obvious things that those who do watch it already know well.

A while back now, we decided to try and start watching it at the urging of a few people who seemed deeply enamored with it. I believe the show was running the second season at the time, and we caught just enough of it to make clear the facts that we had no idea what was going on with the plot and that zombies are nasty.

We turned it off, shaking our heads and wondering aloud what the big deal was.

Then something happened, and I'm not quite sure what, but we decided to start watching it from the beginning a few months ago.

By five seconds into the first episode, I was hooked.

In deep, I was quickly sucked into the vortex.

My husband decided he wanted to read the comics as well, though the story lines diverge fairly early on. I have read through enough of them now to see how different they are - one is not necessarily better than the other, they are different enough, but they still center on the same ethical struggles.

At it's core, this show isn't about zombies at all.

I'll let that digest for a moment.

It isn't.

Truly.

It's about the resilience of people, about the sacrifices we will make, about the eternal battle of good versus evil, about the ways that people will justify choices and so much more. The zombies are more a part of the setting, the background, than anything else. They are just a defining component of the place in which these stories unfold.


With my background in public health, I am fascinated by the disease component of the show. Whatever it is that causes those who die to turn, whether it is a virus or a bacteria or a parasite...it's fictional, but not outside the realm of possibility. Since watching the show, I have had a great number of conversations with my older kids (who also watch it) about pandemics. Though our planet hasn't been ravaged by anything that brings people back from the dead and turns them into hungry flesh eating predators, the population has been brought into decline rapidly by diseases in the past. I don't imagine that anything out there will ever end in the manifestation of zombies, but annihilation of the population? Not out of question. Not by a stretch.

Fairly quickly in the first season, it becomes obvious that the world we know now ceased to exist very quickly after the disease spread. All the modern conveniences we know and love, gone. Running water, electricity, television, internet, no more. Until and unless you've actually lived in that kind of scenario, you can't really understand how much it changes everything to be without the things we completely take for granted. It becomes painfully obvious in a hurry how much we depend on those things once they are gone.

The show, as my experiences in real life have also shown, details how quickly some people can adapt. Those who don't adapt don't survive. Those who don't adapt just don't endanger themselves, but everyone else. Natural born fighters are the ones you want on your side.


The show exposes the darker side of humanity from the first episode all the way through to the current season. The biases and stereotypes that alter how people treat one another, the lies that people will tell themselves just to make things feel better in the moment, the underhanded way that people deal with one another anytime someone has what someone else wants. Natural leaders emerge very quickly, and it becomes clear that not everyone who can lead has the moral integrity to do so. It becomes obvious how much people will lie to get their way.

The show strips away the stigmas that we bring as viewers and forces us to do better. It tells us that even the strongest people struggle once they are inside their own heads. It tells us that good people can come from bad upbringings. It tells us that trust is essential to survival. It tells us that sometimes you have to cut your losses and move on. It tells us that faith is important, but work is more important. It tells us that some people will go to the ends of the Earth to protect the ones they love and that others will worry only about themselves when held to the fire.


The show makes you care about these completely fictional characters in this insane world. When a deeply loved character is taken out, you feel like you lost a little piece of your heart too. The more well loved, the more spectacular their deaths seem to be. The more they meant, the more horrid the ending they must meet. I'm still upset about the last one. Still. As a fan of this show, you should know better than to get close to the characters. It's almost a certainty that they all will die eventually, and yet they are so real, so raw that you can't help it. As they bond to each other, we bond to them.

The core of the show is one man's struggle with who he is, with what has happened to him, with what has happened to the people he loves. His resolve has been tested, his faith in others questioned. He's struggled with his own sanity, he's fought for control and pushed it away. The last episode that aired, the mid-season finale, told you just about everything you ever needed to know about Rick. About who he was, who he is, what he is made of.


Sure, there are zombies, always, a constant nagging presence that must always be dealt with, but I can assure you that the show isn't about them at all.

Nope.

The humans are the real monsters.

The zombies are just the eye candy.


