Author: micaelaerickson

19 year old student journalist at Hofstra University. Passionate about the arts, advocacy, comedy and coffee.

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More To See in California Than Just LA

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Before moving to New York for college, I spent the first eighteen years of my life living in southern California. I never understood why California (namely LA), was so romanticized by people who aren’t from here. It’s crowded, traffic is awful, and LA isn’t nearly as accessible as other major cities. Since I was about 11, I was incredibly eager to leave and see what the rest of the country had to offer. I didn’t apply to a single college in state and the entirtey of my senior year felt like a countdown to the next chapter of my life.

When I’m at school, I don’t find myself getting too homesick. When I’m home, however, I find that I definitely have a greater appreciation for where I grew up. My roommate came home with me over break, and she had never been to California. It was a really cool to show her my homestate and things you won’t necessarily find on every tourist website. Our week consisted of a lot of beach trips, showing her my favorite local coffee shops, and introducing one of my newer best friends to all my important people back home.

As soon as we hopped off that plane at LAX, we got in the car with my parents and went to In N Out, a west coast staple. It’s better than Shake Shack and always will be, and I stand firmly by that statement. The next morning we ventured to Catalina, a tiny island off of the pacific coast. We stayed there for two days and took in all the sun we could after months of New York winter.

The evening we got back from Catalina, we headed to LA to see a staged reading of My Dinner with Andre, with John Mulaney and Nick Kroll. This was a super cool event to go to, as John and Nick are two of our favorite comedians, and we’ve been trying to get tickets for their shows for awhile now. Before the show, we stopped in a coffee shop that’s a pretty popular chain in the LA area. Our brief evening in LA was quite enjoyable, but we didn’t find ourselves back there as the week continued.

The rest of the week was spent in cities around Orange and LA county. A lot of little beach communities are, in my opinion, “must see” spots in southern California. Seal Beach, my local beach, is one of my favorite spots close to home. Old Town Seal Beach is full of cute locally owned boutiques, restaurants, and coffee shops that line main street and lead you right to the beach. Long Beach is another favorite city of mine. There’s an area called “Retro Row,” that consists of lots of vintage and thrift stores, record stores, and trendy restaurants and cafes. If you haven’t picked up on it already, I love cute coffee shops and always seek them out no matter where I am. One of my favorite coffee shops in Long Beach(and I highly reccommend if you ever find yourself there), is Wide Eyes Open Palms. Their menu is small, but all their drinks are amazing. They are a completely sustainable and environmentally conscious cafe, and are also strong advocates for equality within the LGBTQ+ community and beyond.

Aside from all the coffee we consumed throughout the week, there’s so many beautiful beaches in SoCal. Obviously, proximity to beaches are part of California’s allure. We spent time on the beaches in Catalina, Seal Beach, and our last stop of the week was Laguna Beach. Laguna Beach is one of the most gorgeous beaches in southern California. Laguna was founded by a community of artists in the early 1900s, and is currebtly home to the Sawdust Art Festival. This festival celebrates local artists and is a fantastic source of both “entertainment and education.” The influence of artists can be seen all throughout the little beach town, even on the beach itself.

If you ever find yourself in Southern California, venture to places other than just LA! There’s so much to see in Orange County and even San Diego. As much as I wanted to escape California, there’s so much that shaped me into who I am, and is well worth the visit.

It’s 2019 and Hollywood Still Struggles With Diversity

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March is Women’s History month, so I figured this would be a good time to write about movies about strong female leads. When I was growing up, it was cool to see characters I could relate to at the core of movies and tv. As a young middle-class white girl from Southern California, movies about people “like me” aren’t hard to find.

When I took to Google to research movies that starred inspiring women, initially it was hard to find anything that wasn’t just following your typical straight white woman. Representation in media is so important, and unfortunately, the film industry is still struggling to incorporate more diverse and inclusive casting. This is a fault of casting directors as well as those actively writing films. There are plenty of directors and screenwriters who strive to represent minority groups, but Hollywood is still heavily dominated by white men. A tweet from the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative regarding the top films in 2017 shows the complete lack of women of color and members of the LGBT community in film.

Young girls and women need to grow up with characters they can relate to. Film and television can shape the way we see the world and react to things. It’s so important that every member of society gets to see themselves as the center of a story. The experiences of people of color, people with disabilities, and members of the LGBTQ+ community are so incredibly different from the stories that are typically portrayed on screen. The stories that are told about by members of these communities and the directors and writers that create and adapt them rarely get the recognition they deserve from The Academy and other awards shows. The world is changing rapidly and the film and television industry(and many others) need to step up and acknowledge the importance of inclusivity and representation.

