7 serious problems with the Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer television special

As well as the Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer television special holds up after 50 years (I still adore it), there are admittedly some serious problems with the special in relation to modern day norms that I noticed while watching the special with my family last night.

1.  Yukon Cornelius carries a gun and a knife throughout the episode.

While I think that the gun (and probably the knife) are poor choices for a children’s television special, the savvy viewer is also left wondering why Yukon Cornelius doesn’t simply shoot the Abominable Snow Monster that is about to devour his friends.

2.  There is massive, pervasive, long-term, adult-sponsored bullying of Rudolph by Santa Claus, Comet and his many reindeer friends.

3.  Rudolph’s father, Donner, at various points in the special rejects his son based upon his physical appearance and inflicts serious psychological abuse upon him.

4. Donner’s relationship to his wife is overtly misogynistic. She barely speaks throughout the special, is told by her husband to stay home rather than engaging in “man’s work” and doesn’t have a say in the naming of her son. 

5.  Although female and male reindeer grow equal sized antlers in real life, the female reindeer in the special are capable of only growing tiny nubs instead of full sided antlers, which strikes me as fairly sexist and consistent with the misogyny that is pervasive throughout the special. 

6.  The female rag doll on the Island of Misfit Toys has no discernible misfit problem, leaving the viewer to wonder why she is on the island at all.

Incidentally, the problem was revealed in 2007 (43 years after it’s original broadcast) on NPR's Wait Wait… Don't Tell Me! when the producer of the special, Arthur Rankin, said Dolly's problem was psychological, caused by being abandoned by her mistress and suffering depression from feeling unloved.

Even if this were true, it doesn’t exactly fit a children’s holiday special.

7.  Our hero’s solution to the Abominable Snow Monster of the North is to concuss him with a boulder and rip his teeth out of his mouth with a pair of pliers while he is unconscious, thereby eliminating his ability to eat small, woodland creatures. 

In a more enlightened age, perhaps the Abominable Snow Monster could have been angry because of a aching cavity or periodontal disease, and once taken care of by Hermey, the elf who wants to be a dentist, he reverts to a more kind and gentle nature.

This would be more humane, more aligned to Hermey’s desire to help people through dentistry and considerably more child-friendly than yanking out the monster’s teeth while he is unconscious.

 

Megyn Kelly of “the very powerful” Fox News is an expert on Santa Claus according to Megyn Kelly. She’s also despicable, at least based upon her non-apology.

“For all you kids watching at home, Santa just is white.”

Wow.

Though the Santa Claus who I grew up with was white, I have seen more than enough African-American Santas to know that his race is malleable depending upon culture.

Regardless of his country of origin and the race of the first Saint Nicholas,  Santa is a make-believe character.

Do we really think that the Haitian version of Santa Claus needs to be white?

Of course, these stupid words (along with the assertion that Jesus was also white) come from a white, affluent, blonde women who is speaking for four other white, presumably affluent people on the issue of race and Santa Claus.

Only on Fox News could you find four white people debate the opinion of an African American writer and her feelings towards a white Santa.

Fox couldn’t find one African American to weigh in on the matter?

Not one?

When I see journalism like this, I always remind myself of these facts:

• The median age of the Fox News viewer is over 65.
• Over the past five years, Fox’s average number of viewers has fallen from 557,000 to 379,000.
• Fox News is speaking to an elderly demographic.
• Fox New is running out of viewers because they are dying.
• Fox News will soon be irrelevant. 

Megyn Kelly has since issued a not-apology in which she claimed that her remarks in this “light-hearted segment” were “tongue in cheek, and that the entire segment on her “very powerful news network” was done in the spirit of humor and was not meant to be serious at all.

I actually think her not-apology is more offensive than her initial statement. It’s like the high school bully who calls you names for a week and then claims that he was just joking when the teacher overhears his remarks.

Possibly illogical and misplaced anger about non-disabled actors

Is it wrong for me to be annoyed, angered, even outraged at the idea of a non-wheelchair bound actor performing in a wheelchair bound role?

I think it might be, but I’m annoyed just the same.

Elysha and I are watching an HBO comedy called Hello Ladies, and there’s a wheelchair-bound character in the show being portrayed by a non-disabled actor.

I can’t help but think:

Why not find an actor who’s in a wheelchair to perform that role?

