Community, Really.

[tablesaw]

I've been avoiding Community because, well, what mswyrr said. But I also know a lot of people who really enjoy it, and I kept seeing fun vids focusing on Troy and Abed. So today, after running through my queue of Daily Show and Colbert Report, when Hulu suggested that my next show be the most recent episode of Community, my first thought was no.

When I saw the title was "Advanced Dungeons and Dragons," my second thought was maybe.

When I realized the teaser image was one of the characters in Drow Blackface, I was in morbid curiosity mode.

And then . . . it was good?

I still don't know how I feel about the Drow Blackface issue. It was clearly called out and the defense was noted as hypocritical, but it was superfluous, which I always wonder about. I leave it to someone more experienced to read.

And the show seems to have moved away from privileged white guy being the star to focusing on the ensemble? Maybe? If anyone wants to campaign for or against, I'm all ears.

But what struck me the most was that instead of a parade of geek references, the episode actually plumbed the depth of the social aspect of games. And I think the fact that most of the characters weren't gamers, it made it easier to cut through the cruft of references. Instead of owlbears and beholders, there was a fundamental breakdown of the social contract and conflict over the role of the DM. There's powergaming through metagaming. There's a conflict over role-playing versus roll-playing. There are hooks and callbacks. There's a struggle over the purpose of the game. And it generally seems to give anyone watching a sense of why they might be interested in playing a game like this.

Although the game they were playing was actually in the show was (loosely interpreted) first- or second-edition AD&D, it seemed to be tracing the steps of Forge theory.

The writing staff seems to be mostly ignorant of gaming, which might be the point. Telling a funny story with a role-playing game is different than telling a funny story about a role-playing game.

Comments

[elusis]

FWIW, I adore Community...

[mswyrr]

Drow Blackface? Okay. I have several people on my flist who enjoy the show a lot, and I'm glad to hear it's moved away from some of the stuff that made me RAGEOUT in the Pilot. Um. Yeah. ((sigh))((shrug))

[jadelennox]

When it comes to social justice issues, Community is VERY hit-or-miss. Sometimes it's all "what this study group needs is a honky", sometimes that's what they're mocking but still stuck in, and sometimes is a show about the awesome of, well, anyone besides Jeff. Sometimes they undercut themselves really badly (eg. the series pilot's stone cold awesome scene of Chang explaining why he taught Spanish dissolves a season later to Dean Pelton saying Word of advice: If an Asian man says he's a Spanish teacher, it's not racist to ask for proof. Or the season 1 Christmas episode vs. the season 2 Christmas episode.) It drives me up a wall that Shirley is repeatedly undercut as a potentially sexual woman.

All in all, I think the first few episodes of the show were about Jeff thinking "of course it's about me, I'm the privileged white guy." And then learning he's wrong. But meanwhile, the writers, who are also privileged white guys, often forget Jeff's lesson.

But when the show is on, it is spot on. The d&d episode left me with mixed feelings; I adored the gaming aspect, thought it was brilliantly done, but Pierce repeatedly yelling fat hate left me huddled in misery. And the conclusion -- he's a sad old man so we can pity him when he outrageously bullies a potentially suicidal man -- was not okay with me.

[cnoocy]

I didn't read the conclusion the way you did. I read it as "he's a bully, and bullies are pitiable because they're bullies." Once Neil realized that, Pierce lost all his power.

[yeloson]

I haven't seen Community yet, or the episode in question. Sounds pretty interesting, though!

[tablesaw]

Honestly, this post could be titled, "Hey, yeloson, You Should Watch This Episode!"

[thedan.livejournal.com]

Personally, I adore Community, and the post you linked to from mswyrr pissed me off for a couple of reasons.

1) I did not have the reaction to the first episode that mswyrr did, which may just mean I'm less touchy. And yes, Jeff ends up "in charge" by the end of that episode, but I feel that's less because he's a white male then because he's a lawyer, and the nature of his character is that he's a convincing fast-talker.

