Happy Valentine's Day, Britta Perry
Another episode of Community I'm obsessed with, and some stuff about Teen Wolf.
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It seems I have missed my own newsletter’s one-year anniversary!
Happy belated birthday, Hyperfixate! It’s so wild to me that I’ve kept this going for a year. I take weeks off, sure, but wow! To celebrate, take a trip down memory lane (see what I did there) and re-visit the good ole days when I convinced a handful of you to watch (or re-watch) Triple Frontier. I’d like to thank J.C. Chandor for making that film, and everyone in it except for Ben Affleck for looking so good in that film, and for you, whenever you joined us on this newsletter for reading.
I’m not a big Valentine’s Day person, unfortunately. I adore love, but this holiday is a weird one. The last real Valentine’s Day I celebrated was a trip to the cinema with the guy I was seeing to watch Phantom Thread in 35mm. As if it were an omen to how that relationship panned out. (Phantom Thread is a brilliant VDay film for us Virgos). My valentines this year are Timothy Olyphant and this portrait of Kermit* and Miss Piggy* Matthew Gray Gubler made.
Like most holidays, I can always think of a moment from Community that reminds me of said holiday. Christmas? Troy saying he wears the Jesus bracelet Shirley made because it gets him chicks. Halloween? Troy and Abed doing zombies. Thanksgiving? Adam Devine guest-starring in the gas leak year as Jeff’s half-brother. Valentine’s Day? Easy peasy.
It’s one of my favourite episodes of Community, season 2’s Early 21st Century Romanticism. Jeff and the study group have a fight over The Bare Naked Ladies, resulting in Jeff’s unexpected alone time with Professor Duncan and Chang, Troy and Abed try to woo a hot librarian with varying results, and Britta—in ways only Britta can—takes the day of romance to prove to no one and everyone that she is the most progressive, woke, white girl that lived in New York to have ever lived.
Britta befriends Paige, a student at Greendale outside of her study group. Paige is, according to Britta, a lesbian. And they’ve been hanging out all over campus letting the world know that a straight girl and a lesbian can be friends. The gag is, as revealed brilliantly by Annie and Paige’s brunette friend, is that Paige isn’t a lesbian, she’s just hanging out with Britta because she thinks Britta is. I think they should teach that episode in schools to demonstrate dramatic irony.
I think Community has a pretty healthy relationship with queerness, at least for a show that aired on NBC (and then Yahoo! Screen) in the late noughties and early 2010s. Advanced Gay confronts the sudden boom in pro-LGBTQ+ marketing by giant corporations with Pierce taking advantage of his moist towelette empire’s popularity with the gay community. His character’s dated homophobia plays Pierce as the old buffoon, a manchild in a senile mind and body, which did eventually lead to Chevy Chase’s exit from the show as he and his character became more and more offensive on and off set.
In season 6, one of my all-time absolute favourite episodes, Queer Studies & Advanced Waxing, Dean Pelton is pressured to come out as gay to serve the school board’s political agenda, only for him to come out as a political person. (Also Ken Jeong delivers the performance of his LIFE as Mr. Miyagi in a stage adaptation of The Karate Kid, directed by a very sexy Jason Manztoukas). In that episode, the Dean says something that has stuck with me ever since, because it’s both incredulously funny and kinda poignant: “If coming out was a magic show, and gayness is a rabbit out of a hat, I’m one of those never-ending handkerchiefs!” I think about that every day. It’s why I have such an affinity for Dean Pelton. He gets it. There’s also a really great parody of Dolly Parton’s Jolene, in that episode that is literally just “Gay Dean” to the tune of Jolene.
Outside of the Dean’s obsession with Jeff Winger and dalmatians, his sexual and gender ambiguity has been handled quite tenderly. Of course, it’s not perfect. This is the same show that fired their creator only to rehire him and subsequently bankrupt a streaming service. Nothing is ever a big deal with the Dean, not the elaborate costumes or the men in diapers, not even blackmailing Jeff to do Kiss From A Rose at karaoke with him. The Dean is just The Dean. The core of Dean Pelton’s inner life is whether or not he feels competent to not only run a school but to take charge of his life. Like the rest of the characters on the show, he’s just another adult with some growing up to do.
There’s something so distinctly 2010 about this Valentine’s Day episode, but something so ahead of its time too. Britta’s brand of performative activism is always misdirected, misguided, and often at the expense of her own dignity. Like most things in that not-so-distant decade. And even now.
I cannot tear myself away from Britta. She’s like this gorgeous trainwreck, the coldness in her face often compared to a “Jodie Foster severity”. Gillian Jacobs is really good at playing the fool, especially because the fool is unaware that she is the fool. But Britta is also just trying her best, as many of the characters on this show are. She is desperate to be a good person because she’s worried someone will see her as a fraud, which in turn exposes Britta as she really is: a vulnerable young woman doing a really bad job at hiding it.
