10 Things I Love about Joan of Arcadia
Sep. 17th, 2004 07:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ealgyldenIn honor of tonight's repeat of "Silence" and next week's start of Season Two, here are 10 of the things that hooked me on this show. They're numbered but not really in any order, and there are many more things that could have made it onto the list. Tough choices were made (alas for Father Ken!). But in the end, these were the things that made me fall harder for Joan than for any teen show since My So-Called Life. (spoilers throughout Season One)
1. The Girardis' house- especially the kitchen. And all their furniture and their rugs and their dishes, oh, and their lamps, too, and... I want it. And it would be just the right size for me and all my stuff! Just me (and my cats), since I have a lot of stuff, but I'd be okay with that, really. I covet it so.
2. Joan sees the Big Picture- in "Jump." Most of the time, Joan's mission is parceled out in small, manageable bites, and that works for me. She wouldn't be a very effective tool if she were blind or insane or exploded from too much direct exposure to the divine, after all, and she is just a kid. And yet, it's nice to have a reminder that this is supposedly an eternal, limitless being that Joan's interacting with so casually. Snark and complain, Joan, and have a cupcake too, but... she asks to see the Big Picture, and a glimpse of that vastness flattens her, as it should. It was an effective scene, but more than that, it was a necessary one.
3. Helen and Will's marriage- After three kids and twenty-odd years of marriage, they're still lovers and partners and friends. They're strong enough to weather upheaval and tragedy and unwilling, unwanted changes, and they communicate and miscommunicate and keep trying. They can be petty and unfair, and they bring out each other's better selves. They're more together. And the end of "The Devil Made Me Do It," when Will takes Helen in his arms and starts to dance, without music, in the quiet of their darkened kitchen, he in his sharp Police Chief suit and tie and she in her comfy flannel pajamas, was one of the more romantic things I saw on TV last season. Not bad for an old married couple.
4. Gavin Price- "Somewhere he's got this, like, coffin full of miraculous things kids used to be able to do before he stole it from them." When Joan first started, I saw quite a few comments along the lines of, "Well, God shows up every week, so when can we expect the Devil?" That was rather missing the point, I thought, since the show isn't about God. It's about Joan. And Joan didn't need devils, since she already had a great foil: Vice-Principal Gavin Price. I despise the man, and I can't imagine the show without him (or without Patrick Fabian's canny, cutting performance). If Joan is meant to be she who listens and observes, Price is her opposite, the one who doesn't listen and never hears, because he goes into situations knowing already. He knows that Ramsey's a danger, that Adam is a waste, that Joan is a troublemaker, and he won't hear differently. And what Price doesn't know, he'll find out. Joan is a girl with secrets she must protect, and Price takes as his duty exposing such secrets to the world, even when it might be kinder (as with Brianna Matthews) or safer (as with Steve Ramsey) to wait for a more private moment. Price thrives on conformity, regulations, order. Joan brings chaos is her wake; she's impossible to guard against. Price, though, is certainly willing to try. Good luck to him.
5. Kevin and Luke talk about sex- in "Bringeth It On." I'm not a Kevin fan. In fact, he's one of my least favorite characters on the show. Still, occasionally he has a scene that wins me back, and probably not surprisingly, these are usually scenes with his siblings, like when he tells Joan that he'll roll over anyone who doesn't like her non-repulsive subdefectiveness. Aw. Easily my favorite of these is his reaction to Luke's rather involved moose/elk/flower metaphor. He doesn't foist Luke off on their parents or the Internet, pick on him for asking the question, or use Luke's confusion against him. Instead he's straightforward (well, as much as Luke's metaphor will let him be), affectionately teasing, and generally a great older brother. The result is a scene that's sweet, illuminating and very, very funny. And Luke called Grace a flower! Hee!
On a side note, I was very pleased to see that neither boy reacted to the thought of being gay with any disgust, homophobic panic, or some such. Kevin is concerned with reassuring Luke that "the other moose" is using crackpot reasoning, and Luke seems more upset that he wouldn't have known such a big fact about himself (he reacts the same way to the possibility that Grace likes Joan- it's not "ew, lesbian germs!" so much as it is, "how could I not have seen?"). Refreshingly non-homophobic teen boys. Helen and Will should be proud.
6. The forms of God- The snarky teen boy. The comforting grandmother. The big talking hot dog. The wealthy matron. The wise chess master. The irritating mime. The beautiful goth kid. The eerie Arbus twins. The grammar-correcting electrician. The dreadlocked troubadour. The guilt-tripping suburbanite. The bespectacled little girl. Joan's God has a wacky sense of humor and a taste for playing dress-up. Elements like the Godwave, recurring phrases like "perfect system," and the reuse of certain actors help tie the various forms together, and the changing faces help keep Joan (and us) on our toes. What if God were one of us? Apparently, sometimes He'd be a cute guy, sometimes He'd be a mom waiting for a bus, and sometimes He'd be a big talking hot dog.
