melannen | (no subject)

I've spent memorial day weekend at the shore.

Alan Shore, that is. My sister's Boston Legal DVDs came in and she brought them home and I have watched over 40 episodes of Alan Shore (counting The Practice S8 which she torrented) snce Friday night. Right now, in fact, I'm sitting in her apartment on her laptop having just finished the three episodes she watched without me. Whee! My head is full of lawyer stories. Even if Alan and Denny don't confess their love for the first time until over halfway through Season One.

And my sister's cat? If someone looks her straight in the eye and says: "Denny Crane!" - she invariably meows back. Miss Darcy knows where it's at.

stellar_dust also tried to get me to watch a few episodes of Strangers with Candy for her man Steven Colbert, but I couldn't. *Physically* couldn't - it pinged my "embarrassment squick" so hard. Honestly. Colbert's brand of comedy touches close to it a *lot* - a lot of his Daily Show appearances bothered me, and I didn't make it through that Press Association speech that everyone was so excited about. The Report isn't quite as bad, because I kind of need it as catharsis - I've never been able to watch the shows he's satirizing, where the hosts don't even *realize* how badly they're humiliating themselves; at least Colbert is doing it on purpose, and has the mental capacity to be able to invite us to share the joke.

Not enjoying watching people humiliate themselves is always a problem in American society because so much of what passes for 'comedy' here these days is based on that. I went to see the movie 'Big' with the Brownies when I was five and had nightmares - even though I hid my eyes for most of it. I've adapted to simply looking away and thinking about something else until the soundtrack lets me know that they aren't trying to be funny anymore. Otherwise I wouldn't be able to watch any American comedy - even BL has hit just the wrong note a few times. Though generally, if the characters are aware that they're looking ridiculous, it doesn't bother me nearly as much, and on Boston Legal, they definitely all know how insane they are. I think that's why I fell so hard for Britcoms when I started watching them - here at last were comedies where the characters themselves understood the fundamental absurdity of the universe! But I try to work past it, I do. especially when something comes highly recommended. When I was watching SwC I was holding a piece of scrap paper up in front of my face whenever I couldn't watch; when I realized I hadn't been able to put it down for over ten minutes straight of a twenty-minute episode, I just gave up.

Anyway, where was I? Oh, yes.

DENNY CRANE!

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I hate that. The whole embarrassment thing. And there's those times when it's not really even meant to be comic, and it takes place in the middle of a dramatic scene or is the pivotal bit of the dramatic scene but they're embarrassing themselves all the same, and I just freeze up and cringe and blah.

Sometimes, if it's dramatic, and they *acknowledge* that it's supposed to be humiliating, I can take it. It has to be really well done, though. So, yes. It's not always the comedy that's the problem - it's just. Aargh. I'd much rather watch someone get devoured alive by bugs.

Word on embarrassment squick. We watched Fun with Dick and Jane this weekend, and let me tell you that watching people lose their jobs/money/homes and do increasingly desperate things and be humiliated in a bunch of different ways isn't really a good time.

Ach, yes. I couldn't even watch the *previews* for that one.