Well, except when this happens:

NOT HELPFUL, PEOPLE.

PS.  Apparently, this Kumar fellow was sliced off the show several weeks ago.  So Facebook has been letting me down even more than I thought!  It’s almost as if it isn’t a reliable news source.

I couldn’t care less about the final installment of the Harry Potter cinematic saga.

 Okay, so now that you, gentle muggle reader, have found another computer on which to read this article after destroying your previous monitor in a fit of outraged disbelief, please take a moment to let me explain why I have only a threadbare interest in the final (?) installment – and, despite my ambivalence, why I’ll still end up at the cinema, watching it unfold. 

The Boy Who Shrugged

So… yeah.  I couldn’t give two hoots about the fact that Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 is coming out.  Nor have I batted an eyelid about the fact that it’s the last film in the series, and signals the close of the curtains on what is arguably the most important piece of popular culture for my generation.  Or, at least, it would have been the end before all the hooplah stirred up by the announcement of Pottermore.  And I admit, I rolled my eyes when I discovered that the red carpet of the premiere a few days ago was being broadcast live on YouTube.

For me, the Harry Potter series has had little personal impact.  I steered away from the series when it first grew to prominence around the turn of the century, primarily because of the whole glamourisation-of-witchcraft deal.  In the years that followed, I maintained distance from the franchise, probably enjoying being different because I hadn’t read or seen the exploits of Harry, Ron, Hermione and the gang.  It wasn’t until 2005 that I finally buckled.

I went back and read through the saga so that I was up-to-date when Half-Blood Prince was released.  The sixth installment remains the only Harry Potter book that I have purchased.  I went to see the fourth film at the cinema with friends.  I had finally re-entered the pop cultural collective consciousness, and it certainly felt good.  To be able to be included in the conversations, to have a first-hand experience with what is arguably the most important piece of pop culture for my generation…  It was sweeter than even the Honey & Sugar Cheesecake Everyflavour Bean.

Following this burst of Harry Potter, however, I didn’t maintain an intense interest.  Sure, I had enjoyed the stories: they were well-told and engaging, and it was clear why they had managed to hook millions of readers.  I continued to see the films as they came out, but more out of duty than out of an intense desire to see what would inevitably be a decent, but forgettable film.  My apathy culminated in the fact that I didn’t bother reading the seventh and final book until at least six months after its release.

The Harry Potter series was fun and entertaining enough, but the story didn’t change my life, and the films… well…  They were pretty meh overall.  I experienced the phenomena, but I certainly didn’t experience it like everybody else on the planet seemed to.

So, why, then will I be shelling out for a ticket to see the final film?

I’m a Pop Culture Observer

In the television series Fringe, there are a series of characters known as “The Observers.”  Emotionless, hairless and dressed in 1940s suits and fedoras, they are are out-of-place to the eye, but they are always present.  Their purpose, quite simply, is to observe.  At every weird and wacky event, they are present, watching moments of utmost importance unfold.  They are never supposed to interact with what is happening – never supposed to get involved – only observe.

Even this moody brooding-leading-man scene is culturally significant.

In the realms of Pottermania, that’s me: I’m the creepy bald guy standing in the background, watching everything happen, but not involving myself.  The Harry Potter series is a significant event, and even though I don’t feel a strong emotional connection to it, I still feel drawn to watch it unfold; to understand it, because it is an important event.

It’s the same reason I read The Da Vinci Code back when it was the hot topic.  It’s the same reason I feel like I should watch The Wire – frequently touted as the best TV series ever made, if not one of the greastest works of fiction in recent memory – even though I’m not really into gritty Crime & Cops stories.  Heck, it’s even the reason why I feel compelled to read classic novels.  They’re all works that have affected the popular or world culture in some way, and as somebody who’s a part of that culture, shouldn’t I have first-hand experience?  I don’t have to get emotionally involved, but I should observe the phenomenon, participating so that I comprehend it, at the very least.

I’d venture to say that that is how most of culturally-significant pieces gain fandom in the first place – as something becomes popular, or acclaimed, or is deemed ‘important’, it draws those who are curious towards experiencing it (which ultimately contributes to the popularity, whether the curious cat ends up liking the work or not).  Of course, the other side of this approach is the desire to fit in, the notion that because everybody likes Harry Potter, I should get involved with it too.  But while there’s a component of peer pressure, it’s not the driving force.  I’ve never hidden the fact that I’m not that crazy about Rowling’s series, and I’m not just going to go and see it because all my friends are.  I’m going to see it because it’s an important cultural event – not just to my friends, but to my entire generation. 

It’s time for me to break out the fedora and go and… observe.

And who knows, it might turn out to be a good movie after all.

[[NB. :: I ended up seeing the movie before I could get around to posting this article.  The film was entertaining and certainly had its thrilling moments, but as I'd expected, it didn't change my life.  Did it change yours?]]

