Not Another Teen Marketing Study

An old review I penned in 2005, originally published by the in-house magazine of a large Filipino bookstore chain. There are plenty of Filipino-centric references, but hopefully the context should be obvious enough for international readers to understand.

For many twentysomethings, the idea of being a kid started with "Pepsi... 7-Up!" on the roadside, and ended with our first (measly) paycheck, via Game & Watches, inuman sessions, and cramming for mid-terms. For better or worse, things seem decidedly more complex for those born after the '86 EDSA uprising. Like so much else in life, the concept of youth has been redefined dramatically, in the last few decades or so. If you believe philosopher Francis Fukuyama, mankind has reached the so-called "end of history", with the spread of liberal democracy, and the rise of a global market economy. One side effect of these hyper-mobile capital flows has been the increasing focus on kids as consumers.

In various ways, "tweens", high schoolers, and college undergrads have each become discrete target markets for a surprising range of goods and services, from cellphone plans to racy underwear. There are now marketing gimmicks devised to separate teens from their spending money. But how do these media-savvy young adults buy into -- or resist -- the lure of the consumer world? That's what Alissa Quart hoped to answer when she penned Branded: The Buying and Selling of Teenagers (2004).

More like pop journalism than scholarly work, Quart's book reads like a collection of well-researched, critical magazine articles. She avoids using too many dull statistics and complex, ivory-tower economic theories. Instead, she relies mostly on interviews and first-hand anecdotes to illustrate how the values of branding and corporate identity have made their way into various facets of adolescent life, from teen designer clothing lines, to movies that encourage reckless shopping as therapy.

Her work gives readers an insider's view of the youth culture industry. Quart interviews brand managers and their trend-setting "teen advisors". She meets with guiltlessly self-promotional young authors. She even reports on a marketing conference held just days after the September 11, 2001 attacks in the US, when the somber mood threatened to dampen the 'celebration' of youth spending power. In the process, she exposes all the inner workings of youth branding, from promotional strategies to crass attitudes about kids' buying habits.



A lot of the examples cited are decidedly 'Western'; Quart is an Englishwoman, but her research was conducted mostly in America. Still, it's not difficult to make parallels with Filipino culture. The fuss over expensive Latina quinceanera celebrations is not so far removed from the hassles of organizing a sosyal debut party. And the stress of getting into a 'big name' university is certainly not limited to would-be applicants for Ivy League schools.

Quart is fiercely critical of corporate influence on youth culture, no doubt. But if you're hoping to read a Communist Manifesto for the Bratz set, think again. She clearly understands the appeal of cheap pop thrills for young people, steering clear of moralistic hand-wringing, as well as the dreary 'pop culture is bad' attitude of hardcore Marxian writers.

If Branded has one flaw, it's the lack of suggestions about ways to negotiate the encroachment of branding into everyday life. There are chapters titled "Unbranded" and "DIY Kids", featuring anarchist punk rockers and student radicals, who rage against the corporate machine in basement shows and campus auditoriums. But there are few other concrete proposals, if your tastes do not lean towards subculture and going organic. This is just a minor quibble, really; Quart has built a solid foundation on which other researchers can document more thorough alternatives to all this relentless consumption. (And when they do, I'll be ready to buy it.)

Wimpsters and their Worlds Part 2: The Tree Hill Bros, Scott vs. Scott

Once again, this is archive material. Notice a trend? Hehehe. This piece dates back to December 2004; One Tree Hill was right smack in the middle of Season 2. As usual, some dead links have been removed.

This continues a series of posts about "wimpsters" in youth culture. The first entry is here.

He Shoots. He Scores. Oh man, what a fucking bore.

Nathan Scott is in, wants out. Plays b-ball, and is the team captain of the Tree Hill Ravens. Thinks he's got it all til he finds out about Lucas, his illegitimate half-brother who's a few months older and happens to play pretty good b-ball, too. Lucas has b-ball camp, as well as Dan Scott's athletic genes, to his advantage. It even warrants him a spot on the team. Not one who's inclined to share the spotlight, Nathan defends what's his: "This is MY world." But all that's about to slip when Peyton Sawyer dumps his royal ass and finds herself connecting in a more cerebral way with "the rival". So in the name of territory and "fair game", Nate resorts to bullying Lucas every chance he gets. He hatches this plan to get closer to Haley (Luke's best friend) by hiring her as his tutor. But Haley has a proposition of her own to seal the arrangement: back off Lucas.

What were initially assholic intentions on Nate's part becomes a test of vulnerability. With Haley around, he's more open and confessional about his crappy English grades and his control freak of a father breathing down his neck about b-ball. He wants to give up b-ball but doesn't seem to have anything to fall back on since it's the only thing he's good at doing, other than being an asshole, of course.

As a boyfriend, he can be a tad persistent, and there's no taming that sex drive. (Well, there's always internet porn.) When in pressure cooker mode, he doesn't deal by crying on your shoulder - that's like last resort for the emotionally-impaired. Instead, he'll do something drastic, like take uppers for peak performance just coz he's got something to prove to the old man, only to pass out in the middle of the big game and wind up in the hospital. Because he fears what Dad From the Dark Side will say and do if he finds out about those uppers, he'll bust out of there and come running to you in a tearful desperation, and could he please hide in your bedroom for just one night?

Surprisingly, Nate gets the attitude makeover - he undergoes a Sweet Valley-esque Bruce Patman transformation, pre- and during relationship with Regina Morrow. (Or if that analogy doesn't exactly register immediately, try Reggie Mantle defecting to the good side.) Which gives more viewers a reason to sympathize with the jock. Give him a sweet brainiac of a girlfriend who can change him for the better and he'll earn plus points from the hopelessly gullible. Bonus points for moving out of his parents' house and getting his own apartment. Ditto for selling the Mustang his father gave him and getting a job twisting and baking prezels just to pay the rent. Oh, and a sidenote about the car: bearing Dan Scott dealership plates, at least it didn't say 1NATHAN1.

And thanks to Haley (you didn't think he was smart enough to figure this out own his own, didja?), he realized he had rights to seek emancipation from his divorcing parents. He even unlearns spoiled rich kid (tho his popularity remains intact), becomes the dreamboat anybody could ever wish for and learns how to respect his girlfriend by keeping his hormones in check. Heck, he even marries her to keep the sex all sacred and shit.


Despite the ongoing tension built around their girls, b-ball and having the same dipshit of a biological father, Nate and Luke end up calling it a truce. The rules of "fair game" change when the boys have grown up a little. And all in one Season! Nathan becomes less selfish about hoarding the spotlight. If he was that close enough to giving it all up, then he might as well share it. After well-meaning gestures are exchanged between the two and social barriers are broken, Nate offers his world to Luke: "You want my world, man? It's all yours."

Prelude to the Insider-Outsider

College basketball left a bad taste in my mouth, especially when I came to know what total asswipes some of the players were. And we're supposed to root for them, all in the name of school spirit? Whatever.

Pondering on those serialized teen novels I used to consume like candy, I started to think that the "sensitive jock" was a figment of the teen imagination, an expectation met with so much heartache. If you were raised on, say, Sweet Valley High, the depiction of the "sensitive jock" was the reason why anyone could turn a blind eye to those glaringly obvious social hierarchies and get caught up in the drama surrounding the Wakefield twins and their friends. Todd Wilkins, the star basketball player, was focused on his game plan, yet at the same time, he remained a sweet and loving boyfriend to Liz Wakefield. But unlike the female characters of the series, the boys were never really fully realized. Instead, SVH gave the impression that all jocks were nice, and that the bad boys, who almost always exuded Dylan McKay-ness, never messed around with sports.

And then there are the gentle jocks who take on the role of the underdog. They struggle, get ridiculed for their convictions and decisions, or perhaps even defy personal type in a way that only hunky (try clunky) guys can pull it off. But for the most part, they're pretty boys just the same.

Or were, like in the case of Charlie Sheen in the 80s cult classic, Lucas. He was a football player who stuck up for the little science geek who wanted nothing more than to belong in high school. Chris Klein in American Pie and that guy Josh from Popular, have similar plot twists. While on the football team, the latter did something that was coded as feminine: he auditioned for the school play. And as comic relief in an attempt to get the girl, the former joined the glee club and even blew off the big lacrosse game to show us some of his vocal range...now how sexy is that? *snort* And then there's Sugar Daddy, Josh's teammate. Gentle giant, sweet chunk of a jock. He's not conventionally good looking, but his size could very well be the root of his insecurities. Call him fat, if you will, but he may just as well pass off as a HUGE mass of hard, unchiseled muscle, considering guys don't get as much flak as girls in that department.

Apparently, the "sensitive jock as underdog" archetype exists in yet another WB show: One Tree Hill. And we all have Lucas Scott to thank for that. Oh yes, we do. The only difference is, he's had to work his way inside from outside.

Won't the real Wimpster please stand up?

Which begs the question: why initially waste so much blather on a dull character like Nathan Scott when it's Luke who has Wimpsterhood written all over?

Of course, it's easy to make a case for what makes Luke NOT a wimpster. His involvement with Varsity b-ball, for one thing. Wimpsters hate sports. Luke is also a fighter. He'll bend backwards for his girls, to a certain extent. Try pissing him off, and he can fight back - he'll even let his fists do the talking. Word has it that it's what got The Chad close to being casted as Ryan Atwood in The O.C., which he reportedly turned down. (Thank Dog for that!) Wimpsters would rather not display such brawn - inconceivable! Also, Luke doesn't seem all that insecure enough about his abilities, or about his way with girls. Rather than being all neurotic and shit about coming between a pair of best friends, he can walk away knowing that he blew it, yet still looking all cool and collected, like out-of-sight-out-of-mind, baby!

Doesn't have major sex issues, apart from Strike 1 with Peyton, which was wimpsterish in a way - he didn't want her to be just another meaningless fuck coz she was more to him than that. But he can fuck, bask in the afterglow and get on with his life while Brooke pines over him (how very Season One...then again, so is this whole post). He generally isn't emo, but he always wears a gray or red hoodie and can totally wimpster out.

He's no hipster, he just has implied hipster sensibilities. But perhaps it's his outsider status that gives him the Wimpster-peal. He's not Dylan or Ryan, just a good boy who loves his single mom and wants to play b-ball. He's not a spotlight whore. Popularity is of little concern to him. "They can have their world!" he even once told Haley. Tho getting noticed by, say, a couple of cheerleaders who happen to be best friends definitely has its perks! In fact, the show should be renamed Luke's Pals and Gals.

Between him and Nate the Great, being the outsider establishes what Luke is supposedly not: an asshole. Thing is, he's got tendencies just like any guy caught up in his own male privilege. He can be exceptionally hypocritical to Haley when it comes to what girls can or can't do as opposed to what guys can do that girls can't. Basically calling her on her principles, like some narrow-minded punk-rocker upholding this p-rock paradigm (yes, it's that bad). Actually, getting himself immersed in that whole love triangle thing with a degree of deception was pretty assholic. He can play smug bastard, alright. Even if Brooke was all like fun and fluff, getting the flirt on in her own unique Sandra Bullock wannabe-ness, she didn't deserve being cheated on. Peyton, the "indie-rock" bound-for-art-school cheerleader and perhaps the OTH writer's idea of the perfect girl, put her foot down with her guilty conscience. But for awhile, that didn't really solve the fact that, whether or not he was out of the picture, his girls still couldn't get enough of him.

And because he has other things to occupy his time and his mind, he can come off as the innocent party in all this. I'll bet he secretly liked being chased by Brooke - she's an attention whore, after all. But with Peyton, he actually did go out on a limb for her (him and his broken arm, er, pardon the pun. Oh yeah, I'm so full of 'em, I dunno where they come from anymore, they just do). He sought her affection while he was too chickenshit to break it off with Brooke. It's also implied that he and Peyton have similar taste in music, but for some odd reason, we never see him Sething out. All we know is that he listens to Travis, borrowed this Blackout CD from her and even has an eye for intentional cheese factor: he bought her a Tesla (Tesla! OMFG!) record when she was in a glamrock kick (I mean, hello RATT? Funny, coz it's something I would do). If it weren't for him, she wouldn't be drawing comic strips for Thud Magazine. And he loves to watch her draw. That's coz he lives vicariously through her art. Of course, we don't need to ask why they were never an item. (See Anna and Seth.)

As it is, Luke is all brooding and self-serious. He reads John Steinbeck. Instead of song lyrics of whatever "hip" and "happening" bands he and Peyton listen to, he quotes Ayn Rand and The Little Prince (that famous passage about grown-ups) in parts where narration is called for. He scrunches up his eyebrows when he's trying to comprehend, and chicks really dig that. And I'm here left wondering WHY.

Why, I'll take Peter Gallagher's goofyass cut-and-paste eyebrows any day!

Tibby Rollins: Some Misplaced Joan of Arc

This is Part 2 of the Traveling Pants Critique Series, dealing with Ken Kwapis' movie adaptation of Anne Brasheares' novel. The first post is here.