Apparently the same situation exists in the television show Glee. The actor playing the wheelchair-bound student in that show is actually a professional dancer.

Should I be angry about this?

I don’t think so. But I am.

I don’t think my anger is logical. I don’t think it’s justified in any way. An actor should be able to perform any role. They are, after all, actors. Their job is to pretend to be something they are not.

Still, it annoys me.

Extend your story beyond its original screen

If you saw the film Gravity, you’ll love this short film that depicts the complete conversation between Aningaaq, a polar fisherman, and Ryan, the astronaut stranded 200 miles above him.

In the actual film, we see Ryan speaking to Aningaaq, but because Aningaaq doesn’t speak English and subtitles are not provided, we don’t get a complete picture of what is being said, and we never see him.

I think film and television should do more of this. That’s easy for me to say, of course, since I’m not footing the bill for any of these extras. “Aningaaq” cost almost $100,000, and I can’t imagine that the producers will ever recoup that cost.

Still, extending your story beyond the confines of its original screen is a great way to keep it alive in the viewers mind.

The occasionally brilliant, oftentimes annoyingly stupid How I Met Your Mother has done this exceptionally well over the years. The producers have created dozens of fake websites mentioned by the characters on the show, and Neil Patrick Harris’s character, Barney Stinson, even wrote a book (that my wife and I purchased in audio form).

They also extend the show using video. In one of the best examples, it’s revealed in an episode that Cobie Smulder’s character, Robin, is a former teen music star from Canada. Her video is briefly revealed on the show but the full video, plus another, can be found on YouTube.  

It’s one of the best sitcom episodes that I’ve ever seen, partly because of the way the show extended the story into the real world.

Sadly, the subsequent episode was utter banality.

I hated it, then I loved it.

For the first minute or so of this Jimmy Kimmel segment, I hated it. I thought it was cruel and exploitive.

By the third minute I thought it was hilarious.

By the fifth minute I was willing to do the same to my own child.

I have no idea how or why this dramatic shift in opinion happened. Perhaps the gag is simply too funny to be thought of as cruel. Maybe the pain is worth the pleasure. Maybe I was simply being too sensitive in the first minute.

I’m not sure.

As I know is that it’s gut-wrenchingly hilarious.

My daughter’s first manuscript

My daughter can only form a handful of letters from the alphabet, but she started writing her first book after being inspired by the television show Max and Ruby.

Television promoting the written word. Who knew?

In a strange turn of events, however, she insisted on writing the words herself and asked me to draw the pictures.

She clearly doesn’t understand her father’s skill set at all.

 

The Today Show has cornered the market on young, white, blond, female kidnapping victims. You should stop watching.

The Today Show did a segment yesterday entitled Hannah’s Story.

As soon as I heard the promo for the segment at the opening of the show, I knew that the kidnapping victim would be young, white and probably blond.

Not surprising, I was right.

My wife heard me shout at the television in protest, and she argued that this was a national news story worthy of coverage. Even though I had yet to hear about Hannah and her presumably tragic kidnapping through my usual news sources, I believed her.

I’m sure that the mainstream media outlets covered this story closely, and perhaps justifiably so. I’m sure that The Today Show garnered millions of viewers for the segment.  

But I also don’t care. I refused to listen to a single word of Hannah’s Story.

This may come as a surprise to you, especially if you get your news primarily through sources like The Today Show and network news in general, but people are kidnapped in America every day, and some of them are not young.

Some of them are not female.

Some of them are not white.

Some of them are not blond.

Even though you can probably name half a dozen young, white, probably blond girls who have been kidnapped and murdered over the last decade,  there are African-American, Latino and Asian girls kidnapped and murdered all the time. Boys, too. And older people. Unattractive people, even. It happens every day. And in even greater numbers than young, white, blond girls.

But can you name even one?

Can you name a single African-American kidnapping victim from any point in American history?

For every Chandra Levy, Laci Peterson, Natalee Holloway, Taylor Behl, Elizabeth Smart or Jaycee Dugard (names that even I know despite my purposeful refusal to pay attention to these stories), can you name even one non-white kidnapping victim?

Or one male kidnapping victim?

Or a kidnapping victim over the age of 30?

I don’t know how other mainstream news sources cover kidnappings, but The Today Show has been specializing in young, white, oftentimes blond kidnapping victims for years, and they suck.

