I stayed up so late because I started (finally) watching One Mississippi on Amazon and I could not stop. One Mississippi is so wonderful, you guys. I had to stay up to see it through because I was entirely charmed, enraptured, entertained and moved.
Earlier that lazy day after Thanksgiving I was trying to think of what I wanted to watch. The Friday after Thanksgiving is built for binging something on Netflix in sweatpants while eating leftovers. This is as the Pilgrims intended.
I tried with Netflix's Mindhunter, which came highly recommended by a friend with good taste. In the opening scene, a man in the throes of a profound psychotic break literally blows his own head off, following which a hostage negotiator is tortured by his failure to stop the suicide. It looked really good! But, you know what? It was a guy show. And I'm just not in the headspace for guy stuff these days.
There's nothing wrong with guy things! All my life I've liked guy things - Mel Brooks, Monty Python, things written from a male point-of-view, for masculine sensibilities. I adore Monty Python and Mel Brooks (but have always thought that Madeline Kahn was the best part of any of his movies (probably because she was)).
And, since this blog has turned so confessional of late, I might as well admit that I probably got into adoring all these guy things because I wanted guys to think I was cool. In the 80s and 90s, there was no quicker way to Cool Girl than being a cute girl who quoted Blazing Saddles. But confess a passion for, say, Madonna or Bridget Jones Diary, and you were just another silly girl. And Madonna was great! Bridget Jones' Diary was great!
These days. the landscape is chockablock with stories told by women and for women. One Mississippi and Better Things are a couple of examples of shows that can make me howl with a laugh one second and then make my eyes fill up a second later (side note: fuck Louis C.K. and fuck him for getting any credit for either of those shows). I can't wait for The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel to come out on Amazon next week (!!!!!!) and Crazy Ex Girlfriend is fucking genius.
This is a shitty year. But at least, finally, there are women's voices out there making art, telling our stories and telling them so well. But even better, and maybe the best part of this terrible year: if some guy thinks you're a silly girl because you like to fall asleep to Gilmore Girls or you've already made your way through G.L.O.W. twice? Eh, who cares. You're too busy watching Call the Midwife to care about impressing some dumbass who liked Batman vs Superman more than Wonder Woman.
At long last the presumed universality, or, at least, supremacy of the male point-of-view is going away. And to that, we can all give a hearty:
