The big breakup

It's over.

The love is gone.

We've been living in the same house but we just don't spend as much time together as we used to.

So after more than a decade together, Foxtel and I are "consciously uncoupling".

Sure, there's been good times with The Golden Girls reruns and the like, but if we're honest the spark has been missing for a while now.

When we first got together it was like my world opened up.  I moved from having five channels to dozens.  It was dazzling and intoxicating.

I couldn't wait to get home and be together.  I would record more television shows and movies than I would ever have time to watch.  It was my world.

Over the years, I started to notice the repetition.   The same shows, over and over.   Just how many Real Wives of (insert city) can there be?

To try and spice things up, Foxtel tried to change by adding new channels and new shows.   But I didn't care for dance moms, tattoo parlours and cooking programs.

Then I started to notice how this love was beginning to cost more and more.

I wasn't looking for another, but then I met Apple TV and Netflix.

This duo has it all: Apple TV seemed so flexible, while Netflix (still technically not available in Australia) seemed so forbidden and thrilling.  (And at $7 a month, a Netflix subscription is also about a tenth of the cost of a basic Foxtel package).

They just... get me.   They let me watch any episode from any season of hundreds of shows, and at a time when I want to.  It just feels so liberating.

 
Foxtel, I'll always treasure the times we've shared, usually on the couch over a meal and a bourbon, but by the end of the month it will be over between us.

Why RuPaul's Drag Race is important TV

Yes!   Seriously!

I know what you're thinking;  How can RuPaul's Drag Race - a  realty tv show where drag queens compete to become "America's next drag superstar" - be anything more than frivolous television?

Sure, on the surface the show is fun and frothy, hosted by renown drag queen RuPaul.

It's like a cross between America's Next Top Model and Project Runway as the competitors complete creative challenges and transform themselves into their drag personas under different scenarios.

I can't profess to have seen every episode.  In fact, I often end up watching episodes out of order and from different seasons as it's currently on both SBS and Foxtel.  

Initially, my friend and I were fascinated by "where all the bits went" (so to speak), but now we've become addicted to the show itself.  (I know we're a bit late to the party given the show first started in 2009)

And while I might be reading WAY too much into it, it's got me thinking about how the show challenges what society told us about men and women;  how they both should act, behave and the roles they should play.

To be honest, I've never really given drag much thought.  I didn't really understand it and what it was trying to "achieve".

But what I find the most interesting with this show is the concept of drag itself and what it means to be a woman in our society.

You see, it still seems to be the case that women can look like men and society is more or less ok with that.  But for a man to dress up like a woman is generally not ok.

There are those who will protest that drag is "repulsive" or "unnatural" (an overused word at the best of times).  But you would have to question why there is such a strong reaction to someone simply dressing as a woman (quite a natural phenomenon in itself)?

RuPaul herself offers an explanation: "We as humans find it easy to categorise people so that we know who to feel comfortable with them; so that we don't feel threatened.  If someone falls outside that categorisation, we feel threatened and we search our psyche to put them into a category that we feel comfortable with".

Even today, Australian shows will still have "blokey" men dress up as women (usually as "punishment" if they lose a bet) because it is degrading and humiliating.

You have to ask: is that because they think being a woman is degrading and humiliating?  That you are something less to be feminine?  Have you ever seen a show where the losing female competitor has to dress up as a man?

On RuPaul's Drag Race, these men proudly transform themselves into the female personas they have made for themselves.  They don't find it degrading or humiliating.

Interestingly, as some have said, they find it liberating.   Dressing in drag was/is a way to escape (momentarily) their lives and the baggage that comes with it.

It reminded me of a story I read about a recent Broadway play called Casa Valentina.  Based on a true story, it's about a discrete venue in the early 1960s for hetrosexual men who enjoyed dressing up and acting as women. For them, dressing up and acting like a woman for the weekend was a way to escape the strict gender roles society had defined for them at that time.

Watching these drag queens "sashay away" or "lip sync for your LIFE" makes me ponder the gender roles we still have.  But I'd like to think shows like this help to loosen these, just a little.   After all, I couldn't imagine a show like this being on television a decade or two ago!

To quote the eloquent RuPaul one last time:
"Every time I bat my eyelashes, it's a political statement.   The drag I come from has always been a critique of our society, so the act is defiant in and of itself in a patriarchal society such as ours.  It's an act of treason."

Why The Golden Girls is still revolutionary TV

Yes.  I'm talking about THAT The Golden Girls.

The TV show from the 1980s, about four older, single women sharing a house in Miami.

You might remember it more for the "interesting" fashion, the opening theme song, the copious amounts of cheesecake they consumed, or their house's leafy lanai.