That said, this is a half-hour sitcom, and truly an ensemble one. Since that first episode, different episodes have focused on different characters, Troy & Abed have emerged as the most popular characters, and Jeff has eaten his share of crow and evolved as a person. I'll go back and watch the first episode, but I highly doubt there were racial comments thrown around that were portrayed as "okay." More likely if there were any, they were in place to establish Jeff as a prick, and Jeff becoming less of a prick is one of the main points of the show.

2) But what really irritates me is people reading that post and declaring in the comments, "Well, I will never watch this show then!" Because those people are basically assuming this reviewer's evaluation is canon. And if so, they may start telling their friends, "Oh, Community? That show's racist," without ever having given the show an honest chance.

I'm not saying mswyrr doesn't have the right to dislike a show, tell people he/she disliked it, and stop watching it. But when that review consists of a lot of big accusations with no specifics, and then readers start agreeing without asking for or searching out those specifics, that strikes me as pretty irresponsible on both ends.

Man, now I'm running late for class.

[tablesaw]

In general, I want to note that the main thrust of mswyrr's post is the misrepresentation of community colleges, an overarching patina of the pilot which, because of the nature of community colleges and their place in American society, includes a number of classist, sexist, and, yes, racist assumptions. Her second post (the link after her name is a separate post, for those who missed it) about her experiences with community college clarify this point: community colleges are diverse and fascinating places that work through the strength of diversity, not as a team with a void waiting for a person higher on the hierarchies of gender, class, and race to emerge as the natural leader.

For the rest, I'm going to go line by line.

I did not have the reaction to the first episode that mswyrr did, which may just mean I'm less touchy.

It's dismissive to say that the difference between your opinion and hers (and many others, including people responding to my post) is how "touchy" they are. You're implying that your perspective (which is not clearly defined) is superior to hers (which you also don't define). It feels, to me, very much like you're denigrating the value a political analysis of art, and you should be warned that the "it's just a show" argument is never going to fly with me or this journal. (See also this response to the same post on LJ.)

And yes, Jeff ends up "in charge" by the end of that episode, but I feel that's less because he's a white male then because he's a lawyer, and the nature of his character is that he's a convincing fast-talker.

There are so many things wrong with this that it's hard to get started. Essentially, you're trying to excuse a real-world issue by using an in-world argument, without dealing with the fact that the world itself is a fiction created by other writers. The issue is not who is the convincing fast talker. mswyrr notes several other shows in which the character in charge is a convincing fast talker. The question is: Why is the convincing fast talker almost always a white man? The creators of the show could have made their initial lead any type of person they wanted, and they made the character a white man, like everyone else.

That said, this is a half-hour sitcom, and truly an ensemble one. Since that first episode, different episodes have focused on different characters, Troy & Abed have emerged as the most popular characters, and Jeff has eaten his share of crow and evolved as a person.

I've not seen any more than the episode I listed above, but I'll note that jadelennox, who does, does not share your opinion without qualifications: "All in all, I think the first few episodes of the show were about Jeff thinking 'of course it's about me, I'm the privileged white guy.' And then learning he's wrong. But meanwhile, the writers, who are also privileged white guys, often forget Jeff's lesson."

I'll go back and watch the first episode, but I highly doubt there were racial comments thrown around that were portrayed as "okay."

I need to caution you here that you're misinterpreting the original post. Mswyrr says that the writers "are all just shitting over people with nasty classist (ageist, racist, sexist) notions about community college students." That does not necessarily translate into "racial comments." Mswyrr's comments in the post represent more structural ideas, and demanding a specific kind of evidence (only specific comments, only comments that addresss a specific form of oppression, and only comments "that were portrayed as 'okay'") you're setting up a straw-person argument.

More likely if there were any, they were in place to establish Jeff as a prick, and Jeff becoming less of a prick is one of the main points of the show.

