In Search of Lost Real Time

I just watched the 24 series finale. And I feel odd.

I feel sad, wistful, old, regretful, youthful, and invigorated. Which is probably a bit too many emotions to feel over the end of a pulpy television show with a one-torture-per-three-episodes requirement.

One night, a few years ago, I met up with an ex in a pub in London. We had been broken up for a year and the breakup was anything but amicable. A venom-filled root canal may be a more apt description. We talked, we drank, we reflected, we caught up, and we parted ways. A brief spark of what had once been there definitely showed, but it had to shine past the very evident ways we had grown apart and indeed always were not all that much on the same side. I noticed the bad haircut and the big teeth, the annoying jokes and the stupid opinions more than I ever did in our time together. Nostalgia and comfort lost to age and wisdom.

As I watched the recap of the season, with its bombastic DRAMA!, stilted acting, and exposition-heavy dialogue, I thought this memory was an apt comparison. Relationships end for a reason. 24 may have its fun moments, but I stopped watching it very voluntarily (I literally had Fox on and turned it off). Season 6 was painfully bad and indicative of how you can only up the stakes so many times before you are up in LalaLand. I knew at one time this stuff made me all hot and bothered, but now I was above this schlock. I watched Sopranos and Mad Men and appreciated the slow burn.

Then Jack Bauer held a CTU officer at gunpoint and threatened to go to town on his body if he did not comply.

I have also slept with an ex. This might be more apt of a comparison.

By the end of the experience, I was jumping, screaming, panting, and red in the face. I was thrilled like I had not been in a long time. And after it all, I let myself lie placidly in the afterglow of the move that 24 was such an expert in. One that I had forgotten about, dulled down in my memory, unappreciated when I got it every week (and maybe not meant for every week every year), but one that still hit me in the right spot the exact same way it did when I was 14. (Okay, so maybe I lost my Bauer-virginity years before my other one.)

In truth, I do think I enjoyed this finale in a way more because I had not had to labor through the past two seasons of 24. I have not heard good things and keeping up a thrill consistently is nigh-impossible. Furthermore, upon reflection, the finale was really just a jumble of the ends of seasons 4 and 5. They had run out of original ideas, but at least I had not had to see 22 other episodes of recycling…and at least they were borrowing from the best (or 2 of the 3 best, since season 1's finale still gives me shivers).

This end was the one I wanted. One that gave me everything I had loved about 24 without giving me too much to lament its death or my abandonment of it. One that showed my beloved had not changed in our time apart, a good and a bad thing. A lovely final fling with a show with which I had a meaningful relationship.

And this break provided one more benefit. I was not watching the last episode of a series or a season; I was revisiting an old friend. And so often, the oldest memories come first. I was in freshmen year of high school, reading recaps on TWOP in computer applications class with Nick because we finished the assignments before everyone else. Or I was eating baked ziti during a horrible heatwave in the second to last week of April, watching the scene where Jack jumps over a fence and Mason just walks around it. I was in sophomore year, trying to get my mom to stop asking questions so I could hear Jack’s heartfelt conversation with Kim as he faced what he assumed to be his coming death. I still had my old phone with speed dials and would call Nick on commercials. I was desperately trying to watch that damn four-hour premiere for season four in January of a hectic senior year. I had to keep track of those damn VHSes. I was back in my living room after a year of college, jumping up and down as Jack finally took down Logan and exposed his crimes.

I blocked out most sophomore year memories. Date #3 with the pub ex actually was an early episode of season 6 (not Curtis Jack! HOW COULD YOU?!), but who wants to remember the bad times? By the end of that year, I was conducting an affair with Heroes (which also has met the TV reaper). Those two hours on my couch (and floor) acted like a Proustian madeleine, though you are spared a 2,000 page blog entry.

