TV review: ‘White People’ explores gray areas in privilege and stereotypes

MTV
Jose Antonio Vargas in the MTV documentary show “White People.”

By Mary McNamara

Los Angeles Times

In an episode of “The Middle” last season, Sue Heck (played by Eden Sher) couldn’t figure out why the guide on her college tour kept steering her to the school’s Native American programs. Turned out, when asked for her race, Sue had checked the wrong box.

“I’m a native of America,” she earnestly explained, before realizing her mistake.

White people, am I right?

Isn’t it funny how you can make a joke about white people, but if you use the term “black people,” you risk being called a racist before you finish your sentence?

Well, maybe not funny so much as perfectly understandable. At no time in U.S. history have white people been persecuted or disenfranchised simply for the color of their skin.

For other things, like being Jewish or Irish or Italian, but not for being white. In fact, as one astute young woman points out in Jose Antonio Vargas’ new MTV documentary “White People,” when the Jews, Irish and Italians first arrived on these shores, they weren’t considered white. Not really. Not in the way “white” has been often defined, the ideal from which all the other races “diverge.”

In fact, the term “white people” didn’t move around in the casual lexicon much until fairly recently, when it became something of a punch line, a reminder that Caucasian is, in fact, just another race whose members might want to know what it feels like to be defined instantly and solely by color.

Not surprisingly, many “white people” don’t like it very much. When MTV announced they would be airing a film called “White People,” conservative pundits hit the roof, predicting an exercise in race-baiting disguised as an exploration of white privilege packaged in a hashtag-worshipping world of the network’s target audience.

It is none of these things.

Instead “White People” begins with the acceptance that most white Americans don’t feel privileged and attempts to explore what they feel instead.

To do this, Vargas (who recently partnered with the Los Angeles Times to create a multimedia digital magazine exploring race and identity called #EmergingUS) speaks with folks who deal with their whiteness in a highly overt way, including:

Dakota, a Southern gay man, who chose to attend “an historically black college.”

— A group of white teachers on the Pine Ridge Indian reservation near the site of the Wounded Knee massacre in South Dakota.

— John, a young Italian American, and his family watching as “their” Bensonhurst neighborhood in Brooklyn becomes increasingly Asian.

— Katy, a young college student in Arizona who believes she might have had access to more financial aid if she weren’t white.

None of whom, I hasten to add, appear as “in extremis” as they seem when described. If nothing else, “White People” proves that you can take on a sensitive topic in a provocative way and avoid being a provocateur.

Still, it’s a maddeningly brief and hectic road trip. Lasting less than an hour, “White People” seems more like a pilot for a reality series than a documentary. Each stop on the journey could easily sustain its own episode — especially when padded with shots of Vargas meeting larger groups — if the genre weren’t so reliant on overly orchestrated encounters, manipulative production and absurd histrionics.

Some of which make their presence felt there — the soundtrack insists on reminding everyone how they should be feeling — though at levels so low the MTV demographic probably won’t notice. “White People” clearly prides itself on being frank about things that too often fester.

“A lot of people feel like that,” Vargas says several times in answer to white people reluctantly saying they feel discriminated against or are tired of being made to feel ashamed. “Why do you feel like that?”

But if brevity forces the narrative to skim, it does not skirt. A dinner in which Dakota brings his black friends from college to dinner with his white family is just as odd and uncomfortable as you would imagine, while the widely felt concern that whites don’t have the same scholarship opportunities as other races is debunked gently but firmly.

Vargas is a Filipino citizen who in 2011 revealed that he was here illegally, which makes it natural to assume that he has, well, some skin in this particular game.

He does, but the whole point of “White People” is that we all do. As the recent outrage over the use of the word “diversity” as shorthand for the inclusion of races other than Caucasian makes clear, it is time we stop thinking of white as the base to which other colors may or may not be added.

In these terms, “White People” is more conversation starter than a revelation, but the conversations it could start are limitless and important. Watching a white woman describe her privilege as never having been institutionally oppressed is enough to make a feminist scream, and surely Dakota’s experience as a gay man tempers his experience of life as much as his whiteness.

None of us are one thing or another, so defining anyone solely by their race is ridiculous. Which explains why the joking use of the term “white people” has become popular and the film “White People,” though imperfect, is worth watching.

‘Winter is here,’ Kit Harington warned us, before ‘Game of Thrones’ finale

Helen Sloan/Courtesy HBO/TNS
Kit Harington in season 5, episode 9 of HBO’s “Game of Thrones.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

By Mary McNamara

Los Angeles Times

Oh, Kit Harington, you were there, and I was there, and you never said a thing. Certainly not during our chat on camera in March, when you shook your head over the high body count of fellow “Game of Thrones” cast members and smiled just as if you didn’t know you were joining them.