I recently discovered Community.  Featuring a diverse crowd of misfits in a Spanish study group at a community college, the show has quickly become one of my favourite sitcoms for its razor wit and its hilarious cast of characters.  But the show is perhaps known more for its endemic references to popular culture.  And it’s true: every episode of the show is littered with name-drops, allusions and parodies.  But uniquely, I’ve yet to find any reference that seemed out-of-place, jarring, or exclusive.  Even though several comments that are clearly references to some entity of entertainment have flown over my head, they have never made me feel like I’m missing the joke, even though I certainly am.  Why might this be?

Pens and pencils ready, class.  There may be a twenty-page paper, in Espanol, due on Monday. 

1. I’m At My Best During High-Speed Bursts of Wit

The first element at play to make the helpings of pop culture go down the gullet is that it is the dessert to the juicy minute steak that is the actual plot.  Community uses its pop culture references as asides for a larger, stand-alone story.  This works because the characters are strong, and can hold their own storylines: Jeff and Shirley bonding over talking smack about other people, innocent Annie falling for Britta’s perpetually-shirtless hippie ex-boyfriend, and so on and so forth.  The show, fittingly, is about the little community of ‘annoying but lovable misfits’ clashing and uniting in their first year of college.  The show doesn’t need pop culture references to work, rather choosing to use them as garnishes.  Of course, most shows manage to do that with ease – spattering references throughout an actual story. 

Troy Will Hunting

But, significantly, Community also manages to tell interesting stand-alone stories when the whole storyline is a pop culture reference.  When elongated references occur, they are used to propel the development of character and over-arching plot.  It works on the small scale: such as the B-story parody of Good Will Hunting in English as a Second Language, where Troy discovers a hidden gift for plumbing.  Even though this side-plot is a straight-up reversal of the iconic film’s plot (including several lines lifted verbatim from the GWH script), the story serves to solidify the friendship between Troy and Abed, as well as hearkening back to the running theme of Troy accepting that he’s not the hard-headed jock everyone expects him to be (he discovers a love for modern dance in an earlier episode, and his geekish nature has swelled with his friendship with Abed, which also becomes a driving plot point of the zombie-movie hallowe’en episode in the second season).  While the parody might not be as funny for someone unfamiliar with the source material, there are still ordinary circumstantial laughs to be had, and the story stands alone.

But when pop culture allusions take over an entire episode, everybody holds their breath.  “Gimmick” episodes are not new, but they’re a huge risk that doesn’t always pay off.  For instance, Glee has had featured more than a few theme episodes, devoting an entire episode to the music of Madonna, Britney Spears and Rocky Horror – each.  While they’re fun episodes, they heavily rely on knowledge of the subject material.  If you don’t know the music videos of Miss Spears, then the dream sequences in which the videos are recreated by the glee club cast just seem out-of-place.  As someone in that situation, I felt like I was missing the joke.  It was like they were rubbing my face in the fact that I wasn’t getting all the Spears references.  But worse than that, the theme episodes do nothing for long-term storyline developments.  In fact, the characters are compromised to make way for the pop culture reference.  The icy Sue Sylvester has a major Madonna fetish?  The reserved Emma becomes infatuated with the sleazy RHPS and Will compromises the glee club program by trying to perform the musical at the high school (after how many warnings about performing age-inappropriate songs?).  The episode is no longer about a high school glee club.  It becomes about the pop culture reference.

Conversely, Buffy the Vampire Slayer tackled the gimmick episode most famously with Once More With Feeling: a fully-realised musical.  As in, the brooding characters burst out into song and dance.  While it had very specific homages to Disney songs-of-longing to Fred Astaire and Ginger Rodgers, the episode broadly focused on the genre at large (rather than specific musical references), which was part of its success.  But more importantly, it used the gimmick to deliver one of the biggest storyline developments of the season, utilising the genre’s motif of expressing usually-unsaid emotion in song to unveil a powerful plot twist.  Instead of the episode revolving around the fact that it was a cultural homage, the extended reference told the story.

Winger = McClane, right down to the inexplicably darkened singlet.

Community‘s first season has featured two significant “gimmick” episodes, and they both succeed where Buffy succeeded.  Firstly, the episodes tackle genre: Contemporary American Poultry is a gangster movie and Modern Warfare is an action movie.  They play with the widely-known tropes of the genre’s cliches as the study group transform into a crime family in control of the cafeteria’s chicken fingers and as they fight for survival in a campus-wide paintball competition.  Yet the gimmicks are used to advance plot: we see Abed’s desire to find his place within the group when he usurps Jeff, becoming drunk with chicken power, and the overly gratuitous nature of action movies allows Jeff and Britta to make good on their sexual tension.  Similarly, in the second season, the zombie episode Epidemiology is mostly parody, but allows the conceit that everybody forgets what happened that night kicks off a season-long story for Shirley.  But unlike Buffy, the Community episodes are littered with very, very specific references to iconic movies of the genre.  Whether it’s Annie’s backpack being strung up like the guy in the freezer from Goodfellas or Chang’s John Woo entrance, the episodes are goldmines for fans of the movies under parody.  But the specific references don’t alienate like they did in Glee.  Rather, they’re in-jokes…

2. The Little Things

I mentioned that many of the pop culture references in the show are made in passing, but their primary strength is that there are as many subtle pop culture references as there are obvious ones.  For every Ghost parody, there is a fleeting Lost-esque trombone fall-off.  For every Breakfast Club rant, there’s a shazbat.  Half of the time, the pop culture references are so niche that you feel special if you catch them, but if you miss them, you hardly know they were there.