Tabatha "Tibby" Rollins is played by Amber Tamblyn, whom some of you may recognize from her starring role in the short-lived girl-meets-God drama Joan of Arcadia, which transplanted the bare essentials of the Jeanne D'Arc mythos into contemporary suburbia. In Sisterhood..., Tamblyn is once again placed into the role of iconoclastic misfit.

When other characters describe Tibby, it usually involves platitudes to her rugged individualism. "She kind of marches to her own drum", says observant, artistic Lena, "She knows who she is." Aspiring writer Carmen is even more blunt, refering to her simply as "the rebel" of the group. In normative teen movie visual code, that means she gets the nose piercing and dyed blue highlights streaking her dark hair. To be fair, Tamblyn carries the look rather gamely, and she's very charming, in her snarky eye-rolling aloofness. Out of the four Sisters, Tibby is definitely the one who appeals to me most naturally, and Tamblyn's performance has a lot to do with this.

For the most part, Sisterhood... advances its narrative by placing each girl in a situation that marks her as Other in relation to her immediate surroundings. In Tibby's case, the plot finds her stuck at home in Maryland over the summer, packing goods onto the racks at the local branch of "Wallman's", a thoroughly generic hypermarket chain store *cough* Wal-Mart *cough* This setting conveniently marks her as a decisive outsider, with her solidly middle-class background, and aspirations of becoming a film-maker. In fact, her immediate goal is to save up extra cash for additional video equipment, hence the crappy summer job. For Tibby, it's all just a means to an end. And so she carries out her duties with a perennially surly disposition.

Tibby decides to take advantage of her situation, by using the citizens of her home-town as fodder for a "suckumentary" movie, depicting various "losers", and their "lives of quiet desperation" (her words, not mine). As one might guess, the plot demands that she outgrow her condescending attitude, and to recognize her neighbors and co-workers as Real People. The script achieves this by way of Bailey, a precocious but genuinely enthusiastic 12-year-old, who ends up becoming Tibby's assistant, through a series of contrived developments. While Tibby doggedly attempts to frame her subjects through her own preconcieved notions of "loser-dom", Bailey is able to recognize character nuances, effectively using openings in the conversation to get the interview subjects to become increasingly personal.

What stands out most about Tibby is her unique relationship with communications technology. She appears to use it as a method of gate-keeping, for various purposes:

i) She utilizes answering machines and cellphone screening functions to avoid taking personal calls, thus giving her the necessary time alone to concentrate on editing her film. (As a result, Carmen is forced to visit her house, in order to get her to console their upset pal, Bee.)

ii) She uses her recording equipment as a means to elevate ordinary sentiments into a form of documentary testimony. This is established very early in the movie, in a flashback that depicts a young Tibby lashing out to a camcorder about her parents' decision to have another baby, even after she herself has reached grade-school age. ("Was I just some experiment from their hippie days and now they're starting a real family?") The process of recording allows her mundane gripes and complaints to transcend into acts of witness (irrespective of their validity), a belief that motivates hundreds of personal video diarists from the so-called "YouTube Generation". Indeed, this practice has become so commonplace, it's satirized in comedy sketches like Hope Is Emo:



** MAJOR SPOILER! ** Highlight white space to read. Sisterhood... puts a more positive spin on this activity. After Bailey succumbs to leukemia, Tibby discovers a video greeting made by her young friend, pre-mortem, which serves as the final motivation towards her overcoming her judgmental ways.

iii) Perhaps most interestingly, Tibby relies on her camera -- and by extension, her status as budding documentarian -- as a tool for imposing her value judgements on others. She practices a very crude kind of Athusserian "hailing" or interpellation, by establishing the terms by which her subjects are represented. This is most evident when she approaches convenience store habitue Brian McBrian, an Asian-American kid with a reputation as the local "king of Dragon's Lair". With all the presumptuous authority of a colonial ethnographer, she proceeds to film him, evidently unsolicited, asking him loaded questions about why he prefers to spend his days in front of an arcade machine, instead of experiencing "real life". Actually, if Tamblyn didn't possess such disaffected know-it-all charm, I might have written off Tibby, on the spot.

For his part, McBrian responds to the questions in stride, whole-heartedly extholing the virtues of the game-world -- choosing the so-called Red Pill, as it were. His geeky enthusiasm seemingly wins over Tibby's interest (although she later expresses reget over the wasted footage). But it's just another example of the movie's conflicted depiction of technology.

In her own quirky way, Tamblyn-as-Tibby embodies the best and worst characteristics of American free enterprise, beyond the assembly-line restrictions of Fordist standardization: aggressively individualistic, open to the possibilities of new technologies, and entirely convinced of the truth of her world-view.


