“The Big Bang Theory” aired on CBS for
over 12 years, accumulating around 11,700
minutes of runtime or 195 hours. That’s the
equivalent of over eight full days of straight
footage. Even if you didn’t sleep for a week, you
could not finish the entirety of “The Big Bang
Theory.”
The series ran on CBS starting in 2007. The
sitcom revolved around a group of four geeky
friends and their inability to assimilate into
“normal” society. Though highly educated, the
male cast of the Big Bang Theory is portrayed
as stereotypical nerds and hopeless with
women. Throughout the entire run of the
show, Kaley Cuoco is a series regular. She is
notable on the show for being the only “normal
person,” the viewers’ way into the nerdy and
geeky world of the boys. While there are
various problematic elements of her character
and the show’s humor, she had an otherwise
successful and critically unnotable career.
However,
“The
Big
Bang
Theory”
concluded in 2019, with most of the cast
jumping ship to pursue other interests. Once
freed from CBS’s “Big Bang” purgatory, Cuoco
got involved in various new projects. She
started her own production company in 2017
called Yes, Norman Productions. Since then,
Cuoco has starred in and developed multiple
new and dynamic projects.
In the past year, I have twice encountered
Cuoco entirely by accident. “The Flight
Attendant” was released by HBO in 2020
and won Cuoco a new level of critical acclaim.
Cuoco works both in front of and behind the
camera. She is an executive producer behind
the screen while, onscreen, she plays the
troubled, boozy protagonist Cassie who gets
caught up in a larger corporate-spy plot.
In the show, her character wakes up next
to her brutally murdered one-night stand in
Bangkok. The man has his throat completely
slit open, and party girl Cassie is completely
unprepared for the sight. Recalling Amanda
Knox, an American charged with a crime
abroad who was wrongfully sentenced to
26 years in an Italian prison, Cassie makes
the executive decision to clean up the crime
scene and any evidence of her staying the
night. Picking up broken glass, Cassie fumbles
around the apartment, trying to keep her
hysteria in check.
Cuoco, so often portraying a street-smart,
“normal” girl in “The Big Bang Theory,” gets
to stretch her emotions. In a single scene, she
transforms from a confident, irresponsible
party girl to scared, traumatized and panicked.
Cuoco makes this transition convincingly and
maintains the viewer’s sympathies.
Most American audiences have seen a
bevy of crime-solving shows. From “Bones”
to “CSI,” American audiences know what
not to do at a crime scene. Cassie breaks all
the rules. She leaves her fingerprints on the
murder weapon after picking it up, she trails
blood across the floor and she answers the
door to shoo away a maid. However, despite all
Cassie’s obvious blunders, it’s hard for her not
to remain a sympathetic character.
The truest test of Cuoco’s acting ability is
not her ability to sashay down a hotel lobby, but
rather her ability to remain relatable during a
crisis. Watching Cuoco cleaning up a crime
scene is heart-pounding. She channels the
right amount of panicked and overwhelmed
without seeming too tacky or over-acted. She
calls her network and family, trying to get
advice without implicating anyone she loves
in the mess she woke up in. At that moment,
with the information the show provides, the
most logical course of action is Cassie’s chosen
path. Cuoco and the script are able to make a
convincing case for Cassie’s reactions. Thanks
to this careful framing, instead of yelling
at the television, I remained surprisingly
sympathetic toward Cassie.
“The Flight Attendant” has enjoyed rave
reviews since it first aired in November 2020.
The show, Cuoco and the cast were nominated
for the Golden Globes this past month. In a
recent Variety article, Cuoco said that “The
Flight Attendant” was “the highlight of (her)
entire career.”
But the real highlight of Cuoco’s career is
what she did with superhero cartoons.
It’s not often that I completely forget where
I know an actress or voice from. I pride myself
on being able to recognize voices and faces
on screen. When watching animated movies
and shows, though unable to identify the
voice actors, I know voices from previous
characters. Sometimes my ability to discern
and identify voices ruins the immersion but I
can shake it off.
Twice Kaley Cuoco has eluded me. The first
time was in “The Flight Attendant.” The second
time was in HBO’s “Harley Quinn.” Another
offering from Cuoco’s production company,
“Harley Quinn” effectively terraformed the
comic book media landscape by introducing the
commercial possibility of feminist, irreverent
television for comic book fans. Harley Quinn,
voiced by Cuoco, has her vices: a bad ex (the
Joker) and something to prove.