With the end of 24, I feel some tie to the past gone. When I stopped watching Alias or Smallville or Lost (granted, that was after 12 episodes) or 24, still seeing them advertised was a type of reassurance. It let me know that TV has not changed too much since my high school years. Eventually, it began to mean since my college years. I may not have watched Lost or Heroes or 24 this year, but them on the air assured me that not too much time had passed since Luke, Justin, a bunch of other people and I gathered in Bush Hall’s lobby to watch 24 or Jim, Justin, and I engaged in a fierce Heroes/Lost debate. Now that’s not the case.

Stop here if such a maudlin outpouring over a Fox show has already proved too much for you.



If you’re still reading, join me in a toast. To a show as much a zeitgeist of the 2000s (which truly began in September 2001) as any gangster movie was of the 30s or bad, paranoid sci-fi was of the 50s. I might dare argue that 24 is, if not the most important show of the decade, perhaps the most emblematic. To a show that truly made us worry for the safety of its characters and probably had a bigger cast-axe rate than Survivor (the only show that may rival 24 for Show of the 2000s). To one of the shows that began what is now seemingly a dramatic standard of non-episodic episodes. And to Jack Bauer, one of the strangest, most confounding guys to ever threaten to stick a towel down a man’s throat.

There's No Place like Oz

The past month, I had a few dreams that have been parodies/homages of The Wizard of Oz. Naturally, I mean the movie, not the book, as the dreams tend to be Technicolor spectacles and involve me skipping down the Yellow Brick Road (since, ever since Judy Garland did so in 1939, there really has not been an alternate, acceptable method of travel along such an itinerary). Upon reflection, I realized that the best part of these dreams were that, in a way, they were just as valid as the “original.” After all, Garland’s Dorothy only dreams she goes to Oz and, upon waking up, I too can say to my friends, “I had the most wonderful dream. And you were there. And you were there,” etc. The whole idea of dreaming that one is in the dream part of MGM’s The Wizard of Oz is actually quite post-modern if one thinks about it.

I then had the good fortune of seeing The Wizard of Oz again, on a big screen, at The Film Forum in New York City. I went there with my friend anticipating to marvel at the Technicolor and some of the aesthetic choices, and maybe the acting, but that would be it. I would appreciate Oz as many do: a brilliantly done fable that has withstood the tests of time. I would see the movie as a masterpiece so elegantly simple, a tale with such a universal appeal, and the quintessence of imagination on celluloid. Hell, even the furthest Roger Ebert goes with glorifying the cranial aspects of the film is to say:

``The Wizard of Oz'' has a wonderful surface of comedy and music, special effects and excitement, but we still watch it six decades later because its underlying story penetrates straight to the deepest insecurities of childhood, stirs them and then reassures them. As adults, we love it because it reminds us of a journey we have taken. That is why any adult in control of a child is sooner or later going to suggest a viewing of ``The Wizard of Oz.''

Upon revisiting the film, I was shocked to discover a movie with a tremendous amount of bite. In the act of creating an Oz perhaps more archetypal than that of L. Frank Baum’s novel, it still manages to parody and question the subject material. The Wizard of Oz is simultaneously the classic Oz and the classic Oz parody.



Before I go further, let me just add a few words to those of you raising Joan Crawford eyebrows right now. By the time the movie came out, the novel was already 39 years old and widely regarded as a “classic.” Of course, “classic” delivers both reverence and a propensity to be mocked. Furthermore, the film was at one point under the direction of George Cukor and eventually delivered to Victor Fleming to create. Both of these men were not simple-minded, idealistic artists who only wished to entertain children. Fleming had quite a few pre-Code sex comedies under his belt and Cukor, after leaving both Oz and Gone with the Wind, would find himself directing the bitchy catfight known as The Women. While none of these facts automatically prove my prior paragraph, they should at least quell any knee-jerk reactions that I am simply trying to fit the square peg of post-modernism into the round hole of 1939.