A movie I watched fairly recently that does a good job of representing a diverse range of intelligent women is the 2018 thriller Annihilation. Annihilation follows a group of brilliant women who are trying to figure out what has gone wrong in an environmental disaster zone. The cast stars Natalie Portman, Gina Rodriguez, Tessa Thompson, Tuva Novotny, and Jennifer Jason Leigh. The cast as a whole is pretty diverse, but to have a diverse cast of women at the heart of it is fantastic. Gina Rodriguez plays a lesbian woman and ex-adddict in the film and Tessa Thompson portrays a woman who has struggled with self harm and mental health. To see strong women leading an action/horror thriller is amazing, and seeing them deal with their personal demons is very interesting to see.

Hollywood and the film industry need to actively work on making inclusivity and representation one of their priorities. Film and television is all about telling stories to inform a large audience about different kinds of people and experiences. If there is no opportunity to represent all kinds of women and individuals, the industry will certainly continue to crumble.

Drop Everything and Watch “Russian Doll” on Netflix

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It’s always exciting to see new content added to streaming sites. Netflix adds new shows and movies pretty frequently, be it older movies, tv shows, or some of their own original series and films. When it comes to Netflix originals, I find them to be incredibly hit or miss. One of Netflix’s newest originals, Russian Doll, is an absolute hit.

Russian Doll is a dramedy starring Natasha Lyonne, who also happens to be one of the show’s creators. Russian Doll tells the story of a woman named Nadia(played by Lyonne), who finds herself repeatedly dying and reliving the same night(her 36th birthday) in an ongoing time loop. Think of it as a darker Groundhog Day. Throughout the eight episode season, Nadia struggles to figure out how she got herself into this situation, and how to find her way back to actually living her life. The show came to Netflix on February first, and has received a lot of praise within the first month of its premiere. Russian Doll has a 97% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and reviews to further validate its excellence.

Caroline Framke, a writer for Variety, has nothing but good things to say about Russian Doll. Framke even deemed it one of her favorite tv shows of 2019. Her article delves more into the storyline, but even she notes how “the less you know about Russian Doll going into it, the better.” The story has many layers to it, much like an actual Russian nesting doll(hence the show’s title). The audience is drawn in right away by the song “Gotta Get Up” by Harry Nilsson. This song is a sort of anthem throughout the series. The optimistic nature of the song becomes quite the eerie contrast as Nadia’s situation worsens and the stakes continue to rise.

Dark humor is one of my favorite “types” of comedy, and Russian Doll provides all of that and more. Natasha Lyonne is a phenomenal actress with great comedic chops, but the writers do a fantastic job of blending humor and drama. Thus, the dramedy is alive and well! The show throws a good joke at you one minute and the next you’re holding your breath to see if our main characters will succeed. Nadia is a character with a lot to unpack. Audiences are meant to sympathize with the protagonists, and the more we learn about Nadia’s past, the more connected we become to her.

There’s only so much I can say about this show without completely spoiling it, so I encourage you to watch Russian Doll! The creators are absolutely brilliant and Lyonne gives an incredible performance. I really hope to see her get recognition she deserves for her work on this show in the near future.

Natasha Lyonne in Russian Doll,2019

Your Favorite Sitcoms Haven’t Aged Well: A Sad Truth

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Binge-watching TV series is more popular now than ever thanks to streaming services like Netflix and Hulu. These streaming services provide a wide variety of tv shows and movies for a diverse range of consumers. If you’re anything like me when it comes to finding something to watch, I usually end up coming back to the same few series I’ve watched time and time again. It seems like we all have that one show we can watch on repeat without getting sick of it.

A lot of younger people have come to love older sitcoms from the 90s and early 2000s. Unfortunately, some of these shows have not aged well. A lot has changed since these shows originally aired. Themes of sexism, racism, homophobia, and transphobia can be seen in a lot of these older series. By no means is this a post a call to stop viewing these shows all together. I’ve watched a lot of these shows a few times now and I think it’s important to acknowledge the humor that can now be considered as “bad taste” or just simply insensitive. Three shows that I believe really fit this bill are Friends, How I Met Your Mother, and The Office.

Friends first aired in 1994 and ended its successful run on NBC ten years later. The prevalent and “problematic” recurring themes in Friends are those of transphobia and homophobia. One of these examples has to do with the storyline about Chandler’s dad being transgender. Having a trans character in a 90s sitcom would be incredibly progressive for the time if the writers didn’t consistently use them as the butt of a joke. The characters consistently misgender and invalidate her identity. The toxic masculinity that is harbored by the three male characters only further supports the underlying homophobia throughout the series. There’s an episode where Ross freaks out over his son playing with a Barbie Doll, a running joke that Chandler might be gay because he isn’t “masculine enough”, and a multitude of other examples of the characters reacting poorly to anything non-gender conforming.