The Walking Dead returns to AMC in February, 2014.

The Colbert Report took home two Emmys last night, for writing in a variety show and best variety show, in what was otherwise largely a boring and unexciting show.



It was also the first time that The Colbert Report beat The Daily Show in those categories.

See Jon??? You can't just leave for a few months, grow a weird beard and think that things won't change.

I have loved both shows since the dawn of civilization, and insist fairly regularly that one or both of them need to hire me as a staff writer. True story.


As much as I love them both, though, The Colbert Report has always held a special place in my cold black heart because of the fact that on top of being a comedy news show (and often more reliable than anything the mainstream media puts out), the entire show is spun with a false political slant. It makes everything the writers do that much harder, and relies on his flawless comedic delivery and timing.

What amazes me after all these years is that there are people who still don't seem to get the fact that Colbert isn't really super conservative, and that the entire show is satirical. I especially laugh when elected representatives are on the show and never figure out that he's totally messing with them.

He's funny and irreverent and topical and has some of the best writers in the comedy world on his staff.

Hire me.

I'm not a fan of reality tv for many reasons, not the least of which is the fact that I adore a well written, scripted show.  I love Parenthood and The Big Bang Theory because of how well the stories are told, the tight writing, the timing of the actors and actresses.  I long for the days of shows like Sportsnight and My So Called Life.   Hell, I even miss M*A*S*H.

These days, most of the network prime time programming in inhabited by different incarnations of crime dramas, occasional sitcoms and lots of reality shows.

There are some great shows on cable, though.  I do have to say that.  And I'm whining about not having HBO anymore.

Back when Survivor and American Idol began, the reality market was new and interesting.  We had a chance to peek into the lives of other people, see what they did under pressure, watch as dreams were shattered, hearts broken, wills tested.  The nature of reality television  assumes that we all have voyeuristic tendencies.  Relies on it, in fact.

We love to watch people triumph, but we love to watch them fail too.  We cry when they yell move that bus, and when the girl we were rooting for doesn't get a rose this round.  We watch these shows because they make us feel better about ourselves, force us to be grateful for what we have, allow us to feel morally, intellectually, physically superior to other people.

Why?

Why do we need to watch the supposedly real lives of other people?  I don't really have an answer, truth be told.

I've stopped watching them for the most part.  Some of them I will admit to still watching occasionally, like Storage Wars (yes, I know it's rigged, but I LOVE the characters) and Undercover Boss (because it's one of the few shows that I think actually works to change the perspective of the owners and CEOs).

I stopped because it became obvious that as time wears on, and more and more of these shows are created, they are getting more and more outrageous.  The shows crave the fringes of society, the outliers, then throws them on the screen as if they are portraying any actual kind of reality.  Never mind the fact that most of them are scripted anyway.

I have a grudge too.  I was filmed for the show Maternity Ward when I was in labor with my oldest daughter.  With an older child who ended up in the NICU, and her being premature, and me having gestational diabetes, it was sure to be a cliffhanger.  Then I ended up not screaming and thrashing around even though I was on pitocin without an epidural.  And the baby was totally fine.  Instead of putting us on the show to portray what happens every day, and that moms with complicated pregnancies can have uncomplicated deliveries, we were passed over.  We weren't interesting enough.

The vast majority of pageant moms aren't like the ones on Here Comes Honey Boo Boo.  Sure, there are some Dance Moms that act that way, but certainly not all of them do.  Sister Wives isn't a normal portrayal of Mormon families, or even polyamory or polygamy, but there are those out there who buy into it completely.

All the shows about teen moms bother me.  I can understand the point in wanting to demonstrate to teenagers the reality of pregnancy and parenthood before you're ready, but doesn't the mere existence of these shows glamorize it?  Sure, it's hard and all, but you could be on tv!

The shows like Hillbilly Handfishing make me wonder.  I mean, the average American has no interest in ever doing this, and yet we want to watch it.  Why?  Is it just to make fun of people?  What the hell is wrong with us?

