Quickie Review: Being The Ricardos

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Kevin M.

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Dec 23, 2021, 1:53:18 AM12/23/21
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Better acting than I was expecting. Story and writing were ok, but — as stated here multiple times — I don’t like stories told in flashback. JK was a dynamite “Fred”. --
Kevin M. (RPCV)

Jim Ellwanger

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Dec 23, 2021, 9:03:56 AM12/23/21
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One thing that really stuck in my craw is Sorkin having CBS executive Clark Gregg saying something to the effect of “…if we tape a show Friday night.”

No one would have referred to “taping” a TV show in 1952. Videotape had literally just been invented, and videotape equipment that was suitable for broadcast use wasn’t introduced until 1956.


On Dec 23, 2021, at 1:53 AM, Kevin M. <drunkba...@gmail.com> wrote:

Better acting than I was expecting. Story and writing were ok, but — as stated here multiple times — I don’t like stories told in flashback. JK was a dynamite “Fred”. --
Kevin M. (RPCV)

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Kevin M.

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Dec 23, 2021, 10:41:58 AM12/23/21
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On Thu, Dec 23, 2021 at 6:03 AM Jim Ellwanger <trai...@ellwanger.tv> wrote:
One thing that really stuck in my craw is Sorkin having CBS executive Clark Gregg saying something to the effect of “…if we tape a show Friday night.”

No one would have referred to “taping” a TV show in 1952. Videotape had literally just been invented, and videotape equipment that was suitable for broadcast use wasn’t introduced until 1956.

Steve Allen used to joke that he’d shout “stop tape” when something went wrong on his incarnation of The Tonight Show… it was a joke precisely because his shows were live and tape hadn’t been used for that purpose yet.

There is also a debate on Twitter over whether “gaslight” would’ve been used as an expression in the 1950s. 



On Dec 23, 2021, at 1:53 AM, Kevin M. <drunkba...@gmail.com> wrote:

Better acting than I was expecting. Story and writing were ok, but — as stated here multiple times — I don’t like stories told in flashback. JK was a dynamite “Fred”. --
Kevin M. (RPCV)

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PGage

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Dec 23, 2021, 12:25:14 PM12/23/21
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What is the argument for the side that says “gaslight” would not have been used in the 1950s? There was a famous film titled “Gaslight” released in 1944. Does Twitter think everything was invented in the last ten years?

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Kevin M.

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Dec 23, 2021, 12:52:28 PM12/23/21
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On Thu, Dec 23, 2021 at 9:25 AM PGage <pga...@gmail.com> wrote:
What is the argument for the side that says “gaslight” would not have been used in the 1950s? There was a famous film titled “Gaslight” released in 1944. Does Twitter think everything was invented in the last ten years?

Nobody’s disputing the existence of the film; the dispute seems to be whether “gaslighting” would’ve been a commonly used figure of speech in that era. I’ve yet to see an instance of its use in media of that time period, though I’ve not been actively researching it. 

--
Kevin M. (RPCV)

Brad Beam

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Dec 23, 2021, 1:06:39 PM12/23/21
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My go-to says the earliest documented use of the word (as a common verb) is 1969.

https://wordsmith.org/words/gaslight.html

Melissa P

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Dec 23, 2021, 1:57:41 PM12/23/21
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The article title caught my attention:

Perspective | Three things Aaron Sorkin doesn’t understand: Comedy, sitcoms and women

What "Being the Ricardos" gets wrong about Lucille Ball and television history.

By Annie Berke

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/12/14/aaron-sorkin-lucille-ball-being-ricardos-sitcom/

Because I've agreed with it since Sports Night.


Another Sorkin project, another anachronism.  After watching The Trial of the Chicago 7 about a year ago, I remember remarking to a friend:  The neckline of those prison uniforms is so 2020!  No prison uniform had that neckline in 1970!



Kevin M.

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Dec 23, 2021, 3:39:16 PM12/23/21
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On Thu, Dec 23, 2021 at 10:57 AM Melissa P <takingup...@gmail.com> wrote:
The article title caught my attention:

Perspective | Three things Aaron Sorkin doesn’t understand: Comedy, sitcoms and women

What "Being the Ricardos" gets wrong about Lucille Ball and television history.