Additionally, many of the obvious pop culture allusions operate effectively even if you don’t know exactly what is being referenced.  When Troy suggests the Dean looks like Moby, it doesn’t necessarily matter if you know who Moby is.  The reference is not the punchline to the joke, which is that Troy and Jeff are not on the same wavelength.  The pop culture reference is an in-joke for people who get it, and the mere presence of a pop culture reference contributes to the broader joke for people who don’t.  It isn’t jarring at all, and that’s because…

3. It’s 10% Dick Van Dyke, 20% Sam Malone, 40% Zach Braff from Scrubs, and 30% Hilary Swank from Boys Don’t Cry

Up until this point, most of this commentary on pop culture references could be applied to sitcoms across the board.  But where Community has the upper hand in its ability to effectively pull of allusions is that it knows that it is a sitcom.  The characters themselves are self-aware, and draw attention to the stereotypes and cliches of the genre.  There are continual references to the fact that the study group is an “unlikely family” which contains dynamics reminiscent of everything from Friends to The Brady Bunch.    That said, I wouldn’t go so far as to say the characters know that they are characters – in italics.  They are merely observant of their actions, and allude to them in the same way that one would reference pop culture tropes in everyday life. 

Greendale Community College exists comfortably within the oevure of popular culture.  The characters acknowledge pop culture, and even acknowledge that it isn’t universal.  One of my favourite exchanges comes from an allusion to Cheers:

Abed: To be blunt, Jeff and Britta is no Ross and Rachel. Your chemistry and sexual tension are putting us all on edge, which is ironically, and hear this on every level, you’re keeping us from being friends.

Shirley: It’s like Sam and Diane.  I hated Sam and Diane.

Annie: Who are Sam and Diane?

Shirley: We get it!  YOU’RE YOUNG!!

On numerous occasions, the characters themselves recognise that pop culture references are being made, and respond directly to them.  In most sitcoms, when the cultural references serve as the punchline, drawing attention to them verges on breaking the wall.  We don’t end a Firefly reference in The Big Bang Theory by turning to the camera to explain that FOX cancelled the series before its time.   But Community has set up a world so knowledgable about pop culture that it can both make the referential joke, and joke about the fact that they just made the reference.

Don Draper, Mad Men.

This level of meta is pretty expansive, but is certainly facillitated by the presence of the character of Abed.  Numerous times, he has claimed that he can only relate to those around him through the tinted cellophane of movies and TV.  He’s a walking TV-tropes.com, and his never-ending stream of pop-culture commentary is an integral part of his character.  The audience learns to accept this heightened awareness from Abed, so as the pop-culture references begin to seep out into the words and actions of other characters over the course of their friendship with Abed, we become more willing to accept it as a norm.  Without a self-proclaimed ‘meta’ character, the show would probably not be able to pull off its pop culture references without feeling forced or pretentiously meta.

As it stands, Community is a smart, funny show that uses its cultural allusions the way they should be used: both broadly and slyly, within both the context of an actual narrative and a self-aware setting.  Sure, it’s kinda their gimmick, but at least they know they can lay low for an episode here and there.

So I decided to check it out, and was happy to find it on rental at my local video store.  I put down my pocket-money and borrowed it, and was quickly drawn into the eerie and surprisingly complex world of the FBI fringe science division, full of science gone wrong, secretive organisations, psychoactive drugs, otherworldly observers, eating licorice at the morgue and forbiding patterns foreshadowing a grim future and an alternate world.

But the inside of the DVD case didn’t exactly… uh… set the right tone.

So maybe Hannah Montana is actually part of the first wave of evil from that parallel universe.  She does change her physical appearances after all… 

After all, who wouldn’t want to hear about my thoughts on rewatching one of my favourite shows?

Or how cool Iceland is?

Or why I’m shocked I hadn’t discovered comedy sooner.

Tune in in a couple of weeks and you’ll get all this and more! Unless I am in desperate need of procrastination, in which case, you might see it sooner…

Those glee kids are never happy, are they? I mean, when you join a song-and-dance club, you’ve got to be anticipating some classic Broadway and a few crowd-pleasing rock-and-pop hits here and there. It’s a given, isn’t it? Well, the William McKinley High students seem to have been a bit fuzzy on what to expect. Last night’s episode of Glee, entitled The Substitute, was hardly the first to touch on the yearning of the teens to sing something modern. There have been complaints of too much ‘70s pop way back in the second episode of Season One. And it’s glee club teacher Will Schuester who ends up with the blame. Last night, the students lamented that they couldn’t remember the last time they’d sung something that wasn’t from the ‘80s.