The character is narcissistic and selfish but
unapologetically so. She is confident in her
femininity and unafraid of violence. In a way,
Harley Quinn of the “Harley Quinn” TV show
is a conceptual predecessor to Cassie in “The
Flight Attendant.”
Portrayals of Harley Quinn in the DC
comic book universe can be a mixed bag.
Sometimes Harley is a seductress, more
archetype than character. Other times,
Harley is inscrutable, both victim and
perpetrator, with motivations unknowable
to Batman’s cohort. It’s not uncommon for
Harley to be used as a plot device. Even
recent comics centering around Harley
begin with an unsteady understanding
of who the character is. Comics cannot
reconcile Harley as a “wild,” sexually
active, abused woman and simultaneously
extremely educated. Any portrayal of
Harley as a multifaceted woman and an
individual is undercut by the comic book’s
persistent sexualization of her.
However, in the “Harley Quinn” TV show,
viewers can understand Harley as a complex
woman. She is no longer inscrutable with
vaguely referenced motivations and is
not simply an insane Joker lackey; she is a
woman who has made her own choices and
is learning to live with herself. The show
picks up right after the Joker and Harley
have broken up for the last time. Harley is
distraught and she throws a fit, unable to be
comforted by her close friend Poison Ivy.
Similar to Cassie, Harley is not a great
person. Both women have made many
mistakes and hurt people close to them,
repeatedly engaging in compulsive, harmful
behavior. But even in crisis, both women
remain real and sympathetic. Harley’s
struggle to define herself apart from her
disastrous relationship with the Joker feels
natural. What else characterizes one’s mid-
20s if not messy, modern relationships and
having to grapple with enormous emotions
that feel too large for our bodies? Harley
makes mistake after mistake but she’s
undergoing a learning process. She is fallible
and sympathetic.
In creating an unapologetically loud and
vulgar female-lead superhero cartoon show,
“Harley Quinn” breaks the male-fantasy
comic book tropes in half. From the canon
of the DC Universe, “Harley Quinn” pieces
together a modern narrative that bridges
continuity gaps and isn’t afraid to laugh
at the source material’s idiosyncrasies.
The show is similar to “The Lego Batman
Movie” in that it acutely understands
Batman’s role in popular culture. Comic
book writers tend to take Batman incredibly
seriously. They see the billionaire in tights
as
regimented
and
silently
tortured.
“Harley Quinn” understands Batman as a
workaholic. The show is LGBTQ+ inclusive
and absolutely hilarious to watch. Under
Cuoco’s leadership, it proves DC comics’
audience is composed of more than the
“stereotypical geek” characters in “Big Bang
Theory.” Geeky girls and so-called “normal”
girls alike consume superhero narratives. I
often pass it along to my non-DC comic fan
friends as their first foray into comic book
media.
From sit-com to 2D animation, Cuoco
has a lot to offer. More so than merely being
a versatile actress, Cuoco shakes up the
industry. “The Big Bang Theory” made Cuoco
a household name, but “The Flight Attendant”
and “Harley Quinn” show is Cuoco’s legacy
thus far.
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
8 — Wednesday, March 17, 2021
John Mayer has worn many different
labels over the last 20 years — popstar, guitar
virtuoso, songwriter, comedian, talk show
host,
heartthrob,
douchebag,
pompous,
misogynist, abuser. These labels create an
ever-present maelstrom around Mayer, a war
between those who hate him and those who
love him.
When Mayer made a TikTok account last
week, the response he received was less than
enthusiastic. The maelstrom raged in his
comments: Taylor Swift fans had discovered
his account. They were quick to remember
Swift’s song “Dear John,” where she wrote
about their relationship in a less than flattering
light.
“John don’t you think 19 was too young?” —
16.2k likes; “the original indie boy gaslighter”
— 8.5k likes; “hello mr old man victim
complex” — 51k likes; “funny how taylor’s
one song about you is better than your entire
discography” — 2.6k likes.
