The Unprofessional Critic Becomes the Analytical Fangirl

He made me laugh.

That's been it all along.

I know what y'all are thinking: oh crap, ANOTHER love letter to Joel McHale.  Another obsessive missive from an almost-thirty-year-old who should know better.  Hell, I'm halfway thinking it myself.  And as a result, in the hours before I finally saw my snarky hero live, I finally asked the question: what is it about the dude I dig so very much?

I know, I know, I've already devoted a blog post to this (two if you count last week's rundown of the awesomeness of Community).  And true, the guy's easy on the eyes, funny as hell, displays a Midwestern-esque work ethic (not surprising, considering his dad's a native Chicagoan), and by all accounts (though of course we can't know everything that goes on behind closed doors) appears to be a devoted husband and dad.  All admirable, sexy even, but not necessarily the source of fandom with a capital F.

Also, I realize how annoying and hipster-ish it is, but I usually make it a point not to follow the crowd, i.e. crush on the very man that gazillions of women are lusting after.  I mean, for years I chose Rainn Wilson over John Krasinski, for chrissake.  (Still a toss-up in my mind.)  So what makes Joel McHale so different and special?

It all boils down to four words:

Dude made me laugh.

In 2004, I was in my second year of law school and Joel was starting on The Soup.  I was hidden away in a rural dorm room and he was on a Friday-night clip show, yet to be appreciated by the masses.  I don't know about Joel's personality, but I do know that I was far from the easiest person to deal with at that time.  In fact, I downright antagonized nearly everyone I met: classmates, family, even friends.  I'm still surprised that ANYONE who knew me in those days chooses to continue speaking to me.

During my three years of law school, I hardly smiled.  I was angry a lot.  It was just the way things were.

I thought it was part of growing up.  Adjusting to a world I only knew as "real."  In reality, I was forcing myself to continue in a hell of my own making, trying to convince myself that it was all for the best and failing miserably.

And then, one night in my dorm room, on my shitty boxy heavy mini-TV, I caught a spiky-haired gentleman in a skinny tie sassing to the camera about The Real World.  I remembered Talk Soup and how much I'd loved John Henson, but at the same time reluctantly appreciated how this dude wasn't trying to be him.  I studied this newcomer, now rolling his eyes at a dumb Fox sitcom and goofing around in front of a bad green screen of Los Angeles.

And I laughed.

During my last two years of law school, I watched only two shows faithfully: Arrested Development (as it bounced from time slot to time slot, damn you Fox) and The Soup.  Joel McHale had no idea who I was, but as I shivered under my cheapo comforter in a cinder-blocked room, law books weighing me down into a life I knew I didn't want but was too afraid to admit, he made me giggle.  Because as much as I hated the person I was becoming, The Soup's aptly narrated reality clips showed I wasn't the biggest dumbass out there.  I could count on a comedian with one camera and a Chihuahua named Lou to prove that to me.

And he never let me down.

After law school, things got better.  I don't mean they got easier: I stumbled quite a bit before I found my footing.  I had bad jobs, low pay, boy trouble, you name it.  But through it all, I had my friends.  I had Bob, my roommate at the time.  I had a family who didn't always understand me but never stopped supporting me. At this point, Joel was better known but not always recognizable.  He wasn't working much outside The Soup.  But to hear his interviews, he had a great family.  He had his wife Sarah, who'd stuck by him since their early twenties.  When you're struggling financially and personally, a strong support system means everything.  I haven't forgotten that.  To hear his stand-up, neither has Joel.

Eventually, I landed a job I liked, and a year later got a promotion.  About the same time, Joel got The Informant!: not only the third lead in a Steven Soderbergh film, but a completely non-comic role.  In the summer of 2008, we both got promoted.  I was really proud of him.  And of me.

These days, I still have that job, which rocks, especially considering the economy.  I also have a blog and several freelance writing gigs.  Joel has a kickass sitcom and a promising film career, and routinely sells out venues doing stand-up comedy.  Yet he still auditions like crazy, as the film industry doesn't really recognize the TV industry.  In the meantime, I polish my latest manuscript, in the hopes an agent somewhere out there will like it.  These days, we've got some good stuff going on, but are still trying to be better.