Now for the film…

As I have already said, the movie already feels like a parody of The Wizard of Oz, or at least an homage. Consider any parody/homage you have seen of the film. Most of them involve taking already existing characters and placing them in roles from the classic. One example which immediately comes to mind is Futurama’s. As we watch Leela go along Martin Luther King Blvd (the renamed Yellow Brick Road) she encounters Fry as the Scarecrow, Bender as Tin Man, Dr. Zoidberg as the Cowardly Lobster, Professor Farnsworth as the Wizard, and Mom as the Wicked Witch. We would never simply say she encounters the Scarecrow, Tin Man, Cowardly Lobster, the Wizard, and Wicked Witch. Furthermore, all of the choices are meant to fit the characters to the pre-made roles from the work and each side (for example the Cowardly Lion and Dr. Zoidberg) has a role to play in the ultimate product on screen.

Oddly enough, we never seem to take note that the exact same concept is at play in the MGM classic film. We do not simply meet the Scarecrow, Tin Man, Cowardly Lion, The Wizard, and the Wicked Witch. Just as we think “Oh, look! It’s Fry as the Scarecrow,” we also should think “Oh look! It’s Hunk as the Scarecrow!” Both are fitting matches, as Fry is quite brainless and Hunk had earlier been talking about a head of straw. Just as Mom’s inclination to evil deeds makes her an ideal choice for Leela’s Wicked Witch of the West, so does Miss Gulch’s cruelty make her an ideal choice for Dorothy’s Wicked Witch of the West. Mom’s choice of words colors her portrayal of the Witch; Miss Gulch’s hatred of Toto makes her green-skinned counterpart threaten “I’ll get you my pretty and your little dog too!” (a line absent from the source material).

I could list the differences between the film and the novel for quite some time. But let me just sum up this argument by talking about how each of the actors uses his or her position to play to his or her own acting and comedic strengths. We are watching a classic vaudeville routine as much as we are watching a recreation of Baum’s classic.

I could argue that Dorothy’s Kansas is more akin to our own than to that of L. Frank Baum’s and that, in fact, Dorothy herself has read The Wondeful Wizard of Oz. Encountered with a similar situation and a need to sort out problems, she is taken by her mind into a world very similar to a book from her childhood. The characters of the novel are replaced with familiar faces and situations are modified to become more pertinent to her own crisis. After all, in the original work, Dorothy truly travels to Oz and we know little about Kansas beforehand. The mirroring of her Kansas life to her Oz life is a device unique to the film. Just as I have had dreams about The Wizard of Oz that have reflected my own life (and have found myself not referencing the source material in my dream), so could Garland’s Dorothy have encountered such an experience.

But I digress. The whole dream sequence (i.e. the meat of the film) is conscious of its own theatricality. Every character is an actor playing a role. The movie rubs its Technicolor in the viewers face more than almost any other film had or ever will. But with this self-awareness also comes a self-awareness of the sinister nature of a children’s story, particularly the very one on which it is imbuing cinematic immortality.



This film is not a faithful recreation of L. Frank Baum’s children’s tale. Everything has an edge, a bite, and wink and a nudge to the audience. The whole celebration is Munchkinland is, indeed, quite manic, gaudy, and indicative of an acid trip. Most parodies will include some jab at Munchkinland. But look at Dorothy’s face during the event: she knows she is not in Kansas anymore and the film knows we are not in Kansas anymore. The entire transition to Oz must be anything but gradual. From sepia to Technicolor, from a world where the most action comes from falling into a pit with some pigs (twister excepted, as it is the doorway between Kansas and Oz) into a frantic celebration of nonsense and high-pitched singing. Whereas Snow White and the Seven Dwarves and earlier children’s movies seem comfortable in their spectacle, The Wizard of Oz both excels in such category and is at odds with its own nature.