7. The music- I admit, I tend to pay closer attention to scores and soundtracks than most viewers, in movies and television alike. It's a thing. *shrug.* And it's easy to become jaded or disappointed in television soundtracks, since music editors and composers are working with limited budgets, limited time, interference from the suits in charge, and a road full of other blocks. Usually they manage well enough, and get the job done. Sometimes, though, they succeed brilliantly, and we end up with the soundtrack to Homicide, Northern Exposure, Buffy, or Joan. Jeff Lingle, Jonathan Grossman and co. know their job well (not always a given these days). Their musical choices support the scenes without overwhelming them, adding layers and depth rather than serving as aural wallpaper. To pick an example not entirely at random (it's one of my faves and my episode comments have been sitting unfinished on my hard drive for months), take the cheerleading tryouts in "Bringeth It On." The song used is "Not Done Yet," by Superchick, a Christian garage-punk girl band, of all things (the show often uses non-overt songs from Christian rock/folk/whatever albums, so unless they release a soundtrack, I'll probably only ever hear them in the show's context, rather than my CD collection. Oh well. Anyway). The tune is perky, bubbly, a everything a cheerleader appears to be, on the surface. But the lyrics: "It’s been one of those days for a lot of days now/ I need a day where the world can take care of itself/ this isn't what I wanted,/ how I thought my life would turn out/ and I wonder if it's like this from here on out," are not so chipper. They're perfect for a cheerleader with an abandoned baby, a girl who talks to God, all the painful secrets of the rest of the perkily smiling girls trying out, but you have to be listening to catch that. You have to be engaged. You have to be Joan. The music crew has a knack for subtext. They also have a knack for adding to character continuity, like Will rescuing his Bobby Darin records in one episode and us hearing them in the next, and for effective juxtapositions, like Ben Harper crooning "I am blessed to be a witness" as Joan is feeling very small and lost and unblessed. They just.. have a knack. I dread the thought that a DVD release might replace some of these songs; the damage done to these scenes would be severe. And even the rerecorded version of "One of Us" has grown on me (well, except for the grammar, but that was always a problem. Subjunctive, Joan, subjunctive!).
8. Grace Polk- I love all the characters on this show, even the ones I don't particularly like. But Grace, Grace is my girl. For her righteous rage at the unfairness of the world. For the fact that sometimes that oh-so-visible righteous rage is just the armor that every teenager wears. For knowing immediately that Adam likes Joan, Glynis likes Luke, and Friedman likes everything vaguely female-shaped, and for not quite believing that Luke likes her. For writing poetry, even if she doesn't sign it. For terrorizing her Hebrew school teacher, and having her bat mitzvah anyway. For never apologizing, except when their fight makes Joan cry. For calling Joan "girl warrior." For being one of the few stable things in Adam’s life in recent years. For saying "Shut up, Friedman" so often it's become a reflex. For striking back at the corrosiveness of "gay" as an all-purpose insult. For being a lot smarter than people think. For not caring what her classmates think about her clothes or her personality or her sexuality, and, in the tradition of teen rebels everywhere, making sure that they know she doesn’t care. For wearing black leather over pink satin. For her fiercely funny quips and cutting insults. For maybe having a crush on Joan, and for the hundred expressions that crowd onto her face as she cautiously asks if Joan loves Adam and hears an equally cautious "yeah" in return. For maybe returning Luke's crush, though she carefully hides what she feels behind a protective wall of political statements and snark, and kisses him the first time to make a point. For always being herself, even as she tries to figure out who that is. For all these reasons and more, I love Grace.
And I love her dad, too. Yay Rabbi Polonsky!
9. Joan's cheers- in "Bringeth It On." Joan is an intelligent girl who doesn't believe in herself, so it's nice to see that, aside from being very funny, the cheers she wrote are both smart and, especially in the case of the second one, sharp. Sure, maybe the standing ovation after her "Go Eagles!" cheer was a bit unrealistic, but it was also terribly satisfying. Joan doesn't just "equal hilarious," though that's certainly true. She also equals clever and cutting. Extra credit for the Biblical reference, too.
10. Joan and Adam kiss- in "Jump." After the weeks of distance and pain and longing, after "Jane"-"Joan"-"Jane," after Iris, after Adam's letter and the winter formal and the Thing Made Out of Stuff, after the end... Joan and Adam reach a new beginning. Almost. And it's a real beauty of a kiss: heartfelt and earned, over the top and swooningly romantic, just as you hope your first kiss will be, though it rarely ever is. It's a breathless, unstable moment, a summit that can only lead to a descent, and kudos to the show for continuing with the sort of choices that made me fall for it in the first place and allowing The Kiss not to magically solve all of their problems and send them right down the path to happy coupledom. But for that one moment, you almost believe it could.