In an episode early in the first season, Britta admits to Jeff that she cheated in a Spanish test because she has “more experience being worthless.” That also came up for me rewatching this. The whole show, all the way to the end, is Britta trying to ground her sense of self-worth outside of herself and learning to try and find it in herself. Britta is not perfect, she pronounces ‘bagel’ wrong, but she is trying. Even if she is trying a little too hard sometimes.
Britta and Paige kiss at the dance and discover that both of them are straight. The illustrious Brit Marling delivers a line delivery so devastating, it makes Gillian Jacobs’ reaction all the more hysterical:
“I never thought you were cool, I only thought you were a lesbian.”
Both women are mortified beyond belief. But I think this hits Britta the hardest. In addition to the embarrassment, she doesn’t even get the validation of being seen as “cool”. The second-hand embarrassment you get as a viewer is so tragic, cringe-comedy at its finest. Annie’s oft-forgotten bi-curiosity is also played for laughs towards the end of that storyline, trying to plant a kiss on Britta herself. It’s funny and kind of sad, and it doesn’t need to be offensive or edgy or try-hard to be. I love Community.
I have a lot of love for Britta. I have a lot of love for Brit Marling, too. Where is Brit Marling? I miss her. I loved The OA. I adore love. Love is hilarious.
MTV’s 30-Year-Old Wolf
Oh, boy. Which Paramount exec did Jeff Davis catch red-handed doing something incriminating? How can he have both Teen Wolf and Criminal Minds revivals in the works right now?
I am famously pro-Teen Wolf. But I am not too excited about the prospect of a Teen Wolf movie.
Tyler Posey is returning as the titular Teen Wolf, who is now thirty, for a revival film. A revival movie that will set up a spin-off called Wolf Pack. What is this, The Avengers? Holland Roden and Shelley Hennig are also reprising their roles as Lydia Martin and Malia Tate/Hale respectively. I have a very complicated relationship with Lydia and Malia, two very interesting characters that were reduced to love interests.
Good for Arden Cho, my Agents of Secret Stuff bestie minding her own business as the lead in an upcoming Netflix series, for declining the offer to appear in the Teen Wolf movie. Apparently, Cho was only offered half the salary presented to her three (white) female counterparts to return to Beacon Hills, which is insane to me because she was literally a series regular, integral to the story in Seasons 3 and 4. Cho portrayed Kira Yukimura, a new student that discovers she’s a sword-wielding kitsune, a fox spirit manifested as a werefox. Kira was smart, bubbly, and so fun to watch until they sidelined her and eventually wrote her off by sending her to “train in the desert with more magic people”. The green screen was horrendous! She deserves better.
Wambzgarb Dylan O’Brien is also not returning to the franchise, but we’ve already known this from his Twitter likes. He is the Constance Wu of Teen Wolf. What is Teen Wolf without Stiles? Stiles paved the way for so many of you nerdy white boys! Tyler Hoechlin, who plays Derek Hale, is not coming back either, and many Sterek dreams have been crushed. That’s like Greg and Tom not coming back after the Waystar Gojo merger.
Allison Argent is coming back from the dead from the Teen Wolf movie. But coming back as what? I don’t know. Crystal Reed is reported to reprise her role as Allison, but what are they going to do? Bring her back as a ghost? A zombie? A flashback where a grown woman has to play a teenager again?
None of my OG Derek Pack kids are returning either. No Isaac (Daniel Sharman), No Erica (Gage Golightly), No Boyd (Sinqua Walls). If they can bring Allison back from the dead, why not Erica and Boyd? Both were killed off in the first half of Season 3 to service Derek’s storyline of becoming an Alpha the wrong way, only for his Alpha powers to be stripped away and Scott becoming a True Alpha. Isaac, the pack’s surviving member, was written out and sent to France, mourning the death of the now undead Allison Argent. Yeah, I don’t get it either.
Deadline describes the film as a reunion, where the former teens but current wolves must come together again to protect their beloved Beacon Hills from the most dangerous threat they have ever faced. I hope it’s Allison. I hope she’s the bad guy and not a ghost. I feel like the Big Bad might just be her insane grandpa again. Teen Wolf didn’t end all that well. Teen Wolf has also been known to run out of ideas very quickly. I dare not bear witness to what is about to unfold!
If iCarly is any indication of Paramount+’s dedication to nostalgia baiting people who are nostalgic for ten to twenty years ago (me, allegedly), this Teen Wolf reboot is kind of a lateral move.
Anyway, here’s Dylan O’Brien repping for Team Tom. Let’s go Wamzgarbz!
I hope you’ve had a lovely week so far. Thank you for reading!