Next in the series: Carmen Lowell and the "Oprahfication" of American culture

Wimpsters and their Worlds Part 1: Seth Cohen

Here's one from the archives: originally posted in December 2004 (circa Season 2 of The O.C.). Just some minor edits, and updated dead links.

In the Summer 2004 issue of BUST (with Jena Malone on the cover), Rachel Elder hailed Seth Cohen as "the new wave of wimpster", and I couldn't agree more. He's Fox Network's poster boy for emo - always analyzing his love life that trajectoried from nonexistent to love triangle to zero to his female hipster doppelganger Anna then back to zero to the ultimate prizewinner, the once unattainable and popular Summer, girl of his dreams since birth. Baffled by this unlikely pairing (tho this is pretty much a long drawn-out prime time TV staple), O.C. fans like myself who actually bother remain his ever captive audience for those woefully articulated confessional diatribes, alongside Ryan Atwood, his emotionally distant adopted brother/best friend and Captain Oats, faithful childhood friend and plastic horse.

Situation #1: Memories of 6th grade and a poem about mermaids

Seth went from "Who?" to "Ewww!" to "Cohen!" status with Summer Roberts in a matter of episodes. He first serves as a good luck charm, blowing on her dice in a Vegas-themed party. She was on a roll, yes? (Nasty pun there.) Then he woos her with his keen sense of memory on a poem she read in class back in 6th grade. The poem? "I wish I was a mermaid..." blah blah blah. For some reason, it warrants a kiss, an impulsive one on Summer's part. She must have been drunk or something coz she played deadma in the following days to come. Because he so wants to score, he just has to remind her, y'know, to keep tabs.


Situation #2: I go crazy...when I'm without you

Tijuana didn't pan in the Summer Romance department, and it's back to school, and back to their cafeteria table groupings (nice caf, by the way. It's so upscale coffee shop). The new girl from Pittsburgh is so hip and stylin', it makes you wonder why Seth is actually turning to her as a go-between to increase his chances with Ms. Thang. Coz once you've seen Anna Stern, Summer not only pales in comparison, she just isn't as articulate (let's file that one under Things That Make You Go Ewww!) But in the end, this is Seth's crusade, and we have no say in the matter, other than to cringe, make faces, exclaim WTF every so often or just laugh at the sheer ridiculousness of it coz the writers are having just as much fun - and that's not common for a TV drama. Heck, it even pays tribute to Some Kind of Wonderful without anyone having to pay a cent (the future's so bright for these Newport kids anyway). Instead, you have Anna going for the kill and fire alarms going off in Summer's head. Oh, lookie, the dumb bitch flinched. But then again, who's sympathizing?


Situation #3: Three-Way Thanksgiving

After Summer's shocking confession, Seth finds himself in a love triangle and indulges both her and Anna in a major kiss fest - in his own home! Gracious host that he was, he was smart enough to keep Anna occupied with Captain Oats in his bedroom while exchanging wet, sloppy kisses with Summer downstairs. Things get steamy, alright, but while we get thoroughly entertained, we know that Seth's assholicism is surfacing. But like all assholes who think they're getting away with something, he gets found out. The clever work he's done to prevent the two girls from meeting goes to shit, as does the turkey, as they come face to face in the kitchen and realize they've been played on a three-way absentia, swapping spit through Seth. With no more turkey and women to feast on, he finds himself alone, distraught, finding solace in Chinese takeout and cockblocking yet another one of Ryan's tender moments with Marissa. Whinge, mope, repeat.


Situation #4: Bring Love on Chrismukkah

It's girl competition on the rise with Ultimate Betty and Veronica! The catch? Why, Ultimate Archie, of course! That's a given, duh. But on Chrismukkah, Seth doesn't know what he's getting til the girls bring it on at the party. Anna's in tune with Seth's line of interests and produces this really sweet mini-comic called The Adventures of Seth Cohen and Captain Oats. Summer, on the other hand, knows Seth reads comic books and, barring brainiac sensibilities, uses her curves instead for the ultimate titilation: to seduce him as Wonder Woman! Surely, that turns him on, but he proves he's no dickhead by not taking up on the offer in true wimpster fashion. At worst, it only leaves him conflicted between the two coz he likes them both but can realistically seek companionship with one. In the aftermath, he summons enough courage to speak to both of them, individually, to offer his friendship and the hipsterlicious Seth Cohen Starter Kit. But to no avail - it was all or nothing for the ladies.