It’s a disgrace. I refuse to watch. You should, too.

Extremely susceptible to advertising

My daughter is four year-old and has watched almost no commercial television in her life. Other than the occasional sporting event or a snippet of news in the morning, we never watch television in the presence of our children, and our children only watch PBS or similar, commercial free, educational programming.

Occasionally, though, one of these shows are sponsored by a product, and that product will air a commercial just prior to the show. My wife and I have discovered that perhaps because she has been exposed to so little advertising in her life, Clara is extremely susceptible to the messages contained in commercials. She has criticized our choice of stain remover, requested a new brand of diaper for her brother and become fascinated with the idea of glow-in-the-dark overnight pull-ups.

Yesterday, she asked me this:

"Dad, the commercial said that Wittle Weeg moms can fight tough stains. What’s a Wittle Weeg mom, and do you think my mommy can fight tough stains, too?"

It might be time to expose her to a steady diet of advertising, in order to inoculate her from its influence before she learns to read and trips to the super market become impossible.

 

Thrilled (and possibly giddy as a schoolgirl) for a friend

ESPN's "This Is SportsCenter" is among the handful of classic sports ad campaigns of all time. Launched in 1995 by Wieden and Kennedy, the campaign—originally inspired by the mockumentary This Is Spinal Tap—has become a cult hit for anyone who follows sports on ESPN.

“Have you seen the latest ‘This is SportsCenter’ commercial?” has been a refrain often heard amongst me and my friends for years.

The most recent “This is SportsCenter” commercial may be my favorite of all time. It features tennis champion Rafael Nadal, but more importantly, it features my friend and SportsCenter anchor Bram Weinstein.

Knowing Bram’s humble, low key nature, I’m probably more excited about his appearance in this commercial than he is. For me, these commercials have been a fixture in my life for almost 20 years. They have been a source of hilarity and genius. Only the best and brightest have had the opportunity to appear in them.

Perhaps when you’re immersed in the industry, these commercials seem slightly less glamorous and awe-inspiring, but for someone like me on the outside, the idea that a friend could one day appear in one of these commercials is absolutely thrilling. Unbelievable, really. 

And he’s great in it, too.

Our kids don’t see us watch television. It wasn’t planned, but I’m still taking credit for it.

Sometimes parents read the research on a subject and make informed parenting decisions. Other times they unintentionally, accidentally make a great parenting decision and, if they are like me, take credit for it anyway.

When it comes to television, my wife and I were well aware of the research indicating that television viewing should be restricted before the age of two, and we adhered to this policy fairly closely with our daughter and are doing the same with our son.

But it turns out that the amount of television that our children see us watch has an enormous impact on the amount of television they will watch in the future, too. 

According to a new study published in the journal Pediatrics, what’s most important in children’s viewing habits is how much TV (or DVDs or online entertainment) parents watch.

The amount of TV the parents watched predicted the kids’ screen time, and this association was even stronger than that linked to parental restrictions on TV viewing, where the TVs were placed in the home, or how much television parents and children watched together.

“We are wired as children to pick up from our environment what we observe quicker than what we are told,” says Dr. Gopal Chopra, a neurosurgeon, associate professor at the Duke University Fuqua School of Business and founder of PINGMD, a medical app company. “Children are mirrors and we must be vigilant of the impact of our behavior, including the exposure to “glass” (technology screens), as they will know it to be OK, and any discipline will fall on deaf ears.”

I was sitting next to my daughter as I read this report. She was doing a jigsaw puzzle and humming quietly. I turned to her and said, “Clara, when do Mommy and Daddy watch TV?”

She thought about it for a moment, continuing to manipulate puzzle pieces as she did, and finally said, “You should watch TV, Daddy. Maybe you can watch TV with me.”

My heart soared.

With the exception of football, the occasional morning news program and the moments when Elysha or I sit with her and watch a show like Word World or The Wonder Pets,  it occurred to me that Clara (and now Charlie) have never seen us watch television. The viewing of scripted television programs like Breaking Bad and Mad Men is done long after our kids have gone to bed.

Just like we planned.

Not really, but again, I’m taking credit.