By Annie Berke

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/12/14/aaron-sorkin-lucille-ball-being-ricardos-sitcom/

I’d be inclined to agree with the writer if the film was a traditional bio-pic about Ball, but the film was a week-in-the-life of a couple who both worked and lived together, a microcosm that didn’t set out to tell the whole story or paint any person as the hero or the villain. 

It’s anybody’s guess how many conversations Ball had with the writers or stars about feminism or being infantilized, nor was the point of the film that Ball was a feminist role model or even a professional role model. 

I’ve had the privilege of being in writers rooms on numerous TV shows, and writers often argue with each other and egos get bruised and petty jealousies are everywhere… the critic who wrote the article seemed annoyed that Sorkin didn’t make funny the process of writing a comedy; I can only guess the author has not sat in a writers room. I won’t speak as to the accuracy of women as written by Sorkin, but Sorkin didn’t accurately write the men’s roles in the film, nor do I think he intended to. He wrote characters (or imbued characteristics to his fictional account of real people) to tell a story. If the story is furthered by making one character self-conscious about her weight or another character self-conscious about his age, that’s what he will write. 

I don’t mean to defend every choice Sorkin made… again, there was no added value to the old people talking about the week of production in flashback form… but Sorkin set out to tell a good story, and he did that. 


--
Kevin M. (RPCV)

Dave Sikula

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Dec 24, 2021, 5:41:11 AM12/24/21
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With all due respect, Sorkin doesn't understand anything about anything other than his own thought processes, speech patterns, and interests. He doesn't create characters; he creates mouthpieces who oscillate wildly between baffling ignorance and spouting reams of factoids in an instant. His characters all talk alike (which is to say, like him) and would need significant shading to become even two-dimensional. He's a hack who's bamboozled people into thinking he's smart because he's developed an ability to write smart-sounding words, which he repeats as often as possible.

I will give him credit for one thing: he's almost single-handedly ruined the Democratic Party by writing a dewy-eyed show about politics that was about as grounded in reality as Gilbert and Sullivan.

--Dave Sikula

Diner

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Dec 25, 2021, 12:17:04 PM12/25/21
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This 2017 article by Ben Yagoda (updated yesterday) should be the last word on "gaslighting" as a verb.

PGage

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Dec 25, 2021, 10:48:19 PM12/25/21
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I did not know that the Twitter condemnation of Sorkin putting the term in Lucy’s mouth was Roxane Gay, but she is exactly the person I imagined making a thing of this, and what triggered my irritation. 

My introduction to “gaslight” as a term was through my parents and grandparents, who were fans of the film and used the phrase occasionally in casual conversation as early as the late 1960s (as far back as my awareness of such things would allow me to remember). I read about the term in the “Culture and Personality” book referenced by Yagoda, though my copy, which I got at a used bookstore in the late 1970s, was the second edition published in 1970, so I was not aware until I read the linked article here that the 1st edition was in the first half of the 1960s. 

I have not seen the Ricardos, and so do not know what the context was for its use. If one were to argue that it was less likely that someone in the 1950s would casually use the term than someone in the 20-teens, then okay, that’s no doubt true. But to argue there is “no way” someone would use the term in the 1950s is, I think, demonstrably wrong. Not that one can ever tell Roxane Gay she is wrong about anything.



daves...@gmail.com

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Dec 26, 2021, 1:35:50 AM12/26/21
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Kidman/Sorkin's use of "gaslighting" is the least of this film's sins.

I've watched 452 films this year. "Being the Ricardos" is one of the worst. It's appalling from start to finish.

--Dave Sikula

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Kevin M.

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Dec 26, 2021, 1:30:45 PM12/26/21
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On Sat, Dec 25, 2021 at 10:35 PM daves...@gmail.com <daves...@gmail.com> wrote:
Kidman/Sorkin's use of "gaslighting" is the least of this film's sins.