Situation #5: Ch-Check Him Out!

As if Anna wasn't enough to make him happy, he so had to size up Summer's unfunny, pastypink-faced boyfriend. Seth has to make a case for how Danny's BIG humor makes him a second rate Leno, and Leno isn't even funny. Just to humor himself, he invites Danny over for an afternoon of videogames. In an effort to bond, Danny lets Seth know that all Summer could talk about was how he (as in Seth Cohen) was the funniest guy on earth. Imagine what a little ego-stroking can do - boost Seth's newfound confidence in his abilities to charm the pants off Summer, as well as anticipate that her relationship with Mr. BIG is doomed. Her resignation over the matter actually makes her more, um, likeable - there, I said it. But ha! The wimpster always wins!


Situation #6: Hopelessly Alike

Seth likes comics, Anna does, too. Orange peel smoothie with pineapple, ditto doo. (Okay, that was a lame attempt to rhyme.) But when Seth can't make a fashion statement coz Anna has the exact same red and white striped scarf, it's a HUGE problem that can be solved with the tired "opposites attract" idea...or was it really Summer all along? Seth the asshole has been turned up a notch higher when he shares the goodwill of comics with "his one true love" one typical afternoon while totally ignoring Anna. And as if Seth didn't see it coming, Anna dumped his ass for being such a heartbreaker. Bright Eyes was worth passing up...for that?!?


Situation #7: Let's be Emo away from our friends

It must be looove when you discover that the girl of your dreams has a Princess Sparkle to match/complement your Captain Oats. We've been teased with the kissing games, now let the real games begin! Cherries are popped, but Seth and Summer can't get their thing past a Hollywood-style romance. Why? Because the popular girl does not want her snobby friends to know that she has affection for someone outside their circle - an Emo dork, in fact. So now it's "poor Seth, can't get the girl coz the bitch cares more about her reputation." But really, it's more like "idiot!" on both counts. Seth sticks to his vow of celibacy til she acknowledges their relationship in public. How noble. And he does it all the way, too, til she professes her love for this Emo boy, of all places, in a kissing booth. Um, yeah, what a heartwrenching moment. Pass me some tissue.


Situation #8: You always said we'd still be friends...someday

Anna is moving back to Pittsburgh, and Seth thinks he's to blame for "driving her away", only she won't admit it when she lists her reasons for going. He's so consumed with guilt that he even has to take it up with Summer during a make-out session. For once, Summer makes sense: to tell Anna what he thinks he knows would make him a self-absorbed shmuck. He went as far as being presumptuous about the pool-soaked letter she left for him as being a "love letter". So Seth gives chase to Journey's Separate Ways (how apt) on the way to the airport and catches Anna in the nick of time, passing thru Security. He confronts her about the "love" part, and she clarifies that she loves him "as a friend", and that they'd be a perfect couple in another lifetime or whatever. No matter how many times he asks her whether he's the cause for her sudden departure, she'll never give him an answer he'll be satisfied with. The self-absorbed part always comes up, and who knows whether he'll ever get the hint. He definitely knows where his heart is - he doesn't want her back, but he tells her he'd be lost without her. Yeah, right. Wimpster on! It's always been about you, Cohen.


Situation #9: He's off to see The Vegas

Summer's daddy doesn't approve of comic geeks for boyfriends. And since Summer, as it turns out, is Daddy's Little Girl who doesn't wanna do wrong, she decides to deal with Seth by not dealin'. If Seth has one too many a cryptic explanation to contend with, then The Vegas is the place to go - with hookers...and Black Jack! (Enough with Futurama, it was really Poker.) Knowing that Seth's luscious mouth would go astray is enough for Summer to win her man back - to hell what Daddykins says!


Situation #10: The Old Man and the Sea

When Ryan makes up his mind to return to Chino with Theresa after getting her pregnant, Seth is devastated. Coz if Ryan hadn't come around, life wouldn't have been this wonderful for Seth. He's flipped his lid, and it reeks of sexism - blaming Marissa for jeopardizing her relationship with Ryan by befriending a headcase like Oliver Trask, coz if that hadn't happened, Ryan wouldn't have sought comfort and tenderness in the arms of his ex. Perhaps having Ryan around for a year has rubbed off on Seth, because he suddenly becomes emotionally distant toward Summer. And nothing she can say or do can help him deal with Ryan's decision. So he goes on a little trip, with another Summer (his boat) to guide him to wherever he ends up 2nd season: Portland (or The P), shacking up in the new residence of reformed fuckwit Luke Ward.