But not even off camera when I joked about all the hair rumors _ how you had been spotted with short hair, prompting some to believe your character, Jon Snow, was dead.

“Really?” you said, looking at me as if I should really find better things to do than read GoT blogs.

But maybe there were hints, as there always are when something has ended even though no one says the word. You spoke of Jon ruefully, as if he would never learn the ways of the world, and compared him to his father, who also died for his beliefs.

It’s easy to read between the lines when you know what you’re looking for.

“Winter is here,” you said of Season 5. And now we know, you weren’t kidding.

Here are a few other bits and pieces from our conversation before the knives came out:

Will Jon Snow ever get off the Wall?

I don’t know. The one time he could have left _ there were a couple times _ he could have gone down to try to avenge his family, and he could have left with Ygritte, and he didn’t, so it’s going to be pretty hard to tear him away from the Night’s Watch now. He’s grown there. … It’s going to have to be some sizable event to drive him south.

Has winter come for Jon Snow?

I think it comes this season. It’s a phrase, more a metaphor really. You’ll see winter arrive quite strongly this season. … If you watched the first episode, everyone is at the darkest place they’ve ever been in, their lowest point. It only gets darker from there.

What do you know and when do you know it in terms of your character?

The funny thing is that everyone involved in “Thrones” knows what’s going to happen before the actors do. So you turn up for your horse riding assessment, and Camilla, the horse mistress, is giving you knowing looks, and winks and suggestions because she’s had all the scripts and we never get them _ we get them a couple weeks before we start.

This season that was just done was really fascinating; it drifted from the books. There were so many elements about it that were new. We had to sign off on things and hand back the sides at the end of the day. It all got very “Star Wars.”

Has anybody had to work backward from a death scene?

Yeah, I think people have, and it is a little bit annoying. Ideally, if you do die on “Thrones,” you want that to be the last scene you film, but it doesn’t always work like that.

Is this the season Jon Snow becomes a man?

This is the season he becomes a politician. He has to start thinking up here (head) and less in here (heart). He has to learn to be a strict politician, he has to learn to be brutal, he has to learn to make huge sacrifices and give away some of his inherent goodness to get to where he wants to be. And I think that’s something his father wasn’t prepared to do.

No, and he dies for it.

And he died for it. And I think Jon’s slowly learning that.

Do you have a new ally, or are you a loner all the way through?

I think the cliche to attach to Jon is “It’s very lonely at the top.” Poor Jon. He’s always lonely.

Top 10 moments from David Letterman’s long run

John Paul Filo/CBS Entertainment First Lady Michelle Obama visited with CBS Late Show host David Letterman and as a surprise brought the US Marine Corps Band during April 30 taping in New York.

By Neal Justin

Star Tribune (Minneapolis)

David Letterman doesn’t retire for another 2-1/2 weeks, but already the accolades are rolling in as fans prepare to say goodbye to the most influential comedian of his generation.

CBS weighs in Monday with a 90-minute special hosted by Ray Romano, but we’ll take this opportunity to trump the network with our own top 10 list, highlighting the very best of Letterman’s 33-year run in late-night television.

10 — Get out and stay out (Aug. 31, 1988): Letterman’s intolerance for difficult guests was never more on display then when he banished Harvey Pekar from NBC’s “Late Night” after the comic-book writer rambled on about the host being a corporate shill. “I’m just praying for a terrorist,” Letterman quipped to the audience moments before telling Pekar he had worn out his welcome.

9 — They got us, babe (Nov. 14, 1987): A Sonny and Cher reunion may not rank up there with the Beatles getting back together, but there was a sweetness to their joint appearance on “Late Night,” which led to a clumsy but moving rendition of their biggest hit.

8 — Charlie’s angel (June 6, 1997): Whether it was Crispin Glover or Joaquin Phoenix, no one handled a train-wreck interview better than Letterman. My personal favorite: Farrah Fawcett’s lights-out appearance that the host treated with just the right mix of bewilderment and amusement.

7 — Hello, Larry (Nov. 16, 1983): He turned a lot of real-life oddballs into comic foils. The best was Larry “Bud” Melman (Calvert DeForest), a struggling actor whose good spirits and clueless nature would send Letterman into fits of laughter. Melman’s finest moment came when he handed out hot towels at the Port Authority Bus Terminal while yanking the microphone away from passengers’ mouths midsentence. “It’s like a ventriloquist in training,” Letterman said.

6 — From the heart (Feb. 21, 2000): Anyone facing a scary medical procedure should take time to re-watch the “Late Show” monologue Letterman delivered after returning from quintuple bypass surgery. “A bypass is what happened to me when I didn’t get ‘The Tonight Show,’” said the jovial host in a self-deprecating yet comforting routine that featured a cameo by Jerry Seinfeld.