I've watched 452 films this year. "Being the Ricardos" is one of the worst. It's appalling from start to finish.

--Dave Sikula

Maybe it’s just me, but I’m starting to think you don’t like Aaron Sorkin’s writing 

--
Kevin M. (RPCV)

PGage

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Dec 26, 2021, 5:53:35 PM12/26/21
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If the deadline has not passed Bob I would like to nominate this submission by Kevin as Post of the Year…

daves...@gmail.com

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Dec 27, 2021, 2:03:56 AM12/27/21
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Let me just say that, after enduring the grisly "Don't Look Up" tonight, I owe Mr. Sorkin an apology. McKay's effort (emphasis on the "effort") is so inept as to make Sorkins' look like a 30's Paramount comedy.

--Dave Sikula

Bob Jersey

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Dec 27, 2021, 3:34:06 PM12/27/21
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It is a "Post/Thread" award, and the thread is eligible by virtue of my having starred Sikula's reply ripping (apparently) "The West Wing."  Thanks for asking.   B

PGage, to Kevin M and Dave Sikula, Dec 26th:
If the deadline has not passed Bob I would like to nominate this submission by Kevin as Post of the Year…

PGage

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Jan 29, 2022, 1:33:20 AM1/29/22
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I finally watched this tonight (one of my aging patients told me this week that he identified with what JK’s Frawley says about something dying in a man when young women call him old, so I wanted to see it for myself).

As a die hard Sorkin fan, I have to say it was really not very good. I know Sorkin haters dislike it because they think it is typical Sorkin, but I disliked it because it was not Sorkin enough. It feels more like an imposter trying to write like Sorkin. Was also not impressed by the two lead actors, though the supporting cast was excellent. 

What made the whole experience worthwhile (in addition to being able to check back with my patient with integrity) was the amazing Nina Arianda. I just binged Goliath a few weeks ago and fell hard for her, and she steals the show here. The movie I want to see is the Lucy and Vivian story, not the tired Lucy and Desi tale.

Melissa P

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Feb 2, 2022, 1:32:20 PM2/2/22
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I liked it more than you did, but in the interest of offering consistent commentary, I couldn't help noticing that the baby in the movie was wearing an outfit with modern sleeves.

As you may recall, I complained here about the modern neckline of the prison outfits worn by the stars of The Trial of the Chicago 7.

What's with Sorkin's choice of costume designer?  Authenticity isn't a priority?

PGage

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Feb 2, 2022, 2:01:51 PM2/2/22
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I am incompetent to notice something like that, but it is interesting. It’s another aspect of what I think of as the “Sorkinverse”. Whatever he writes, whether inspired by actual events or entirely fictional, takes place in a nearly similar but idiosyncratic parallel universe, in which people (at least the main protagonists) are smarter, more articulate, hyper verbal and combine wit with dead seriousness about their work. I kind of like this universe, but I think people who hate Sorkin hate this universe. 

What reads in the Ricardo’s (since it is from the 1950s) as anachronisms - the collars, the “gaslighting” reference, (he also has Ricky say a couple of times “give us the room”, and someone uses the term “weaponize” in a very 21st century way) are I think less temporal/historical transgressions than signs of whatever story he is telling getting transposed into his universe.

When I say my disappointment in The Ricardo’s is that it wasn’t Sorkin enough, I mean that I don’t think it was successfully translated 8th the Sorkinverse. He writes Lucy as a modern, somewhat weary postfeminist, which is unlikely to be literally accurate, but what fails for me is not that, but that the issue Sorkin has her plant her soapbox on seems strangely “off” - trivial and misplaced. She’s insulted that the writers think Lucy is too stupid to notice Rickey sneaking into the small apartment? Even is there is a reason to dismiss what seem to me to be the valid arguments of the writers (she knows he is there, she is teasing him), there are so many other particular examples of misogyny and disrespect in the “I Love Lucy” formula that would have provided a more prototypically Sorkenesque  basis for her monologues, including barely concealed threats to hit her and constant attempts to control her. They even have a conversation about this start up, but Lucy dismisses this, but can’t shut up about the seemingly meaningless tease.

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