Welcome to The O.C., bitch!

To describe Seth's world is to use Luke as a reference point. Seth started off as a Hound of Loserville, prey to Luke's fists til Ryan came to stay. But when Luke's father is outed by vicious rumors and circumstance, an inevitably ostracized Luke doesn't quite know how to cope. For Seth, it's mainly a continuous shift in status quo, due in part to these "intricate" web of friendships, working to his favor. And so the next morning, both boys approach their beloved campus with apprehension, something routine on Seth's part but an entirely new feeling altogether for someone who had a taste of popularity up until yesterday. Before Seth glides away on his skateboard, he turns to Luke and says, "Welcome to my world."

'Sisterhood' is Disappointing

Part I of the Traveling Pants Critique Series

In anticipation of the Traveling Pants movie sequel, I give you this series of relevant posts, culled from the archives of our previous blog.

Over the weekend, Claire and I belatedly got around to watching a pirated DVD of the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, the 2005 movie version of Ann Brasheares' eponymous young adult novel. I found it so jam packed with opportunities for pop critique that I've decided to write not one, not two, but a whole series of posts related to the movie! Most likely, I'll be addressing each main character (and the persona they represent) in detail, later on. But for now, I'd like to dissect the core themes of the film.

At this point, I think a brief summary is necessary. Basically, the protagonists are a tight-knit barkada of four teeange gal pals, living together in urban Maryland. Each one represents a different aspect of contemporary American girlhood, with identifiable personality types, demographic markers, and aesthetic sensibilities, neatly divided among each character, in a show of "food court diversity" (a one-for-each-market-segment kind of logic). Near the beginning of the film, they make a routine stop at a neighborhood thrift store and find a pair of jeans that somehow manages to fit them all perfectly -- an oddity, given their differing body types. Since each of them have seperate plans for the upcoming summer holidays, they decide to form a Sisterhood -- complete with its own rules and by-laws -- based on the Pants. Each girl will use the Pants for a one-week period, documenting what happens as she wears them, through hand-written letters sent along with the Pants. As summer ends, they will record their experiences on the Pants themsevles.


1) MAGIC, FATE, AND PREDESTINATION

Right away, the premise alone raises some interesting themes, not least of which is the near-magical quality of the capital-P Pants. In fact, the movie opens with loving close-ups of the Pants in detail -- the seams, the pant legs, the stitching -- as they're assembled via an old-school sewing machine. No human operator is shown, as if the Pants are threaded by the cosmic hands of Ariadne or the Fates (appropriate, considering the prominent Greek lineage of Lena, one of the main characters). It's a very mythical image, one that's comfortably removed from the squalid working conditions of laborers in the contemporary garment manufacturing industry. (You know, teenage girls just like main characters, but in "developing" parts of the world, toiling in sweatshops or Export Processing Zones; people who are restricted from crossing national borders as freely as the pants they make.) Indeed, the Pants have no visible label, nor is any brand name ever mentioned, so it's left as a deliberate mystery for the audience to make their own guesses about where the Pants travelled from.

Screenwriter Delia Ephron -- who has a reputation for penning "chick flicks" like Hanging Up, as well as magic-is-real fare like the 2005 remake of Bewitched -- just reinforces these mythical connotations. In fact, skeptical would-be rebel Tibby declares that it's "scientifically impossible" for the Pants to fit each of them so well.

Furthermore, the girls celebrate their new find by breaking into the dance studio where their pregnant mothers first met (during a "Pre-natal Aerobics" class in the late 80s, natch) thus sealing the bond that would make them friends since pre-birth. Now, this aspect of fate and predestination might seem a little creepy, especially for those of us who prefer our relationships more flexible and not quite so unconditional. But the characters never let it show. In fact, they solemnly light a bunch of candles, as if taking part in some Druidic rite, drafting up rules that will seal their bond to each other. The Pants become the vessel of their union -- a physical symbol (or fetish?) of their Sisterhood.





2) "CREATIVE CONSUMPTION"

Okay, so if the film won't address the production of the Pants, it fares slightly better at dealing with how they are consumed. That is, depicting the shared ways that the girls make use of the jeans.

The Pants transcend their immediate use value. Of course, they're worn as clothing. (Duh.) But they also function as a "talisman" of sorts for improving the girls' self-image. They show off late-bloomer Lena's body, or flatter Carmen's curvy, half-Puerto Rican frame.

