So another Apprentice has been dinged for acting like a reality show contestant instead of a job applicant. And that’s appropriate and right and just, because fame-whoring and drama queenery aren’t very good predictors for executive success.

But…

If Donald Trump and his minions are going to find fault with this in contestants, they might share the same criticism with the people who cast the show, because that fiefdom of the Trump empire clearly did not get the memo. At least in the case of the women apprentices, they cast for conflict, which is the default setting for reality programming. (It’s unclear as to whether that played a role with the men, and if it did, the casting directors don’t have as good an eye for volatile, pernicious men as they do for volatile, pernicious women.) And while it’s a default setting, it only serves to make the Apprentice less interesting, because the fame-whores (male or female) are destined to be picked off long before they can do any serious damage.

While Trump has no difficulty looking like an idiot, or at least amusingly ridiculous, even he seems to have his limits. And those limits clearly include the following guiding principle: Do not go on national television and appear to approve the actions of a scheming fame-whore who’s clutching for camera time by allowing them within miles of a responsible executive position.

And I just have to add… these women! I… words simply fail me. There are maybe two (Pamela, who fled the women’s team and never looked back, and blond Jennifer, who’s trying to rise above the fray of her wallowing colleagues, but rising above it isn’t doing anything to improve it, so no medals being handed out here) who do not fulfill every sexist, stereotypical criticism thrown at women in the workplace. These nightmares are alternately too emotional, too unfocused, they over-personalize everything, they stab each other in the back, they can’t balance details with the big picture… Hundreds of thousands of people applied to be on this show! Did merit have nothing to do with it?

I would be fascinated to hear what successful businesswomen (aside from Carolyn, as she’s been darn unambiguous in her response) have to say about these contestants. I would also be fascinated to know what message they think the show is sending about women in the workplace, or women with ambition, or whatever. Because, even though it’s only a reality show, it does seem to specifically reinforce negative images. It’s just… ICK.

Reading The Basement Tapes at Comic Book Resources can be a one-step-forward, two-steps-back experience for me. It’s always pretty entertaining, but for every illuminating bit I take away from it, there’s something frustrating waiting around the corner. This week, Joe Casey and Matt Fraction talk about manga.

The frustration kicks in early, with the introduction, in fact:

“Inescapable, unavoidable, and impossible to ignore, the manga explosion is either going to go away-which is bad, as so many mass-market bookstores seem to be bulking up their comics supply based on manga’s lead-or manga will continue to grow-also bad, as the direct market scrambles to keep up.”

Who, precisely, is manga’s continued growth bad for, aside from the direct market? Is it bad for consumers, who have more choices? Is it bad for smart retailers, who can expand and diversify their customer base through the sensible incorporation of manga into their inventory? Is it even bad for the direct market, felt by many to need repeated and decisive kicks in the pants?

Casey gets on my nerves at first:

“I think what’s daunting about manga for most readers who are more comfortable with English language comic books (I don’t want to go so far as to say “superhero fans,” but you and I both know that’s what I’m talking about) is that there’s suddenly so much of it available. And such a wide variety of subject matter. Maybe too much for comic book readers who are used to limited choices. But if that’s the case, they’re certainly missing the point.”

Then he redeems himself in my eyes:

“I guess my general feeling is this: if manga is indeed still considered somewhat “alien” to mainstream American readers… it could only be labeled so because it’s getting it right.”

Fraction follows up with a delightful snapshot of the Promised Land, Japan:

“Giant stores with nothing but fat book after fat book, jammed elbow to elbow with readers of all stripes. Every single convenient store or subway stand sells twenty, thirty titles. People read them constantly, everywhere. Our inkling of manga, as an industry and economic presence, only scratches the surface of its penetration on its home turf.”

But I don’t know what to make of Fraction’s assessment of shojo:

“Shojo is like a smart bomb aimed at nervous, insecure girls. They’re some of the most emotionally exploitative, target-marketed, and demographically lethal things I’ve ever seen—[Chris] Claremont WISHES he could twist his little girls in knots like Mayu Shinjo can.
“The strange thing is that they seem so utterly without guile. The books don’t feel like the product of a committee, but if you’re an insecure girl with body and confidence issues, she’s got you dead to rights. If they weren’t so sweetly naive, they’d be cruelly manipulative.”

