Community, the tv show

I can't even...

j. out of curiosity are you writing your thesis on 'Community' by chance? :)

ok but troy and annie go against that a bit, no? they are p much willow and oz if you go back to the buffy thing, not a relationship born out of all of that but instead actually liking each other and mutually being able to help each other connect, grow etc. (Willow and Tara being the only other relationship in the show not coming out of dire circumstances?)

holy shit dude

― It's Long Like Donkey Dong (some dude), Sunday, December 5, 2010 10:04 PM (30 minutes ago) Bookmark

just spillover from the life of the mind yo

willow and tara's relationship is attractive to willow because it lets her pursue, with recognition by tara, full expression of her developing self (i.e. as a witch, as someone with power of her own contra her primary social group which is dominated by buffy), which was rebuffed by the shallow pretenses at identity formation of the campus wiccan group; but it's also forged in dire circumstances when mortal danger becomes the excuse for them to show and admit to intimacy.

troy and annie have a special capacity for recognizing one another since they knew their past selves as well as their present ones—which is special in this group since the general premise is that people are trying to overcome/escape/leave behind their past selves. i don't know where they're supposed to be going, though. it seems like annie's arc should be away from her past via realization that her past fantasies about happiness were just that. but they've also done a bit to indicate that e.g. her pill addiction was tied up with her ambition and that her acknowledgment of the value of her present social relations puts something of a check on her ambitions.

where that fits in with troy depends on his arc, too, and i'm less clear on what it could be. i thought his part in the troy-turns-21-everyone-goes-drinking story was really interesting—not just because of the stuff about how stupid adults actually are, but because the action was focalized around him, so that peoples' drunken behavior (not extreme, just boringly normal) was shown as unappealing in the same kind of way that abed is shown as regarding unimaginative reality. he would rather have interesting, genuinely absorbing interactions with others rather than obliterating ones that bring out how people who think they're opposed don't even realize that they share something in common (i.e. britta and jeff, in the car ride home). but even though troy and annie have special opportunities to know each other because of their past, i think the whole arc set up by the show's premise would have them establishing separation from each other.

part of annie's past self involved her ugliness—acne, no boobs—and so the fact that she is now attractive to her past object of idealized affection, now that she has become hot, should stand as an obstacle to her self-realization, because it could easily become the wrong reason that anyone who knew her before is attracted to her now.

This thread now needs a Kindle app

also, speaking of people seeking their identities in the human community—

given the first season's awesomely drawn-out jokes about the dean becoming a furry ('i hope this doesn't awaken something in me…'), his voice memos played over the PA in this year's halloween episode are really disturbing.

after the greg kinnear movie he reminds himself to check for something called 'human cent—', and then it's cut off. this movie? a saw someone tweet: 'it's all about bringing people together'.

naw, probably something else

j. yr posts here are awesome. wish I had something to add to the conversation but uh I mostly just watch it for the jokes >_>

snowy otm

J., although I haven't read Socrates or Plato, I think I basically agree with your first long post except for the characterization of Troy's and Abed's friendship as 'homoerotic' in any sense. It's a close friendship but I don't see any reason to attribute eroticism to it: If anything, it makes me think more of a pre-sexual sort of childhood friendship, like the bond I had with my best friend when I was 10. (These are often also based on love of imagination, of course.)

ya i think it sort of speaks to the uneasiness in our culture that we have about close male relationships that the "homo-erotic" modifier gets appended to describe that kind of friendship

they hold hands which is p gay

they should totally make an episode where Troy realizes he acts gay around Abed so Troy purposely avoids Abed and acts like a jerk when he does see him... (dot dot dot)

oh, surely—if i were being more careful i would have said 'homosocial', and of course a lot of the in-show jokes are about it being misrecognized as (proto-)homo-erotic by others. (and of course, troy's got a thing for butt stuff.)

the stuff about childhood is good—and it's connected up with the contemporariness of the show (a culture of adolescents staring at fart videos on youtube instead of actually learning about human culture) and the romantic-artist-imagination-self-creation stuff that i mentioned above. the end-show bit with abed fooling troy with the wall mural was amazing—especially troy's sad closing repetition about not being taken in by the prospect of a return to childhood wonderland.

i mean TENT FORT

<3

can't believe Abed is now on ILX

the end-show bit with abed fooling troy with the wall mural was amazing—especially troy's sad closing repetition about not being taken in by the prospect of a return to childhood wonderland.

― j., Monday, December 6, 2010 12:08 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

omg the "TOOOOOOO YOU!" opening of the most recent ep was so good

i have a different take on abed, which is that Community (and Dan Harmon specifically) recognizes that the two most popular modes of articulation atm are this kinda 'aspie' dialogue and this 'snarky' dialogue (obv living in different contexts; psychology v. popular culture) and that they are actually speaking in a similar disaffected/affectless voice. these two voices come together in abed who is simultaneously aspie (unable to fully grasp real emotional depth) and snarky (like in robocop snark episode or really any time where he seems very saavy). the concept being that both dialogues are actually one + the same; these modes of articulation that fail to address serious emotional lacunas. one reason Community speaks so strongly to me is that it's about creating these communities of support + family in light of absolute failure (and moreover, in this Hegelian twist, creating this communities in the very failed institutions that necessitate them). that's why plotlines like jeff sleeping in his car, or troy moving in with abed, or pierce, are so important -- this is a show literally about grappling with notions of domesticity + family in the broader experience of total failure (homelessness, unemployment, the very model of community college as institutions of higher education that fail the majority of its students). abed is then this almost liminal figure between the disaffected tone we take on in our experience of alienation from the community but also recreating that community within new models. (And then on a personal experience level we experience community in watching the show every week and posting about it and sharing it with friends so this very savvy piece of popular culture also becomes a way for us to create families, even as the institutions around us - government, education, economy, pop culture itself - fall to pieces.)

jesus did society crumble in the time it took to read that post?

yes

"oh shit, i got really engrossed in a message board thread and looked up, and there was no more postal service"

it's cool dude we got owl city now.

it has begun!!

sooooo psyched for this!!!

here. we. go.

asterisk.

because I'm progressive and kick ass

cookies.

if only he could find the power to not be a smug douche

bjork

this is really something else

That turned out to really be sweet.

This was the best show that was ever on TV ever in the history of TV.

it was pretty awesome. not my fave ep of the season, but def one of the best christmas television episodes i've ever seen

I didn't lol very much but I still enjoyed it. and the ending was nice

also Mordy I like yr thesis about the snark/aspie overlap — it's something that used to weird me out when I first started watching the show and didn't really 'get' Abed's character

Lost DVD joke was hilarious and also legitimately cathartic.

Wow that was genuinely moving. Love this show SO much

This ep made me realize how sick I am of Christmas culture in general.

I believe the phrase you're looking for is, ahem, "BAH HUMBUG"

yeah pretty much.

Christmas Pterodactyl

Just noticed that, right after "The End" on the TV they're watching, you can see the non-stop-motion cast in the reflection of the screen.

Lost DVD joke was hilarious and also legitimately cathartic.

Yes.

Such a great, and sweet, episode.