Well, New Directions, you should probably be blaming yourselves for that predicament.

The Substitute culminated in a (horrid, in my opinion) mash-up of the timeless Singin’ in the Rain with Rihanna’s Umbrella. It’s not that these songs could never work together (Jamie Cullum is proof of that), but the method Glee chose was awkward: the whimsy of the musical is shoved, reluctantly, in between pounding bass and droning vocal refrain. I think it’s safe to say that my soul was crushed by the rendition, and it got me thinking.  Why does Will feel he has to take something iconic (and that he loves) and make it modern?  Why can’t the glee club respect the classic for what it is?  And seriously: where did all this ‘we never sing any new songs’ lament come from?

When Will handed out the sheet music to the classic, the club was non-receptive after enjoying the hip influence of substitute teacher Holly. So in order to please his club, Will asked Holly to help him “modernise” the song: resulting in the introduction of Ms Rihanna.  This all came about because of the glee club’s dismay at never being allowed to sing music that spoke to them. The main evidence of their argument seemed to lie on the apparent fact that Will only wanted them to sing Journey (which, admittedly, has some humorous ring of truth after their Regionals performance in Season One). It was all Will’s fault, they reasoned. He never listened to their modern song selections. But a little bit of number crunching suggests that the club has a slightly unsubstantiated hypothesis…

Proof (and graphs!) after the break.

They Say Maths and Music Go Together…

I scanned back through the list of songs Glee has performed up until The Substitute, making note of any song performed by New Directions, and noting the year of its release. Note that I say “perform” – I am referring exclusively to songs the club rehearses (with the intent of public performance) or actually performs on the show. I’m excluding personal numbers, weekly assignments and dream sequences (including the vague group numbers that often conclude episodes, such as Keep Holding On), as they do not have a direct effect on the club-as-a-whole’s purpose to entertain at school events and compete in championships.

The list of performance songs is below. Yes, the 2000s are dwarfed in comparison to the cumulative archaic songs, but when the songs are divided by who chose the music, an interesting trend is noted. (For any song that was not explicitly chosen by New Directions members, I have given deference to the song being Will’s choice – he is the choir-master, after all.)

And a graph! 

So it’s pretty obvious that the most recent decade trumps each prior decade in terms of the sheer number of performances – but this is far from the most interesting aspect. Of the four songs plucked from the Stone Age of the 1960’s, three of the songs are picked by the glee club. Even the majority of 1980’s songs (the group’s favourite decade to pick on) were decided on by the glee club.

When taken as a whole, the “old songs” are, however, dominated by Will’s choices – but it’s a close call. 42% of these historic numbers were chosen by the members of New Directions. For them to putting all the blame on Will is uncalled for. Sick of Journey? Well, you shouldn’t have kicked off the trend: Don’t Stop Believin’ was chosen by the club as their way of convincing Will not to quit teaching!

[[Fun aside: Only six musical theatre numbers have been considered performance material. Although in most cases, they’re relatively old musicals, the singling out of show-tune excess is a significant misjudgment – particularly when considering that only one of these numbers (Don’t Rain on My Parade) actually made it to the point of public performance, and most of the New Directions didn’t even have to participate in the piece.]]

The burden of fuddy-duddy ‘80s-rock-lover is not solely the teacher’s burden. Particularly when you consider that he is also responsible for most of the modern performances, too. For all their whining, you’d think New Directions had been threatened with expulsion should they dare to mention a modern artist, much less sing their music. Yet, of all the modern songs performed by the club, only a third were the direct choice of the club.

Yes, that’s right. Will is responsible for choosing over half of the modern numbers. So not only is the club blithely ignoring their own significant contribution to their oldies repetoire, they also fail to notice how much Will encourages the club to bust out some recent Top 10 Hits. How much more does he have to do to convince them that he’s down with performances of their generation’s music? Would he need to mash-up I Am the Very Model of a Modern-Major General with Sexy Back to convince them? Or would they just go back to bemoaning that they don’t get to sing anything relevant to them the next week, despite how often they resort to the classics to express their personal strife? A House is Not a Home, anyone?

Those fickle teenagers.

Scapegoat Will: Not Quite

This is a battle Shue just won’t be able to win. The kids continue to wipe their fingerprints off their own 20th Century song choices and plant the evidence in Will’s back-pocket. And they must strain their little larynxes so much when they sing some trendy modern music that they forget who transcribed their sheet music in the first place.

But Will isn’t entirely the victim here. Although he does approve of modern numbers (a third of his song choices originate in the Noughties), he undoubtedly tries too hard to be relevant, and perhaps this very fact is what negates his efforts in the minds of his students. For most of the classics, the spirit remains intact. Le Freak is campy, Somebody to Love is empowering, the Proud Mary wheelchair number has the frenzy of Tina Turner’s cover but with a clever twist.