I can't say I saw too much of it when it was first broadcast, but thanks to Foxtel reruns I've been discovering the delights of Dorothy, Rose, Blanche and Sophia.

It's made me think about how revolutionary the show would have been in the 1980s, and how it continues to stand apart from other sitcoms since.

Here's five reasons why:

It's a show where ALL the main characters are women
Sure there are male characters (particularly those who interact with Blanche), but the main cast consists of just four women.  Name another TV show where this is the case.  I can't imagine someone getting the green light today for a TV show focused on just four female characters, yet it happened in the 1980s.

It's a show where ALL the main characters are women who are "old"
Even if a TV show featuring four women went ahead today, it's hard to believe it would be about four women who were well over the half-century mark.

It's a show where ALL the main characters are women who are "old", but who don't do "old things"
These weren't women sitting around knitting and waiting for the grandkids to call.   They were working, volunteering, teaching, learning, and yes... even dating and having sex.   If there were ever champions for "life begins after 50", then these girls would be it.

It could be risque without being crude
As a self-confessed lover of all men, Blanche sees plenty of bedroom action, but this is scripted so that it's never played in a crude, in-your-face manner.  It's talked about and referred to, but never really shown.

It could balance humour with topical issues
The Golden Girls managed to sensitively address controversial and emotional issues around AIDS, homosexuality, addiction, chronic fatigue syndrome, sexual harassment, assisted suicide, elderly care, and others, while at the same time delivering some well-timed laughs.

If you thought discussion about gay marriage was something from more recent times, here's what The Golden Girls were saying about it 25 years ago.

So if you've ever avoided the show because you think it's dated or about old people, think again.

What the good doctor taught me

This weekend, my favourite TV show of all time - Doctor Who - celebrates 50 years since it was first screened in the UK in glorious black and white.

It's also made me realise that I've probably been watching the show on and off for about 30 of those years.

I can remember watching the 1983 20th anniversary special The Five Doctors at my grandparents house, and then throughout the 1980s from the comfort of the mission brown bean bag in our living room.

I used to write to the ABC begging them to screen episodes.  Thankfully, though probably not because of my letter writing campaigns, the Doctor was a regular feature on our television.   This was probably just as well as for the bulk of the 1980s in regional Australia we only had about three television stations.

It's hard to articulate what captivated me most about the show.  I think escapism was a big part of it.   When you're growing up in Warwick, the ability to escape somewhere else has significant appeal.  

But there was more to it than that.   To me it seemed creative, imaginative and exciting, and I think it may have even inspired my love of travel.

I liked that the Doctor combated evil with his brain, rather than machines guns and brute force.  He was clever, funny, compassionate and always fighting for the underdog.

The 1980s saw me dive headfirst into fandom, subscribing to Doctor Who magazines and fan club newsletters, photocopying favourite pictures and putting them on my wall, reading the novelisations, and even attempting to write a script (it was terrible).

I wanted to wear a scarf (though Australian summers don't really allow for this) and I would shut myself in cupboards pretending they really were bigger on the inside.

Before our family got a video player, I made my grandfather record episodes so that I could watch them when I visited.   And when we finally did get a video player, and they started releasing the early episodes on VHS, I thought life couldn't get any better.

To celebrate its 50th birthday, I'm remembering five funny things Doctor Who has taught me during the years:

1.  Everyone everywhere in the universe speaks English
This is extremely reassuring should I ever develop the ability to travel into space.

2.  If you're trapped or locked in a room or cave, escape through the ventilation shaft
I've seen enough episodes to know there's bound to be one in there somewhere.

3.  A lot of planets look like quarries
It seems mining doesn't just drive the Australian economy, but the universe's as well.

4.  Don't trust big corporations or big computers, they're probably trying to enslave you
A common theme throughout the series is the evil that comes from power-hungry companies and computers.

5.  If you're ever confronted, trapped or threatened, just scream
Don't run away or put up a fight, just stand there and scream.   The Doctor won't be too far away to rescue you.

Doctor Who has changed in so many ways since I first started watching.

For starters, the polystyrene sets and dodgy blue screen effects have been replaced by big-budget location shoots and CGI.  Yet, the show has managed remain true to its origins when an old man and his granddaughter went wandering the universe in the TARDIS.

When you think about it, there probably aren't too many things that can continue to bring fun, imagination and enjoyment into your life 50 years after it started (or 30 years in my case).

As I set my alarm to get up early tomorrow and watch the 50th anniversary special, The Day of the Doctor, I hope there's a few more years of entertainment and adventure from the Doctor to come.