This is someone I'll most likely never meet--unless Bob gets really famous and they become buddies--yet I feel a kind of kinship with Joel McHale.  We've gotten ahead not on notoriety or stupidity, but hard work and a little bit of luck.  We're both insanely fortunate to have loved ones along for the ride.  And we both are grateful, but don't want to stop now.

These days, people rail against celebrity culture.  In many ways, people are right: I mean, there's a reality show devoted to a girl who robbed actors' houses, which is wrong in ways I can't begin to describe (judging from his genuinely disgusted look when he describes the show, Joel agrees with me).  And when you place someone on a pedestal, as civilians tend to do with celebs, disappointment reigns supreme if and when they display simple human faults or egregious human errors.

However, there's a different side to celeb worship too.  The ones we admire--for whatever reason--can inspire us to work harder, do better, be more than we thought we could be.  By just doing their job, they can comfort us, a gentle and nonjudgmental presence that is at once completely unknown and strangely intimate.

More specifically, the right celeb can take a depressed, angry law student silently screaming, and for half an hour each week, make her laugh and years later when she's happy, make her a little verklempt when she sees him in person while surrounded by the friends who stuck by her, and make her laugh once again.

Joel?  You rock, dude.

Thanks for the giggles,
Unpro

P.S.  Your Chicago show was the ultimate in pee-your-pants, fall-out-of-your chair hilar, and I will heartily recommend your stand-up tour to anyone who asks, and some people who don't.

Love the One(s) You're With: Community

At a certain point in your life, you realize that nothing's turned out like you thought it would.

You're not working in the field you studied in school.  You're single or married, when you always predicted you'd be the opposite.  The age you thought you'd have figured everything out?  You're still fumbling and confused as ever, maybe even more so. 

There's also the people you surround yourself with.  At a certain age it becomes a motley crew: those you grew up with, maybe even dated at some point; pals from high school, college and work; and then the ones who are way more random.  The person you agreed to give a ride to one time, from rehearsal of a show you almost dropped out of, that ten years later is like family.

It's meeting these random people, and letting them into your life, however reluctantly at first, that helps you to realize: not having the exact future you wanted or predicted can be a very liberating thing.

I started watching Community for two reasons.  One, a friend in the industry recounted a little exchange from the pilot script that cracked me up (similar to the way I was sold on 30 Rock because of one line: "If you're a gay guy looking for a beard, I don't do that anymore").  And two, well, Joel McHale.  In the days before my obsessive fandom kicked in, I read an interview where he said that he was offered several sitcoms and Community was far and away the best.  No matter what you think of The Soup, the guy has made some good career decisions (witness: The Informant!).  I was intrigued.  Besides, it was on after The Office.

Never have I seen a pilot that touched on moral relativism, Asperger's syndrome, and The Breakfast Club in twenty-two minutes.  With Trudy from Mad Men, the sex addict from Reno 911!, and Chevy MoFo-in Chase.  As in Fletch, Gerald Ford, Clark Griswold: any way you slice it, the guy's a comedy legend. 

McHale's character, Jeff Winger, is a cocky former lawyer disbarred when it's discovered his undergraduate degree is fake.  (Yes, I know it's a slim premise, but think of Mystery Science Theatre 3000 and sing along with me: "Just repeat to yourself, 'it's just a show.  I should really just relax.'")  He enrolls at Greendale Community College and immediately starts hitting on his cute Spanish 101 classmate Britta (Gillian Jacobs).  Britta, however, is not having it, and when Jeff invites her to form a one-on-one study group, she brings along a whole crew: sitcom aficionado Abed (Danny Pudi, Chicagoans represent!), fallen football player Troy (Donald Glover), rehabbed type A Annie (Alison Brie, almost completely unrecognizable from Mad Men and just as awesome), and Christian mom Shirley (Yvette Nicole Brown).  Oh, and corporate magnate-turned-dirty old man Pierce (Chase) also wanders in.  Quite possibly the most diverse group on network TV, the gang experiences weekly dalliances and misadventures, with recurring characters such as the overenthusiastic Dean Pelton (Jim Rash) and surly Professor Chang (Ken Jeong) along for the ride.