Furthermore, there is Glinda. Most people seem willing to write Glinda off as an empty-headed character of insipid pink goodness. But actually, Glinda is quite sinister. Parodies have noted the danger she placed Dorothy in by not telling her how to get home immediately (again, a difference between Baum’s novel and the film, as there are two different good witches and Dorothy only meets Glinda at the end). Yet her dark nature only begins here. Watch again the first encounter between Dorothy and the Wicked Witch of the West. Glinda pushes Dorothy towards the billow of smoke before pulling her away to “protect” her. Furthermore, throughout the whole exchange, she taunts the Wicked Witch of the West and practically paints a target on Dorothy. Even putting the ruby slippers on Dorothy by magic is a machination of the film. In this “parody” of Oz, the good witch is just as foul-minded and sadistic as the wicked one. At least the Wicked Witch is courteous enough to be ugly and to grimace.

I could again rattle off examples, such as the effeminate, queer natures of the Tin Man and the Cowardly Lion or the changed nature of the Wizard’s gifts. All I will say about the latter subject is that whereas the novel emphasizes the fulfillment of the characters and how they had those traits all along, the movie appears more skeptical. After all, the Scarecrow doesn’t even give a correct mathematical equation. Instead, the focus on that scene is the movie seems to be the deception and ineptness of the Wizard and gullibility of the others. Their gifts are as much of a placebo to keep them happy as a kid’s movie is a placebo to make children feel at ease with a world on the brink of war (or a dream to make Dorothy believe there is no place like home).

And that sentence does bring us to the end. The end may be the most unsettling part of the film. Yes, there is no place like home, but there’s also no place like Alcatraz. We are ferried away from a tear-jerking scene where Dorothy says goodbye to the first characters we have seen display true affection and respect to her to the boring, sepia world of Kansas, full of claustrophobic shots and people who do not believe a single word coming out of Dorothy’s mouth. Is Dorothy’s final mantra the truth or merely a way to delude herself into happiness, even though she just abandoned her friends and the beautiful Technicolor world of Oz where she was a hero?



In short, the entire movie seems critical of its own story and characters. It tinges “good” characters with hints of sadism, heroic ones with behavior not fitting their genders, and joyous celebrations with bouts of insanity. The very tale is a dark retelling of Oz despite being the iconic telling of the story. And, all the way, it manages also to doubt its own reality. The very novel is framed as a dream, not a reality, a world of fake sets and actors in make-up. Yet, would that make Kansas the reality? Are we comfortable allowing a world without color and with character actors on the loose in the vague pretense of being farm hands to be reality? I am not sure. After all, this reality is far less present than the dream and in the end, both are figments of the imagination.

I suppose reasons like this are what grad school is for. I have only scratched the surface of the Oz question, one that most movie critics seem terrified of even acknowledging. Which I guess I leave as my final question: why has no one written about this…or if they have, why has it not broken into the world of common critical knowledge? Are we so desirous of always having one piece of innocent childhood to return to that we will, if necessary, turn something that was never all that innocent into it? In the end, I guess we are like Dorothy: ready to ignore the reality of our situation and, no matter the circumstance, click our heels together and mutter “there’s no place like home.” We do not care what “home” is, as long as it’s “home.”

The BAH!scars #9: Dead Person Popularity Contest

Up to now, I’ve speculated and weighed in on quite a few categories and awards. But there is one I have not mentioned: The Dead Person Popularity Contest.

For those of you who are not Oscar savvy, the Dead Person Popularity Contest is the part of the Awards show where they “pay tribute to those who have left us in the past year” and some people stay to hear who gets the loudest applause but most people go to the bathroom, get some chips, or make themselves another Inglourious Cocktail, Avatarita, or Hurt Locker Car Bomb. They are fools. This race is the tensest one of any year.

Sure, there may be 10 Best Picture nominees, but there are dozens of contenders for this space! Furthermore, you never know who will win. One acclaimed director may seem to be zombie-walking away with this prize only for a beloved actress to snatch it from his cold dead hands. Obviously, I can’t weigh in on everyone who died this year. Some I’m not even sure will get mentioned in the telecast. Will Billy Mays manically smile at us on Oscar night? Will they honor one of final Munchkins to bite the Yellow Brick Dust, Mickey Carroll? What about pornographic thespians; is Jack Wrangler worthy of the Academy’s attention?