On a potentially negative side note, Clara has almost only watched PBS programming and this, in combination with our lack of television viewing, has left her completely unexposed to commercial television and (we recently discovered) highly susceptible to television advertising. While many of the commercials that air during football games and news programs actually frighten her, she recently went to Elysha asking which stain stick we use on the laundry, explaining that the brand she had seen on television is perfect for baseball grass stains. When Elysha showed her our preferred stain stick, she complained that it wasn’t the right one and needed to be replaced immediately.

I’m not sure what the research is on the effects of underexposure to television advertising, but I’m a little worried that we’ve created a monster when it comes to her susceptibility to marketing.

Network television turns a baseball fan into the butt of a joke. Is this okay?

I’m torn.

On the one hand, I love this video. There is nothing better than watching a muscle-bound man struggle with someone so inconsequential.

All those hours spent lifting iron has apparently done this gorilla no good.

But on the other hand, this also strikes me as akin to the cowards who take surreptitious photographs of strangers and post them on social media in order to mock them.

I suppose that when you enter a major league baseball park, you acknowledge that your image may appear on television, but I’m not sure that this acknowledgement extends to being made the butt of a joke that will be viewed by millions of people in real time and online. 

What if he had been picking his nose? Or arguing with his wife? Or crying after receiving word that his dog had died?

Would it be okay then?

I feel for this guy. He was just trying to help.

Still, it’s hilarious.

Beauty pageants must end now.

I would like to propose that every man, woman and child in the United States sign a pledge refusing to participate in or watch any beauty pageant like the Miss USA Pageant ever again.

Pageants are bizarre and awful. Teams of  judges stare at young women in ball gowns and swimsuits and score them on their physical appearance. In the case of the most recent Miss USA Pageant, the judges included an NFL player, a professional wrestler and at least three reality television stars, so the choice of judges is apparently based upon the probability of increasing viewership for the telecast.

Then contestants are asked to answer randomly chosen public policy questions, which result in embarrassing, incoherent, inexplicably stupid moments like this one from last week’s Miss USA Pageant:

Not as bad as the South Carolinian from the Miss Teen USA Pageant in 2007, but still pretty stupid.

What the hell are we doing?

As the father of a little girl, I’m horrified and disgusted that she will be growing up in a world in which these pageants still exist and are broadcast on national television in primetime.

What kind of person even watches a show like this?

The process of judging young women on their physical appearance is disgusting. The inherent sexism behind the existence of these pageants is appalling. I can’t begin to imagine why a parent would want to involve his or her daughter in the pageant process. 

If we could all agree to never involve ourselves or our children in the pageant process and (more importantly) look away when they air these vile programs on television, then the cattle calls of pretty women in swimsuits strutting across a stage so that a football players and reality television stars can assess their curves will eventually come to an end.

I don’t love Star Trek, but this most recent Star Trek TELEVISION SHOW is amazing.

I have never been a huge Star Trek fan. The writers of Star Trek had the entire universe at their fingertips, and yet again and again they placed their characters in places like the Old West, Nazi Germany and the goddamn holodeck.

I don’t want to see cowboys and Germany soldiers. I want to “new life and new civilizations.”

That said, a new web series called Star Trek Continues is impressive.

Star Trek Continues takes up where the original series left off, even creating a vignette that takes place moments after the final scene of “Turnabout Intruder”—the final episode of the original series, a clever way of tying it all together. Two other shorts are available as well. And now they’ve released their first full-length episode: “Pilgrim of Eternity”.

The best thing about this series, and especially this full length episode, is that it’s specifically created to appear as if it were made in the 1960’s. Not only are the sets identical to the original show, but the music, the sound effects and even the makeup and lighting are identical to James T. Kirk’s original Enterprise.

Obviously the actors have changed, but the casting director did a terrific job of finding people who matched their 1960’s counterparts well.

The episode is good enough, and I’m happy to report that Kirk and Spock don’t travel back the the Great Depression in order to solve a mystery, but I had more fun just examining this new piece of film constructed to appear fifty years old. 

The Office finale: Near perfect

I love The Office.

I loved the British version of the show, and I loved the slightly less brutish American version even more.

It ended last week, and I am sad. I will miss those characters deeply.

It occurred to me that Elysha and I started watching the show at the onset of our relationship. Jim, Pam and Dwight have been with us for as long as we have been together.