I’m not familiar with Mayu Shinjo’s work, but I have read some shojo, and I don’t think that’s a fair description of the genre (of some of it, probably; of all of it, no). It’s also a pretty insulting (and narrow) assessment of its audience. Let’s take a look at how Viz defines shojo:

“1. Manga appealing to both female and male readers.”

Well, that might be more of a marketing mission than a universal reality, but I’m positive that females aren’t the only ones reading shojo.

“2. Exciting stories with true-to-life characters and the thrill of exotic locales.”

That matches a bit better with my experience than Fraction’s take.

“3. Connecting the heart and mind through real human relationships.”

Again, accurate in my experience, and, if I were in a cruel mood, I’d suggest it’s probably a nakedly terrifying concept to a certain percentage of the western comic producing community. But I’m not, so I won’t. Moving on.
Towards the end, Fraction asks some very interesting questions:

“Manga has such diverse readership— it’s targeting the emotional and visceral subtexts of people outside of the 14-24 male demographic. There’s the question for the comics mainstream as it gnashes its teeth over the manga invasion: whom are you serving? What are you trying to resonate with inside your audience?”

I’d love to see Casey and Fraction tackle some of those issues in the future.

Usually, my “Buy this book/CD/whatever” marching orders seem to come from NPR’s Fresh Air, but the latest issue of Newsweek jumps into that niche.

First is the review of the new book by Alexander McCall Smith, who writes the very appealing No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series. McCall Smith has finished the first installment of a new series, The Sunday Philosophy Club, starring ethics journal editor Isabel Dalhousie. One of my favorite aspects of the No. 1 series is its depiction of Botswana. Isabel does her meddling in Edinburgh, offering me more armchair travel.

Next is a new CD of old standards by Dana Owens, better known as Queen Latifah, imaginatively titled the Dana Owens Album. Many might think that Chicago was her first step away from rap and into crooning, but the six or seven of us who’ve seen Living Out Loud know better. In Living, Latifah gives a sharp, appealing performance as a lounge singer who torches with the best of them. The movie itself is an undervalued gem, with Holly Hunter as a woman of a certain age (by Hollywood standards, obviously) trying to carve out a new life for herself after her husband leaves her. You can hear bits of her Living numbers, like “Lush Life,” here.

Of course, Newsweek can’t seem to get through a piece of twaddle on Martha Stewart and Mark Burnett without a typo, and Brittany Spears rears her empty head, so my gratitude is conditional.

Bless The V for so many things, but in particular for pointing me to this: Avengers: Disassembled with action figures.

I shouldn’t be surprised, and I shouldn’t let it upset me, but I have to wonder. On what planet, precisely, does a network news program lead with the planned retirement of a late-night talk-show host? On the planet inhabited by The Today Show, apparently.

This would have annoyed me under almost any circumstances, given the fact that there are a million other things going on in the world that should take precedence over this kind of pap. But Jay Leno isn’t even retiring until 2009! That’s five years from now! Who’s even going to care then, much less now?

I’m now seriously expecting Matt Lauer to lead off the morning with, “In the news today, salary disputes rock the set of JAG. More from Ann Curry.”

I was reading the article on CSI in Entertainment Weekly. Things I learned: William Petersen is kind of a tool; Les Moonves likes having his ring kissed; and actors might not make the best writers.

I say that because the recurring theme from all of the actor interviews seemed to be that all that pesky science and crime get in the way of what’s really important – gazing longingly into their characters’ navels. And, while I like CSI and think the cast is just fine, I don’t really want to know any more about their characters than I already do. That’s because the more I learn about this crew off the job, the less I like them and the less I respect them as professionals.

