The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
Monday, March 21, 2016 — 5A
Classifieds
Call: #734-418-4115
Email: dailydisplay@gmail.com
ACROSS
1 Pure joy
6 Fairy tale bear
10 Athletic org.
founded by Billie
Jean King
13 Sports channel
summary
14 Apple’s shuffle or
touch
15 Melville captain
16 *Mozart and
Robin, in their
own way
18 Fancy airport ride
19 Poker declaration
20 Last word of
many fairy tales
21 Fundamentals
24 Recliner feature
26 “Xanadu” rock
gp.
27 Not on time
30 Bird feeder
supply
31 Like the accent in
cliché
33 Loading dock
access
35 Graceful bird
38 Echoic first name
of Olympic
hurdler Jones
39 Number
associated with
the ends of
answers to the
starred clues
40 Pet gerbil’s
home
41 Simple
42 Rounded
hammer end
43 “Casablanca”
actor Peter
44 Land surrounded
by water
46 “Star Trek”
helmsman
48 Gave grub to
49 Fiesta food
52 Irish playwright
Sean
54 Threepio’s pal
55 Swindlers
58 Fortuneteller
59 *Windy day
ocean condition
63 Canadian
Conservative
64 Gravy vessel
65 Craze
66 Supergirl’s
symbol
67 Repairs with turf,
as a lawn
68 Nail file material
DOWN
1 Texter’s “Gimme
a sec”
2 Lion in the night
sky
3 Far from friendly
4 2005 horror
sequel
5 Website with
timed trivia
quizzes
6 Calf-length
dress
7 Zoo primates
8 Gourmet
mushroom
9 YouTube
annoyances
10 *Earth-sized
collapsed stars
11 Makes less
unruly
12 Scrub, as a
launch
15 Outdoor, as
cafes
17 Curiosity-
launching gp.
20 __ of Reason
21 Memphis music
festival street
22 Metal wrap giant
23 *Best female
friends
25 “Around the
Horn” channel
28 Lemon or lime
29 Roof edges
32 Film that
introduced Buzz
Lightyear
34 List of dishes
36 Think alike
37 Emotionally
demanding
39 Made haste
43 “I’m just so
fortunate!”
45 Poet __-tzu
47 Script “L” feature
49 Tentative bite
50 Twistable
cookies
51 “Bless you”
prompter
53 Tea region of
India
56 __ hog
57 Chooses, with “for”
59 “Madam
Secretary”
network
60 Opposite of WSW
61 Put on television
62 For example
By C.C. Burnikel
©2016 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
03/21/16
03/21/16
ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:
RELEASE DATE– Monday, March 21, 2016
Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle
Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis
xwordeditor@aol.com
FOLLOW US ON TWITTER
@michigandaily
NOW.
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SUMMER EMPLOYMENT
‘The Americans’
raises the stakes
The best TV show
you’re not watching
showcases all its
great pieces
By ALEX INTNER
Daily Arts Writer
There’s a moment in the
season four premiere of “The
Americans” which subtly shows
exactly
what
the
show
is
about.
The
camera shows
a
classroom
saying
the
Pledge
of
Allegiance. It
moves
back
into the hall,
where it finds
Paige
Jen-
nings
(new-
comer
Holly
Taylor). She’s
waiting for the pledge to finish
with a sad look on her face, torn
between the identity of her Rus-
sian parents and the country she
grew up in.
Scenes like this are what make
“The Americans” one of the best
damn dramas on TV right now.
For three seasons now, the show
has built its story out of bits like
this one. It took its time to lay
the groundwork and to build up
its characters. Now, as it moves
into the series’ fourth season,
it’s taking everything it built and
running with it. The premiere
raises the stakes for the charac-
ters and lands some gut punches,
all while operating with brilliant
and careful visuals.