I don’t think I have ever been as emotionally invested in the relationship between two television characters as I have been with Jim and Pam. It bordered on obsessive at times. I’d find myself sitting in a restaurant, enjoying dinner with friends, and suddenly I’d be worried that Jim and Pam might never get together. This year I was legitimately angry with the writers of the show for introducing discord into their relationship.

It was bizarre. I often wondered why I cared so much about them.

During this series finale, I realized why.

In one of the many memorable lines from the final episode, Creed Bratton says:

It all seems so very arbitrary. I applied for a job at this company because they were hiring. I took a desk at the back because it was empty. But no matter how you get there or where you end up, human beings have this miraculous gift to make that place home. 

A minute later, Jim says:

Even if I didn’t love every minute of it, everything I have I owe to this job.

Then I realized it.

I am Jim.

Elysha is Pam.

That is why I care so much so much about them.

Like Creed said, my marriage to Elysha seems so arbitrary.

I chose to work at my school because they were hiring. I had already been hired to work in Newington and was scheduled to sign my contract the following day, but a principal in West Hartford called and asked me to come in for an interview. I was mowing the lawn, and because I was nearly finished with the front yard, I thought, “What the hell?” Might as well get some more interview experience.”

I had a terrible interview. I didn’t take it as seriously as I should. I immediately regretted everything that I said once I realized that this school was a perfect fit for me, but somehow I got the job anyway.

Elysha chose our school three years later after nearly deciding to work in Farmington instead. Like Pam, she was engaged to be married when she arrived at our school. I was newly single. We became friends first, and after Elysha called off her engagement and we both dated other people for about a year, we finally came together.

Much like Jim and Pam.

Almost exactly like Jim and Pam.

Even if I didn’t love every minute of it, I, like Jim, owe everything I have to my job. My wife. My children. Even my writing career. Had I not enjoyed the support and encouragement of Elysha, I might still be writing the first few chapters of failed books.

I might have quit by now.

Unlike Jim, I love my job most of the time, but I would not be married to the most amazing woman in the world and have these two perfect little children had we not come together as seemingly arbitrarily as Creed described it.

No wonder why I suffered so when Jim and Pam were apart. I saw us in them.

Except for the fact that it signals the end of the series, I loved the season finale of The Office. It was damn near perfect.

Other excellent decisions from the season finale included:

A limited role for Steve Carell’s character, who left the show three years ago. It was right that Michael Scott return, but it was also right that he not be the focus of the episode. He was gone too long to return as the star. At it’s heart, The Office has always been about Jim and Pam and Dwight anyway. It was right to keep the attention directed on them.

Actually, I think the show has always been about Pam more than anyone else, so it was fitting that the last voice we heard was Pam’s.

I also loved the ending for almost every character.

Toby gains a moment of mediocre acceptance. Perfect.

Dwight becomes manager, marries Angela, and declares that Pam is his best friend. Perfect.

Stanley is retired and divorced. Perfect.

Andy is off to Cornell, a place where he always belonged, after delivering this brilliant line:

I wish there was a way to know that you’re in the good old days before you’ve actually left them.

Perfect.

Darryl is leaving the place that he despised for so many years for a much brighter future, and yet he finds himself inexplicably lamenting his departure. Perfect.

Phyllis, Erin and Oscar remain in The Office, as they should. Perfect.

I didn’t love the idea of Creed being arrested, but for those less savvy Office fans, it was great to let them in on the secret that Creed Bratton was playing himself for the entire series. Creed Bratton was a musician in the popular 1960’s band The Grass Roots. I learned about this after listening to Creed perform a version of Spinnin’ and Wheelin’ in an episode years ago. The producers of The Office never concealed this fact, but unless you did your homework, you would never have known that Creed Bratton was a real person operating in a fictional world.

I thought that the ending for Kelly, Ryan and Nellie was a misstep. While it was fine for Kelly and Ryan to come together for what will most assuredly be another failed fling, the idea that Kelly would leave her husband for Ryan, who would then abandon his baby to Kelly’s husband, a pediatric doctor, and then that doctor would pass the baby off to Nellie with the suggestion that she call child protective services, and then Nellie would illegally adopt the child and take him back to Europe was too much to believe, even for The Office.

Not a satisfying or decent end to any of those characters.   

