There’s some rather unorthodox means of getting to Pop Culture Playpen (and I ain’t talking about railways and caravans and carpet rides).
I don’t always understand the odd things people search for to end up at this website, but I always enjoy looking through them.
Come on a whirlwind tour of this week’s with me, cos you obviously already got here. Somehow.
buffy porn
This does not star Phoebe Buffay, no matter what you might hear to the contrary. Read the rest of this entry »
This post should serve two purposes. On the one hand it’s pro-library, because libraries are lovely places. They’re a study environment, a way to access information and- best of all- full of books you get to read for free. Authors have joined in with the recent protests against cuts to library funding, and with good reason.
Asides from trying to spread the library love, I also have a straight up proselytizing mission- trying to get everyone in the world to watch Community. It’s a TV show mostly set in the library of the community college that the characters attend. And it’s fabulous.
Check out Troy and Abed’s Spanish rap por ejemplo:
So here are ten of my favourite libraries from TV shows, with the vague hope that it’ll convince you to watch Community, and to appreciate real life libraries. Read the rest of this entry »
Then again, it’s not a particularly manic Monday, being yet another Bank Holiday and all. But yesterday was rather hectic, as I went to the Ffourth Fforde Fiesta to interview the ffantastic Jasper Fforde and observe all manner of absurd activities. So that’s my excuse for being late with this Search Term Sunday – the very special time of the week where we highlight the humorous and often inappropriate ways people stumble upon PCP. And I do wish it was Sunday, because then I’d be at the Fiesta all over again!
stereotypical portrayal of an english gentleman
Hugh Grant in all his films ever. Usually of the bumbling, floppy-haired variety, as above, but also sometimes of the caddish type, as in Bridget Jones.
A lot of people’s first response to Azerbaijan winning the 2011 Eurovision Song Contest was along the lines of “where’s that?” or, possibly, “that’s not a real place!”, and then- upon googling- it was more of a, “well that’s not in Europe” kind of feel.
But win they did, nonetheless:
This general geographical confusion has created an urge in me to set y’all some homework: I suggest you try to complete the sporcle challenge to name all the countries of the world (in fifteen minutes).
It also got me thinking about some legitimately made up locations too.
I feel that a sense of place can add a lot to a story, especially an ongoing one- as in a television or book series. When a story’s set in a nebulous, loosely defined location it often seems to lack something. But a good location doesn’t necessarily need to be real. Read the rest of this entry »
We really are getting on for summer, the sun is genuinely shining and the weather is sweet.
It’s nice to be able to enjoy the weekend out on the grass, rather than being holed up inside piling on the layers just to feel like you’re not turning into a person-shaped icicle.
I hope that you’ve all been having hot fun in the sun, but when you eventually make your way back inside (the evenings aren’t yet quite as warm as I’d like them to be, let me tell you) there’ll still be a Search Term Sunday for your perusal each week.
Join us as we try to puzzle out what exactly it is that people are looking for when they end up here- and whether the weirdest googling can be blamed on sunstroke or daytime drinking.
A little while ago I wrote about platonic friendships between straight men and women on TV, and how few and far between they are.
There is of course space for a different exploration of cross-sex friendship when the possibility of sexual tension is removed (at least mostly) because at least one of the characters is gay.
Friendships between women and gay men abound on TV shows these days, although those between lesbians and men seem less common.
Sometimes these can be pretty stereotypical, where the gay guy is simply one of the girls (and loves shopping and shoes and shaking their booty), but I think there is a variety of representations to be found.
So eight of my favourite small screen portrayals of friendship between women and gay men, followed by eight TV lesbians with their attendant lesbros:
In honour of International Women’s Day, I’ve decided to put my misogyny aside and in addition to listing my favourite TV wingmen I thought I’d discuss my ten favourite potential wingwomen from television shows too.
Women often confuse me (how can it possibly take that long to pee, and why do they need to screech so loudly on the night bus?) but there are some good ones, and they do have some good points. Like boobs.
Robin Scherbatsky (Cobie Smulders), How I Met Your Mother
Robin proved to be a much better bro for Barney than Ted- although let’s face it, who isn’t a better wingperson than Ted?- in ‘Zip, Zip, Zip’. She actually suits up for one thing, and is buckets of fun. More recently she was also the one who introduced Barney to Nora, encouraged him to ask her out and made sure that he had her number. Read the rest of this entry »
Why the Funny Guy Wins:
In response to Miss Thropist’s article on the Best Wingmen, I thought I’d better get my twenty pence in on character crushes. Or at least why we don’t always fall in love with the character we’re supposed to.
This may be because I’m a ‘Season Two-er’, the person who comes in after the first season’s done, and wants the main girl or guy to get with someone more interesting. And Season Two is when someone more interesting usually appears.
