Thought that I heard you laughing/Thought that I heard you sing...

So I'm browsing the threads over at the Comics Curmudgeon the other day, and ran across a poster with the handle 'Wally Ballou'. This provoked a mild little ripple of mirth from a few others...along with comments on how unexpected it was that people were getting the reference, as they'd've thought it 'too old' for the audience.

Erm. Given what I've been able to gather about the average age of the 'Mudgeons, also further observations elsewhere...this gave me reason for a rather lengthy pause. Apparently I'm not just the only dedicated Bob & Ray fan online, I may be the only Bob & Ray fan anywhere under 45.

Realising you're this unique on the World Wide Web is, as you can imagine, a deeply bemusing experience. Still, it's rather a pleasantly knowing one, as compared to...perhaps that one person on TVTropes who keeps adding Jem & the Holograms examples. I'm sorry, love, but there it is. On this side, brilliant, groundbreaking comedy; on the other, the '80's version of Hannah Montana.

...About that. Not Hannah, so much as High School Musical. Owing to media saturation around the third edition I have finally figured out what all the hype is about, and I gotta tell you, gang, no offense, but as far as I can tell the reason I hadn't picked up on it before was because there's nothing there to pick up. Something like cotton candy on a hot day at the Ex - one swipe, a shrug, and it's on to the next bright shiny distraction.

Well, maybe not that cheap. I mean, the part where friendshing_ posts hot pictures of shiny wet topless Zac, that I get OK. Not my taste, but I can sincerely appreciate the effort. It's just that...hell, Jem had the computer gimmick, y'know? And Hannah M. has at least the occasional amusingly surreal Dolly Parton cameo. Maybe the ep I watched was the anomaly, but for one glorious moment Dolly was there. Vicki Lawrence, too. And the 'Achy Breaky Heart' guy.

HSM, on the other hand, is...just...there's no there there at all, except inasmuch as its leads are pretty. Yes, historically this has been justification for quite a lot of pop-culture, but this...this is like a running compilation of all the moments that the teen dream media machine itself considers cliche. Realising that the current craze sweeping the post-millennial nation is based around an episode plot used by every single 80's sitcom I ever watched (and a healthy few of the 70's ones, too) is the second most deeply bemusing thing I have encountered this week.

(Especially the 'Sharpay' business. I'm a little slow, so it just hit me: A Shar-pei is a dog breed. A notoriously goofy-looking dog breed. Yeah, I get the joke, but the point is, it's a really stupid joke. I can just about see proud [if slightly dense] new parents gazing down at their little red wrinkly bundle of joy and saying "Awww, doesn't widdle snookums wook just wike a widdle shar-pei doggers!" But a screenwriter naming their blond bombshell rich-bitch nemesis? Not so much.)

..."and laugh at them in our turn?"

It occurs to me - or rather it was just now shoved up through my subconscious, which is snickering madly at the idea of my setting up as a pop-cult snob - that the cult surrounding Jane Austen is in a lot of ways the hi-brow equivalent of the whole pretty pink tween experience. Granted, there's a lot more snark and a lot fewer ballads, but when you look more closely, what both come down to is the cute.
The bright and sparkly fun and excitement of femininity unleashed. Playing with love, calling yourself empowered without having to deal with the unpleasant consequences. Also, as the clincher...shiny wet semitopless Darcy.

I rather suspect the real Jane would've viewed some of her more dedicated admirers with a distinctly sardonic eye.

That feeling extends to my current reading material, Darcy's Story by Jane Aylmer. I tend to avoid the modern-day 'sequels' as a rule, just because they strike me as so wholly unnecessary, but the idea of Pride & Prejudice rewritten from the perspective of its most interesting character (sorry, Lizzy) was too delicious to resist.
As it turns out, I've really gotta work on my resisting skills. I will start by stiffening my resolve immediately I see the words 'Austen enthusiast' anywhere in the author's bio. Because of course the POV turns out to be that of the Darcy of modern myth, the Colin Firth version, constantly brooding from across the room. Oooh, whatever could he be thinking?

...the trouble being, as anyone who's honestly familiar with the book will realise instanter, that interesting does not automatically = mysterious. Mrs. Bennet-esque blithering on the dustjacket aside, Darcy really isn't that much of an enigma after all; no more his author intended him to be. She named his major motivation in the title, for cripes sake. He summarises them to the midway mark in the big proposal scene, and goes into a two-page speech on the subject at the windup just to ram the point home.

Meanwhile the moderately-alert reader is generally able to make a decent guess as to what's passing through his head at any given moment: He doesn't like Elizabeth. Then he likes her. Then he proposes to her. Then he's obviously struggling to make it up to her...etc, etc.
That's what this book is: that decent guess. There are I'm sure any number of lovely dashing stories that could be told about Darcy, even woven around deep examination of his motives, but that's no more the focus here than it is at any given moment in Zac & Vanessa's (sorry, Troy & Gabriella's) relationship.

So the original plot is reproduced down to big chunks of dialogue, with 'Darcy thought/said  _________' tacked on at the end. This is not, exactly, riotously fascinating. Save for some pleasant domestic scenes that nicely ground all the romantic speechifying at the end, even the most average Austen fan - ie. pretty much the entire target demographic - will probably find their own fantasies on the subject much more involving, not to say fulfilling.