Hollywood’s Bisexuality’s Problem

You probably read the title of this and just thought that I must be some hater. But that’s not the case. Here’s what I mean by this: In the world of television, bisexuality is often used as a convenient thing for some select characters. I’m not entirely sure that the writers quite understand the concept of just what it means to be bisexual. Of course, I’m not sure if I do either. And I know that I might have said some bad things here and there about the LGBT community, even though I should know better.

 

But I think that the true problem with bisexuality as it is portrayed in TV at times is that it just seems to appear when writers need it to. What can make it worse is that we are supposed to just accept that they’ve either always been bisexual and it never came up before or that they come to terms with it very quickly without even knowing themselves that they were this way before.

 

Now I forget if bisexual is the same as pansexual. You never hear about the pansexual, although I’m pretty sure that it is different. Still, the fact is that it seems like both are used interchangeably when I think that what is often meant as pansexual is portrayed instead of bisexual.

 

What are issues that I’ve had with this? Well, Clarke in The 100 was portrayed as straight for the first two seasons. But then in the third season premiere, she’s just randomly hooking up with some woman with no hints that she was ever bisexual before. This was a problem in my mind. They can’t just expect us to be okay with what seems like a change like this with nothing indicting that she was into women in any of the past two seasons.

 

Another time this was an issue was in Jane the Virgin. Petra was randomly into her lawyer, another woman. This was despite no hints ever in the series that she’s into women at all. And, of course, it is a huge problem for a client and their lawyer to be together. JR, this woman that Petra was now dating, did believe that Petra hadn’t ever been with a woman before. But there was never a moment seen on screen where Petra came to terms with her being bisexual like there should have been.

 

Does there have to be a come to terms with their sexual orientation moment? Well, yes. The only way that it is okay without it is if we already knew this about them. That’s why in Supergirl when Alex was coming to terms with being a lesbian, it was portrayed on screen like it should have been. And it was needed since an earlier episode showed her on a date with a man.

 

It seems like the other problem with it is that the bisexuals on television as just shown as dating the gender that the writers want them to at any moment in time. Maybe at one point they are into men. Then they are into women whenever the script requires it. I’m not sure if this is how bisexuality even works in the end. Of course, I don’t know much about it myself.

 

I have no idea what else there is to say about this topic. I hope that you read through it and that is makes sense to you. I also hope that you aren’t a hater and don’t think that I’m one either. Do you think that my views make sense at all? I hope that they do.

Credit Only

Sometimes in TV shows, you see them credit a person for some odd reason, but they don’t actually appear in the episode in question. It is weird that this happens. I’m surprised that it is even allowed. Why should someone get credit for work in a show episode that they don’t actually appear in?

What might be worse is that these actors might get paid for these episodes that they don’t appear in just because they are given credit. This makes no sense. Although I don’t know for sure if that is the case or not, you have to wonder why it would happen.

I’m doing this whole post because two shows have been really annoying me. In NCIS, Mark Harmon keeps getting credit by being mentioned in the opening theme song despite having being written off of the show. This makes no sense. And on Legends of Tomorrow, they keep giving Matt Ryan credit as a special guest star despite the fact that his character hasn’t been on the show all season. What’s up with that? I’m annoyed that he was never part of the main cast. But to keep giving him credit when he is not on the show anymore is dumb as well.

In closing, I have no idea why this happens. It may not be as annoying as uncredited actors in shows, but that’s a different post. Do you have any idea why this happens? Does it have to for some reason? Are they getting paid for it? And what’s the deal with giving people credit for work that they are clearly not doing at all?

No, Siri; Don’t Remind me to Watch

I forget how long it has been since I’ve seen this used in ads. There will be part of an ad that tells you something along the lines of this: Hey, Siri. Remind me to watch [some TV show]. This shouldn’t be an annoying ad as it lasts maybe 15 seconds or even less. But it can be a problem for those who have Siri. I don’t have a Siri device myself. But plenty of people do.

 

Now I can understand if you just finished watching a show and it tells you to watch more of the show that you just watched. But sometimes a network will just randomly air a reminder to watch whatever show is on the network that could be unrelated to what you are watching.