And that tracks back to the writers of the show who routinely portray that kind of personal dimension as a detriment to the characters’ ability to function in the workplace. Grissom conceals his hearing loss, Sarah can’t establish boundaries and has a drinking problem, Warrick gambles, Catherine has a train wreck of a personal life, etc. Sometimes these revelations seem designed solely to give the actors reels to submit to the Emmy nominating committee. It’s a respectability grab that distracts from the gruesome science fair feel. Given the choice between learning about the minutia of evidence and seeing Nick pout – fully clothed, no less – in the locker room, I’ll take the minutia any day.

Seriously, CSI is able to replicate itself so successfully because of the formula, not because of the characters. It’s a character-proof franchise, as David Caruso’s awful Horatio Caine proves week after week on CSI Miami. You can replicate a formula without any trouble, as this show and Law and Order prove yearly.

It got me thinking about other mystery franchises I enjoy. Take Fake, the gay cop manga. It’s CSI’s virtual opposite. The cop content is largely indifferent, serving only to forward the will-they-won’t-they tension between the two protagonists. Criminal investigations in the title are useful in that they prompt revelations about the leads, what they’re capable of, how they feel, their histories. I hope nobody picks it up to satisfy their need for a procedural, because that’s not the point.

I’ve been enjoying Kindaichi Case Files, which is closer to the CSI model. Readers know enough about the protagonist – he’s a so-so student with a gift for investigation – but the mystery mechanics dominate. Nice character moments for the young detectives enhance the stories, but they don’t drive it. On the other hand, as grisly as the crimes can be in KCF, it’s nice to have them leavened with the heroes’ basic decency and sweetness.

In terms of prose fiction, CSI needs look no farther than Patricia Cornwell’s Kay Scarpetta novels to see the balance between crime and characters go horribly, horribly wrong. I loved the earlier installments of this series for their fascinating forensic detail, but as they progressed, Cornwell dwelled increasingly on just how dysfunctional her protagonists were. With each new outing, Kay and company seem more paranoid, more self-loathing, and more obnoxious. For me, it wasn’t worth wading through the angst to get to the good bits.

Kathy Reichs seems to manage things better in her Tempe Brennan novels. Brennan is more of an appealing everywoman than Scarpetta; she’s just as gifted professionally, but she’s more aware of her shortcomings, and she has a self-deprecating sense of humor. On the down side, she’s impulsive enough to place herself in dangerous (and totally implausible) situations, and I’d be eternally grateful if Reichs could resist the urge to have Tempe voice moral outrage quite so often. But the forensic anthropology is fascinating, and the cast is a lot more down-to-earth than the Prozac-deprived Cornwell crowd.

The most successful balance between the personal and the procedural, for my money, is DC’s Gotham Central. It functions perfectly well as a crime comic, with an interesting range of cases. As written by Greg Rucka and Ed Brubaker, the Gotham freak beat is extraordinarily stressful and dangerous, and it’s only natural that this kind of grind would have personal fallout for the detectives who walk it. The writers keep the character development grounded in the professional context, which works very well. And, as large as the cast is, it’s nice to see them get moments that let readers know what makes the characters tick.

I’m not saying CSI has never successfully inserted character moments into its narrative. Small, illustrative exchanges can be very effective. I’m thinking back to a great exchange between Catherine and a dominatrix where they discovered surprising common ground, shared frustrations, and similar personal philosophies. It was a nice breather of a scene, smartly written and acted, that told us more about Catherine in a few moments than we learn from a dozen bad boyfriends or daddy revelations.

So, in conclusion, I’d suggest that the CSI cast appreciate their show for what it is and save the emoting for their summer vacations. In this case, character bits work best as the seasoning, not the main course.

I don’t normally blog about politics, but I found this to be particularly revolting:

On Thursday the Republican Party owned up to sending mass mailings to residents of Arkansas and West Virginia demonizing homosexuals and predicting liberals would ban the Bible if Democrats won in November.

The campaign literature featured a picture of the Bible with the label “banned” slapped on top of it, and a picture of a man proposing to another man with the caption “allowed.”

It’s so offensive on so many levels… its implicit “gays will take your Bibles” message, its divisiveness, its scapegoating of a segment of the American population, the suggestion that the citizens of West Virginia and Arkansas are so simple and easily frightened that they won’t give a second thought to the illogic of the message, etc., etc., etc… nauseating, hypocritical, insulting garbage.