By Mayer’s third and fourth post, his fans
fought back in the comments:
“People really don’t understand this dude is
one of the most talented guitar players of our
time” — 25.7k likes; “Y’all actin like John isnt a
musical legend” — 6.8k likes; “at the end of the
day he’s still one of the best songwriters of the
last 100 years” — 2.8k likes
This war of opinions over John Mayer is not
unique to TikTok. Look up his name on Google
or Twitter and you’ll see a hodgepodge of
articles and tweets saying one thing or another
about Mayer. (My personal favorite was the
headline “Is John Mayer a douchebag?” It’s the
question mark for me.) I encountered shades of
this split opinion when it was announced that
I was writing this article to some other editors
on The Daily, with more than one person
expressing their genuine dislike for Mayer.
The debate around Mayer mainly boils
down to two groups: those who condemn
Mayer for his actions, and those who celebrate
him for his musical achievements. Yet, within
these two groups, the line between person and
musician is often blurred.
It is common to hear someone who doesn’t
like John Mayer for, well, being John Mayer,
also say that his music is bad. Exhibit A can be
seen in the above TikTok comment, “funny
how taylor’s one song about you is better than
your entire discography.” And yes, I get that
these are TikTok comments with about 10
layers of irony on top of them, but I think it’s
reasonable to say that there is some reflection
of real thought and belief behind them. That,
although the comment was likely just written
as a joke, there is an underlying belief that
because Mayer is allegedly a bad person, he’s
also a bad musical artist.
Among guitarists, there are those who still
view Mayer as just someone who writes pop
songs. They see him as someone who’s basic,
someone who isn’t a true guitarist because he
appeals to a large audience. You’ll often find
that those who say this are also quick to bring
up Mayer’s past relationships and what has
been written about them as proof that not only
is he “just a popstar,” but he’s also the typical
popstar. The type of popstar who goes around
LA partying. They use this assumption of who
he is as evidence that he makes basic, bland
music. Because that’s what popstars do, right?
For people who like Mayer, saccharine
levels of adulation can exist. To call him one of
the best songwriters of the last 100 years is, of
course, a bit hyperbolic. On his subreddit, one
user said that they watched his new TikTok
video “15 times” because it was “so funny.”
I mean take a look at that video I just linked.
It was moderately amusing, but to watch
it 15 times? Really? Many of his hardcore
supporters refer to him affectionately as just
“John” and they’re eager to point out that not
only is he a fantastic guitarist, but he’s also a
great person for reason X, Y and Z.
When I started writing this article I found
myself falling into a bit of the same trap.
I wanted to write about Mayer as a
musician. How when he started playing guitar
as a teenager, he became so obsessed with it
that his parents took him to see a psychiatrist
twice. How he went to Berklee College of
Music, dropped out after a year and within
four years was signed to a major record label.
I wanted to write about his range as a
musician. How he’s touched everything
from pop to blues to folk to country. How he’s
performed and collaborated with all-time great
guitarists B.B. King and Eric Clapton, among
others. How Eric Clapton, the second-best
guitarist of all time according to Rolling Stone,
said “I don’t think he even knows how good he
is.”
I wanted to write about how, while Mayer’s
most well known for his pop records, he
currently tours with Dead & Company, a spin-
off of the Grateful Dead. Dead & Company are
anything but pop. Their concerts are basically
long, improvisational jam sessions filled with
solos for every member on stage. Each song
they play is different every night. If touring
with Dead & Company as the lead guitarist
isn’t an indication of being a great musician,
I’m not sure what is.
I wanted to write about John Mayer as a
songwriter. In an age where if you go into the
Top 50 on Spotify, it seems like almost every
song has about 25 different writers. But every
single Mayer song has one name next to it:
John Mayer.
The albums and songs he’s written have
so much range and variety that he’s easily
my most listened to artist, because he can
fit practically any mood. I can listen to a face
melting solo from the bluesy “Slow Dancing in
a Burning Room,” cry to “Wheel” or dance to
“New Light.” When I’m playing music for my
Kansas-raised parents, “Roll it on Home,” a
song with country twang, is one of their most
requested songs. It feels as though whatever
type of music Mayer tries to make, he masters.
Then I wanted to write about John Mayer
the person. I wanted to make a case that, you
know what, Mayer had changed. He was this
and now he’s this.
On Jan. 31, 2010, Taylor Swift won a
Grammy Award for Album of the Year with
her sophomore album, Fearless, the most
awarded country album in history.
