I

f God were fair and the
universe were just, Megan
Fox wouldn’t be funny.

Megan Fox doesn’t need to be

funny. She is a lot of other things —
the pouty
face
on

a
poster

arranged
conspicu-
ously
across
from
a

freshman
boy’s bed,
the
kind

of
girl

who
has

“always gotten along better with
guys” and who gets lower-back tat-
toos as a “form of self-expression.”
She’s the star of such renowned
films
as
“Transformers”
and

“Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,”
the benefactor of an acting career
funded by gross bros who will
pay to stare at her ass while she
washes a car. It even feels wrong
referring to her without both her
first and last name — you need two
words to encompass the mythic
sex symbolism that she embodies.
And ever since she burst onto the
scene in 2007 (out of nowhere, as
if she were created in some sex-bot
science lab), Megan Fox has been
the one exception to my otherwise
stringent feminism, the one lady
I’d bash with utter glee.

Megan Fox has made a few

forays into comedy in the past,
which seems natural, because
there is nothing funnier than a
Hot Girl who stands there looking
Hot.
Megan
Fox’s
extensive

filmography includes a cameo
in Sacha Baron Cohen’s “The
Dictator” and a supporting role in
“This is 40.” Her standout scene
in “This is 40” involves taking off
her clothes during a shift at the
clothing store where Leslie Mann’s
character also works. Her best joke
is standing there in her push-up
bra and underwear, apathetically
saying “really?” when Mann tells
her she has a great body. Evidently,
someone like Megan Fox doesn’t
have to be funny or talented to
make millions of dollars starring
in action or comedy films. She is
beautiful, which is all you need

to be successful as a woman in
Hollywood.

I feel kind of guilty about

disliking Megan Fox this much,
especially since I haven’t seen
“Jennifer’s
Body,”
the
Diablo

Cody-penned horror comedy that
Megan Fox headlined in 2009.
In the movie, she plays another
untouchable
Hot
Girl
whose

toxic good looks belie demonic
possession. She kills a bunch of
high-school boys. It sounds like
exactly the kind of absurd satire
that might speak to Megan Fox’s
actual talent and reveal her merits
aside from nice boobs — of course,
I never wanted to see this movie,
because it’s easier to just go on
hating Megan Fox.

You can imagine the distaste

I felt upon seeing the news that
Megan Fox would be guest starring
on one of my favorite comedies,
“New Girl.” While star Zooey
Deschanel was on maternity leave,
Megan Fox would move into the
schlubby L.A. loft with Nick,
Schmidt and Winston. There’s
already a TV show about a hot girl
who lives with dorky guys, and
it’s the highest-rated comedy on
television: “The Big Bang Theory.”
When “New Girl” premiered five
years ago, I was worried that the
show would follow in the steps
of “Big Bang” and rely on cheap
jokes about Hot Girls and dweeby
guys, but Jess Day was always
drawn with far more nuance and
generous quirk than Penny on
“The Big Bang Theory.” With the
Megan Fox announcement, my
fears were renewed. I was afraid
that “New Girl” would lose its
sense of humor and deliver the
lazy,
Hot-Girl-Standing-In-Her-

Underwear comedy that Megan
Fox seems so adept at.

***
It turns out that Megan Fox

is adept at a lot of other kinds
of comedy as well. In “New
Girl,” she plays Reagan, a tough
pharmaceutical
saleswoman

that Nick and Schmidt meet at a
doctor’s office. Upon seeing her
for the first time, Nick is struck by
the kind of “magic” he has been
waiting for in a woman — you
know, that spark of chemistry and
immediate connection, that kind

of love at first sight that’s possible
with women who look like Megan
Fox. Reagan is looking for a place
to stay, and Nick is thrilled at the
possibility of such a Hot Girl living
with them.

But Reagan is hardly a fantasy.

She’s cold and kind of a diva (one
of her sublet conditions is that the


bathroom has a rain shower), and
she knows how to get what she
wants (Nick installs a rain shower
for her). She has a romantic history
with Cece, one fateful hook-up at
the MTV Beach House a decade
ago that freaks the roommates
out a little bit. She’s way, way
out of Nick’s league, and all his
friends let him know, repeatedly.
And she has a deadpan sense of
humor that’s miles from Jess’s
bubbly sincerity. Reagan may be
a purveyor of romantic “magic,”
but she’s also kind of psychic and
weird, and somehow knows that
Schmidt used to be fat. She pours
Nick the best Old Fashioned he’d
ever tasted, and disappears from
the bar without paying for a drink.
She’s ephemeral, but she’s no
dream Hot Girl in a softcore poster.

