Theresa Basile

It’s not officially Halloween yet, but people all over the world are already celebrating. Some white people are choosing to celebrate by dressing as people from different cultures – specifically, as black people. Julianne Hough dressed as Suzanne (aka “Crazy Eyes”) from Orange is the New Black, a fashion designer held a “Disco Africa” party, and more than a few people dressed as Trayvon Martin.

The blackface Halloween costumes provoked debate and discussion about whether or not dressing as a person from a different ethnic group is appropriate in this day and age, and quite a few people got offended and upset.

To those people, I have to say – come on. It’s just a Halloween costume. Don’t you have more important things to worry about?

There are so many bigger issues to worry about right now – health care, the environment, gang violence, rape, gun violence – just to name a few.

Don’t you have more important things to do than defend the right of white people to wear blackface for Halloween?

When people are starving, when the government is spying on us, when the capitalist system is creating a wider disparity between the haves and the have-nots – you know, the actual real problems going on – you’re going to spend your time telling black people that they shouldn’t be offended by blackface?

Every moment you spend defending the use of blackface is a moment you could be spending doing something else. You could be going for a walk. Making yourself a nice cup of hot chocolate. Taking a bath. Calling an old friend you haven’t spoken to in awhile. Knitting a sweater. Lying on the grass and drinking in the sun.

So, if you’re a white person who sees that other white people are wearing blackface and black people are mad at them, and you feel the need to jump in and defend your fellow white people – stop. Take a deep breath. Relax.

Realize that there are more important issues in this world, that no one is going to be hurt if a white person doesn’t wear a particular Halloween costume when there are thousands of other costume ideas to choose from, and move on with your life.

Because, honestly, no one cares if you’re not offended.

Has anyone else been watching Brooklyn Nine-Nine? I have, and I’m enjoying it a lot so far.

First of all, I love the diversity in the main cast. The show has seven people in the main cast, including three women and four people of color. It’s a sitcom set in New York that actually remembers that not only white people live here. (It’s kind of a sad state of affairs when a diverse cast in a story with a New York setting is considered noteworthy, but still – progress!)

I’m also enjoying all of the characters. So far, my favorites are Andre Braugher’s Captain Holt and Stephanie Beatriz’s Detective Rosa Diaz. I like that Holt’s character has intelligent and moving things to say about being black and gay, but that his sexuality and race are not his defining characteristics. So far, I think the show is striking the right balance with him, in that he’s informed by his race and sexuality but not defined by either of those things. As for Diaz, I’m finding her blunt yet compassionate personality both very amusing and a refreshing change from most Latina characters I’ve seen on sitcoms. In fact, neither Diaz nor Detective Amy Santiago (Melissa Fumero) can be described as “sassy,” which is pretty remarkable.

There are a few aspects of Brooklyn Nine-Nine, though, that feel pretty formulaic. One of those formulaic aspects is the dynamic between Santiago and Andy Samberg’s lead character, Jake Peralta. Like many sitcoms (and dramas) that partner a man and a woman together, Brooklyn Nine-Nine has a childish yet brilliant male detective (who plays by his own rules, naturally) paired with a hardworking overachiever female detective. And of course, there is sexual tension between them.

Now, when I say the dynamic is formulaic, I don’t necessarily mean that as a criticism. Andy Samberg’s character is a familiar archetype, but it’s an archetype I enjoy because he’s played by Andy Samberg. Andy Samberg acting like a bit of a douchey goofball is his shtick, one that I never get tired of watching. As for Santiago, Melissa Fumero brings an endearing sweetness to the role that makes her seem like a real human being, rather than a stereotypical female killjoy to the male clown. (She’s also a Latina actor playing the type of role usually meant for white women, making the character and dynamic with Samberg less formulaic than it could be.)

Still, I wonder if I’ll ever get to see a show where the roles are reversed, where we have a goofy yet brilliant female “office clown” cop partnered with a stick-in-the-mud overachieving male cop – or doctor, or any other profession that might have a man and a woman working together in a close environment.

I’d love to see an actress playing a character like Andy Samberg’s Paralta. At the same time, I’m not sure that such a character would be realistic, or treated the same way as a male goofball would. Our society has different standards for men and women, and women often have to work twice as hard just to prove themselves equal to men (and that’s doubly true for women of color).