One week left!
1. The Girardis' house- especially the kitchen. And all their furniture and their rugs and their dishes, oh, and their lamps, too, and... I want it. And it would be just the right size for me and all my stuff! Just me (and my cats), since I have a lot of stuff, but I'd be okay with that, really. I covet it so.
2. Joan sees the Big Picture- in "Jump." Most of the time, Joan's mission is parceled out in small, manageable bites, and that works for me. She wouldn't be a very effective tool if she were blind or insane or exploded from too much direct exposure to the divine, after all, and she is just a kid. And yet, it's nice to have a reminder that this is supposedly an eternal, limitless being that Joan's interacting with so casually. Snark and complain, Joan, and have a cupcake too, but... she asks to see the Big Picture, and a glimpse of that vastness flattens her, as it should. It was an effective scene, but more than that, it was a necessary one.
3. Helen and Will's marriage- After three kids and twenty-odd years of marriage, they're still lovers and partners and friends. They're strong enough to weather upheaval and tragedy and unwilling, unwanted changes, and they communicate and miscommunicate and keep trying. They can be petty and unfair, and they bring out each other's better selves. They're more together. And the end of "The Devil Made Me Do It," when Will takes Helen in his arms and starts to dance, without music, in the quiet of their darkened kitchen, he in his sharp Police Chief suit and tie and she in her comfy flannel pajamas, was one of the more romantic things I saw on TV last season. Not bad for an old married couple.
4. Gavin Price- "Somewhere he's got this, like, coffin full of miraculous things kids used to be able to do before he stole it from them." When Joan first started, I saw quite a few comments along the lines of, "Well, God shows up every week, so when can we expect the Devil?" That was rather missing the point, I thought, since the show isn't about God. It's about Joan. And Joan didn't need devils, since she already had a great foil: Vice-Principal Gavin Price. I despise the man, and I can't imagine the show without him (or without Patrick Fabian's canny, cutting performance). If Joan is meant to be she who listens and observes, Price is her opposite, the one who doesn't listen and never hears, because he goes into situations knowing already. He knows that Ramsey's a danger, that Adam is a waste, that Joan is a troublemaker, and he won't hear differently. And what Price doesn't know, he'll find out. Joan is a girl with secrets she must protect, and Price takes as his duty exposing such secrets to the world, even when it might be kinder (as with Brianna Matthews) or safer (as with Steve Ramsey) to wait for a more private moment. Price thrives on conformity, regulations, order. Joan brings chaos is her wake; she's impossible to guard against. Price, though, is certainly willing to try. Good luck to him.
5. Kevin and Luke talk about sex- in "Bringeth It On." I'm not a Kevin fan. In fact, he's one of my least favorite characters on the show. Still, occasionally he has a scene that wins me back, and probably not surprisingly, these are usually scenes with his siblings, like when he tells Joan that he'll roll over anyone who doesn't like her non-repulsive subdefectiveness. Aw. Easily my favorite of these is his reaction to Luke's rather involved moose/elk/flower metaphor. He doesn't foist Luke off on their parents or the Internet, pick on him for asking the question, or use Luke's confusion against him. Instead he's straightforward (well, as much as Luke's metaphor will let him be), affectionately teasing, and generally a great older brother. The result is a scene that's sweet, illuminating and very, very funny. And Luke called Grace a flower! Hee!
On a side note, I was very pleased to see that neither boy reacted to the thought of being gay with any disgust, homophobic panic, or some such. Kevin is concerned with reassuring Luke that "the other moose" is using crackpot reasoning, and Luke seems more upset that he wouldn't have known such a big fact about himself (he reacts the same way to the possibility that Grace likes Joan- it's not "ew, lesbian germs!" so much as it is, "how could I not have seen?"). Refreshingly non-homophobic teen boys. Helen and Will should be proud.
6. The forms of God- The snarky teen boy. The comforting grandmother. The big talking hot dog. The wealthy matron. The wise chess master. The irritating mime. The beautiful goth kid. The eerie Arbus twins. The grammar-correcting electrician. The dreadlocked troubadour. The guilt-tripping suburbanite. The bespectacled little girl. Joan's God has a wacky sense of humor and a taste for playing dress-up. Elements like the Godwave, recurring phrases like "perfect system," and the reuse of certain actors help tie the various forms together, and the changing faces help keep Joan (and us) on our toes. What if God were one of us? Apparently, sometimes He'd be a cute guy, sometimes He'd be a mom waiting for a bus, and sometimes He'd be a big talking hot dog.