But other than that mistake, it was a perfect series finale. Pam’s decision to take her painting of the office with her was excellent. We all want that painting. We all want to take The Office with us. Keep it close. And it was a perfect final nod to Michael, the person for whom the series centered upon for so long.

The series ended with the words of Pam Beasley. Her words not only spoke to the nature of the show and the characters who populated it, but they also spoke to Pam herself, the simple receptionist who won the heart of Jim and so many viewers over the years:

There’s a lot of beauty in ordinary things. Isn’t that kind of the point?

Perfect.

Spock versus Spock

I am not exactly a Trekkie. I’ve seen all the Star Trek films and many of the television series, but I have serious problems with the show.

That said, this is one of the best commercials that I have ever seen. 

Television-free news

In the recent Boston Marathon bombing and subsequent death and apprehension of the alleged bombers, we did not turn on our television once. All of my news came via Twitter, which provided links to stories from reputable news organizations like The New York Times, Slate, The Daily Beast and more, as well as links to relevant video coverage.

Not once did we even think about turning on the actual television.

Elysha first learned about the bombing via Facebook on her phone. She called me, since I was supposed to be in Boston that evening at a Moth event, and I immediately turned to Twitter for updates.

In fact, I can’t remember the last time we turned on the television for news, and I like to think that I am a well informed person. I am well aware of the current political machinations in our country, as well as the events taking place overseas. In fact, I often find myself explaining current events to friends and family. In many ways, I am a news junkie.

Yet I do not rely on the television or a traditional newspaper to inform me. Almost every bit of my news comes via my curated Twitter stream and the podcasts that listen to weekly. This doesn’t mean that I’m not reading or watching news reports from traditional media outlets, but I am only receiving the reports that my Twitter stream deems worthy.

My news is therefore absent the ceaseless weather updates, the pointless banter between news anchors, the stories about car accidents and localized power outages, the human interest stories involving unexpected wildlife in the backyard, and best of all, the YouTube videos that I saw three days before traditional media realized it might be a story.

Nor do I think that I am an exception. I expect that many, many people now receive their news this way. If I’m correct, what will the traditional news outlets do in twenty years when their aging audiences begin to die off and no one turns on the television at 7:00 AM or 6:00 PM anymore for news?

Fraggle Rock is obsessed with death

I bought the complete box set of Fraggle Rock for my wife last year. We both loved the show as children, and we will presumably introduce our children to it at some point.

In truth, I couldn’t remember why I liked the show so much as a child. I’ve never been one for musical numbers performed by puppets.

But after seeing this, I understand why.

Hannah Horvath versus Walter White: Sometimes it has nothing to do with sex.

If you don’t watch Breaking Bad and Girls, this post will probably be a little too inside baseball for you, but I can’t help but respond to a tweet I saw earlier this week (when I blog was down) by writer Jessica Grose.

She tweeted:

Thinking about how way more people talk about how "awful" Hannah Horvath is than how awful Walter White is, despite his body count and meth

I can’t get over how short sighted this sentiment is.

The difference between Walter White and Hannah Horvath could not be more stark.

Walter White is a meth cook and a murderer, but when we meet Walter White, he is a chemistry teacher dying of cancer who engages in his illegal trade in order to keep his family solvent upon his death. Throughout the series, he proves himself to be a loyal friend, a trustworthy business partner, a dedicated husband, a loving father, a hard worker and an incredibly brave man.

Yes, he is producing a substance that ruins people’s lives, and yes, he is responsible for the deaths of a handful of people (all bad guys), but his motivations are as pure as the drug that he sells.

We are supposed to like Walter White. The viewer can’t help but root for him. He is unselfish, courageous, resourceful and honorable. We like Walter White because he is a good bad guy. He is an anti-superhero. He is a man who has not allowed his circumstances to dictate his fate.

When we meet Hannah Horvath, we learn that she has been living off her parents’ credit card for her entire life and has made no honest attempt to earn a living on her own. She claims to be pursuing a writing career, but the viewer quickly learns that she had made no serious effort in this regard. She is the classic example of someone who does not like writing but likes the idea of “having written.” She is self-centered, narcissistic, attention seeking and directionless. She ends friendships over trivial matters and requires (and often begs) for frequent rescue. She tends to ignore or discount her friends’ problems while acting overly dramatic about her own.

Hannah Horvath is “awful” because she demonstrates almost no concern for anyone save herself.

