Dance Moms Are Evil

When I was younger, my parents were supportive of my extracurricular activities... as long as they didn't interfere with school. Sometimes that was frustrating, because I wanted to do what I wanted to do. I often wished that my parents were the dedicated, band booster, forensics coach, dance mom types. 

Dear little Sri - count your freaking blessings.

The most terrifying thing on television.

The Dance Moms on Lifetime make the women on Toddlers and Tiaras look like Carol Brady. They fight like cats in a sack, jockeying for position while trying to seem like they're above such petty concerns. What's worse is they hide behind their children, swearing up one side and down the other, "I'm just doing what's best for my daughter."

The hell did you just say?

It doesn't start or stop with the moms, however. The dance coach of the company, Abby, is a vindictive horror. She never hesitates to set her students against their mothers, each others, and themselves. Once, she told a 10-year old girl who lost first place by one point that what she did was: "Great. But not good enough."

To add another level of wrongness, there is a fierce competition between the two dance companies - Abby Lee and Candy Apple. I took dance when I was a kid, and my dance teachers were kind women who emphasized learning and fun. By contrast, to call the coaches at Abby Lee and Candy Apple "harpies" would be an insult to the winged monster community.

The final twist of the knife is the earnestness and innocence of the dancers themselves. You can tell by the wide-eyed looks on their overly made-up faces that they are but pawns in these women's sickening game. I realize that I'm usually much kinder in my reviews, even to other reality TV shows, but honestly.... these Dance Moms need to be stopped.

Run, girls. RUN!

Gross

 Update! Check the bottom of the post for the best 3 minutes in Mad Men history...

Think of this as the opposite of a Secret Boyfriend of the Week post. Think of it as an Obvious Scumbag of the Week. And this week's recipient is the repellent Pete Campbell from Mad Men.

This season, Pete has really been floundering. He has basically worked his entire career to become Don Draper 2.0, but instead of trying to emulate the good parts of his mentor (like say, the awesome Peggy Olson does), Pete has followed the more icky of Don's examples. Sure, he's done things right on paper: marrying a good girl from a good family, having a kid, moving to the suburbs, but now he feels trapped! By his own life! It's so sad!

Except it's not. As Pete gets more and more depressed he gets more and more gross. This season he's slept with prostitutes, and even seduced the desperate housewife of one of his commuter buddies. The fact that the housewife was played by Rory Gilmore (ok, I mean Alexis Bledel from Gilmore Girls) makes it even more icky. She was America's sweetheart for goodness sake! It was like a twisted version of that episode when she dressed up as Patty Duke.

Let us never speak of this again.

And now we come to Pete's latest trek through the filth. If you've seen the latest Mad Men episode, The Other Woman, you know of what I speak. During a business dinner with a man who can score the agency an account with Jaguar, Pete learns that the key to their success lies in whoring out Joan. And by whoring I don't mean, "the symbolic trade of one favor for another," I mean full-on "sleep with this guy for money." So of course, Pete being the winner he is, immediately goes to Joan and lays the proposition before her. In terms of shock value, I would rate this turn of events somewhere around the "client gets his foot cut off by a lawnmower" level.

I'm going to forgo all the discussion that has accompanied (SPOILER) Joan's decision to go through with sleeping with the creepy guy in exchange for a partnership and 5% stake in the agency (END SPOILER).

That has been discussed to death already on the internet, and frankly isn't a conversation I really have a desire to take part in. This post is concerned with just talking about how gross Pete Campbell is. And that's something we can all get behind, right?

Ugh, I can't even look at his smug stupid face.