 

Why is this a problem? Well, as I’ve learned from other shows like Jimmy Kimmel Live, any device that you might have would be programmed to obey any order given to it. This means that any show that Siri hears that one should be reminded to watch would pick up and register. Thus, one may be told to watch any show that one may not have watched or care about in any way. And this may happen just because you were trying to enjoy something else.

 

This might not be too annoying to some people. I can let people read this and see if they have issues with it or not. Maybe one can easily cancel whatever Siri said with the annoyance that it has shown up at least once. But this is still a potential problem that shouldn’t happen. People shouldn’t be allowed to say this in ads and thus enable these updates to happen.

4400’s Casting Misses the Mark

For those that aren’t familiar with it, 4400 is a show currently in its first season that is airing on the CW. It is a remake of a previous show called The 4400. In it, people from all throughout time arrive at some point in the present (or future for them) with no idea how they time travelled there or why. None of them meant to do that and there is more mystery with them as they start developing powers.

As you can imagine, 4400 people who disappeared throughout time and returned at once you’d think would be a good reason to go with a racially diverse cast. However, the people in the cast are largely just black and white. It is a black centric show with most of the protagonists being black and some of the villains being white. Now I don’t have a problem with black heroes and white villains in this commonly used trope. I might have to do posts about it, if I knew what to call it.

Still, I feel that focusing on only two races in a show about over a thousand missing people is missing the mark when it comes to casting a show. There are not any Hispanics, Indigenous people, people of Asian descent, Indians, Middle Eastern people, or any other race that exists. There might be some biracial people on the show, but that’s about it when it comes to racial diversity. Shouldn’t there be more in the cast than effectively just two races?

This is something that can be rectified as the show goes along. There are plenty of people in the 4400 that can be focused on during time that could make the cast more racially diverse. I’m not saying that this should be done per say. But if they do that, it should be something that isn’t forced upon them. It should be a way of expanding on the show that they want to do and accomplish. If they do this, then it wouldn’t feel so much that the casting was too narrowly minded when it took place.

Hello, my name is Adam, and I’m a Blogging Addict

It was highly unlikely that I could have gotten last week’s and all of last month’s blog posts done in time if I hadn’t rushed it but not only having not rushed it, but spending too much time on it. Well, this is now the second post of this or any blog of mine to be more about blogging than the general focus of the blog that it’s supposed to be. I am addicted to writing blogs. I might need help.

 

You see, if you read my blog on Survivor, you would know that I have a schedule of how I do blogs each month. Even without that, you would know that I have to update this blog every Saturday for the future until or unless something changes. Maybe I shouldn’t be too dedicated to these blogs of mine. I might talk to a doctor about this. I’m dead serious. It takes me too long to write blogs and the time frame when I wasn’t writing since I didn’t need to was a good time. It might not happen ever again.

 

I might finish out this blog’s planned month’s posts and then not care too much about finishing the rest of the planned posts for this or any other blog. I’m doing these blogs more for myself than anyone else. Yes, I know that people read this blog. People read other blogs of mine as well. But I just don’t see the blogs as needing a high priority as they have or should have.

 

Maybe what I need to do is make sure that at least one post is written so I can focus more on the bigger ones that I feel need done at some point in time. I still haven’t done the nominees for best and worst shows on television of the last decade, something that’s going to take time. Sometimes, I do a post of a blog that’s incomplete. I look on it with shame, but still figure that it’s fine since it seems more or less done in some way. But this shouldn’t bother me. I just like to blog. But it’s becoming too much.

 

When I talk in some blogs every now and then about giving up blogs, I’m being serious. I’m actually hoping that there would be some extenuating circumstance that would prevent me from updating the blogs of mine for a while. It could be something as simple as the internet being down for a while with me not having the ability to use a different one. It could be any number of reasons. But I might be more welcome to doing this and giving up blogs of mine. This could be the best solution. We’ll see what I do. But I need to curb my addition down and not do it so much.

