“we’re society’s only protection”

And it’s too bad, too, ’cause I’m not sure these are gonna help us much when Alan Moore goes apeshit on our asses:

quitting time, pt. 2

Next on the chopping block, Bravo reality tv.

First Project Runway went to hell in a handbasket, and now this travesty of a Top Chef finale.

I guess I always knew these shows were just as schlocky as all the other reality tv stuff I pretend to be too good for, but for a while they at least maintained a veneer of authenticity. Last night was just lame, though. And sad. A truly lovely personality succumbed to a fatal flaw. A consistently formidable competitor’s dominant past performances were deemed irrelevant. And, as a result, the chef who just barely won was not the best (or second best) chef in the finale.

(He also happens, despite all his assertions that he’s “a nice guy,” to be a genuine prick. That’s really secondary, but it doesn’t make it sit any better.)

I’ve decided that, if dumb tv makes me sad instead of happy, it really isn’t worth watching. So I’m done.

(sigh)

Defending Rachel Dawes

In his review of The Dark Knight, Washington Post writer (and Pulitzer Prize winner) Stephen Hunter has this to say about Maggie Gyllenhaal’s performance:

Gyllenhaal is perhaps too ironic for the Batman world. With those perpetually knowing eyes, she doesn’t really fit. She has too many dimensions, is too real-worldy — her Rachel Dawes seems like the kind of girl who got straight A’s but also had the lead in the musical, went to Radcliffe and ended up in New York, doing something “interesting.” Holmes, much more limited and perhaps a bit more beautiful, was better cast.

Now, call me a feminist crazy, but I want to know where the rule is that says the female love interest to the superhero has to be one-dimensional and “limited.” Particularly when the superhero in question is the Nolan/Bale Batman, a dude who is nothing if not complex. If he doesn’t have “too many dimensions” to exist in Gotham City, why is it that Gyllenhaal’s Rachel does?

(And the quotes around “interesting” belie just a wee bit of passive aggression.)