But when it comes to the recent songs, Will’s attempt to implement modernity come off as forced. Toxic (while actually an extremely novel arrangement of the song, and Fosse-esque performance is ingenious) becomes awkward due to his decision to perform with the club.  When Crazy in Love and Umbrella are mashed-up with iconic musical numbers, the result is embarassing, taking leaps and bounds over the line that separates clever and try-hard.

Will might share the club’s desires to be cutting-edge, but he often doesn’t manage to let the kids fully enjoy the modern works in their own right. This may be cause for the kids’ frustration, but their failure to articulate that he doesn’t let them do their music the way they want to do their music is part of the reason their angst has continued – and will continue. And this still doesn’t make up for their own contributions to the archaic songlist.

Well, it seems we’ll just have to suffer through Will’s vain attempts to prove how hip-and-with-it he is and convince the glee club that recent music has a place in their set list. Yet at this rate, by this time, next year, we’ll have seen Der Hölle Rache / Hot N Cold:

Hell’s vengeance boils in my heart!
(You’re hot then you’re cold!)

Sigh.

——————————————————–

So, is my over-zealous analysis accurate (namely, did I omit any significant performance songs)?  Is Will doing more than his club gives him credit for, or is he still failing to give them what they want?  Have I been doing too much university work of late to the point of analysing Glee in an Excel graph?

Hmm…  This sounds familiar…  To loosely paraphrase, “Anything that bears the image of an Angel, becomes an Angel.”  In the recent Doctor Who episode The Time of Angels, the TARDIS team discover that the Weeping Angels – creepy creatures that turn to stone when something is looking at them – can propogate in photographs, video and even mental images.

So, the natural question…  What would happen in a Weegee/Weeping Angel staring contest?

Rinse and repeat.

What’s with all these Pennies? Surely it can’t be a coincidence that there are Pennies in three of my favourite pieces of celluloid. Can it only be happenstance that two Pennies lack a surname? Can it be one massive bazinga that all three are unattainable objects of affection? Can it be more than coincidence; can it be fate?

“Is there a point to this?” I hear you ask.

Probably not, but don’t tell me what I can’t do.  I’m answering these questions anyway.

The Pennies

Penny Number One is the long-lost love of the tortured Scotsman Desmond Hume in Lost.  The daughter of the mysterious Charles Widmore, this Penny is a class above the rest in terms of social status and in terms of her sheer determination.  Even after a heart-wrenching conflict, Penny spends several years of her life devoted to finding her beloved after he disappears during a sailing race around the world.  She enjoys yachting with Our Mutual Friend, defying her father and long-awaited phonecalls.

Penny Number Two is the girl-next-door-but-really-across-the-hall in The Big Bang Theory.  This plucky aspiring actress stands in sharp contrast to the nerdy Leonard and Sheldon, but she blends surprisingly well with our geeky friends, even – fleetingly – coming into a Facebook-affirmed relationship with Leonard.  She won’t get your arguments about whether Babylon 5 is actually worth watching, but she will get her way: which frequently involve a curious fashion sense and a severe lack of adhesive ducks.

Penny Number Three is the good-hearted volunteer who gets caught up in the worst love triangle imaginable in Doctor Horrible’s Sing-A-Long Blog.  As the shared affection of cocky local superhero Captain Hammer and our tragically heroic villain Doctor Horrible (aka. “Billy”), her life is thrown into chaos as their rivalry escalates.  It’s plain to see some kind of harmony is on the rise when she’s enjoying frozen yogurts, helping the homeless and maintaining her strictly regimented laundry schedule.

So now that the introductions are out of the way, let’s get cracking.

The Threepenny Opera

When creating characters, a lot of thought should go into names.  When chosen carefully, they can reveal a surprising amount about the character.  The very name “Penny” conjures a wealth of character traits.  The decidedly sing-song tonality (come on, linguistics students, help me out here) laden the name with associations to idyllic childhood.  Penny sits along side Bobby, Tommy, Shirley and Becky in the cast of a ’50s television series.  The name embodies a certain quality of innocence, and, lo and behold, our three Pennies all carry some combination of a) kindness, b) naïvety and c) perceived perfection.

A very sing-song sound, indeed.

Dr Horrible‘s Penny abounds with innocence and a moral centre - her understated demeanour coupled with Felicia Day’s startled eyes put her in the tried-and-true ‘superhero’s woman’ category, and her hopeful yearning for a better world, be it a new Caring Hands Homeless Shelter or even a simple signature from a fellow-launrdy-buddy, enhance the ingénue quality about her.  She’s not oblivious to trial and terror, but her optimistic approach to even the darkest situation (“It’s okay.  Captain Hammer will save us.“) display her innocent belief in the inherent goodness of humanity.  After all, most of her songs are thematically centred on unabashed hope:

“Even in the darkness every colour can be found
And every day of rain brings water flowing to things growing in the ground”

On the opposite end of the spectrum is Big Bang‘s Penny.  She’s hardly innocent as a porcelain doll, and her promiscuous, hard-partying habits are far from subtextual.  However, her vivacious and intrinsically sweet personality consistently shine through as her “true” character.  Additionally, her inexperience in the world of science and geekdom, through which the perspective of the show lies, compensates for her rebellious moments.  She’s naïve in terms of the main character’s field of knowledge (and undoubtedly stupid in Sheldon’s opinion), and this enhances her perceived “innocence.”