Continuing on the theme of whether or not things are portrayed as ok, we're moving into the realm of hipster racism. Why, exactly, would it be okay to use hate speech as a comedy even if you later say that the character is a jerk? And how often is comedy being used as a rhetorical shield, one more complicated that simply starting a sentence with "I'm not a racist, but . . ."?

But what really irritates me is people reading that post and declaring in the comments, "Well, I will never watch this show then!" Because those people are basically assuming this reviewer's evaluation is canon.

Really? We can't tell the difference between a reviewer's comments and "canon"? I don't really think that "canon" is a great word here because I can't figure out what you're trying to say with it. But we (and I say we because, if you notice at the top of my post, I fit into your category even if I didn't respond to Mswyrr's post at the time) have a good enough grasp on the difference of things to understand that a response to a text is not the text itself, and also to understand that Mswyrr is not one of the creators of the text.

And if so, they may start telling their friends, "Oh, Community? That show's racist," without ever having given the show an honest chance.

First, there's no intrinsic reason why this show, or any show, or any movie or music or any other form of art deserves my time and attention. The point of advertising is to convince a person that there is a reason. "You will like this aspect of it. It is similar to this other thing you like. You will feel an emotion, then possibly a different emotion. Etc."

It's also not clear what an "honest" chance is here. "Honest" is troublingly vague here. What would be a dishonest chance? Would a positive reviews deny a show an "honest" chance? Nothing is without context. One of the things about Mswyrr's post that resonated with me was that it confirmed the impression that I'd received from Community's own initial advertising. The images that remain with me were a white man using Mock Spanish and talking about how "we" should listen to elders while talking over the elder in question. Both of those images made me suspect that the show would be one that made me angrier than it made me laugh.

And while I don't, as I said, treat Mswyrr's opinions as canon to a particular show, I do trust her opinions and analysis, and on the strength of that trust, I present it to other people, as I have here. There's no reason that the show should be exempt from political criticism and negative opinions because of it.

I'm not saying mswyrr doesn't have the right to dislike a show, tell people he/she disliked it, and stop watching it. But when that review consists of a lot of big accusations with no specifics, and then readers start agreeing without asking for or searching out those specifics, that strikes me as pretty irresponsible on both ends.

There are three individual things I want to talk about here:

big accusations

This is actually something that deserves a wider context. This response is already long enough without it, and doing so will involve a lot of other more egregious examples that I don't want mistakenly attributed to you. Short version (none of which should necessarily be directly attributed to Thedan): I see the words or sentiment of "big accusation" in a notable (to me) number of defenses of racism and sexism. It's a derailment tactic that can do a few things: it can take a call for action, and turn it into an investigation, even when the action called for is minor. It can be an attempt to discretid a society-wide problem by focusing on what might be a overly complex or hastily chosen example. Mostly, it shifts the dialogue into one in which every demand for more and more and more specific and more detailed evidence be met before anything at all can be agreed upon. It acts the same way as does the criticism of scientific theories like global warming or evolution.

But returning to this specific case, my response is that, actually, no it's not a big accusation at all to say that a television show on a major network perpetuates racism, sexism, and classism. Again, Mswyrr includes a handy and nowhere-near-exhaustive list of six other television shows that do the exact same thing. These are not big accusations; these are routine observations.

no specifics

I mention again the list of other television shows for context. She does give a specific example from the plot of the show. She gives links to indicate the likely lack of diversity among the show's creators. In the second post, she gives specific examples of the reality of attending a community college which the show is misrepresenting. The post does contain specifics.

readers start agreeing without asking for or searching out those specifics

This is also a gross assumption on your part on the activities of the readers. I feel like I've addressed most of the components of this already. Most importantly, there's a tricky thing going on here with the word "agreeing" as I read it here. Is it accurate to say, for example, that jaythenerdkid "agrees" with mswyrr in this comment, when she says she was "convinced" by Mswyrr's post? I agree with Mswyrr about the state of the industry (for which I and most of the commenters already have copious information that won't fit in the margin here), and I trust her assessment of the particular show, so do I "agree" with her assessment of the show? I certainly know that it's second-hand but, again, it's analysis I trust. Also, you can look at this response to the LJ mirror for an exapmle of someone agreeing with the post after watching the entirety of the show up to that point.

