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Television

What ACLU’s ‘Modern Family’ Marriage Campaign Says About Our Politicized, Wedding-Obsessed Culture

By Tyler Coates on

Yesterday, ACLU Action launched an online campaign urging producers of the massively popular sitcom Modern Family to incorporate a gay-wedding narrative in the show’s sixth season. In an era when no major network shows feature an openly gay character (this season saw the cancellations of The New Normal, Partners, Happy Endings, and Smash), Modern Family stands out in that it features two gay characters who are in a monogamous relationship and are raising an adopted daughter. The ACLU’s campaign argues that the couple should be wed, just like the two heterosexual couples on the show. Despite the good intentions on display, the campaign is completely absurd. … Read More

Television

Popular TV Shows Improved by Diddy

By Tom Hawking on

Just like pretty much everyone else on the Internet, the inhabitants of Flavorwire central giggled heartily at the news yesterday that Diddy was trying to inveigle his way onto Downton Abbey. The fact that the whole thing was a clever piece of promotion for a pretty amusing Funny or Die video didn’t dampen our enthusiasm any — by then, we’d moved onto envisaging other TV shows that we’d like to see Diddy on, and breaking out Photoshop to make our dreams a reality. See the results of our fantasies after the jump. … Read More

Television

Mapping the ‘The Office’s’ Slow Decline

By Chloe Pantazi on

For the dedicated fans of The Office who haven’t been offended/ disappointed/ heartbroken enough by its gradual decline over the seasons to abandon it entirely, tonight’s series finale may be its biggest disappointment yet. For all the show’s flaws, the Dunder Mifflin employees have indeed become something like family — not just among themselves, but to those committed viewers who have stuck with the gang through the good times and the very bad ones. Now that it’s time to bid the show goodbye, here’s our guide to the show’s steady descent, in a series of moments that made The Office really start to suck balls. (That’s what she said.) … Read More

Television

Flavorwire Exclusive: S.E. Hinton on Her Epic Love of ‘Supernatural’

By Emily Temple on

This week, while in a Twitter black hole of sorts, I made my way to the profile of legendary author S. E. Hinton (of The Outsiders and Rumble Fish fame). I was surprised to find that she described herself thusly: “writer for a long, long time Supernatural fan horsewoman wife mother friend.” Now, being a (semi-closeted) Supernatural fan myself, I was tickled to see that the writer loved the show enough to make it part of her online identity. With a bit more research, I discovered that she is a committed fan who has appeared on the show and has even been known to write Supernatural fanfiction. So, just in time for tonight’s Season 8 finale, I emailed Hinton to ask about her love for the show. And she wrote back! … Read More

Books

The 20 Most Absurd Quotes From Guy Fieri’s New Book

By Sarah Fonder on

Today Guy Fieri released his new book Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives: The Funky Finds in Flavortown. This travel guide/recipe book is more or less what you’d expect from the human embodiment of an Ed Hardy shirt: it’s full of bad jokes and backhanded compliments (he calls a favorite milkshake in Chicago “[a] poor man’s milk shake”), and a major theme is the Food Network personality’s strange fixation on Kid Rock. Fieri’s usual flamboyance is a bit muted in this book, however, and there are a couple of occasions where it seems like he almost wants you to take him seriously. He frequently refers to his time studying in Chantilly, France, and reveals he “was raised in a really big art community” on the same page where he commissions the owner of a Kansas City pizza place to construct “a twenty-five-gallon margarita machine.” It’s clearly only a matter of time before Michelin takes notice, but until then, enjoy the rest of book’s most ridiculous passages. … Read More

Television

A Treasury of ‘SNL’ Game Shows Hosted by Bill Hader

By Tyler Coates on

Bill Hader announced this morning that he’ll be leaving Saturday Night Live at the end of this season, putting a wrap on an impressive eight years on the sketch-comedy series. This Saturday will be his last episode, and while we’re sure to see some of his recurring characters pop in (especially Stefon, his most famous), we’re hoping for one last chance to see Hader doing what he does best: playing a hilariously smarmy game-show host. Through his run at SNL, Hader played the straight-man in a handful of game show sketches, doing his best to keep his lips sealed while chaos ensued around him. His oddball and creepy game show hosts — all a variation on the same concept — have become a staple in the last decade. To celebrate Hader, here’s a compendium of his game-show sketches. … Read More

Media

What Bret Easton Ellis’ GLAAD Rant Gets Right (And What It Gets Wrong)

By Tyler Coates on

Out has published a long rant from novelist and occasional Internet provocateur Bret Easton Ellis that covers at length the following subjects: Jason Collins, the former NBA player who came out as gay two weeks ago with a controversial Sports Illustrated cover story, the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) and the organization’s annual media awards, openly gay actor Matt Bomer, a defense of AIDS jokes, and the phenomenon he calls “the Gay Man as the Magical Elf.” Strap in folks, because there’s a lot to parse in this nearly 3,500-word screed in which Ellis places himself at the heart of a great debate about the nature of today’s gay man — a topic on which the writer seems to play both sides. … Read More

Television

Exclusive Video: A Morning at ‘Arrested Development’s’ Bluth Banana Stand

By Jason Bailey on

We’ve got less than two weeks till the debut of Arrested Development’s long awaited, eagerly anticipated fourth season on Netflix, and the network is kicking its promotional machine into high gear. Their cleverest promo tool: the Bluth’s Original Banana Stands that are popping up across the country (and across the pond), giving away frozen bananas in anticipation of the May 26 debut. Here in New York, the first banana stand opened up Monday morning, so your intrepid film editor grabbed a video camera and headed down to talk with some AD fans about who they’re looking forward to seeing again, what they love about the show, and how they’ll be consuming the fourth season when it all shows up early that fateful Sunday morning. … Read More

Television

Is John McCain’s Cable à la Carte Bill Secretly Terrible?

By Jason Bailey on

Talk about hitting on a winning strategy five years too late. Forget the Alaska Governor Who Must Not Be Named — if John McCain was looking for a game-changer back in 2008, he should’ve floated the Television Consumer Freedom Act. The new legislation, which McCain introduced Thursday, aims to let cable customers select their lineups à la carte, getting only the channels they want, and eschewing the expensive ones they never watch. It would change the way the television business operates, and it could be a boon for the viewer. Maybe. … Read More

Television

Where Can ‘Community’ Season 5 Possibly Go Now That Jeff’s Graduated?

By Jason Bailey on

Last Friday, after a rather successful (for this year, anyway) fourth season finale, we asked the simple question: should Community get picked up for another, Dan Harmon-less season, or is it time to let the characters — and actors — graduate to bigger and better things? It was a question answered far more quickly than expected; by Friday afternoon, there were rumblings that a fifth season was “all but a done deal,” and that deal got done over the weekend. It’s not all ducky for the Greendale crew; as with the just-completed season, year five will only run 13 episodes (initially, anyway), and there’s no set start date. The show is on neither NBC’s fall nor mid-season schedule, meaning the network is saving it to drop in when one of their new comedies tanks, which at least one certainly will. (Let’s be honest: it’ll be more than one.) So the ratings were good enough, and the show is good enough. But it’s time to ask the more pressing question: where does the show go from here, narratively speaking? … Read More