Whilst Lost‘s Penny doesn’t abound with emphasised inexperience, her incredible ability to show character strength after character strength paint her in an unwavering positive light.  She doesn’t stand for being mistreated by anyone – not Des, not her father – but her warm heart never fails to shine through.  Not to mention, her dedication to finding Desmond is impressive.  After all, whomever has the commitment to establish a Portuguese listening station in the hopes of locating a missing person is clearly a hopeful spirit.

All three are extraordinarily likable, and in the eyes of their suitors, they certainly embody the perfect woman.  Billy pines away for his Penny, Leonard longs for his Penny, Demond craves to be reunited with his Penny.  There has to be something about them that makes them worth the hours of effort required to steal their mail, sail around their world to impress their family and stalk their dates with your nemesis.

And herein lies, perhaps, the greatest connecting concept of all: all three Pennies are beyond the hero’s reach.  Penny, in all three cases, is a central love interest and much of the protagonist’s story involves attaining her; or, in more politically correct terms, winning her heart – and this is no small feat.  Billy must make a “real, audible connection” and get her out of the arms of Hammer, Leonard must fight debilitating stereotype and Desmond must face a disapproving father and three years on an island.  Penny is not sitting, ready and waiting, for the hero to whisk her off her feet.  Or if she is, she’s sitting on a chair that’s missing one leg on the top of an active volcano, guarded by a smoke monster, and surrounded by a lake of wonderflonium and one thousand roommate agreements.

The road to Penny is rocky and…

Wait a second.  Desmond was in the middle of the ocean, right?  For years, separated from his Penny.  He told her to wait for him, right?  Then a bunch of really wacky stuff happened, right?

Introducing Penny Number Four

 Lost loves its references, as evidenced by their easter-egg-named John Locke, Danielle Rousseau and Christian Shephard.  So it’s not out of the question to suggest the Penelope Widmore was, in fact, named for one of the most well-known Pennies of all literature:

Penny Number Four is a faithful wife to Odysseus in Greek and Roman myth, and notably in Homer’s Odyssey.  Despite her husband’s twenty-year absence, Penny staves off 108 suitors (ZOMG!  LOST NUMBERS!) to stay true to her one love.  She has wicked skills in shroud-weaving, shroud-unravelling and an admirable commitment to the cause.  And before you decry that she doesn’t count as a “real Penny,” I’m sure our manly sea-sailing Odysseus used an abbreviation now and then.

Desmond fought a one-eyed Russian. That counts as a cyclops, right?

So whilst Penny is doing her thing, Odysseus is fighting the Cyclops, Circe and the Sirens; fighting the long, hard road back to claim his love.  Although his Penny is classically painted as eternally faithful, her ambiguous decision to offer her hand to the suitor who could string her husband’s bow and her Athena-induced desire to “display herself to her suitors, fan their hearts, inflame them more” do throw a shadow of a doubt on the stability of their relationship.  She might be his – in much the same way Desmond’s Penny is his, or for a while, Leonard’s Penny is his - but that doesn’t mean things couldn’t change.  After all, everything’s coming up roses once Leonard and Penny become a couple, but their romance fractures spectacularly.  Meanwhile, Billy finally stumbles into the courage to talk to Penny (mission accomplished!), but moments later, she is saved (dubiously) by his arch-enemy and, in true comic book fashion, instantly becomes his girlfriend.  The road to Penny is rocky, but once the hero reaches the destination, they’re still in a field of boulders.

In Conclusion… More or Less…

So, thus far, we’ve concluded that our Pennies are often innocent and good-natured, embodying valuable moral traits such as faithfulness or a social conscience.  For this very reason, perhaps, they’re also primary love interests for our protagonists who must face trial and tribulation, often beyond the norm, to win the fair maiden’s heart.

Is the universe trying to form a unified theory of Penny?  I can’t say for sure, but if all Pennies would sing duets about cheesecake and polar bears, I wouldn’t complain.

[So... Do my thoughts on fictional Pennies hold?  Are they all wrapped in innocence and so much goodness it hurts?  Are their love interests always subjected to epic trials for their heart?  What's the deal with not letting Penny have a surname!?]

Profanity in music.  Frankly, I don’t see its purpose.  It’s base and crude, and is usually avoidable.  It’s lazy writing, and I am most disappointed when my favourite bands, with marvellous lyricists, resort to the effs.  I know many people consider profanity’s usage to be valid in different circumstances, so it’s only fair that I look at why I dislike cursing in songs where the usage varies.

Just to be clear, the songs I’m going to be looking at are all from artists I really admire.  Their music and their lyrics usually astound me, but the few exceptions here and there do irk me – particularly since the music itself in the following songs is fantastic.  Also, fair warning, all the videos I link to will obviously contain coarse language.  So here we go:

Pointless Usage: Walcott, Vampire Weekend

Walcott, fish the women from Wellfleet
Fish the bears out in Provincetown
Heed my words and take flight.