On Feb. 15, 2016, Taylor Swift won a
Grammy Award for Album of the Year for her
fifth album, 1989, making her the first female
artist in history to win the highly coveted
award twice.
On March 14, 2021, Taylor Swift will be the
favorite to win a Grammy Award for Album of
the Year for her eighth album, folklore, which
would make her the first female artist in
history to win this award three times and the
first artist to win Album of the Year for albums
of three different genres — country, pop and
alternative. If nothing else could convince
you that Taylor Swift has range — epitomizes
range, really — that should.
Taking a walk down memory lane and her
timeline of albums only furthers the point.
Even when Taylor Swift was solely
a country singer, she still had range,
transitioning between being hopelessly in
love on her debut single “Tim McGraw” to
scathing and unforgiving in “Picture to Burn”
— and those are just on her self-titled debut
album. Following that, she broke countless
records and made history many times over
with the variety of songs, sounds and themes
that is Fearless. From her wistful “Romeo and
Juliet”-themed song “Love Story” (one of her
most well-known songs among fans and non-
fans alike) to the heartbreaking track “White
Horse” to the iconic “You Belong With Me,”
Swift exemplified range.
With Speak Now, she continued to prove
that she was not just a one-note country singer,
offering sad songs for her fans to relate to
(“Dear John” and “Never Grow Up”) along
with head-banging bops, like “Haunted” and
“Sparks Fly.”
And then you reach her fourth album Red,
which, in many ways, can’t be categorized.
Charts and streaming services label it as her
fourth country album, but Red is truly a genre
of its own. Centering around the titular color,
Swift managed to encapsulate every feeling
and thought that you could ever associate with
red: petty anger (“We Are Never Ever Getting
Back Together”), painful, scarring sadness
(“All Too Well”), incandescent joy (“22”) and
so much more. While many critics scoff at
Red’s lack of sonic cohesion, that’s exactly the
point. The songs aren’t supposed to sound the
same because the color red never means the
same thing twice.
When you enter Swift’s pop eras, her
musical range grows. Though 1989 was her
first obviously pop album, she created it like
she’d been writing pop muswic her whole
life. And then, following her “disappearance”
in 2016, she returned with an album that
was the antithesis to 1989: reputation. The
popstar-princess colors of 1989 turned into
blacks, golds and greens as she said “Look
What You Made Me Do” and became the
snake that others accused her of being.
Somehow, following that, she made another
180 with pastel-tinged Lover, that had a love
song for every kind of love there is. 1989 and
reputation are opposites, without a doubt, and
yet reputation and Lover are equally distinct
… but 1989 and Lover sound as different from
each other as two albums ever could. Does that
spell out range to you?
And then you reach today: folklore and
evermore, two sister albums that are similar
in how they turn inward and feature thematic
messages but differ so vastly from one another.
Where folklore is grayscale sadness, depth and
lessons learned, evermore is the earth-toned
soundtrack to fictional story after story.
Only Taylor Swift could change her
whole persona (and Instagram feed) as she
switches from black-and-white newsprint
to bubblegum pastels to woodsy grays and
browns,
transitioning
between
sounds,
albums and stories, so effortlessly.
Even as she changes her sound, her
outfits and her musical genres, she remains
true to herself always, as evidenced by her
songwriting and story-telling abilities that
have never once faltered from Taylor Swift
to evermore. Her music and sound may have
range — pivoting from one thing to another as
she grew up, learned lessons and found herself
— but her lyrics never waver. They only grow
stronger.
Sometimes I wonder where she’ll go next.
In some ways, it feels like she’s done all there
is to do when it comes to music. Every Taylor
Swift album/era feels like a complete reversal
of what she previously did, and how many
more times can a person do that? She never
seems to run out of themes to embody or songs
to create. But knowing Taylor Swift, her 10th
studio album (not including her rerecordings)
is going to be just as different, just as new, as all
of her past endeavors.
To say that Taylor Swift has range is,
frankly, an understatement. In actuality, she is
range. She personifies it. She owns it.
John Mayer: A man of many colors
Musical range: Taylor’s version
Read more at
MichiganDaily.com
PETER HUMMER
Daily Community Culture Beat Editor
SABRIYA IMAMI
Daily Film Beat Editor
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Kaley Cuoco breaks the patriarchy
ELIZABETH YOON
Book Review Beat Editor
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