Season four of “The Ameri-
cans” picks up where season
three left off, showing the rami-
fications of Paige telling her
pastor about her parents being
Russian spies, as well as her
mom, Elizabeth (Keri Russell,
“Felicity”), taking her to East
Germany to see her grandmoth-
er against orders from the Cen-
tre. As a consequence for their
actions, their handler (played
with gravitas by Frank Langella,
“Frost/Nixon”) forces them onto
their most dangerous mission
yet: handling a chemical which
the Soviets are intending to wea-
ponize.
At the heart of the premiere,
though,
is
Philip
(Matthew
Rhys, “Brothers & Sisters”). In
the premiere, he flashes back to a
moment in his childhood where
he beat a bully to death with his
bare hands, and later struggles
with it during the Erhard Semi-
nars Training session he attends.
Rhys deserves so much of the
credit for making this work.
He continues to find ways to
layer Philip’s pain as he tries to
cover it up in front of his family.
When Philip does open up at the
seminar, Rhys brings so many
emotions to the table that it’s
impossible not to feel for him.
Martha (Alison Wright, “Blue
Bloods”) has her struggles while
dealing with her husband (Philip
under another name) killing one
of her co-workers in the FBI.
Martha has been one of the most
tragic figures of the series, hav-
ing been manipulated and lied
to by Philip without any knowl-
edge of what’s happening. Last
season, the consequences of
her husband’s actions started
to catch up to her, and that con-
tinued in the premiere. Wright
has made her mark as an actress
building out this character, and
showing her struggles with her
husband’s identity.
Everything in the show is
deliberately shot by the bril-
liant television director Thomas
Schlamme (“The West Wing”).
At this point, the series’ visual
aesthetic is so ingrained in its
DNA, and the premiere con-
tinues this trend. Whether it’s
tiny scenes like Paige in the hall
or Philip looking up at a pos-
sibly broken vial of a poisonous
chemical, everything Schlamme
does adds so much to a scene that
blunt dialogue isn’t necessary.
Few other shows could make a
moment like Paige standing out-
side the classroom land this well.
There’s no dialogue, but it still
says everything about her char-
acter’s arc and how she’s feeling.
The drama has put together so
many tiny pieces that now it can
just play with them, making for
some of the best television you’re
not watching.
FX
Hey, you know Bill Cosby? Don’t trust that guy. Love, the future.
TV REVIEW
A
The
Americans
Season Four
Premiere
Wednesdays
at 10 p.m.
FX
Response: Hitler is
fair game for comedy
By MATT GALLATIN
Daily Arts Writer
Sarah
Silverman
went
on
“Conan” as Hitler last Thursday,
and it was only kind of funny.
Daily Arts Writer Shir Avi-
nadav, in her well-argued piece
“When funny fails: Sarah Silver-
man as Hitler,” made the point
that what Silverman did, dress-
ing up as Hitler and bemoaning
the Donald Trump comparisons
between the two, was out of the
bounds of acceptable comedy.
While I agree that the skit was
misguided at times (the exchange
at the beginning when Conan
tells “Hitler,” “You’re the worst,”
and Silverman replies “I know, I
know” felt forced and, yes, trivi-
alizing) I have to disagree that
the skit in its entirety was out of
bounds.
It was certainly jarring to see
the man responsible for mass
genocide appear on late-night
television — particularly because
he was greeted with resounding
applause. Silverman often tends
to concern herself with break-
ing the boundary of what we can
and “cannot” talk about, and the
Conan skit is a clear example of
her edgy jokes. For the countless
families who suffered from the
Holocaust (at this point it seems
necessary to mention my own,
which in some twisted way adds
credibility to these sort of dissent-
ing articles), there will never be a
point when the Holocaust is “OK.”
And there never should be.
That doesn’t mean, though,
that we shouldn’t address it, or
even humor it. It’s paramount that
we refuse to allow Hitler’s mem-
ory to remain in the past, lest we
risk such a tragedy again.