 There is not a single reason I can think of to qualify the use of profanity in this song.  The lyrics are a plea to a character named Walcott to flee Cape Cod and escape the impending, eponymous weekend of vampiric mayhem.  Despite this, it’s a quite upbeat, energetic piece, and such coarse language is jarringly out of place.  It is quite clear from the preceeding lyrics that Walcott really needs to get out of Cape Cod – resorting to such crude instructions is unnecessary.

And that’s omitting the inherent violence in the phrasing.  This is the only time that people are referenced as something to leave behind, and the choice to use profanity certainly has some questionable undertones.  Obviously, the song isn’t using the eff word literally, but in its more figurative sense, but that doesn’t entirely excuse it.  The word is harsh and purposefully derogatory, and is at its most unpleasant in the “eff you” context.  Using it so blatantly, and so casually, in this song completely undermines it – or at least, makes it unpleasant to listen to until that stanza has passed.

Contradictory Usage: Grace Under Pressure, Elbow

We’re in love, so fish you.
(repeat)

This is yet another song where the use of profanity baffles me.  The song is a sweet love ditty with musical glory that lends an epic, uplifting quality.  It is simple and yet elegant, calming yet empowering.  And then it reaches the chorus.  A recording of the crowd at an Elbow concert shout in unison, “We’re in love, so fish you.”  The unity and power of hundreds of voices gives the repeating mantra an anthemic tone and influence.  I want to join in – I feel compelled to add my voice to the army of chanting fans.  But then I check myself, and the words themselves, and it turns the uplifting song into an awkward experience.

It is the context, though, that really puzzles me.  To pair one of the nicest phrases in the English language (“We’re in love”) with one of the most unpleasant (“So fish you”) is bizarre.  The sweetness of the declaration of adoration is erased by the curse.  Instead of elevating the love song to a level of transcendence, it debases it to the place of those upstart ‘punks’ who hate society and all that it stands for.  It puts the song in the mouths of the ungrateful, which leaves a bitter taste on my tongue.

I’ve seen comments on the interwebs discussing how liberating the chorus is.  It exemplifies the freedom bequeathed by love – no matter what you may think, I love this person and I always will.  I have no objection to this concept.  It’s a tried and true narrative trope – we have it in Shakespeare, in fairy tales, in modern literature.  It is a vaild and usually applaudable statement.  Yet surely Guy Garvey (the band’s lyricist) could have found a more poetic way to say this.

Glorified Usage: Little Lion Man, Mumford & Sons

It was not your fault but mine.
And it was your heart on the line.
I really fished it up this time,
Didn’t I, my dear?

By far the most aggressive usage of the word on my brief list, I again found it uncomfortable to listen to the song.  Yet again I wanted to chant the chorus, but I was even more turned off by the sharpness of the phrase.  Musically engaging and inherently catchy (yet heavy and dark), Mumford & Sons’ angsty song of frustration certainly creates an appropriate mood for the use of the word.  In contrast to the decidedly upbeat nature of Walcott and the whistful dreaminess of Grace Under Pressure, Little Lion Man suits the ferocity of the eff.  It almost seems appropriate.

Yet the more I think about it, the more I feel that the song glorifies the word.  Its prominent placement in the chorus and the emphasis imparted on it musically make it clear that the songwriter wants you to notice it.  The folk-influenced melody locks in your brain and the stressed phrase sticks.  Instead of mulling on the overarching concept of the song – remorse at a relationship-endangering error – the listener focuses on the phrase of utter self-hatred.

The word is turned upon the narrator – he uses it to describe his own actions.  It’s harsh and brutal – perhaps apt for the emotion.  But the overt emphasis on the word makes it the centrepiece.  It detracts from the overall impact of the song by being too powerful in itself, and yet with every repetition of the chorus, the listener becomes desensitised to the curse and it becomes just another word.  Perhaps if it had been used sparingly in a verse it may have had the desired effect of showing just how furious the narrator is at his own stupidity, without turning the chorus into a near-celebration of the profanity itself.

‘Last Resort’ Usage: Some Riot, Elbow

‘Cause it’s breaking my heart, it’s breaking my heart,
And it’s breaking my heart to pour like the rain.
Brother of mine, don’t run with those fishers,
When will my friend start singing again?

Of the songs I’ve discussed, this is the one which I feel most appropriately uses the eff word, although I still ardently wish it didn’t.  This song of angst over a dear friend’s succumb to alcoholism is an elegy of despair.  It’s the last call, and hope dwindles.  Whereas Little Lion Man uses profanity to emphasise the angst, Some Riot seems to include the word almost as an afterthought, buried in a breath in the middle of the verse.  It doesn’t place the word as the pinnacle of the emotion that is expressed bombastically.  It is an anguished last resort – I’ve tried and tried to reason with you, but I’ve run out of things to say.

