"Hung"

I keep forgetting this blog is supposed to be about pop culture...my bad. So am I the only person in the world who watched Hung (crappy title for a few reasons) on HBO or what? The second season ended recently. In an art class once, I painted a beautiful watercolor of a kangaroo, and my professor called it a "bizarre choice of subject matter". I guess the same could be said of Hung. It's about a divorced father, teacher, and baseball coach in Detroit, basically a regular guy facing financial problems. His house burns down and he loses custody of his kids. So to get some extra income, he turns to prostitution.

Bizarre show for an asexual to enjoy? Eh, I don't think so. I really liked the first season for the humor and the great acting of the two main characters: Ray, the prostitute, and Tanya, a poet by day, his pimp by night. They're very likable. Most of the characters on the show experience some kind of growth, and not just the major characters. The second season, while it had good moments, became increasingly odd and disjointed. Considering that, I'm actually kind of surprised that it got picked up for a third season.

As you might imagine, Hung contained a fair amount of sex. But it was usually depicted in a humorous way that didn't bother me. What tends to bother me about depictions of sex is a total irrelevance to the plot, and that definitely can't be said of Hung. Also, as someone who doesn't connect love and sex, casual sex (as long as it isn't abusive) is no more distasteful to me than sex in a relationship. Since Ray has veto power over his clients, there isn't really any coercion involved. But like Sex and the City, the main focus of the show isn't actually sex. It's more about the non-sexual tribulations of setting up this business, and its ramifications on the rest of Ray's life.

Two interesting things from the second season: Ray had a client who saw him because sex was always boring to her. And in the end...she was still bored. So, hey. Also, at the end of the second season (s p o i l e r !), when Ray and his ex-wife, Jessica, are realizing they still love each other, Jessica says that rather than just going from man to man, she wants to take some time for herself to figure out her own needs. I thought that was cool, and an extremely rare outcome for film/TV. I also like how Ray's daughter is shown as being into the Fat Acceptance movement, although it's randomly thrown in and not explored. Maybe next season?

If you like any other comedies from HBO, you'll probably like Hung as well...the first season is out on DVD, if anyone wants to check it out.

The Real L Word

In which I see it so you don't have to!

A few weeks ago, I had a cold (yeah, I know you're all dying to know what my sinuses are up to), which meant that I watched a lot more TV than usual. This included quite a few different shows that I probably wouldn't have otherwise seen. The most relevant one to this blog was probably The Real L-Word, on Showtime, which I believe is from the same people who brought us The Fictional L-Word. To my considerable shame, I kept watching the show after my cold got better. (Even though one of the characters was so annoying to me that I fast-forwarded through all her scenes...) I kept hoping that the show would display some potential, but the overall product was trashy and exploitative*, often very boring, and rarely insightful. I found these recaps much more amusing than the actual show. So I wouldn't be surprised if a second season never materialized.

If you haven't figured it out by now, the premise of The Real L-Word is that The L-Word is re-created...but this time, with real people. And it's sort of amazing how closely they've gotten the reality show to adhere to the fictional show. But I ask...what's the point of that? Even The Real World gets to go to a different city every season, but it looks like lesbians are stuck in West Hollywood for the time being. (However, whenever I watch shows set in LA, I always have an urge to dress better, which I suppose is not an awful thing.)

(Let me tell you that in Northern California, we don't get our own anatomically correct palm trees. Dude, I'm outta here.)

Was there anything positive about the show? Well, I can identify one thing. I find that in the media, there is usually a stereotype that lesbian and gay people are not accepted by their families, especially those who aren't white or from American cultural backgrounds. So it was good to see that most of the characters' families did accept them, and were welcoming to their romantic partners.

*(Doin' an asterisk to say that the "scandalous" thing about the show was that people have sex in it, and they are "real people". However, it was pretty PG in comparison to the fictional L-Word. I think there was only one visible sex scene in the whole season, so anyone watching the show for the sex would have been very disappointed. But what was sketchy about it was that the women who did have sex were totally drunk. I don't know how consent on reality shows would work, but I just felt bad for them, like once they sobered up they would have really regretted keeping the lights on. Reading the comments of some non-asexual viewers, I found this idea being echoed.)

Sex on Fire!

The blog Feministing used to do a feature called "Feminist Guilty Pleasures", where they discussed such topics as gangsta rap and Easy-Bake Ovens. I thought about doing a similar series on "Asexual Guilty Pleasures", but I'm not too big on the concept of guilt. And the only real reason to be guilty about the song that inspired this post, the Kings of Leon's "Sex on Fire", is because it's a song people have actually heard of (har, har). I just love this song though, I could probably listen to it about 10 times in a row. My all-time favorite song about sex, however, is probably Prince's "Little Red Corvette". Apparently Pixies' "Gigantic", another great song, is about sex, but I can't understand most of the lyrics, so I personally can't say. Some songs about sex and romance I really love, and others are unbearably corny or squicky to me. It's all in the execution.

I'm trying to think of more "asexual guilty pleasures", which I suppose are things that people might not think you'd like, being asexual and all, but you do anyway...anyone want to jump in with theirs?