Must go to the liquor store and buy gin and lottery tickets.

There’s lots of good reading at Christopher Butcher’s comics.212.net.

First, he links to a piece he wrote for ICv2 on the question as to whether the sky is falling on manga. He answers a lot of my questions about how retailers can (and, in my opinion, should) approach manga. As an added bonus, the piece prompts a response from a Barnes and Noble employee, giving me some additional insight. (Matt Maxwell at Highway 62 talked about the ICv2 article that prompted this discussion not too long ago.)

Christopher then asks some interesting questions about comics newsmagazine websites:

Who are they trying to reach with their material, and what are they doing to reach that audience? What is their focus? What are their columnists saying that isn’t being said, their reviewers reviewing that isn’t being reviewed? More importantly, how can we tell what’s noise and what’s static (without Kevin Melrose linking directly to it?).

Ed Cunard, of the Low Road and Comic World News, offers a response. Here’s part of it:

It’s just a matter of constant refocusing and self-examination to get a site to its potential, and that seems to be the thing that plagues most sites. It’s too much about personal feelings and individual goals, and not about just making a nice little corner on the web.

I hope contributors to other sites offer their views, too.

The current season of Survivor seems like a zombie version of itself. Formulaic isn’t necessarily bad, but the pattern here has become painfully obvious.

Young and Pretty gang up against Old and Useful, confident that all will cower in the face of Young and Pretty. Their confidence is immediately revealed to be deeply misplaced. The men, despite repeated losses to the women, maintain unfounded certainty that the women are weaker (coyly reinforced by host Jeff Probst and the production staff), infrequently tossing out a condescending compliment about how “determined” the women are. (Not skilled or strong, just “determined,” like kittens trying to get the laundry hamper open.) Nobody seems to have cultivated any actual survival skills prior to arrival on the island. And the whining… Dread Dormammu, the whining! As I stated previously, contestants, nobody forced you to compete for a million dollars. You applied for the show of your own free will, presumably familiar with its “rigors.” Suck it up.

My favorite gripe thus far was when a contestant compared the experience to prison, like she’d know. I loved this not because it was particularly apt or revealing but because it immediately made me want to see Survivor: Alcatraz. Which tribe will be the first to turn their toothbrushes into shanks? Who will rat out their tribemate to Warden Probst to get a cushy job in the prison library? Will the Young and Pretty crumble in the face of the ruthlessly starchy fare of the prison mess hall? Who will win this week’s reward challenge, 72 hours in solitary?

On to happier viewing, I’m looking forward to tonight’s Joan of Arcadia. If you’d told me that I, as an atheist who considers “uplifting” one of the very meanest things you can call a television program, would love this show as much as I do, I would have given you such an eye-roll. But love it I do, and without shame.

Tonight’s O’Grady is a repeat, or “previously aired episode,” if you prefer, but I’ll probably watch it again all the same. I’m weak that way.

Two of my favorite writers, Greg Rucka and Ed Brubaker, talk about one of my favorite comics, Gotham Central, at Newsarama.

This is probably my favorite bit from a really interesting interview, on the subject of shifting from GC‘s style to more mainstream super-hero stories:

Rucka: (Superman editor Eddie Berganza) pointed out one scene to me – a tanker truck exploding. Eddie told me I should have the tanker truck refueling the gas station and blow the whole thing up. He was right – I’d forgotten for a moment that I was writing Superman. My instinct is always to go smaller, and, for lack of a better word, more realistic. So I don’t really have a problem with it in Central. I admit, I’m not great at very, very big – that’s something I have to work hard on doing.
Brubaker: Yeah – it’s like new muscles you have to build. I’m encountering that with The Authority and Captain America. I was halfway through writing my first issue of Captain America when I thought, “Oh, I should probably have Cap doing something other than being interviewed by SHIELD. Maybe an action scene would be good.

I must say, if you’re going to spend a week focusing on one or two comic creators, these two are really good choices. I’ve really enjoyed reading these interviews.