My Planned Viewing Habits: Midseason 2022

This seems like a fitting post to be the first one of the year. I didn’t get this done in time last year, but did decide to post it late for one reason or another. (Speaking of late posts, should either of my two regular readers of this blog place any bets as to whether I can get the cancelled shows from last season post done before February? I can’t even promise that it will be on time next year, but I do think that I have more of a good reason this year than others.) Thus, I’m going to get this done before any of this becomes irrelevant or outdated in the end. I think that I will simplify and shorten this post.

Returning shows still into: The Rookie, The Equalizer, NCIS: Los Angeles, The Simpsons, The Great North, Bob’s Burgers, Family Guy, NCIS, 9-1-1, Batwoman, Station 19, Grey’s Anatomy, FBI, FBI: Most Wanted, The Resident, New Amsterdam, Survivor, Bull, B Positive, Young Sheldon, Law and Order: SVU, Law and Order: Organized Crime, The Flash, Magnum P.I., Nancy Drew, Home Economics, Blue Bloods, Legends of Tomorrow, and S.W.A.T. There are more that I will get to in a separate section.

New shows still watching still on at midseason: FBI: International, Ghosts, NCIS: Hawai’i, and Ordinary Joe, although the last one won’t be lasting long until it is over forever. It will finish the episode order and be done with, having been cancelled unofficially until the official May announcement.

Shows still into not on at midseason: The only shows that this applies to are CSI: Vegas, La Brea, and Whose Line is it Anyways? Anything else I watch watched that was new I never tuned back into a second time. I’ll get to those soon.

New midseason shows to watch: Tom Swift, Professionals, Naomi, March, Leonardo, Great Chocolate Showdown, Bump, Good Sam, Women of the Movement, The Cleaning Lady, Krapopolis, Monarch, Next Level Chef, Pivoting, Welcome to Flatch, Domino Masters, and Would I Lie to You? I had also checked out That’s My Jam which got an early premiere, but won’t be watching that again.

The returning shows coming back at midseason that I still care about are Charmed, Dynasty, Kung Fu, and Mr. Mayor. Based on scheduling and reception issues (although NBC often comes in fine in one of my affiliates that I get in the living room and on my laptop, just not the other affiliate that I get in the in the kitchen or the basement, both of which could make use of a VCR that the living room couldn’t), I doubt that I will see much, if any, of Mr. Mayor.

There were a lot of fall shows that I didn’t stick with. I only watched a lot of them once. Legends of the Hidden Temple didn’t work as well as it could have and the standalone format had no draw to keep me coming back to it time and time again. The Big Leap was awful making its 100% rating (the highest rating for what’s considered the best) on Rotten Tomatoes baffling. I couldn’t even tell what Our Kind of People was supposed to be about and Alter Ego just seemed like they were trying to do The Masked Singer with ordinary people. Queens was overall dumb with too many terrible characters that I don’t want to follow up with or keep track of.

We now get to the shows that I’m unsure of whether or not I’ll stay into them. Riverdale has changed too much since it returned for its new season. I’ve given up that show before so we’ll see if I get back into it again. The Chase is something that I’ll watch if only nothing else is on that I care about then. Big Sky is something that I easily lose track of having missed far too much of it and I may just want to cut my losses regarding it if I can phase my way out of it.

The United States of Al is something that I got into a bit more after its season premiere, but I might not like it enough to stay into it long term. 4400 seems too boring in some places and I already have a special post planned on an aspect about it that I don’t like.

Another weird thing that happened is that I don’t see Jimmy Kimmel Live as much anymore ever since there was a commercial for My Pillow that aired during it. Of course, I shouldn’t be seeing any late night shows anymore as I should be sleeping in preparation for first shift. This is supposed to make The Tonight Show my new primary, but I often now go with The Late Show, which is now the secondary. It did have the priority of Jimmy Kimmel first ever since my original primary, David Letterman, retired.

As I close out of this post, I should note that these are only plans and I might not stick to them in the end. I may not see a show that I originally wanted to or I may watch something that I originally didn’t plan to. I also may not watch a show a second time. I don’t even know how often I do something like a courtesy watch and if that’s something that other people do or not. I might also end up watching How We Roll at least once as comedies that I haven’t seen paired with ones that I have are often ones that I’m more likely to check out at some point in time. (This could also be poison for any new show that is paired with one that I don’t like.) So we’ll see what happens.