***
If God were fair and the universe

were just, Megan Fox wouldn’t be
funny. But the universe doesn’t
bless women with just one talent,
so here we are, surprised by a
woman who is both gorgeous and
silly. I’m embarrassed at those nine
years I spent irrationally loathing
someone who was never given a
chance to show off her looks and
comedic timing, the same kind
of chance that someone like Zac
Efron gets almost immediately
upon arriving in Hollywood. It’s
a shame that her comedic talent
has been so obscured by years of
underwritten roles that reduce
her to some flat sex symbol. Even
though she’s only on “New Girl”
for another few weeks, I’m hoping
that the show will start a grand
Megan Fox career revival. She can
tell a joke with the best of them.

Gilke is assessing why

the patriarchial film industry

hates women. To send

personal footnotes, email

chloeliz@umich.edu.

TV/NEW MEDIA COLUMN

Megan Fox isn’t
one-dimensional

CHLOE

GILKE

20TH CENTURY FOX

Hairstyles straight out of Yeezy Season 3.

By JACOB RICH

Senior Arts Editor

The blockbuster game has

changed since “Avatar” came
out. In the span of almost
an entire presidency, we’ve
observed the meteoric rise of
the Marvel cinematic universe,
the domination of the box office
by young adult sci-fi mega-
franchises like The Hunger
Games,
Divergent
and
The

Maze Runner, a whole new
trilogy of “Lord of the Rings”
films and the return of Star
Wars as not just another film
in the series but basically an
entire entertainment industry
of its own.

It seems like no one really

cares about “Avatar” anymore.
Most people have left it behind
as a fun afternoon they spent
with dumb plastic glasses on
at the theater, while others
have joined the recent wave of
backlash against it. “It’s just
like Pocahontas,” they say. “The
plot is so dumb.” “It’s just like
Dances with Wolves.” “You
can’t remember a single line of
dialogue from it.” “It’s Just like
FernGully.” We hear the same
criticisms over and over.

It’s been tough to be an

“Avatar” apologist over the
last few weeks (while I agree
the film’s ideology is certainly
far from complex, I still think
it’s one of the best action
movies
of
the
millennium

and a tremendous example of
cinematic world-building). The
backlash hit fever pitch a few
weeks ago, when Fox announced
that “Avatar 2” would be delayed

until 2018 to avoid competition
with “Star Wars Episode VIII,”
which had recently been moved
into the December 2017 slot to
accommodate a script rewrite.

“My
God!”
one
IGN

commenter wrote. “By the time
(Cameron) releases this movie
either: a) no one will care b)
everyone will have forgotten
Avatar was even a thing (from
seven years ago by the way).”

“If there was ever a movie

that does not need a sequel
it’s Avatar,” wrote another.
“Cameron you are a better
filmmaker
than
this.
Do

something else!!”

This is a cycle we’ve been

through. Actually, we’ve been
through it several times already:
20th Century Fox announces
a new James Cameron film. It
goes way over budget. The hate
comes pouring in. Everyone
says that THIS is the film
that’s going to ruin Cameron’s
career. The film comes out.
It’s critically acclaimed, and it
makes more money than a small
country’s GDP. Then another
Cameron film is announced a
few years later, and it begins
again.

“Titanic”
was
expected

to bomb. When analysts and
critics heard that Cameron
was creating a 90 percent scale
model of the infamous ship,
they
laughed
and
laughed.

No one had spent this much
money on a movie before, and
on Cameron’s obsessive little
pet project about a shipwreck?
There’s
no
way
that
will

resonate with people.

I know this is an article, but

I bet you can still hear my eyes
rolling so hard they hit the back
of my head.

“Avatar” was also expected

to bomb. Go back and look
— people were throwing so
much shade prior to the film’s
December 2009 release. It’s
just the nature of the Internet
— if it’s not clearly a calculated
rehash of something fanboys
already like, it’s going to fail.

Both movies killed it, to say

the very least. In case you’ve
been living in a sunken ship
or on a far-off planet for the
last few decades, “Titanic”
and “Avatar” are the top two
highest-grossing films of all
time. Why do we keep doubting
Cameron when literally every
time he tries, his team puts
out something that’s a smash
cultural hit?