5 — Let’s talk about sex (Oct. 1, 2009): If Letterman ever decides to come out of retirement, he might want to consider opening a public-relations firm. After being blackmailed by a “48 Hours” producer, Letterman came clean on the air about having affairs with female staff members, a confessional so direct and honest that it wiped out any serious repercussions. The tactic may have been hard on his family, but fans were quick to forgive.

4 — He’ll sleep when he’s dead (Oct. 30, 2002): Warren Zevon was not the biggest musical act to grace the “Late Show” stage, but he was a Letterman favorite, so much so that when he was dying of cancer, the program dedicated the entire hour to him. “Enjoy every sandwich,” Zevon said in a hilarious, touching interview with the most important fan he ever had.

3 — Glory days (June 25, 1993): No matter how Letterman decides to leave the air, he’ll have a hard time topping his last show on NBC, which featured a hysterical bit from Tom Hanks on the time he was Slappy White’s bellhop and a surprise appearance from Bruce Springsteen, who had never done “Late Night.” Encore, boys?

2 — I wanna hold your hand (April 8, 1986): Before confining himself to the studio, Letterman would often roam the streets of New York, most memorably when General Electric was about to buy NBC. His attempt to deliver a fruit basket to GE headquarters resulted in an absolute refusal by a PR person to shake hands — and one of the biggest laughs in “Late Night” history.

1 — New York state of mind (Sept. 17, 2001): As the first late-night host to come back on the air after the 9/11 attacks, the bar couldn’t have been higher for a guy known for cynicism, not sentiment. But Letterman rose to the occasion with an emotional monologue. As I wrote at the time, he was “strong, shaken, angry, humble, loyal — all the city’s emotions packed into an hour that confirmed Letterman’s place as the proper heir to Johnny Carson’s throne. More importantly, he stepped up as one of the city’s most eloquent ambassadors.”

TV review: ‘Daredevil’ is the first show built for the binge

Barry Wetcher/Netflix/TNS
Charlie Cox as Matt Murdock and Rosario Dawson as Claire Temple in the Netflix Original Series “Marvel’s Daredevil.”

By Mary McNamara

Los Angeles Times

Dim and steaming with urban grit, personal pathos and intense violence, Marvel’s great new “Daredevil” series for Netflix proves, once again, that no one understands the multiple-platforming world better than the comic book company originally, and fittingly, known as Timely Publications.

The much anticipated adaptation of Stan Lee and Bill Everett’s blind protector of New York’s Hell’s Kitchen, now on the streaming service in its full-season glory, is the first in four Marvel series for Netflix. At once old-school and utterly new, “Daredevil” reveals a, if not the, future of television.

Pilot free and untethered from TV’s traditional beats and measures, “Daredevil” assumes a high level of audience knowledge and completely embraces its delivery system: It’s the first show effectively built for the binge.

Other series debuting on Netflix, Amazon or Hulu pushed boundaries of tone and content, but they followed the basic forms of television. “House of Cards” and even “Transparent” easily could have appeared on premium cable. But “Daredevil” would be an ill fit.

Breaking with narrative convention, the story begins not in high-pitched action or rigorous introduction but ambiguous back story. The panic of a man running to a scene of an accident that involves his young son gives way to the resolute calm of another man (Charlie Cox) in a confessional, speaking of his father’s occasional near-murderous rage, a rage the son now understands. Putting on dark glasses, he asks forgiveness not for what he’s done, but for what he’s about to do. Which is beat up some truly bad guys armed with only his bare hands and a black mask.

So it’s five minutes in before the show offers a clue to what it’s about: A blind vigilante with mad ninja skills who serves only that equally sightless muse, Justice.

It’s many more minutes before we know that the vigilante is actually Matt Murdock, a newly minted and highly idealistic young lawyer who, along with his less idealistic but goofily devoted best friend Foggy Nelson (Elden Henson), are establishing their own law firm, their first client being Karen Page (Deborah Ann Woll), a young woman accused of a murder she swears she didn’t commit.

That murder begins to draw everyone into a much larger web of crime (Russian mobsters! the Chinese drug trade!) that Matt, during his vigilante nights, has just begun to sense is strangling Hell’s Kitchen and other parts of New York _ but not before the story repeatedly sheers off into the past and present of many characters.

In fact, it’s several hours before the source of that strangulation is revealed: a criminal mastermind brilliantly played by Vincent D’Onofrio, who comes with a back story and psychology that mirrors Matt’s in complexity and significance.

The line that divides damaged hero from damaged villain is as common as duct-tape in television (see also “The Following,” “Hannibal” and “Luther”) and usually just about as subtle. Here it gleams like a deadly micro-filament: Each man shares a vision of the city; each man is willing to kill with his bare hands to achieve it. But one is a hero and one is not.