The other characters on Brooklyn Nine-Nine will criticize Peralta for being a slacker, or for overstepping his bounds when partnered with another cop, but they accept that this behavior comes attached to a person who’s really good at his job, so they mostly let him slide. As much as I’d like to see a woman play a Peralta type, I can’t imagine other characters reacting the same way to her. If a female cop on a sitcom wrapped a tie around her waist to flaunt the captain’s rules, or engaged in any of the other antics Peralta did, I imagine she’d not only be fired, but viewed as certifiably insane by her co-workers.

I want a show where the slacker/killjoy dynamic has a role reversal. Brooklyn Nine-Nine does not have to be that show, but it’s a show I want to see. Yet I’m not sure if such a show could exist and be remotely realistic, even by standards of a sitcom.

What do the rest of you think? Can you conceive of any workplace comedy where a female character like Samberg’s Peralta could be a brilliant, goofy slacker and still keep her job? Could that dynamic work if it were a different profession?

Discuss!

Buffy in the season six episode “Afterlife”

I am currently reading and enjoying Alan Sepinwall’s book, The Revolution was Televised, about twelve TV shows that changed television drama forever. He cites Buffy the Vampire Slayer as one of these shows.

I’m happy that one of my favorite shows of all time is included in a book by a respected television critic that also covers shows like The Sopranos, The Wire, and Breaking Bad. Buffy deserves to be listed among the other game-changers if only because there’s no other show quite like it.

But while I’m happy that Sepinwall enjoys and respects Buffy, I couldn’t help but notice that he, like many fans and critics, thinks the show hit its peak when the characters were in high school.

This seems as good a time as any to finally talk about my unpopular opinion – that the later seasons of Buffy were pretty damn good.

I don’t argue the point that seasons 2 and 3 of Buffy were, in many ways, Buffy at its best. Those were the two seasons where all of the technical aspects of the show fell into place, with great fight choreography and music, and lighting that didn’t have the distracting ultra-brightness of season 6 and 7 but wasn’t so dark that we could barely see the action on the screen (such as in season 1, when they had no money). The writing of each individual episode is the tightest it ever was, with great pacing and strong emotional climaxes, and there are fewer clunkers in those two years than in season 6, which would often give us a fantastic episode followed by a piece of garbage that should never have left the writer’s room (*cough* “Gone” *cough*).

But there was one thing about the show’s later years that interested me even more than it did in the early years: the story of Buffy herself.

I loved Buffy as a character in the first two seasons and the first half of season three. I dug her spunk, her bravery, her struggle at finding the balance between her slaying duties and a normal life, and the loyalty and love she showed her friends and her mother.

Then the writers brought on Faith and needed to set up a spinoff for Angel, and Buffy suddenly felt like a supporting character in her own story, sidelined for the sake of a shiny new slayer and a new favorite lead character, and I forgot what Buffy’s arc was supposed to be in that season.

Then, in season four, the writers told a story that was probably the best-plotted arc of the series, except it was all about stupid soldiers and Buffy was turned into a supporting character that propped up Riley and whooooops I forgot to care.

Season five followed, and it was a hot mess of an arc that involved a whiny hell god stomping around and chewing the scenery for an entire year, and an even whinier little sister who came out of nowhere – but suddenly, Buffy the character mattered again. As she learns about the strange origins of her fake little sister and the oddly sympathetic origins of the vampire she’s supposed to hate, Buffy questions her own origins, wanting to know where the Slayer’s power comes from and if her strength is really rooted in darkness. She worries that embracing her Slayer power will turn her into stone, and as forces on the side of good try to take the only family she has left away from her, she wonders if the war she’s waging is even worth fighting.

In the high school years, the main question Buffy asks herself is, “How do I have a normal life even though I’m the Slayer?” (Except in those middle years, where the main question is, “How do I react to whatever Angel, Faith, and/or Riley are doing this week?”) In season five, her question changes: “How do I fight evil and still retain my humanity?”

That question is what drives Buffy’s actions in Season 6, though after coming back from death, she has even more questions, none of which have easy answers. She wonders how she can trust her friends after they unintentionally betray her. She doesn’t understand how she can be attracted to a soulless creature, or how the soulless creature could actually love her without a soul. She doesn’t understand the point of living in a world with so much pain but still desperately wants to be alive.

All of these questions and all of this confusion prompts Buffy to make some reckless choices and bad decisions, and I’m not sure I’ve ever loved her more than during that time.