A group of wildly different people finding out they have a lot in common, and learning a little bit about themselves along the way?  We've all heard that premise before, but Community makes it fresh while at the same time reminding us that it's the simple stuff that good shows are made of.  The cast is fiercely witty, the writing even more so.  Creator Dan Harmon based the series on his own experiences in a community college study group, and it shows: not only is there a real tenderness in even the silliest joke, but the characters both play into and play with the very stereotypes they're dealt.  Jeff isn't the show's moral center, nor are most of his actions particularly commendable--but he's learning, even as he stumbles along the way, that he's capable of poking fun at himself and doing nice things for others.  Though Britta is smart and confident, she can be awkward in dealing with sensitive social matters (she's sort of a walking Stuff White People Like).  Even Pierce, with his heinously backwards worldviews, is at heart a lonely dude: and though his younger counterparts don't always love what he says, they embrace him for the old fart he is.

I freaking heart the group dynamic of the core cast: they're the kind of characters that are so fun to watch even when they're not doing anything particularly interesting (which according to one of my favorite bloggers, is one of the marks of a kick-ass protagonist).  I love Mad Men, but I wouldn't really want to be friends with any of the characters (except maybe Peggy and Joan).  However, I'd hang with Community's Spanish 101 crew any day of the week.  And the characters form relationships, they stumble, they screw up, they learn from one another.  They may have been thrown together by random acts of course catalog, but now they're thick as thieves (and they protect each other to the end!).

Yes, there have been some eps that aren't so great: just like with Modern Family, Community can falter when it lets itself slide into wacky-antics territory.  At its strongest, however, Community (again, like Modern Family) works real magic combining absurd with emotional, satirical with genuine, and motormouthed with simple.  Think Avenue Q without the puppets.  And at its heart, it's a show about being okay with your place in life, no matter how imperfect that may be.

Did I mention that McHale is naked on one episode?  From a feminist perspective, it's interesting how the show objectifies the hell out of the guy.  Not that I'm complaining.  I just find it intriguing: men usually aren't blatantly objectified on a show that's NOT specifically geared toward women.  Not just the naked ep: he's in tight jeans and T-shirts quite a lot.  That's normally reserved for female characters.

Community airs Thursdays at 7 on NBC.  The most recent episode, along with a host of really funny clips, can be found on Hulu.  Also, there's a hilarious website for the fictional Greendale Community College.

Here's a video of the cast finding out that they were renewed for a second season.  They're so genuinely surprised and happy (and unaware they're being filmed), it's adorable.

For the Boys: Patrick Swayze and Joel McHale

I was agonizing over the subject of this week's post.  I mean, Kanye's a talented douchebag, everyone's up in arms over whether Megan Fox can actually act, and OMG, Pam on The Office is pregnant!  It's all been done, several times over, by better bloggers than I.

Then, like the dorky bespectacled boy BFF in a classic teencom, I realized what I really wanted was right in front of me all along: a recently-departed dancer-turned-actor who was not only lusted after but respected in 80's nostalgia AND cult circles, and a cable comedian coming into his own while remaining sheepishly humble about his well-earned success.

The former: Patrick Swayze.  The latter: Joel McHale.  The blog post: 5 reasons why I love them both.