Unlike many other modern dramas in which a mixed wash of dark and light results in universal gray, “Daredevil” cleaves to a more straightforward morality and plays instead with form.

“Daredevil” is not an epic, like “Game of Thrones,” but neither is it one man’s chronicle, like “Breaking Bad.” It has many elements of a typical super-hero tale but they are used in different ways. Like a game of checkers being played with chess pieces, “Daredevil” is only deceptively familiar.

As with ABC’s “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” and “Agent Carter,” “Daredevil” exists in the Marvel universe, post-Battle of New York. But references to the Avengers themselves are fleet and far between. The presence of alien life and homegrown superheroes matter far less in the grimy threat of Hells Kitchen. Full of muggers, rapists and traffickers of drugs and humans, “Daredevil’s” Manhattan feels like New York at the nadir of the Koch administration, before Times Square became a giant home theater system and Hell’s Kitchen revitalized into its current state of Purgatory’s Breakfast Nook.

In “Daredevil’s” New York, the sun rarely shines, the streets sweat with dirty rain and no alley is lit. The contrast of shadowy old-school danger _ fights occur at regular intervals on roofs, in alleys, under bridges _ with modern storytelling is “Daredevil’s” driving force.

Cox’s hero is admirably, and importantly, human. Though clearly gifted beyond the average mortal, he suffers as often as he saves, and not just emotionally; he falls along with his foes (though he usually rises again) and is occasionally seriously wounded. That vulnerability is what makes him more interesting than a more indestructible super hero, and also brings him into contact with Claire Temple (Rosario Dawson), a nurse who becomes the one person who knows something of his whole self.

Some story lines are weaker than others — a pair of Russian brothers seem needlessly stereotyped as does an Intrepid Reporter — and though the body count is relatively low, certain deaths are unnervingly brutal (heads are literally bashed in). But the cast is universally strong and the writers — Steve DeKnight replaced Drew Goddard as showrunner two episodes in — remain resolute in their convictions.

This is not the splendid shiny gizmo-dependent Marvel, this is the comic book hero stripped bare: blind, without benefit of costume or companion, fighting with his bare fists for truth, justice and the next wave of great television.

‘Weird Loners’ on Fox has promise despite warmed-over premise

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

By Robert Lloyd

Los Angeles Times

“Weird Loners” is a new comedy from Fox that feels like an old comedy from Fox.

At some point, it must have seemed like a compatible addition to the likes of “The Mindy Project” and “New Girl,” other ensemble pieces about people old enough to know better who still don’t know better. (Jake Kasdan, an executive producer of “New Girl,” is on board and directed the pilot, which aired Tuesday night.)

The new addition, which appears even as “Mindy” and “New Girl” are threatened with cancellation, was created by Michael J. Weithorn, who also created “Ned and Stacey” and co-created “The King of Queens.” He is not writing about his own generation here.

Such premise as there is: In the fictional city of New York _ Queens, to judge by a walk through Flushing Meadows, the Fox back lot to judge by most everything else — four people in their 30s wind up living in two adjacent town houses connected through a shared attic.

Stosh (Zachary Knighton) moves in with his cousin Eric (Nate Torrence) under the guise of helping out after the death of Eric’s father but really because he has lost his job and apartment. (He slept with his boss’ fiancee; it’s a pattern.) Zara (Meera Rohit Kumbhani), an artist who has walked out on her boyfriend, winds up living with Caryn (Becki Newton) because — well, just because.

Stosh, who has lived with his father until now, is still emotionally a child (well, they’re all emotional children, but Stosh is the most childlike); Caryn is desperate for love; Zara runs from it; and Eric is too busy running around to care.

There is a brief “sociological” preamble to the pilot that draws our attention to the fact these people are still single at an age where they should be coupled; it feels tacked on, as if to say, preemptively, self-protectively, “We do have a point.”

Still, there is nothing really wrong with it. The characters are a little unpalatable at first (some more than a little) and become a little less so later, which is common sitcom progress. (I have seen three episodes.) They will do some nice things for one another, even if not always for the right reasons; they will reveal their hurt, their humanity.

The principals are all good; I have been a fan of Newton since “Ugly Betty,” and remain one; Torrence brings some soul to his simpleton. There are nice details: the cousins’ Polishness, the characters’ unglamorous, regular-life jobs: dental hygienist, dental products salesman, toll-booth attendant.

And there are funny lines. Here’s one I liked: “He’s only been living with me for a month and already knows everything I like. Just the other day, I said, ‘I like oatmeal,’ and he said, ‘Yeah, I know.’ Actually he screamed it at me, and then he threw that thing.”

At the same time, the show feels something shy of essential, its future already fraught, its arrival mistimed, like a train pulling late into a station that has since been closed for repairs. But it is not evil, and I wish it luck.