Both The Office and How I Met Your Mother aired in 2005, just over ten years after Friends. How I Met Your Mother’s biggest flaw(aside from the series finale) is its misogyny. Barney’s entire personality(though it’s highly played up through the writing) is built on preying on vulnerable women. One source even deems him as a lovable rapist. Throughout all nine seasons of the series he’s depicted as a sexist sociopath; even when it seems like he may finally decide to settle down. While Barney completes his mission of sleeping with nearly every young, attractive woman in Manhattan, Ted tackles his conquest of finding “the one.” Ted’s search for the perfect woman is… draining. Ted sleeps around and objectifies women throughout the series almost as often as Barney does. The only difference between the two is Ted is painted as “just a hopeless romantic.” The whole “nice guy” trope is outdated and simply an easy way to get the audience to root for an otherwise average, delusional man who thinks they’re more worthy of love than the next guy.

Now here’s the show that’s hard for me to criticize: The Office. I’ve loved this show for years now and watched it at least three or four times all the way through. The Office utilizes uncomfortable humor which isn’t everyone’s taste. You’re supposed to cringe at the situations the characters find themselves in(Scott’s Tots anyone?). No one who watches the series can ignore the fact that the main character, Michael Scott, is the biggest culprit when it comes to racism, misogyny, and homophobia. Michael singlehandedly makes everyone(in the show and those watching it) uncomfortable. I’ll argue that this is the entire point of his character, but that doesn’t cut him loose from the more problematic things that have occurred on the show. Michael often makes very racist comments in the workplace. He has a very blatantly racist “character” he’s created named “Ping,” that plays up the stereotypes of Asians. This ridiculous caricature appears a few times throughout the series. Michael also says horribly condescending things to his coworkers who are POCs. He objectifies and harasses the women in the workplace, even giving one his employees an award for having the “tightest ass.”

In film and television, situations are over exaggerated to get reactions and produce a genuine “shock” factor. Characters in TV shows aren’t real people and are written to be as likable or unlikable as the writers see fit. Shows like The Office are meant to make you uncomfortable. Good tv and film isn’t going to depict the best of humanity and society, because perfect people aren’t entertaining! People use tv and movies as an escape from reality. These shows may have their flaws, but that doesn’t discredit their success and how they’ve stayed relevant through nearly two decades.

Is Broadway Selling Out?

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Broadway has been a thriving hub in New York City for centuries. People come from all over the world to see what is, in my personal opinion, one of the greatest art forms around. So many important stories have been told on Broadway stages and created a lasting impact on the theatre community and beyond. In more recent years, Broadway has starting playing into the wants and needs of a more “commercial” audience. This capitalist venture to draw a wider audience to the theater has caused quite the lack of originality onstage. Jukebox musicals, Disney, and musicals based on movies and books are currently dominating the Great White Way, and I have to ask: Is this the decline of originality in theatre?

Nearly everything that has newly opened on Broadway or has announced an upcoming run falls into the aforementioned categories. Don’t get me wrong, unoriginal content doesn’t necessarily coincide with “bad.” There are a multitude of these more commercial productions that have been incredibly successful. Disney produces a lot of these particular shows; productions like “The Lion King” and “Aladdin” have been running on Broadway for years now and are still getting full houses at nearly every show. Where there is good, however, there is also bad. Most of these newer shows tend to focus heavily on production value, or the “spectacle.” This can really be seen in King Kong, which is currently running on Broadway. The only real standout of this show is the giant puppet of King Kong that weighs in at over 2,000 pounds, stands 20 feet high, and needs a 10 person crew to maneuver it. Other than the awe that the puppet draws, critics have deemed that there is little else that “King Kong” the musical brings to the table.

The other genre of “unoriginal musical” that I haven’t fully touched on is the jukebox musical. Jukebox musicals celebrate past or present music acts or personalities. More often than not, these shows recount the artist or band’s lives and utilize their music to propel the plot. One of these shows that’s currently running is “The Cher Show.” I had the opportunity to see this Cher biopic this past weekend. “The Cher Show” was very entertaining and did an excellent job paying tribute to such an iconic performer. While the show draws in both lovers of Cher and musical theatre, the production was not unlike any other jukebox musical that’s been produced.

The more these production companies decide to feed into “what sells” the credibility of theatre as an art form starts to dwindle. Originality and creativity are the groundwork for good art. When these things are lost, we really have nothing.