Just like most girls want to think they’re Grace Kelly in High Society, and they’re usually Celeste Holm, we’re meant to fall in love with the main guy, the hero.
Except there’s his best friend, cracking jokes in the background. And he’s always more interesting. So, here’s why the funny (sometimes bad) boy wins… Read the rest of this entry »
When we first decided to do Search Term Sunday, it was because we just had to share with the world the weird and wonderful ways people were stumbling upon our humble blog – i.e. the strange search terms that somehow led to PCP.
But the search terms are becoming exponentially more bizarre. We are hurtling into a vortex of weird at a rapidly increasing velocity. Our minds will continue to be opened in new and depraved ways, as Internet rule #34 gets stretched to its outer limits and we gain further chilling insight into those that Google.
There’s only one thing to do: Jump in headfirst!
sleping beauti cinderela the litle marmelade
Big stars doing guest spots on TV shows can be pretty fun (it can also go horribly wrong, like Britney in How I Met Your Mother, but let’s try not to dwell). I was surprised by how much I enjoyed Gwyneth Paltrow’s turn in Glee as Holly Holiday, an itinerant substitute teacher, for example.
Even more of a coup though is when television manages to nab a big screen star to permanently add some gravitas to the show.
The West Wing
Martin Sheen (Catch-22, Badlands, Apocalypse Now) was originally only supposed to be in a few episodes per season of The West Wing- a gripping show about American politics- with Sam Seaborn (played by Rob Lowe) intended to be the main character. However Sheen’s President Bartlet became one of the leads, and really the focus of the show. The West Wing went on to win a ridiculous number of Emmys and other awards, and won praise from television critics, politicians and former White House staffers. It also featured Stockard Channing (Rizzo from Grease) as the First Lady Abigail Bartlet- and in later seasons Alan Alda (The Aviator), Jimmy Smits (the Star Wars prequel trilogy) and Broadway (and everything else) actress Kristin Chenoweth joined the cast.
Damages
Glenn Close is best known for her film roles (Fatal Attraction, Dangerous Liaisons and 101 Dalmatians amongst them) but after starring in The Shield she chose to work on another television show. Damages is a complicated show centred around Close’s character Patty Hewes, a lawyer. There are myriad plot twists exposed to the audience through an addictive non-linear narrative. Ted Danson, who graduated to films like Made in America after starring in the sitcom Cheers, plays her first season nemesis Arthur Frobisher.
Commander in Chief
Commander in Chief featured another movie star in the role of US President- Geena Davies (The Fly, Beetlejuice, Thelma and Louise), perhaps this kind of role naturally calls for the authority and screen presence of a high-profile actor. The show only ran for an 18 episode season, and garnered some criticism for focussing too heavily on the President’s gender- although perhaps the story lines would have broadened out if the show had gone on longer.
Boardwalk Empire
Steve Buscemi (Resevoir Dogs, The Big Lebowski, Armageddon) stars as Nucky Thompson, a corrupt Atlantic City politician, in the Prohibition-era Boardwalk Empire. The creator Terrence Winter had previously worked with him on The Sopranos when he joined the cast in the later seasons as Tony Soprano’s cousin Tony Blundetto. Boardwalk Empire (much like Carnivale- another HBO period drama set a decade later) is very cinematic, in some ways it doesn’t feel very TV show-like.
Dead Like Me
Dead Like Me, a show about grim reapers, starred relative unknown Ellen Muth as the main character George Lass who becomes a reaper after the toilet seat of an exploding space station hits and kills her. Her mentor and boss, Rube Sofer, was played by Mandy Patinkin who is famous as a stage actor but perhaps most well-known, and best-loved, for his portrayal of Inigo Montaya in The Princess Bride. He went on to star in the first two seasons of Criminal Minds, a more-interesting-than-most crime procedural.
24
Practically everyone in the world seems to be familiar with 24, a gruelling show about the life of Special Agent Jack Bauer who has to race the clock to save America from terrorists and so forth, although I must admit I’ve never sat through an episode. Nonetheless even I know that the main character is played by Kiefer Sutherland, who was far more of a film actor before the show- due to appearances in movies such as The Lost Boys, A Few Good Men and Flatliners so I think he deserves a place on this list.
Dexter
Asides from Michael C. Hall as the titular serial killer who played David Fisher in HBO’s Six Feet Under, a lot of Dexter‘s cast seemed to be filched from Oz (Lauren Vélez; David Zayas; Erik King) but by season five there’d been enough branching out to include Julia Stiles as Lumen Pierce- a victim that Dexter discovers who goes on to become his mission, accomplice and lover. Stiles has done almost no television work and is known for film roles such as Save The Last Dance, both Bourne films and Mona Lisa Smile, as well as a swathe of Shakespeare remakes- 10 Things I Hate About You, Hamlet and O. She definitely added something to the latest season of Dexter which has seemed a little stale since the conclusion of its excellent first season and might have suffered from the loss of Julie Benz after her character Rita, Dexter’s wife, was brutally murdered.
Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip
Aaron Sorkin’s follow up to The West Wing about an SNL-like sketch show was ill-fated, only running for one season. It started off incredibly strongly- if often as a thinly veiled rant against television networks, Sorkin’s conservative critics, his ex-girlfriend and just about everyone else- but petered off towards the end when it suddenly became a romantic comedy. When it was good it was great- with brilliant writing and entertaining guest stars. It starred Amanda Peet (The Whole Nine Yards) as President of NBS’s Entertainment Programming, and Matthew Perry and Bradley Whitford as the writer-director duo based on Sorkin’s relationship with Tommy Schlamme. Perry had moved into films after Friends, and had in fact co-starred with Peet in Nine Yards and its sequel.
Burn Notice
I know very little about Burn Notice asides from the fact that it stars Bruce Campbell (Evil Dead, Bubba Ho-tep, My Name is Bruce), and that’s enough to make me want to watch it. (Well that’s not entirely true, I also know that it was created by Matt Nix whom I love for his adorable Dallas buddy cop show The Good Guys.) It’s about “burnt” spies which sounds interesting, and I may need to start watching.
Lie to Me
Lie to Me is a procedural, a cut above the rest thanks to the interesting stable of characters led by Tim Roth as Dr Cal Lightman. It’s differentiated from the endless CSI and Law & Order style shows by focussing on cracking cases through the use of psychology- interpreting microexpressions and body language. The show is further differentiated from most other procedurals in that they don’t merely investigate deaths, widening the scope of the show to include many different kinds of cases. Roth is an established screen actor on both sides of the Atlantic with films like Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead, The Thief, The Cook, His Wife and Her Lover and Reservoir Dogs under his belt. Lie to Me features an almost unreasonably attractive supporting cast (even by television’s standards), which for the first two seasons included 8 Mile’s Mekhi Phifer.
Moonlighting
Cybill Shepherd’s career began with films like The Heartbreak Kid, The Last Picture Show and Taxi Driver, before she moved into television after some less successful movie roles. Moonlighting, a TV dramedy about private investigators, strengthened her career and launched Bruce Willis’ own. She appeared in other successful films like Chances Are but has become more of a television actress with her own sitcom Cybill followed by more recent stints on The L Word and Psych.
Dad’s Army
Dad’s Army was a British sitcom about the Home Guard in the Second World War- essentially they’re too old, too young, or apparently too allergic to corned beef to join the Army- which I spent far too much of my childhood watching. I’m reliably informed (as in, I had a conversation with my own dad) that several of the cast were veteran British actors. And it turned out he was right! Check out the overwhelming IMDb profiles for John Le Mesurier (Sergeant Arthur Wilson) and John Laurie (Private James Frazer) who appeared in so many films I’m not even sure what to highlight.
Dawson’s Creek
Don’t worry, I’m not about to claim that the Dawson’s kids had stellar screen careers before the show (although let’s not knock Josh Jackson in The Mighty Ducks film). Instead I’d rather focus on the show’s creator Kevin Williamson. He’s perhaps best known for writing the Scream films, and while a series of slasher flicks might not immediately seem to have much in common with a rather more staid show about teenagers coming of age in a small town, I think Williamson’s trademark style definitely showed. Although the later seasons of Dawson’s Creek got pretty lame, the first few were characterised by tight, witty dialogue and a wry, post-modern knowingness. In the same way that the characters in Scream discuss- and therefore satirize- the conventions of slasher films, Dawson et al gently mock their own melodrama. The same thing which makes Scream my favourite horror film makes Dawson’s Creek (at least the early years) eminently watchable. Williamson seems pretty entrenched in TV these days, with his work The Vampire Diaries and talk of a companion show.
Dishonourable mention: I know that I ought to include Two and a Half Men given Charlie Sheen’s film career (Platoon, Young Guns, Scary Movie 3) but I hated his character in Spin City, and Two and a Half Men is downright awful.
Do you have a favourite big star on the small screen? Tell us about it in the comments!
Just the other day Miss Thropist and I were wondering whatever happened to James Van Der Thingy from Dawson’s Creek.
Michelle Williams is quite the heavy hitter in the movies these days (if you ignore Deception), Katie Holmes is half of TomKat and the mother of the most fashionable toddler that ever lived, Joshua Jackson is enjoying more TV-paycheck security with Fringe… while ol’ Beeky seems to be afflicted by the Curse of Eponymy (see: Seinfeld, Ellen, Sabrina the Teenage Witch) crossed with the Curse of being the Male Lead on a Teen Drama (see: Young Americans, The Wonder Years, Life as We Know It, The OC), both of which result in near or total oblivion, apart from the odd self-mocking cameo on a sitcom or murder suspect stint on a procedural.
