6/21/17

i'm thankful for the most recent episode of terrace house: aloha state, which we watched last night. i'm thankful for the very interesting scene with the character cheri, a real estate agent, who has just had a clearly very good date with a former character, eric, who she was bold enough to ask out herself, a few days previously, and who then comes home from a networking event drunk and having made out with a russian guy, when questioned about how she likes eric and what this means for their burgeoning relationship (they have been on one date), says she does but says that also being able to network and being untethered to a particular man is both emotionally appealing to her and professionally important, that she wants to be able to provide for her family herself and not depend on a man. i'm thankful for the scene since i feel like this viewpoint is underrepresented in the television i've seen (or when it's represented, in drama, we're supposed to believe that a character who believes it is lying to herself or trying to avoid being hurt). 

i'm thankful for how forthright she is about feeling this way and thankful for the way that the muted conservative reaction of the housemates highlights the hidden class privilege of most of the characters on the show. i'm thankful to have been incredibly disappointed by the scene that follows in which two male characters talk together (without her present) about what she said and how it was wrong and slutshame her, giggling together like hyenas, and i'm thankful for how disturbed i was that the shittiest person on the show, taishi, buoyed by this conversation and the reaction from his conversation partner wes, eventually just calls her a bitch and i'm thankful for how disappointed i was that wes just laughs and agrees and how they then talk about how they might need to tell eric about this. i'm thankful for depictions of misogyny like this one, which show how poisonous and disgusting it is and how it shows, just like racism not being practiced solely by men in white cloaks with burning crosses, that misogyny is something that "nice guys" take part in all the time, a fog of testosterone exhaust that clots the air.

i'm thankful for "drew barrymore" by SZA (and really for her whole album, which is great). i'm thankful for this song, which is a lovely meditative underwater journey of a thing, which i recommend playing on repeat for a while. i'm thankful, though i don't normally like this kind of thing, for paramore covering "passionfruit," since i am in love with paramore now. i'm thankful for this picture of will smith and marilyn manson. i'm thankful for this joyful music video. i'm thankful to have learned what espadrilles are. i'm thankful for mira's curated scottish tweets. i'm thankful for the sad weird randomness of frankie muniz's wikipedia page. i'm thankful that we started watching the third season of transparent (i'm thankful for kathryn hahn <3), which is good and moving in an interesting direction vis a vis intersectionality even if it's also more (mostly intentionally, painfully) cringey, and i'm thankful for the surprise appearance of nathan fielder playing a young a&r guy. i'm thankful that no show makes me laugh harder than his and that i hope it will be back soon. i'm thankful that if i feel sad or stressed out i can watch his videos and laugh.