1.  They won me over from a place of utter skepticism.  I didn't see Dirty Dancing when it first came out--I was in second grade, and my mom closely monitored what I watched.  Though she did concede to renting it and letting me watch the electrifying final number, she drew the line at the entire movie--and with good reason, looking back, as the abortion subplot is definitely not something I'd want my (hypothetical) seven-year-old to ask me questions about.  Then, when I was fifteen, I was at a lock-in, mourning the fact that my former best friend was hanging with his ditzy girl of the moment instead of me.  Someone popped in Dirty Dancing, and I was hooked.  Not just for the excellent daddy-daughter/good girl-bad boy drama, not just for the politically active teenage girl lead (far from a bland ingenue), not just for the sweet moves.  But Swayze.  DAMN.  Whether he was swiveling his hips, comforting his pal Penny, or yelling at Baby not to put her heel down, he made Johnny Castle pop off the screen as more than just a droolworthy rebel, but a hard-knock guy who also became a better person that fateful summer of '63.

My first reaction to Joel McHale was, "Ugh, who's this frat boy?"  Though I could appreciate Aisha Tyler and Greg Kinnear, I was first and foremost loyal to John "Skunkboy" Henson, host of The Show Formerly Known as Talk Soup.  I even attended a live taping of Talk Soup in Chicago ten years ago.  (In case you recall that historic airing: NO, that was not me making out with my boyfriend in the audience because we correctly assumed it would get us camera time.)  So I wasn't  immediately enamored of Joel's preppy appearance and dry delivery.  (It probably didn't help that TS was relaunched as The Soup when I was in law school, when I wasn't much enamored of anything.  It's an understatement to say that I wasn't the most pleasant lady to be around back then.)  Until one day when my sister was visiting and on TV, Joel introduced the Clip of the Week: a truly terrible boob-grabbing moment between Pamela Anderson and Carmen Electra on the abysmal Foxcom Stacked.  I turned to my sister, sighed and said, "And they canceled Arrested Development."  EXACTLY ONE MILLISECOND LATER, Joel looked at the camera, sighed and said, "And they canceled Arrested Development."  Color me a superfan.

2.  They stay(ed) classy.  Granted, I don't know what goes on behind closed doors.  That said, I don't ever remember hearing about Patrick Swayze getting a case of road rage, partying with 15-year-olds, or whaling on some unsuspecting fan for requesting an autograph.  (I have heard that he didn't like the line "Nobody puts Baby in a corner" and would only utter it once, but honestly, I can't really blame the guy.  Come on, it's far from the best moment in the movie but it's quoted all. the. time.)  But he just seemed . . . good.  He worked hard.  He stayed out of trouble.  He loved his dance teacher mom, and even teamed up with her for a dance video in the late eighties (which my mom ordered from the Avon catalog).  He stayed married to Lisa Niemi, a fellow dancer in his age range, his whole adult life.  I'm sure he wasn't 100% perfect, but who is? 

Regarding Mr. McHale, he eats stupid celebrities for breakfast, lunch and dinner on The Soup, and we adore him for saying what we're all thinking in funny, well-chosen words.  But he also knows that famous people are humans too, and there are occasions where skewering just isn't appropriate.  Like many others my age and otherwise, I was devastated by the sudden death of Heath Ledger, a genuine talent whose personal darkness got the best of him much too early.  A few days later, it was Friday and I wondered what, if anything, Joel would say to mark the occasion (especially since the tabloids were rearing their monstrous heads, threatening to release a video of Heath in an altered state and badgering poor Michelle Williams).  The episode passed without any mention, until the very end, when Joel's smirky countenance turned serious and a little angry.  He said something to this effect: "And one last thing.  Heath Ledger passed away this week, and in all the years we've been doing this show, we've never had cause to mention him.  So stop digging for dirt, weasels.  A talented, decent guy is gone, and our thoughts go to those who knew him."  He then smiled and said, "See you next week," amid cheers from the crew.  Now that's a good guy.

3.  Masculinity redefined. Don't get me wrong: I love the Seth Rogens and Jason Segels of the world.  Knocked Up and Forgetting Sarah Marshall are two of my favorite films of the past few years, skillfully combining gross-out humor, heart, and coming of age as the doofy slacker learns to be a man with the help of a cute, together chick.  The thing about Swayze and McHale, though?   When it comes to being a man, they're already there.  In a culture where pot-smoking job-shunning manboys are revered, it's reassuring to switch on the TV or pop in a DVD and watch a guy who needs no guidance from a pouty-lipped stunner who's way hotter than he deserves. 