All the dating shows, including the Bachelor and it's spin offs, boggle my mind.  Though I'm sure that a lot of it is casting and editing, the shows portray most of the participants as superficial, selfish, horny people.  Which is fine.  I mean, there sure are a lot of those in real life.  However, the idea that true love can be found in front of a camera is laughable.  How many of those couples are still together now?  Not many, but the producers have made a fortune.

The Biggest Loser is one that bothers me endlessly.  It breaks my heart to see these people, obviously desperate for help to lose weight, being forced into clothes that show off every lump, roll and stretch mark for weigh ins on network television.  It has to be humiliating and mortifying for them.  I can't even imagine.  Shows like that fool people into believing that losing 18 pounds a week is healthy or even possible without having a personal trainer screaming at you constantly and a chef preparing all your food and a doctor supervising every step.  It's possible to encourage healthy weight loss without embarrassing people for ratings.

Don't even get me started on The Kardashians.  I will fully admit to loving Khloe, but I have a hard time with this attention starved family hanging on to these shows as if they really have anything to contribute to society. Never mind the fact that the only reason anyone even knows who they are is because Kim made a sex tape.  I'm not sure I'd be okay with riding those coattails personally.

I keep hoping that the reality trend will end.  Then, the cynical part of me knows that these shows are cheaper to produce and involve less risk for the producers.  They don't have to come up with pilots and pitch them to networks over and over again, go through months of filming just to see if it will fly.  All you need are a few cameras and an editor.

The writers strike in 2007-08 sure didn't help, nor has the trend of actors all threatening to walk out on successful shows unless they get paid x number of dollars per episode.

I watch tv to escape reality, as do most people.  Not to see women get fitted for bras.

Yeah, Double Divas is really a thing.  I wish I was kidding.

I'm going to go bang my head on a wall now.

Then figure out how to get HBO back.

I've written about my love/hate relationship with the show Parenthood before.  I love it because it's so real, and I hate it for the same reason.  I love it because it's one of the few well written dramas left on television, and I hate it because it makes me cry every week.

Some of the story lines hit close to home, and some of them hit way too close to home.  I can relate to just about all of them, save a few.

Though this season has been focused primarily on Christina's cancer diagnosis (which gets under my skin for the obvious reason that cancer is an asshole and has messed with my life more than once), the story that has torn at my heart the most isn't about her at all.

It's the one about Julia.

The mom who can do everything.  Who can parent her perfect daughter, who can kick ass and take names as a high powered attorney, who can prepare organic home cooked meals every day, who makes time for her adoring husband, who can do it all.

Her.

This season, she and her husband adopted an older child.  The dynamics of the family have been rocked, and she quickly found herself unable to balance it all.  The episode where she ended up on the floor in the kitchen crying hysterically hit home.  Oh, did it hit home.

For as long as this show has existed, I've compared myself to Julia.  I was supposed to be her.  I was supposed to be the high powered attorney with everything balanced perfectly.

She's the smart one.  She's the strong one.  She's the stoic one.  She's the responsible one.  She's the one other people turn to.

Just like me.

Life had other plans for me, but I never let go of that idealized image of what was supposed to be.  I constantly compared myself to her.  She could do it, why couldn't I?  Why wasn't I able?  Why wasn't I capable?

Then she ended up in a heap on the floor this season, and I knew.


That was why.

She couldn't do it.  I couldn't do it.  No one can.

People ask me all the time when I'll go back to law, as though I was ever really there in the first place.  Those same people, not understanding how the field really works, couldn't possibly fathom the amount of time that I'd have to devote to it, even assuming I could find someone to hire me when I have not practiced in 12 years.  Good luck with that, by the way.  People don't understand that I don't have the passion for it anymore.  Maybe I never did, if I'm being truly honest with myself.

We can't do it all, and we need to stop expecting that we can.  We need to stop letting society tell us we are failures if we can't.  We need to stop telling ourselves the same thing.

I'm not really Wonder Woman, even if I look like her when I put the costume on.

Maybe I'm more like Julia than I thought.

You know the drill.