There's no doubt Pete has done a lot of nasty things even from the beginning of the show, but for some reason him sliding into Joan's office (and practically leaving a trail of slime behind him) was the worst for me. Maybe it's because I love Joan, or maybe it's just because I have ABSOLUTELY NO PATIENCE for any kind of "male-life crisis trapped by own choices" bullshit that seems to be a popular theme on tv these days, but I just...can't handle Pete anymore. All season I have been thinking that someone is going to fall down that empty elevator shaft that Don peered into, or that someone might even kill themselves, and frankly I am now rooting for Pete to get the shaft (literally). Everyone on Mad Men has a bit of the villain in them so I don't think we "need" him for character purposes. And just once, it would be nice for someone to get their just deserts. And yes, falling down a high-rise would be an appropriate punishment here.

So, congrats Pete! You are the first person to be highlighted in an Obvious Scumbag post. I'm not sure if this is going to be a regular thing, but it just felt like the timing was right.

Oh, and I should probably take the opportunity to mention that I think Vincent Kartheiser has really done an amazing job with this character and has shown Pete's descent throughout the series with a level of skill that I never expected. I can separate the art from the artist and I am sure Vincent is a super nice guy. This is definitely one of those "hate the game not the playa" situations.

And I totally forgot to include the best scene ever: Pete Campbell gets taken to the cleaners:

Monster Mash

This past weekend, Monkey Sri and I were talking and the course of our conversation came around to something very closely resembling this exchange:

CLOVIS: Have you seen the cartoon that mocks the Game of Thrones scene where Daenerys eats a horse’s heart by combining it with My Little Pony?

MONKEY SRI: You are a horrible, heartless human being and I’m ashamed to be seen in public with you.

CLOVIS: …So, is that a no?

That may not have been a literal translation, but I assure you the subtext is accurate. By way of context, it’s fair to mention that Monkey Sri is a big fan of My Little Pony whereas I am, well, not. For my turn, while I wouldn’t describe myself as a huge fan of Game of Thrones, I have really enjoyed watching it and find it to be pretty close to the exact kind of television I enjoy watching whereas Monkey Sri may have a different perspective on the show. The point being that we were both approaching this horrific image from opposite sides of the appreciation gap and I think I bridged it a bit further than she did.

Laugh with me, fellow heartless humans!

But Monkey Sri’s distaste (Disgust? Revulsion? Abhorrence? Sri, please weigh in on how accurate or inaccurate my read on this is in the comments) got me thinking about a bigger issue. Shows have to put forth a lot of conscious effort to “manage the brand” of what they are. It’s the reason why some shows have product tie-ins and others don’t. It’s also at least part of the reason why producers are so careful to manage the promotional materials for their show so that the look and feel of it doesn’t get too altered. On the other hand, removing characters and putting them in new context can bring you attention you didn’t have before and it can allow you to appeal to viewers who may not have originally thought to give your show a chance. So with all those arguments, are television mashups like the one above a good or a bad?

Different from a crossover, where characters from two different properties interact in the same story for whatever reason, mashups involve purposefully putting characters in situations they wouldn’t, shouldn’t or couldn’t exist in. Basically imagine a Saturday Night Live sketch, only done by the actual show creators and not necessarily to exploit a funny pretense that will quickly get old after 30 seconds.

And to think, I once believed I couldn't find Tim Tebow any more boring than he already was.

Personally, I enjoy mashups. I like considering how my favorite characters would behave in utterly different circumstances. My favorite episode of The Simpsons remains the one from the late 90s where Mulder and Scully, voiced by their live action counterparts, came to Springfield to investigate Homer’s claim that he saw an alien. Likewise, anyone of a certain age will likely remember watching old Scooby-doo cartoons and how exciting it was when our teenage crime solvers got to occasionally run into someone from a different world, such as the Harlem Globetrotters, The Mamas & The Papas or even Batman and Robin.

Unfortunately, mashups can also really damage the television property. Mashups done right give us humor or a new understanding of the characters. Mashups done wrong just feel painful. For every enjoyable Star Wars Muppet Show there’s always a Star Wars Holiday Special.

So what do you think? Do you want to see your favorite characters and places put into different contexts or do you feel like that harms the story that you are trying to enjoy?