TV News: SNL has announced the first little batch of hosts for this upcoming 50th season. I’m sure there’s a big 50th Anniversary special coming later this season, with all the former cast members, but I was really hoping they would lean heavily into nostalgia this season. use those big names. Have them host. The first three hosts are Jean Smart, Ariana Grande, and John Mulaney. The latter of that trio has entered the five-timers club, so I guess he feels like part of the show. Part of me is really excited to see Jean Smart. But honestly, I would have much preferred something like Will Ferrell (who has a new documentary coming to Netflix he could be promoting), Steve Martin (and MArtin Short if needed) as Only Murders is still running, maybe another alum who can promote something. Or, if we’re doing random guests, how about getting Gabriel LaBelle to host, since Saturday Night opens in October? Like, do you not want synergy with your own film? So weird.
TV Shows Watched: Women In Blue: S1E9 (Apple Plus) with audio description, American Sports Story: S1E1 and S1E2 (Hulu) with audio description, High Potential: S1E1 (Hulu) no audio description, and The Golden Girls: S7E? (Hulu) with audio description.
Podcasts: Films To Be Buried With With Brett Goldstein
YouTube: The Oscar Expert (Discussing the TIFF People’s Choice Winner)
Well, ABC didn’t push the audio description for High Potential through to Hulu in time for my consideration. We’ll see if this is just a week 1 hiccup, but I despise how things are launched for “regular folk”, and then we “blind folk” get our version at a later date. But, I’m not wasting today talking about High Potential.
American Sports Story is a confusing property. the show centers around Aaron Hernandez, the dead former NFL player who you should definitely read about before watching this apologist bullshit. The biggest problem is that the show seems to want to show this side of Aaron we didn’t know, this sympathetic side with a homophobic and abusive father, and a house full of shouting, which really led to him being unable to deal with his own sexuality, so he lived in the closet for years until he was scouted by the University of Florida, where he just got mixed in with the wrong crowd. It wasn’t just Aaron. Other kids were committing crimes too. his dad was kicked out of football for participating in a bank robbery, where a cop ended up shot. His mother has this big fight in front of his high school classmates about sleeping around, so he stays with his cousin, who has a close proximity to some shady individuals.
In every fucking scene of Ryan murphy’s bullshit, he’s making an excuse for Aaron, except for the opening first five minutes, where Aaron shoots someone in the head. So, you get the crime, and then all the reasons why we should feel bad for him. the problem with this is that Murphy and his American Bullshit team don’t ever show Aaron doing anything good or positive. He’s not really academically overachieving, he doesn’t volunteer anywhere, he’s not really nice or romantic to his male hookups, he has seemingly no positive effect in spite of everything. Even when he’s at a young age, Murphy fails to show him ever doing anything actually good, but rather just that Aaron was part of some system of abuse, and that’s what led him to commit such a heinous act.
Except, that narrative doesn’t work if Aaron isn’t actually doing anything of his own accord that is good in the early years. if we’re supposed to believe he was beaten and downtrodden his whole life and he never had a chance, then start at an earlier age. But, if you’re going to show that Aaron is just a victim of circumstance, then somewhere along the way, there has to be this hint of kindness in spite of it all, and all we get is a lot of indifference. Hernandez seems more like a passive participant in the events in his life, and less like someone who realizes any of the things he’s experiencing is abnormal. He’s not really angry at his father, he seems very confused anytime he’s with a guy, and he just witnesses boys being boys on his football team. Considering this seems to be the best story they have to tell, they probably shouldn’t have opened with the murder. The sympathetic tone is even apparent in their decision to brand this as “American Sports Story’ instead of “American Crime Story”, even though what Aaron did was a crime. They had no problem labeling OJ Simpson’s story a “Crime” story, instead of a sports story, and that man was technically acquitted. So even if the argument here is that Aaron was never convicted of anything, because he killed himself before he could be arrested, then you are in the same boat As Simpson who was cleared. Technically. But, both stories do feature a murder, and thus… a crime.
The audio description was confusing. It’s not even the fault of the AD team. There are too many characters named Dennis here. The high school “boyfriend” of Aaron’s is named Dennis, but so is Aaron’s father. I was getting thrown by the uses of the name. I wish the writers had changed the other name, because I’m sure the name of the guy Aaron hooked up with in high school isn’t relevant.
I also despise this narrative that these men who hate themselves and their sexuality so much, as society has taught them to hate that part of themselves, becoming killers as a result. The Pulse mass shooting in real life has that lingering with it, as the shooter had frequented the location prior. So, Aaron Hernandez started running with the wrong crowd and committing crimes because he wasn’t allowed to be out and proud?
I’m not a fan of this series. I’ll be watching at least until I get to see Norbert Leo Butz as Bill Belacheck, but I can’t actually guarantee that with this continued tone that I would finish this series.