7. The music- I admit, I tend to pay closer attention to scores and soundtracks than most viewers, in movies and television alike. It's a thing. *shrug.* And it's easy to become jaded or disappointed in television soundtracks, since music editors and composers are working with limited budgets, limited time, interference from the suits in charge, and a road full of other blocks. Usually they manage well enough, and get the job done. Sometimes, though, they succeed brilliantly, and we end up with the soundtrack to Homicide, Northern Exposure, Buffy, or Joan. Jeff Lingle, Jonathan Grossman and co. know their job well (not always a given these days). Their musical choices support the scenes without overwhelming them, adding layers and depth rather than serving as aural wallpaper. To pick an example not entirely at random (it's one of my faves and my episode comments have been sitting unfinished on my hard drive for months), take the cheerleading tryouts in "Bringeth It On." The song used is "Not Done Yet," by Superchick, a Christian garage-punk girl band, of all things (the show often uses non-overt songs from Christian rock/folk/whatever albums, so unless they release a soundtrack, I'll probably only ever hear them in the show's context, rather than my CD collection. Oh well. Anyway). The tune is perky, bubbly, a everything a cheerleader appears to be, on the surface. But the lyrics: "It’s been one of those days for a lot of days now/ I need a day where the world can take care of itself/ this isn't what I wanted,/ how I thought my life would turn out/ and I wonder if it's like this from here on out," are not so chipper. They're perfect for a cheerleader with an abandoned baby, a girl who talks to God, all the painful secrets of the rest of the perkily smiling girls trying out, but you have to be listening to catch that. You have to be engaged. You have to be Joan. The music crew has a knack for subtext. They also have a knack for adding to character continuity, like Will rescuing his Bobby Darin records in one episode and us hearing them in the next, and for effective juxtapositions, like Ben Harper crooning "I am blessed to be a witness" as Joan is feeling very small and lost and unblessed. They just.. have a knack. I dread the thought that a DVD release might replace some of these songs; the damage done to these scenes would be severe. And even the rerecorded version of "One of Us" has grown on me (well, except for the grammar, but that was always a problem. Subjunctive, Joan, subjunctive!).
8. Grace Polk- I love all the characters on this show, even the ones I don't particularly like. But Grace, Grace is my girl. For her righteous rage at the unfairness of the world. For the fact that sometimes that oh-so-visible righteous rage is just the armor that every teenager wears. For knowing immediately that Adam likes Joan, Glynis likes Luke, and Friedman likes everything vaguely female-shaped, and for not quite believing that Luke likes her. For writing poetry, even if she doesn't sign it. For terrorizing her Hebrew school teacher, and having her bat mitzvah anyway. For never apologizing, except when their fight makes Joan cry. For calling Joan "girl warrior." For being one of the few stable things in Adam’s life in recent years. For saying "Shut up, Friedman" so often it's become a reflex. For striking back at the corrosiveness of "gay" as an all-purpose insult. For being a lot smarter than people think. For not caring what her classmates think about her clothes or her personality or her sexuality, and, in the tradition of teen rebels everywhere, making sure that they know she doesn’t care. For wearing black leather over pink satin. For her fiercely funny quips and cutting insults. For maybe having a crush on Joan, and for the hundred expressions that crowd onto her face as she cautiously asks if Joan loves Adam and hears an equally cautious "yeah" in return. For maybe returning Luke's crush, though she carefully hides what she feels behind a protective wall of political statements and snark, and kisses him the first time to make a point. For always being herself, even as she tries to figure out who that is. For all these reasons and more, I love Grace.
And I love her dad, too. Yay Rabbi Polonsky!
9. Joan's cheers- in "Bringeth It On." Joan is an intelligent girl who doesn't believe in herself, so it's nice to see that, aside from being very funny, the cheers she wrote are both smart and, especially in the case of the second one, sharp. Sure, maybe the standing ovation after her "Go Eagles!" cheer was a bit unrealistic, but it was also terribly satisfying. Joan doesn't just "equal hilarious," though that's certainly true. She also equals clever and cutting. Extra credit for the Biblical reference, too.
10. Joan and Adam kiss- in "Jump." After the weeks of distance and pain and longing, after "Jane"-"Joan"-"Jane," after Iris, after Adam's letter and the winter formal and the Thing Made Out of Stuff, after the end... Joan and Adam reach a new beginning. Almost. And it's a real beauty of a kiss: heartfelt and earned, over the top and swooningly romantic, just as you hope your first kiss will be, though it rarely ever is. It's a breathless, unstable moment, a summit that can only lead to a descent, and kudos to the show for continuing with the sort of choices that made me fall for it in the first place and allowing The Kiss not to magically solve all of their problems and send them right down the path to happy coupledom. But for that one moment, you almost believe it could.
One week left!