Furthermore, like the agimats worn by folk Catholics and provincial bad-asses, the arrival of the pants seems to bestow the wearer with the possibility of reversing their personal fortunes. I won't cite examples without issuing a prior spoiler warning, so I'm not going to detail any specific events, at the moment. For now, let's just say that the screenplay regards the Pants as a good luck charm, a probability-skewing fuck-you to the "good sense" of rational/empirical thought.

However, the most interesting use of the Pants is to jumpstart the girls' self-awareness of their own personal narratives. Since they are required, per the verbal laws of their own Sisterhood, to document their lives while in possession of the Pants, the garment serves as a kind of catalyst to the protagonists' efforts to become more self-reflexive. Perennially driven go-getter Bee realizes that she can't always get what she wants. Withdrawn, artistic Lena begins to take control over her life. Carmen starts to vocalize her bottled-up resentment at her deadbeat father (in paricular) and blithe attempts to disregard her racial identity (in general). Sarcastic, mistrustful Tibby learns how to open up to people outside her immediate social circle. The rules of the Sisterhood force them to articulate -- and then act upon -- their individual social positions. (I suspect that Tibby and Carmen, at least, have the potential to be moderately interesting zinesters.)

By the end of the movie, the Pants have been customized and altered (through embroideries, scrawled notes, and other embellishments) to reflect the events that lead to the breakthroughs experienced by the protagonists. Their shared coming-of-age narratives have been literally written onto the fabric that holds the Sisterhood together, "transcending" the Pants' initial purpose as a mere vintage retail item.

I seriously doubt that feminist writer Hélène Cixous had something quite so, um, cheesy, in mind when she conceptualized the idea of "Écriture féminine". But admittedly, this does support the basic mission Cixous laid forth in her essay, "Laugh of the Medusa":

"Woman must write her self: must write about women and bring women to writing, from which they have been driven away as violently as from their bodies."

By inscribing their life experinces onto a shared piece of clothing, the Sisterhood are effectively reuniting their bodies with their personal histories.


3) COMMUNICATIONS TECHNOLOGY

As the Pants are shipped from girl to girl, the audience is shown the garment in transit via global courier service. Their journey is mediated by routing numbers, computerized order forms, and barcode scanners. Thus, the Sisterhood is facilitated by the presence of a transnational network of digital communications technology; without the mobility afforded by these innovations, the Sisterhood would not be as strong as it is.

And yet, these are not gizmos usually associated with young bougie/burgis technophiles (e.g. instant messagenger services, online journals, or texting). They're large-scale communications infrastructure projects being used to relay the most traditional kind of correspondence: letters hand-written on stationery, pages from journals, and so forth.

This is the happy face of what sociologist Manny Castells refers to as the "network society" -- one in which communications technology allows networks of people to maintain fundamental human relationships across the borders of geography and national citizenship. As Castells observes:

“Technological revolutions are all characterized by their pervasiveness, that is by their penetration of all domains of human activity, not as an exogenous source of impact, but as the fabric in which such activity is woven.”

Indeed, the connection between technology and human interaction is a theme explored further in Tibby's individual story arc. So i'll get back to that, once I deal with her sub-plot, in detail. For now, let's move on to...




4) GIRL BONDING

I decided to watch ...Traveling Pants, primarily in comparison with other films that deal with bonding among single-gender groups of friends. For the boys, it's stuff like Dead Poets Society, Stand By Me, or even recent fare like The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys. Among the young ladies, there's Strike!/All I Wanna Do, Coming Soon, Sugar & Spice, and Bring It On.

One thing that struck me about the Sisterhood is how formally they regard their bond. Granted, even guys like the "Charolastras" from Y Tu Mama Tambien had their verbalized codes of honor -- basically, permutations of "bros before hos". But I felt it was a little odd that the Pants girls willingly adapted a kind of "ten commandments" for the Sisters to follow. Of course, as a twentysomething straight dude, I may have been misreading how seriously they viewed these rules. Indeed, Carmen describes it as more like "a manifesto" or a charter than a set of operating procedures. But even that seemed a bit unneessary, given that the Sisterhood is an open group (as opposed to, say, the Daughters of the American Ravioli from Strike, who were essentially a covert rebel militia, in addition to being good friends).

Nevertheless... the candles, the pledging. It all seemed a bit too ritualistic, like a proto-sorority rather than a bunch of friends enjoying each others' company. In any case, I'm pretty sure i'll have more to say about this, once I begin writing about the individual characters' narratives.