No one could say dancing is sissy after watching the Swayze.  Watch one scene of Dirty Dancing and you can see the guy's life-long ballet training emanating from each beautiful muscle.  That choreography is much more than grinding, y'all--I mean, during the final dance, Swayze executes a friggin' double tour (two turns in midair) and in tight pants to boot.  Scrappy, graceful, and clearly adored the women in his life--that's a real man.  And Joel elevates snark to a place that's swift, quick and clever.  I'm not just talking about The Soup, but Community--how many half-hour sitcoms discuss moral relativism in the pilot?  I know he didn't write it, but the guy knows his shit when it comes to choosing scripts.  No Transformers for him, thank you very much!  Okay, he had a small part as a loan officer in Spider-Man 2, but everyone has to start somewhere.  (Besides, you know who else was in Spider-Man 2?  Alfred Molina.  And y'all KNOW how I love me some Molina.)

4.  Genuinely good at their jobs.  Neither Swayze or McHale have ever fallen victim to the one-trick pony-ism that infiltrates Hollywood these days.  From a young age, Swayze trained as a dancer under his single mother Patsy, and like another fave actor/lust object of mine, Rainn Wilson, Joel boasts an M.F.A. in Acting.  I'm perpetually in awe of beautifully trained dancers and actors, but neither dude stopped there.  Even though his career choices weren't always Oscar-caliber (yes, I know some people love Point Break; I, however, am not one of those people), you cannot deny that Patrick Swayze had some acting chops.  Johnny Castle wasn't just a kickass hoofer and bad boy Baby deflower-er--he was a street-smart survivor, a loyal friend, and an open admirer of Baby's courage and willingness to go the distance for the underdog.  A lesser actor couldn't have brought all those nuances to the screen in less than two hours.  Speaking of nuance, Patrick brought on the smarm fifteen years later as a sleazy motivational speaker in Donnie Darko--his character was delightfully despicable throughout the film, and yet I couldn't fight the lump in my throat when a single shot of Swayze blubbering as "Mad World" played in the background surfaced at the end of the film.  Plus, in a culture where straight dudes often BALK at going gay on screen, Patrick took it one step further and was utterly fabulous as Miss Vida Boheme in To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar.  You go, girl (boy).

On The Soup, Joel is a master of cadence and gesture.  He doesn't just spout witty remarks, he dissects them as only a true actor can.  With a quirked eyebrow, a dry tone, or a gleeful yelp, he voices the absurd zeitgeist that is reality TV--and he's right there with the bemused public.  He doesn't stand above us, smug and removed like Craig Kilborn in the pre-Jon Stewart Daily Show days.  No, Joel's right there with us in the D-list trenches--he watches this crap too!  And like the rest of us, he sort of hates himself for it, but realizes that the best thing to do is laugh at the ridiculosity.  And for that, I lurve him.

5.  *wolf whistle*  Oh, whatever.  I'm a red-blooded female, and I like my menz attractive.  Even in his fifties, Patrick brought the hotness--what is it about dancers that makes them age so damn well?  I can't really think of any exceptions.  I mean, have you seen Barishnikov?  Hell, even George Balanchine wasn't terrible looking till his very last days.  It's interesting--dancers strain their bodies to utter breaking points and many are known to flirt with toxic chemicals (nicotine, steroids, silicone).  Yet each and every one of them carries a youthful maturity into their twilight years.

Joel may not possess the Swayze features that transcended multiple bad hairdos, but his wide smile, pointy nose, and spiky hair, combined with sharp wit, translates to an adorable package.  Not to mention that he can wear the heck out of a sport coat and jeans.  Yum yum.

So Patrick, I wish you an eternity of boogie-ing in that Big Dance Hall in the Sky.  Save a turn for me, eh?  And Joel, may your snappy star continue to rise.  A bazillion pop culture vultures and TV junkies are pulling for you.