[mswyrr]

tablesaw did a really lovely job pointing out some things I disagreed with in your comment. I'd like to make a couple separate points, though. First, putting aside whether I gave the show a fair hearing, I don't accept the idea that TV shows actually have some ethical weight that entitles them to a fair hearing.

Barring extreme situations, if I were to totally reject and condemn a person after knowing them for thirty minutes, that would be a moral problem. By virtue of being people, individuals deserve more than that.

TV shows don't.

In fact, TV shows have a lot more power than I do. Even ones with very low ratings get their message out to a far wider audience than my words have ever reached. So I look at my voice as a very small thing in comparison. Even when I choose to raise it to its highest level, as I did in that post.

Two more things. I edited my post to say that my feelings for the show don't mean that I feel condemnatory at people who enjoy the show. We've all enjoyed problematic entertainment. Um, because there's very little entertainment that isn't problematic. That would be irresponsible in a way that judging a TV show can't ever be.

The other thing is that I am actually kind of thankful to Community for one reason. And that's that it inspired me to write the second post tablesaw linked to, where I articulated what community college has meant to me. The fact that people with more power than me (the show's writers, the network that sells the show, etc.) have put together a show with a louder voice than I or other community college students will ever have which denigrates us in a lot of ways remains. And I definitely think that's a problem.

Community colleges in California right now are dealing with horrible budget problems. State money cuts. In my rural community, it's the only place that really proves anyone gives a damn whether most of us just... fall into a sinkhole and are never heard from again.

So, in place of your suggestion that I was "irresponsible" toward the show, I'd like to reiterate that my point was that the show was irresponsible toward me and people like me. Toward our right to be represented in a humanizing way.

[mswyrr]

*Okay, that one part was hyperbole. The social security office, welfare office, and library also prove we're not totally sinkholed yet.

[greenlily.livejournal.com]

hmmmmmph. I have been going back and forth with my brother about this show. Geoff's one of those social justice-social work dudes who thinks that the fact that he works (really hard and really really well, to be fair) with clients of all races/ages/classes/abilities IRL gives him a pass to ignore issues of privilege in his choices of fiction. So naturally he adores 'Community', whose writers are so often telling him what he wants to hear.

He texted me the morning after the D&D episode aired, to tell me I absolutely had to watch it but that it probably wouldn't pass as authentic with the "real D&D heads" [sic] (of which he unflatteringly and inaccurately believes me to be one). I wish I could believe that he was apologizing in advance for the fact that he knew I would find the show's portrayal of gamers to be offensive, but in truth I think he was apologizing for the fact that the writers don't know anything about D&D.

I don't know if I'm going to watch it. The occasional clips of the show that I've seen suggest that it will grow on me, like unto a fungus, and I don't need any more TV fungus...goodness knows "Supernatural" is enough oh-God-offensive-why-am-I-watching-this for any one person. :)

[chris]

Thanks for the link. I have read the posts you link to; forewarned about the problems, and slightly bereft of the context and preconceptions of the notion of a community college, I'm definitely inclined to try to check at least that episode of the show out, modulo the standard "watching US shows from the UK" difficulties.

[chris]

A year and a half later, I have finally seen it, having not properly watched any of the rest of the show. Meg's seen the whole of the first series, and I've half-watched a couple of episodes, not least the paintball one. As is so often the case for paintball episodes of shows, with this exception a shining footnote in British TV trivia, the show was fun but the safety was shocking. OK, that was a digression.

Anyway, I thought the episode was splendid, though I have not considered it and the issues it raises on any more than a superficial level. Thanks for pointing its existence out to me!