Wearing a bright pink shirt, a long jacket, a bag slung over her shoulder, and a hand in her pocket; this is definitely one mysterious figure. We don’t know much about her other than the fact that she mostly keeps to herself and is apparently psychic, but Evelyn of the “Wedding Objections” Saturday Night Live sketch certainly leaves an impression. Suddenly appearing in the middle of a sketch revolving around the union of a black WNBA athlete and a very British Martin Freeman, Evelyn offers her own objections to what is occurring. The humour of the sketch comes from the fact that virtually all of the bride and groom’s friends and family have major objections to the marriage taking place that come from a place of reason rather than racial tensions, but Evelyn is different. We don’t know why she’s there at all and we never find out what her exact problem with the couple. Everything we do know can be surmised in her opening line. Continue reading “Who is “Shut It Down” Evelyn?”
Month April 2015
Righteous Displeasure Tropes
As a follow-up to my previous article detailing tropes I know are stupid but love anyways, here are some I despise for what I feel are righteous reasons. This article will be filled with the very definition of self-righteousness, and in my fury I will expose three of the worst tropes to ever grace our screens. Some of the most heinous of pop cultural criminals to ever frequent our consciousness are here, so it goes without saying that reader discretion is strongly advised.
That Shaman King Intro Though…
Too busy with finals and exams to give a proper update this week, but I can’t leave you all hanging can I? (Right now I’m imagining thousands of boys in girls at their computers constantly refreshing this site’s home page waiting for updates) This here is the intro to the English dub of the anime Shaman King. I don’t remember if the show was good, I don’t remember if the dub was well acted, and I sure as hell have no interest in exploring that now. What I do know is that as a kid, listening to this got me pumped up more than anything else that was on the air. The starting riff, the pitch perfect “kid show epic” lyrics, the colourful visuals… everything just comes together so perfectly. This song will change your life every time you see it, and it ages like a fine wine. It is my gift to anyone lucky enough to be reading this, so enjoy.
Disclaimer: I was also a huge fan of the One Piece rap intro despite disliking One Piece itself, so make of that what you will.
Guilty Pleasure Tropes
Ever watch something that you know you should hate for various reasons (that usually include being the fact that it’s stupid as all hell), but you enjoy the hell out of it anyways? That’s what most would describe as a guilty pleasure, and just about everyone seems to have one in the form of a movie, TV Show, game, or book. Maybe it’s considered a “guilty” pleasure for you because it advocates an ideological stance you’re totally apposed to, maybe it’s something that people you just don’t like identify with, and perhaps it’s just stupid as mentioned earlier, but all of these guilty pleasures are comprised of guilty pleasure tropes. Things that many GP’s have in common, a way to immediately let the viewer know what they’re getting into. In this post, I’m going to highlight 3 of my favourite tropes and explain why they’re just as “right” as they are wrong.
Fighting Game Narratives – Mortal Kombat X’s Story And Why They Matter
The phrase “Fighting games with story” can inspire a number of reactions from people. To the general public, it just sounds like another aspect to a genre of video games they may or may not have an interest in, but to fans of fighting games its a phrase that generates revulsion, aggressive apathy, support, ridicule, or outright anger. It seems like everyone in the fighting game community has some kind of opinion on story modes in their games, and all of them revolve around how relevant they are.
Continue reading “Fighting Game Narratives – Mortal Kombat X’s Story And Why They Matter”
Outdated TV Episode Premises – Bob’s Burgers
A recent episode of Bob’s Burgers had me thinking about outdated episode premises in TV shows. The saying that writers tend to “write what they know” is true in a lot of ways, and nowhere is that more apparent than with writing children. When they write about the childhoods of their characters, they’re really projecting their own childhoods into their storytelling. That’s why they write about kids who get stuffed in lockers (which happens rarely these days since schools are far more crowded and lockers need to be smaller to fit), that’s why we watch kids actually call each other on their cellphones instead of just texting, and that’s why we see totally implausible plot lines like the one seen on the Bob’s Burgers episode “L’il Hard Dad”.
Continue reading “Outdated TV Episode Premises – Bob’s Burgers”
The Kenpire 