Let me be clear: if Buffy’s destructive period had lasted for the entire series rather than during one difficult season, I never would have invested in the show. I don’t need to see a character self-destruct for seven years. But seeing my brave Buffy struggle like she did in the sixth season – well, it felt strangely cathartic and validating, as though the show were saying to me, “See? Even Buffy can be depressed and make mistakes and not know what she’s doing.”

By the beginning of the seventh season, Buffy is reinvigorated, and she learns to appreciate life again – until a group of junior Slayers shows up on her doorstep and she needs to take a leadership role that she’s not ready for. She closes herself off from them because the fear of leading them incorrectly is too much to bear. And suddenly the woman who had to force herself to feel any emotions at all is trying to force herself to feel nothing so her emotions don’t overwhelm her.

Early-years Buffy struggles with balancing her personal life with her call of duty. Later-years Buffy struggles with her very humanity, as she loves her friends but feels isolated from them, as she wants to protect Dawn but resents the responsibility, as she loathes what Spike is but feels drawn to him regardless.

I would not have loved adult Buffy if the teenage Buffy had not come before her, but the adult Buffy owns my heart even more than the girl who stuck a sword in the man she loved to save the world. Despite the flaws present in the later years, I will always be grateful for seasons 5-7 for giving me a woman who constantly pushed others away but still saved the world by drawing on the strength of a community.

Today, I turned twenty-nine.

I can say without question that twenty-eight was the best year of my life. Other ages don’t even come close. Not by a long shot.

The optimist in me thinks that it can only get better from here. The morbid pessimist in me thinks, “Oops. I’ve peaked.”

As a woman, I know I’m supposed to freak out that I’m only one year away from thirty and not married and/or pregnant yet, oh noes, my biological clock and I don’t have a husband!

But if twenty-eight was great, then twenty-nine is almost guaranteed to be even better.

A part of me can’t wait until thirty. But before that, I’m going to enjoy twenty-nine.

I’ve been writing a lot of comedy sketches lately. It’s probably the most enjoyable, least stressful form of writing that I do on a regular basis, because the comedy sketches I write are heavily based in dialogue, and dialogue is probably my biggest strength as a writer.

Sometimes I write sketches based around a particular concept because there’s a topic I want to explore, and the dialogue comes from the concept. Sometimes the reverse is true. I’ll think of an amusing exchange between a few different characters and then write the concept around that exchange.

Yes, the comedy sketch is probably the easiest genre for me to write if I’m talking purely about the craft of writing.

When looking at the writing process through a socially conscious lens, comedy writing can be a lot harder.

I’ve written before that I don’t have much respect for comedians who proclaim to be “equal opportunity offenders,” because I’ve seen the “I’m an equal opportunity offender” card trotted out whenever a famous person makes an insensitive or tasteless joke about a marginalized group.

Being offensive just for the sake of being offensive, for shock value, strikes me as not only mean-spirited, but intellectually dishonest. Writers who seek to offend as many people as possible, who make being offensive their primary goal, are basing their entire craft on provoking reactions from others instead of writing something from a genuine desire to tell a story.

And I don’t have much use for people who try to offend just for the sake of it.

On the other hand, I’ve been participating in a writer’s circle, and I’m the person whose comedy scripts are most likely to provoke bug eyes and “whoa, I can’t believe you went there” reactions. I was told just a few nights ago that I was “pretty twisted,” and it was (mostly) meant as a compliment.

I’m not a person who likes “offensive” or mean-spirited comedy. But I do like comedy that is very dark, uncomfortably so.

I’m the person who rolls my eyes at “offensive” comedy about a serious subject, but will make a dark joke about the same serious subject.

I like comedy that challenges the status quo and makes people think, even if it makes people squirm to think about that subject.

People are bound to be offended by some of the sketches I’ve written, even though my intention is not to offend, but make people laugh and make people think about serious issues.

As I’ve discovered, there are, indeed, going to be some people who are offended by just about everything.

But I also think the “some people are going to be offended by everything” line is an excuse that lazy and/or mean-spirited comics use to defend their nastiness and/or lack of talent.

As a writer, I try not to worry too much about how others might react to my finished product, because focusing too heavily on reader/viewer reactions can hinder the writing process. But I also don’t want to go too far in the other direction, where I’m so focused on my own vision that I neglect to listen to constructive criticism or take other people’s experiences into account.

I’m still not sure how to find that balance.

What happens when you run out of teaser ideas?

You twerk.

What happens when it’s a super busy week at work and you don’t have time to write a real post?

You post videos of your friends twerking.

Though I’m not sure twerking is the right word, since they’re obviously really, really bad at it.