But, for the first time in my life, I think Dawson is awesome. In a spot-on attempt to lampoon his whiny Creek dweller, and the constant mockery the character has inspired, he’s launched www.jamesvandermemes.com , a site chock-full of emotional gifs, from Awwwkwwward and Babyface to Eyebrow String Dancer and Eager Beaver.
There’s even a 10th anniversary edition of the Vandermeme that started it all (click to see it in action):
My favourite has to be “In Da Club”:
Which is your favourite Vandermeme?
It seems fairly standard for TV dramas to throw in a fashionably edgy lesbian fling these days. And it’s always the most unstable or ‘reckless’ character who dips her toe in the rainbow waters. It’s as if same sex tendencies, while largely a non-issue in themselves, signify irresponsibility, rebellion and anarchy. The OC’s Marissa and 90210’s Adrianna are clearly troubled teens who battle drink and drugs (side note – they’d make a great TV lesbian couple!). Thirteen in House, the bisexual rebel, a difficult and tormented character on a downwards spiral (but don’t worry, she gets back on track as a serious doctor once she’s dating a man again). Sex in the City’s Samantha, the most provocative, opinionated and controversial character, is the only one to try a lesbian fling.
Perhaps an exception is Alyson Hannigan’s Willow in Buffy, although her same sex relationship does come with a newfound power, an addiction to magic and a brief evil phase. Is it empowerment, or Willow’s bad side?
Maybe it is TV producers trying to show us that they’re liberal and open-minded. Whatever it is, it certainly isn’t realistic. I see sexuality as fluid and I’m sure many women have been tempted by a beautiful member of the same sex, but in reality it’s too complicated, too difficult, too many questions arise – who do you tell and not tell? Are you now ‘gay’? Is it something you need to tell future partners? The list goes on…but not in TV land. There you can throw in a lesbian romance and it’s not a big deal, just a new person to date.
That said, here’s my top ten TV ladies for a lesbian fling, in descending order of desire…
10. Lisa Kudrow/Phoebe Buffay – Friends
Quirky, interesting, strong, a little bit damaged and just cool enough to pull off a lesbian love affair.
9. Michelle Williams/Jen Lindley – Dawson’s Creek
Perhaps obvious and dated, but she’s very much the promiscuous teen blonde who’d be sure to try out a little girl kissing.
8. Olivia Wilde/Alex Kelly – The OC and Thirteen – House
She’s so typecast as an edgy bisexual now… she might as well stick to what she’s good at. Hell, she’s convinced me!
7. Alicia Witt/Zoe Woodbine – Cybill
A feisty, flame-haired feminist… Zoe’s independent, rebellious and grungy… need I say more? She’s crying out for some “I kissed a girl” action.
6. Elizabeth Berkeley/Jesse Spano – Saved by the Bell
The first sexy cool TV feminist I remember encountering. Strong willed and a woman who knows what she wants. If Saved By The Bell was now and not the 90s, I reckon Jesse might have at least had a bisexual encounter. Plus, I’m also thinking about Showgirls….it’s hard not to.
5. Megan Mullally/ Karen Walker - Will and Grace
I love her lady-loving mystique that’s always hinted at throughout the series. Is she? Isn’t she? She’s everything I want to be (with) and more!
4. Becki Newton/Amanda Tanen – Ugly Betty
Little bit freaky, little bit unstable… Amanda appreciates sexy, striking and stylish people whatever their gender. She’s sexually adventurous and so ready for a lesbian fling a la mode!
3. Alyson Hannigan/Willow Rosenberg - Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Because I simply adore her. Willow came into her own once she became a lesbian. Of course, it wouldn’t just be a fling with her, it would be a serious relationship… that’s why she’s at number three.
2. Lizzy Caplan/Kat Warbler – The Class
Kat was so damn hot and full of attitude, she had that whole sexy lesbian style working for her too. It would have been just perfect… had The Class sadly not been cancelled. If you prefer you can think of her enjoying a lesbian phase in True Blood, Freaks and Geeks, or my other favourites, Mean Girls and Cloverfield. Damn, she’s sexy.
1. Katherine Moennig/Shane McCutcheon - The L Word
Not a surprising, or original choice, but the ultimate and sexiest lesbian on TV. I heart Shane. If I was to cast someone to play me having a lesbian fling on any TV drama, past or present, I’d pick her every time. So hot, damaged and full of androgyny and bad attitude: Shane is number one.
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