Conspicuous Acts of Cultural Consumption

I started watching the new Supergirl series over the weekend and I find myself utterly charmed by the series.

Don’t get me wrong: there a definitely better superhero shows on television. Jessica Jones and Daredevil have the kind of production values that are hard to go past, and they have an advantage in that they’re not fighting for space on free-to-air network TV that frees them up to do things that TV narratives aren’t allowed to do.

Even in this free-to-air space, Arrow and The Flash are pretty hard to beat. They’re both more technically accomplished that Supergirl, in terms of their special effects, fight choreography, and the performances of the supporting cast. As super-hero shows, they have the advantage of two series in which to build up their shared world and character pool, with their new time-travel show on the horizon.

Supergirl doesn’t compete on any of those levels. The scripting is often clumsy and occasionally over-earnest. The FX are…uneven. The supporting cast is not quite there, although Calista Flockhart’s Cat Grant is more fun than any of the trailers made her look and Mehcad Brooks delivers the best damn Jimmy Olson I’ve seen in any superhero medium.

What Supergirl has going for it is fun. It’s the story of someone who enjoys being a superhero, whose life is actually improved by embracing her destiny, and with a minimal amount of angst about secret identities and – surprisingly – romantic relationships.

It’s a show that does not fuck around when it comes to plot development. Things happen and they happen fast and the series progresses through a series of milestones and character development like it’s a goddamn freight train hurtling down hill.

Things that would be several episodes worth of angst and subplot are resolved fast. The pilot sets us up for a pretty common villain of the week plot device which comes with a big sense of oh hell, this will get tedious for anyone who sat through the kryptonite mutations of Smallville‘s first seasons, but it immediately takes a left turn with a series of episodes that break the established “typical episode” archetype.

The show is bright and colourful and people are happy. There is no attempt to mute down the colour, as Zack Snyder did with the iconic blue superman outfit in Man of Steel. There is no whiff of Nolan-esque Bat-angst lurking. This is not a show that’s embarrassed by the idea of having the big blue boyscout’s younger cousin as its central character, nor of having a character conceal their secret identity behind a pair of glasses and a small change in hair style.

The good are good, the bad are bad, and there are happy endings. It’s an imperfect show, but it’s sweet and charming in its imperfections. It does little things exceptionally well, especially little throw-away lines that contain multitudes about characters and their relationships. Or the bits where it sets up expectations based on archetypes, then quietly subverts them. Melissa Benoist is great as the titular character, which makes it the first time I’ve seen a DC superhero show where the lead is as interesting as the supporting cast.

Basically, the whole series is adorkable. A clumsy show that’s slowly finding its feet and improving, episode by episode.

And in a world where it’s competing with a slate of superhero shows characterized by slick production and dark, gritty storylines, I find myself looking forward to the next episode of Supergirl far more than I expected.

Over the course of the last seven days, I’ve watched a TV show and a movie that occupy the two extremes of representing the creative artist as a narrative achetype – the Amazon Original series Mozart in the Jungle and the Coen Brother’s Inside Llewyn Davis.

Mozart in the Jungle is brilliant. It details the lives of the conductor and musicians who make up the New York Orchestra, best summed up as “Sex, Drugs, and Classical Music.”

It’s totally not the show you’re expecting when you hear the words classical music, with one exception – Gael Garcia Bernal’s eccentric conductor, Rodrigo, who exemplifies the kind of hyperactive, devoted-to-the-art-of-it madman who finds music in the sounds of a cab crossing a bridge and tortures himself with the demands of his own genius. People bend over backwards to deal with his eccentricities because of that genius.

Naturally, within the of the show he’s gifted, brilliant, and fantastically successful in his chosen career.

Inside Llewyn Davis is the Coen Brothers at their best: beautifully shot, beautifully cast, touched by moments of strangeness (although less than most of their work). It deals with the titular character, Llewyn Davis, a down on his luck folk-singer in sixties New York, trying to make a living as a solo performer after the death of his partner.

Llewyn is the antithesis of Rodrigo: a competent musician, but not great. Unable to brush up against the greatness required to be a true artist, despite the fact that he has pursued this goal to the point of his own self-destruction. There is a point where his sister suggests that if the music isn’t happening, perhaps he can go back to his old job.

Llewyn snaps at her: he doesn’t want to go back, pretending to live a life that isn’t authenticated by his art.

What the two shows have in common is this: they return to the default narrative that art must consume the artist, sacrificing themselves on the alter of the muse. They are, essentially, a form of pornography – the pleasure lies in seeing the glamorization of the myth for the purposes of comedy (for Mozart) or tragedy (For Llewyn Davis).

Both do it extremely well – I’m particularly irritated by this kind of story and in particular the archetype of the mad, inspired artist, and yet I found myself consuming episodes of Mozart in the Jungle like they were god-damn Tic Tacs. I’d recommend watching either, if this kind of thing is your jam.

But I do find myself sitting down and reminding myself that it’s just a story. You do not have to be consumed by art, even if the idea is particularly attractive when you’re young and stupid.

Peeps, I am currently looking for book and film recommendations within the following parameters:

Books: Anything outside of the SF genre.

Films: Anything that’s not a SF film, YA movie, or Romantic Comedy

No time-limit in terms of the release – I’m currently going back over nearly a decade of recommendations people have made that I never got around to watching, and it covers a lot of ground.The limitations are explicitly there because I want stuff outside of my particular taste and comfort zone, which have grown increasingly calcified in recent years.

If you’ve got something you’ve loved, let me know.