I personally feel that if profanity is ever to be given into, it should be used sparingly.  Only then does it retain its purpose.  If a curse comes from the mouth of a clean-lipped person, it has all the more effect.  And this is the sensation I get from this song – the melancholy music and the quiet lyrics give the impression that the word is deserved.  Perhaps it helps that it only appears once.

And yet, I still think the song would be just as effective, if not more, with the exclusion of cussing.  The song is one of the most lyrical of Elbow’s songs and contains one of the most beautifully poetic lines I have ever come across: Beautiful, quivering, chivalrous shambles.  The words just flow off the tongue, and in context of the opening verse, paint the tone of the song in an instant.  If such poetry can appear at the beginning, why can’t it continue?  With the establishment of metaphor, surely a more poetic phrase could have been devised to beg the dear friend to turn away from the drink and the drunkards.

In Conclusion…

In all four of these songs, the reasoning behind the usage of profanity is clear.  They are all logical arguments.  Yet they do not convince me that the intention justifies the means.  In all of these cases, I believe the omission of the eff word would not harm the meaning of the song.  Surely there are some less attention-seeking, less shock-value synonyms out there.

But what do you think?  Does profanity have its place in music?  Does it achieve what other phrases in the thesaurus can not?  Do you believe Mumford & Sons, Elbow and Vampire Weekend have made appropriate use of cusses?  Swear by your opinions in the comments!

I recently finished reading Robert A. Heinlein’s sci-fi classic The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.  It’s a brilliant novel, intricate and beautifully told, and I would recommend it to anyone with the slightest interest in science fiction.  Set in 2076, where the Earth’s moon (Luna) has been settled as a penal colony, the novel follows the Lunar revolution to gain freedom from the near-tyranny of Terra.  The revolution is orchestred meticulously by the wise Professor Bernardo de la Paz, computer technician Manuel Garcia O’Kelly-Davis and the rebellious Wyoming Knott with the essential aid of the moon’s supercomputer (affectionately known as Mike) who has developed consciousness akin to a human being.

There are an abundance of topics for discussion: the politics and strategies of the rebellion itself, the comment on society’s structure, themes of humanity, and so forth.  But what I was instantly intrigued by was the language of the novel itself.  I’ve avoided spoilers, so read ahead even if you haven’t read the book.

Narrated by Mannie, the whole book is written in the language of the fictional era, using its grammar and slang constantly.  The word ‘the’ is consistently ommited, as are some indefinite articles and other brief, ‘filler’ words.  The sentence structure is unusual, rearranged so as to eliminate unnecessary sounds while still getting the meaning across.  This is no doubt a result of the fact that Luna was originally colonised as a prison, and lesser education would have had a direct influence on the development of the language and slang. 

I was struck by how quickly the language itself established the storyworld.  Heinlein’s imagination is extensive, and his detail of the Lunar culture and all its quirks is astounding – one could imagine he left out whole aspects of the world he devised when it came to writing the book.  But it was not these details that truly gave me the insight into life on Luna.  As much as I admired his breadth of creativity, I sometimes found the minute insights a bit too much or intrusive to the storytelling.  Alternately, once I got the hang of the strange grammar, it never bothered me.

Words are indicative of our personality and culture, and our way of using them only exemplifies this further.  By the way someone speaks, you can generally determine whether they are well-educated or street-wise, denizen or visitor.  It should be no surprise then that writing in a distinctive voice would assist the establishment of the setting.  The spartan prose of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road reflects the emptiness of his post-apocalyptic environment, Holden Caufield’s narration in The Catcher in the Rye is as spontaneous as his adolescent attitude, and so forth.

But in these cases, it is more the style of writing that sets the tone – the placement of words, the choice of colloquialisms.  There is still a familiarity within the foreignness.  But when whole grammatical rules are turned on their head, as they are in Harsh Mistress, it forces the reader to dive head-first into the imagined world.  There is no way that Mannie’s sentences could be mistaken for anything of this world – they wholly belong to the novel’s Luna. 

It is a property of the setting, just like the interplanetary catapault or Mannie’s collection of robotic arms.  If those objects were corporeal, and we could see them and touch them, they would make Luna, 2076 a tangible, believable, real place.  And the language has the same effect.

The language, the grammar and the slang shapes the storyworld not only because it is “proof” of the ”reality” of the storyworld, but also because it is the corridor through which we enter Heinlein’s story.  The politics, the society, the characters are important and we invest ourselves in them.  But the words, sentences and paragraphs are inherent to our experience with the story – and its environment.  We cannot discover the story without them, and it is through interaction with them that we enter the world.

The language is how we define Luna.

I know that Burgess’ A Clockwork Orange utilises a similar technique, with the story narrated in the invented slang-heavy language Nadsat, but as I haven’t read it or seen the film, I can’t make a comparison.  If you have, I’d love to hear what you have to say about how the language affects the perception of the story.

And in general, is their any benefit to shaping a unique language with which to tell a story?  Does it alienate or engage?  Have I forgotten a key literary text that invests heavily in invented discourse?  Sound off in the comments!