Don’t get me wrong: I like Hannah Horvath. She is flawed, as is Walter White, as are all of us. She is struggling to find her path at a time when many of us also felt aimless and uncertain. She is often awful, but so are the rest of us. I like Hannah Horvath, but I would not want to be her friend. At this point in her life, she is focused primarily on herself.

Walter White, for all his criminal activity, repeatedly risks his life on behalf of his family and business partner. He’s a bad guy, but he’s not “awful.”

The reaction of viewers in regards to these to characters is not an issue of gender or sex or age. It’s simply a difference of motivation.

Hannah is most often motivated by her own self interest.

Walter White is most often motivated by his concern for others.

As a result, the viewer finds him less awful.

I suspect both Vince Gilligan (the creator of Breaking Bad) and Lena Dunham (the creator of Girls) would agree.

Football is better than fashion, even if both are inane.

On Sunday night, my wife turned on the television half an hour before the Academy Awards were to begin to watch the fashion on the red carpet.

Less than two minutes later she turned it off.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“It’s just so stupid,” she said.

I love her so much.

On Monday morning I criticized the existence of a piece in Slate entitled Oscar Shocker! Movie stars rivet the entire world by wearing stunningly conventional evening gowns and all the Oscar fashion talk in general. On Twitter, I questioned why anyone even cares about this nonsense.

A few people responded, questioning how one’s love for red carpet fashion is any different than my love for sports, and my initial response was that they were correct.

My love for the New England Patriots is illogical and fairly stupid.

The love for red carpet fashion is the same.

The people who questioned me were satisfied with his response.

But I think I’ve changed my mind.

Essentially, these people were arguing that it’s not fair to judge a person’s personal interests. To each his own. Some people like sports, Some people like fashion. Some people like bird watching.

Who’s do say which is better?

But I found myself thinking that some areas of interests and some hobbies have inherently more value than others, and there’s noting wrong with valuing one over another.

Take sports versus fashion, for example.

I attend Patriots home games with friends. I spend a day outdoors in the company of friends. While tailgating prior to the game, we cook and enjoying a meal together, listen to music, engage in conversation and meet new people. Then we enter a stadium and watch world class athletes who have trained for the entire lives compete against other world class athletes on the field of play.

Contrast this to the person who sits in front of the television for two hours before an award’s show begins in order to examine the clothing choices of actors entering a theater. These movie stars answer questions like, “Who are you wearing tonight?” and “Which movie do you think will take home Oscar?” Then the next day these actors and actresses are subjected to hundreds, if not thousands, of best and worst dressed photo galleries and glossy magazine covers in a spectacle not unlike high school. Discussion often includes the actor’s weight, nipples, makeup and hair.

Are these two areas of interest really comparable?

If you’re opposed to football because of the violence and sexism that it admittedly embraces, substitute it with tennis. Women’s basketball. Minor league baseball. Soccer. Track and field. The Olympics.  

As a parent, would you prefer that your child become a sports fan or a fashion fan?

Would you prefer your child to read an article about Anne Hathaway’s nipples (of which there are hundreds) or one about the rise of women’s soccer in the United States.

I don’t even think all aspects of fashion are bad. As hesitant as I am to admit this (for the ammunition that it will provide my friends on the golf course), I have watched every season of Project Runway and loved them all. Unlike red carpet fashion, Project Runway is a television show that honors creativity, intelligence, competition and excellence. It is a show about designers who utilize their expertise, wits and problem solving skills to create amazing objects in a short period of time.

This is an aspect of fashion that I can embrace.

Even if you want to argue that fashion is better than football (and I could probably make that argument even though I might not believe it), can’t we at least agree that a hierarchy of value exists when it comes to personal interest? That a day spent reading or painting or listening to music or playing tennis with a friend (or even bird watching) has more inherent value than one spent watching Celebrity Rehab III or playing Farmville on Facebook?

“To each his own” is a valid way of viewing the world, but that does not mean that each choice is equal in terms of value and merit.

Some are just stupider than others.

When it comes to the pre-Academy Award red carpet television show, I’ll defer to my wife:

“It’s just so stupid.”

Frightened

An un-staged, honest-to-goodness look at my wife as we watch the mid-season finale of The Walking Dead. 

She does not handle scary things well at all.