As Avinadav’s article aptly
points out, “A joke is a very seri-
ous thing.” Even with the guise of
casualness that she brings to all
her jokes, there is an acute aware-
ness of this in Sarah Silverman’s
satire. When she, acting as Hitler,
compliments Trump by saying
“this guy gets it,” she makes light
of the comparisons, sure. But she
also, on a deeper level, encourages
us, whether we like it or not, to at
least take a look at the similarities
between the two.
Some have been offended by
the very comparison itself, argu-
ing that it is demeaning to Hitler’s
victims. I’m not so sure. It’s no
doubt hyperbolic rhetoric, and I
don’t think that Donald Trump is
anywhere near the level of Hitler,
who was far more intelligent and
crazed. But the tide of support
that he has received for suggest-
ing a ban against Muslims and
demonizing Mexican-Americans
is nevertheless frightening. I can’t
begin to imagine what it feels like
for those groups to see this rhet-
oric unfold in the 21st century,
especially in a country like the
United States, which spouts free-
dom and liberty as its very foun-
dation. Raising the red flag and
pointing out the history strikes
me as preventative, not offensive.
When we say that using Hitler
in comedic situations is off-limits,
since he must be a special case, we
run into the dangerous territory
of trying to parse through who
and what are special cases, what
makes them so and when, if ever,
they stop being so special. Take
Bill Cosby, for example, who was
joked about frequently in the last
two years following the reveal of
the breadth of his sexual assault
claims. Some were aghast that
comics would even approach such
a subject — rape can’t be funny,
can it?
Well, it depends. Just as it does
when approaching the Holo-
caust, 9/11 and everything else.
Treated with the right amount
of irreverence, the right lens and
offered with the right irony and
self-awareness, these dark and
somber subjects can be enlighten-
ing and even amusing. Hannibal
Buress did a great job showcasing
this in his fierce monologue about
Bill Cosby.
“Bill Cosby has the fucking
smuggest old Black man public
persona that I hate,” Buress said.
“He gets on TV, ‘Pull your pants
up, Black people, I was on TV in
the ’80s. I can talk down to you
because I had a successful sitcom.’
Yeah, but you rape women, Bill
Cosby, so turn the crazy down a
couple notches.”
Not only did it elicit a power-
ful response — and laugh — from
his audience, but also a power-
ful response from the media,
and soon Bill Cosby’s horrifying
actions were again brought to
the attention of the public, this
time for good. Such is an example
of when irreverent comedy and
shocking elements work together
successfully and actually evoke
change. Are we to berate Hanni-
bal Buress for this?
This isn’t to say that Bill Cosby
and Hitler are similar at all, but
rather to point out that too often
when we attempt to make these
determinations we end up with
our backs against the wall, try-
ing to figure out which groups
suffered more than others, who
is evil enough to chide, when it’s
“too soon,” etc. These are ques-
tions that, like the term “accept-
able,” have little place in comedy.
Rather, we should be determining
what is funny and what isn’t, not
what’s OK and what isn’t.
Still, humor is subjective, and
while there’s not, in my opin-
ion, so much a limit on what is
“acceptable,” there’s at least a
minimal level of nuance that good
comics need to approach contro-
versial topics in a way that will get
the laughs they crave.
Take Larry the Cable Guy as an
example of when poor taste ruins
humor. His jokes are crass and
often incorporate some level of
subtle sexism or racism (“I dated
this retarded woman once, but we
broke up. We couldn’t agree on
anything. I’d say ‘tomato,’ she’d
say ‘bowling shoes!’”). They aren’t
funny to the majority of the public
today because they feel antiquat-
ed, rooted in a society that we no
longer ascribe ourselves to. Now
that the public is more cognizant
of those issues, it isn’t funny to
hear an old white dude pretend
they don’t exist.
And you could argue that Sarah
Silverman’s impression of Hitler
simply wasn’t funny. That’s totally
subjective and OK. For some, like
the author of “When funny fails,”
Hitler will never be funny.
But he’s still fair game.
TV NOTEBOOK
The show
took its time
to lay the
groundwork.
The premiere
lands brilliant,
careful gut
punches.