Sadly, I was forced to narrow it down to nine people. I won’t get scientific (or pseudo-scientific) with it; merely just give some thoughts and speculations.

Patrick Swayze

This guy is, in my opinion, the current favorite for the winner. He died semi-young, valiantly, and tragically. He was pretty, he was well-liked, and he’s most associated with younger, innocent roles like those in “Dirty Dancing.”

Who to cut to after picture is shown: his wife.

Michael Jackson

While MJ won 2009’s Dead Person Popularity Contest (perhaps the whole decade’s), this ceremony will leave him empty-handed. Hollywood looks after its own. Jackson may have been in a great music video/mini-movie and had a walk-on in Men in Black II, but he’s not an actor.

Who to cut to after picture is shown: the cast of Precious: Based on the Novel “Push” by Sapphire…as they will be the only other black people in the room.



Natasha Richardson

This poor girl looked like an early hopeful for the winner of the contest last March, right when the new season of contenders opened up. I remember thinking upon her passing that I might finally be able to make fun of Heath Ledger without getting a “too soon.” Little did we all know that the Summer of Death was to follow and she would just be a brief memory come fall, let alone Oscar time. She’ll get some applause, mostly out of guilt from forgetting her, but she’s just like Up in the Air is for best picture: she peaked too soon.

Who to cut to after picture is shown: Liam Neeson, or perhaps her kids. Slight chance of Vanessa Redgrave

David Carradine

Considering how he died, I wonder what the reaction to him will be. His death seemed one of the quickest ones to joke about and (since he was never that prestigious or iconic of a star) I doubt the guests will hold him in all too much reverence. There will be some polite clapping, but that’s all they will muster.

Who to cut to after picture is shown: Quentin Tarantino

Ed McMahon

There will be a brief pause as people try to remember who he is, followed by much louder applause than warranted to atone for the prior lacuna in sound.

Who to cut to after picture is shown: some random D-List celebrity. Or maybe they’ll go all out and have Kathy Griffin appear just so they can cut to her after him.

Farah Fawcett

Ah, the girl who turned the death of Ed McMahon (and the earlier one of Carradine) into an epidemic of celebrity deaths. Her glamor and tragic death should have her in Patrick Swayze territory (or at least close), but unfortunately, she’s now most famous for being upstaged by the King of Pop.

Who to cut to after picture is shown: let’s just hope they cut to someone instead of going straight to MJ.

John Hughes

He will receive a decent applause, but probably less than one would expect. This disappointment will most likely be due to the fact that he became a bit of a recluse for the past two decades and he is most remembered for pieces of 80s kitsch (and while Swayze will get more of the idealization from the nostalgia, he’ll get more of the derision and mockery in people’s heads). But he was quite a successful writer and director, so while there is still some good clapping in his future.

Who to cut to after picture is shown: Molly Ringwald or perhaps some young teeny bopper actress who has no clue who this man is.

Bea Arthur

She’ll get standard “old dead person” applause. Reverent of her long career, but realizing that her death was not all that great of a surprise and it’s not like she was expected to do anything else of note. Unless she could’ve guest starred on SNL as well.

Who to cut to after picture is shown: PLEASE have Betty White be at the Oscars!

Brittany Murphy

“Do I clap? Didn’t she OD? Wait, she didn’t? Are you sure? Okay, then I should clap. Are other people clapping? Would it be too much if I joined in? Well, some people are clapping. Clueless was good. I should probably commend that. And she was in Sin City, right? Was I in Sin City? I think so. I got a check. Or that might’ve been for a re-airing of a Simpsons episode I was on. Man, everyone was in Sin City. It’s like Valentine’s Day but with hookers and severed hands. Granted, I didn’t see Valentine’s Day. Maybe it does have hookers in it after all.”

Who to cut to after picture is shown: the next trashy girl to kick the bucket. It’ll be the camera cut of DOOM!