Author / Edward Champion

Posts by Edward Champion

Edward Champion is the Managing Editor of Reluctant Habits.
by Edward Champion

The True Spirit of Christmas

“It is practical, Mr. Baxter. It’s the most practical idea you ever had. He belongs in here because he thinks he has ideas. He belongs in here until he proves himself or fails and… then… someone else belongs in here until he proves himself or fails and somebody else after that and somebody else after him and so on and so on for always. Oh… I don’t know how to… put it into words like Jimmy could, but… all he wanted, all any of them want is a – is a chance to show – to find out what got while they’re still young and burning like a short cut or a stepping stone. Oh, I know they’re not gonna succeed, at least most of them won’t, they’ll all be like Mr. Waterbury soon enough, most of them, anyway. But they won’t mind it. They’ll find something else, and they’ll be happy, because they had their chance. Because it’s one thing to muff a chance once you’ve had it… it’s another thing never to have had a chance. His name’s already on the door.”

— Christmas in July

by Edward Champion

Mommy Lit: Bona-Fide Genre or Nonsense?

Lizzie Skurnick appears in today’s Style section with an article offering an overview of mommy lit, what Lizzie describes as “written in the wry voices of a generation of women who came of age after feminism, and they have a newly competitive, higher-end set of woes: $10,000 pacifier consultants, nanny-swiping and Harvard-like nursery school applications. Also present is chick-lit’s familiar cast of characters: the single best friend, the dutiful boyfriend (now husband) and a seductive other man who threatens to upset the apple cart.”

Barking Kitten takes umbrage with this, observing, “These writers are but a sliver of society, the hopelessly out-of-touch wealthy inhabiting the coasts. The article does give mention to blogs complaining about this rarified [sic] air, but the publishing world, personified by editor Stacy Creamer, who brought us masterwork The Devil Wears Prada, is all over the trend, anxious to capitalize on a strollerful of publications before the Mummies turn to divorce and menopause.”

Certainly, there have been books, including those cited in Lizzie’s article, that have attempted to capitalize on how to keep chick lit going. As those who read chick lit in the late ’90’s have started families, it makes complete sense to appeal to these new audiences, particularly if you’re an avaricious publisher. However, I must also take partial umbrage with mom lit — not because I have any objection to books which deal with mothers, but because a novel dealing with hyperaffluent maternity suggests more of a masturbatory fantasy than fiction rooted in realism. At least with chick lit, a genre which caters to valid, albeit wildly optimistic tales that often dwell upon women’s issues, there’s some sense of verisimilitude merged with fantasy. Mom lit, by contrast, involves milking the teat on a cash cow.

by Edward Champion

There’s a Fine Line Between Drug Addicts and Yuppie Scum Who “Can’t” Save

CNN: “Digesting that fact becomes harder when you consider that the Schuetts earn a comfortable living, with Amy, 39, pulling in $150,000 a year as a hospital psychiatrist. True, their income did take a big hit last summer when Brian got laid off from his job as a sales rep for a pharmaceutical firm (he’d been making a base salary of $82,000 a year, plus commissions as high as $24,000)….
Yet, says Amy, ‘We live from one paycheck to the next, we’re struggling to save and we never seem to have enough money to do anything fun.'”

by Edward Champion

How “The Office” Got Its Groove Back

officechristmas.jpg The recent one-hour Christmas episode, titled “A Benihana Christmas,” is an incomplete but strong return to form: in part because the show has found its narrative thread again, and in part because Harold Ramis directed this installment.

I’ve been truthfully disappointed with the third season. In the wake of The Office‘s success, the writers have pulled their punches, the plotlines have often become tedious (the Michael-Jan romance, in particular, although it may be taking another turn). There hasn’t been an episode yet this season with “Diversity Day” or “Boys and Girls”‘s offensive precision, with “Diwali” serving as the token “Let’s fuck with cultural fragmentation!” episode, although without impish glee or a take-no-prisoners approach. The Office‘s comic fortitude has come from an interesting social source in its American incarnation: the manner in which office life reveals class, racial and gender chasms.

The season premiere, which dealt with the gay Oscar being outed publicly at the office, was more successful in maintaining this front, but too burdened by the awkward character splitting between two offices. It seemed for a while that the writers weren’t really sure where they were going. Even an episode written by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant involving an employee discovered to be a former convict felt terribly forced: in part because Gervias’s American television writing, perhaps hindered by the threat of Standards & Practices, isn’t nearly as funny as his British television writing. (See also Gervais’s flatline episode for The Simpsons.)

These doubts were put to rest on Thursday (or, in my case, Saturday morning), as “A Benihana Christmas” revealed that The Office was far from dead, shifting unexpectedly into a well-crafted farce in which two competing Christmas parties are juxtaposed against Michael reacting to being dumped by his girlfriend. “I think I’ll go to Angela’s party because that’s the party I know,” said the droll Kevin. Lines like this are laced with irony, revealing the conformist pressures of office life that all of the characters are struggling with. Is it the office environment that prevents Jim from continuing his pranksterism? And is it the office environment which causes these characters to fail in other ways? (The religion-obsessed Angela, the alcoholic Meredith, the career-stalled Ryan, and Phyllis, perhaps the least utilized character reflecting an interesting Midwestern kindheartedness at odds with what is expected.)

These social observations, which I believe lie beneath The Office‘s surface, are evident in the two waitresses that Michael and Andy bring back from Benihana. The waitresses are Asian. And Michael is too inept to distinguish between them and even applies a mark on his “date”‘s wrist to identify her. This, in itself, is quite funny. But what’s even more hilarious (and curiously unmentioned) is that these aren’t the same two waitresses who Michael and Andy were hitting up in the bar (note the blonde streak in the Benihana waitress’s hair). Thus, this nuanced racism of “all Asians looking alike” resonates even more powerfully, suggesting another story to be filled in by the audience. I also like the frilly and collared blouse that Angela wears throughout this episode, which suggests a perfervid Puritanism. I don’t know if it was Ramis who made these artistic decisions or the episode’s writers. (Curiously, “A Benihana Christmas” has no writing credit. I’m wondering if Ramis also came on board as a writer and refused the credit due to WGA regulations.) But the results succeed.

I’m not sure if The Office will be able to sustain this momentum without Ramis, but the episode demonstrates that this is certainly not a television show to give up on. It still has piss and vinegar, and there is great room for more. If it can succeed on its own social and observational terms, without employing too many stunts to appease the NBC execs, then the show’s social possibilities may just be limitless.

[UPDATE: Erin advises me that the episode was written by Jennifer Celotta. Thanks, Erin!]

by Edward Champion

Judith Regan Gets Her Christmas Bonus

Variety: “News Corp.-owned HarperCollins announced the news late Friday on the East Coast with a terse press release headlined ‘Judith Regan Terminated.’ Termination was effective immediately, the statement said. Move was clearly a reaction — albeit a delayed one — to the embarrassing scandal involving a Regan tome and T.V. special with O.J. Simpson titled ‘If I Did It,’ in which he described the way he would have committed the murders of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman. That event earned across-the-board condemnation and a statement from Murdoch, who called the event ‘ill-considered’ and yanked both the book and special.”