“Avatar 2” will be huge. The

“Avatar” sequel trilogy will be
as celebrated as the original
“Lord of the Rings” trilogy,
will advance film tech by years,
and will make an absolutely
stupid amount of money. If
you’re rolling your eyes at this
article and already typing out
an incensed response, consider
that you might just be acting
like the people who were wrong
about “Avatar.” And “Titanic.”
And
“Terminator
2.”
And

“Aliens.”

I’m just saying, we’ve been

here before, and we’ve been
wrong every time. Cameron
and his team are the best
blockbuster filmmakers in the
business. Hindsight is indeed
20/20, but let’s try to use some
foresight this time.

Believing in ‘Avatar 2’

TBS

You can be the king but watch the queen conquer.

Feminism comes to
late-night with Bee

By SOPHIA KAUFMAN

Daily Arts Writer

Samantha
Bee
pulls
no

punches in the premiere of her
new TBS late-night on Mondays.

The
cold

open of “Full-
Frontal” is a
sketch in which
reporters
ask

Bee questions
on
how
she

will be able to
do things, like
host
a
late-

night
show,

specifically as
a woman. As
she is the lone
female host of
a
late-night,

Bee must have
thought it was
an
important

question
to

answer right away. She answers
sweetly, making a joke about
needing “a little bit of magic,”
and then the camera cuts to
a bloody, cult-like scene in
which she screams, “We’re all
witches!”

The first of Bee’s three main

segments
in
the
premiere

focuses on the current electoral
candidates
and
the
general

mood of the 2016 presidential
campaign,
notably
Donald

Trump, Hillary Clinton, Bernie
Sanders, Ted Cruz and Marco
Rubio. Bee roasts all of them
equally, softening towards no
one, but one can tell where her
political affiliations lie. She
refers to this electoral year as an
“electoral shitshow,” explaining

to the audience how ecstatic she
is that she now gets to scream
to people about how much she
hates the candidates instead of
just her TV screen. She refers
to New Hampshire as the place
that “democracy goes to die”
and almost offhandedly calls
Hillary Hermione Clinton. All
of her jokes in this segment land
squarely; they’re nuanced and
accurate, holding developed, yet
concise, analysis without being
barbs.

Her cracks about abortion

are particularly poignant. She
zeroes in on Marco Rubio’s
remarks
on
Clinton’s
ideas

about abortions, saying that
Rubio meant Clinton would be
willing to have people deliver
their babies “into a Vitamix
so Planned Parenthood can
sell [them] to Whole Foods.”
Something about her power
stance — Bee doesn’t confine
herself to sitting behind a desk
— helps drive home her point
even more.

Her second segment is titled

the “Elected Paperweight of the
Month,” which for this episode
was Kansas state Senator Mitch
Holmes. The main jokes of this

segment revolve around the fact
that Senator Holmes established
a dress code specifically for
women testifying in front of
his committee — the men didn’t
need one because they “knew”
how to dress “appropriately.”
She deconstructs his remarks
so thoroughly that by the end,
he ends up looking like a fool.

Her final main joke of the

episode felt a little too long, but
that made sense given that it’s a
mock documentarian look into
Jeb Bush’s campaign, which
looks bleaker and weaker by the
second.

Though her source material

is
overwhelmingly
political,

Samantha Bee’s timing as a
feminist comedian could not
have been better. During the
past
few
years
especially,

feminist
comedians
have

been carving out larger and
wider spaces for themselves.
Even performers who don’t
market themselves explicitly
as feminists have been getting
more comfortable having social
overtones in their art. Bee’s
show fits seamlessly into the
lineup of art and media with
overt societal messages weaved
into the humor and the back-
and-forth with the audience.

So Samantha Bee has picked

a good time to burst into the
scene. With the comic timing she
developed as a correspondent on
“The Daily Show,” a refreshing
lack of self-deprecation in favor
of pointed, focused humor and
a good relationship with the
camera, Bee is poised to carve
out a sizable spot for herself on
the nighttime circuit.

A-

Full-
Frontal
with
Samantha
Bee

Series Pre-
miere

Mondays at
10:30 p.m.

TBS

FILM NOTEBOOK

TV REVIEW

Bee pulls no

punches in the
premiere of her
late-night show.

6A — Monday, February 15, 2016
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com