Broad City

Discuss TV shows old and new.
Message
Author
Perkins Cobb
Joined: Tue Apr 29, 2008 12:49 pm

Re: Broad City

#26 Post by Perkins Cobb » Wed Mar 25, 2015 6:52 pm

mfunk9786 wrote:
Black Hat wrote:Someday a real rain will come and wash all this scum off the streets.
This part seemed a little unnecessary.
To be fair, this continues to be my reaction to Girls.

User avatar
Black Hat
Joined: Thu Nov 24, 2011 5:34 pm
Location: NYC

Re: Broad City

#27 Post by Black Hat » Wed Mar 25, 2015 8:03 pm

I've always found interesting the hostility a New York native provokes whenever even a hint of disappointment at how New York has transformed, or more specifically complain about kinds of people the city now attracts. For whatever reason people don't react this way to Londoners or Parisians who express a similar distaste for the evolution of their cities. It's almost like native New Yorkers aren't allowed to care about their home town. Perhaps it's because New York is such a massive part of our culture that everyone feels they have a piece of themselves invested in it. Maybe it's because city kids have this 'I was smarter than you when I was twelve' air about them that's off putting.

Perkins, you hit the nail on the head I feel the show is a funnier, more likeable version of Girls. I think what gets under my skin about the shows are that it's turned New York into a parody of itself. Yes the shows are about New York but it's like they're written to appeal to the preconceived notions outsiders have of what it's like to live here. There are things the characters do that they would do in the suburb they came from, absolutely has nothing to do with New York, which I find disingenuous.

Mfunk, I get that you're an emotional dude and it's a great presence on the board, a breath of fresh air around here even, but I wish sometimes you would chill out, let a conversation develop instead of admonishing posters with one liners that are not as clever as you think or in this case putting words in their mouth. It's lame. Be constructive.

Warren, you bore me.

User avatar
warren oates
Joined: Fri Mar 02, 2012 12:16 pm

Re: Broad City

#28 Post by warren oates » Wed Mar 25, 2015 8:10 pm

The feeling is mutual, bub. I don't think there's anyone else around here who manages to express less with such correspondingly huffy high regard for his nontribution.

User avatar
domino harvey
Dot Com Dom
Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2006 2:42 pm

Re: Broad City

#29 Post by domino harvey » Wed Mar 25, 2015 8:14 pm

Boys, boys, crazy boys, get cool, boys

User avatar
Drucker
Your Future our Drucker
Joined: Wed May 18, 2011 9:37 am

Re: Broad City

#30 Post by Drucker » Wed Mar 25, 2015 8:19 pm

Black Hat, you do realize that people have always complained about how things are different than they used to be, right?

User avatar
Black Hat
Joined: Thu Nov 24, 2011 5:34 pm
Location: NYC

Re: Broad City

#31 Post by Black Hat » Wed Mar 25, 2015 9:14 pm

Drucker, that's reductive. The issues of gentrification, homogenization and inequality in New York as well as other major cities run far deeper than grandpa wishing for a return to the good old days.

Warren, I laughed — huffy high regard for his nontribution — especially killed me. Proud of you.

User avatar
Drucker
Your Future our Drucker
Joined: Wed May 18, 2011 9:37 am

Re: Broad City

#32 Post by Drucker » Wed Mar 25, 2015 9:59 pm

So you're all for the good old days when Robert Morris was destroying neighborhoods with highways? Or for the good old days when factory and garment workers worked without bathroom breaks or being allowed to get up during shifts? For when the city was declared bankrupt? When lead was poisoning young children? It's not reductive at all.

You have a fondness for how you grew up, fine. But the notion that today's kids "ruined it" and it was better then is purely subjective, and as evidenced by residents in Williamsburg who arrived ten years ago, today's Williamsburg is different. :roll:

Maybe you should get with the times, gramps.

User avatar
pzadvance
Joined: Mon Nov 21, 2011 7:24 pm
Location: Los Angeles, CA

Re: Broad City

#33 Post by pzadvance » Wed Mar 25, 2015 10:00 pm

Black Hat wrote:Drucker, that's reductive. The issues of gentrification, homogenization and inequality in New York as well as other major cities run far deeper than grandpa wishing for a return to the good old days.
So to your point, one of the more racially/culturally diverse comedies currently on the air is the target of your criticism? :-k

User avatar
Black Hat
Joined: Thu Nov 24, 2011 5:34 pm
Location: NYC

Re: Broad City

#34 Post by Black Hat » Thu Mar 26, 2015 3:28 am

Drucker wrote:So you're all for the good old days when Robert Morris was destroying neighborhoods with highways? Or for the good old days when factory and garment workers worked without bathroom breaks or being allowed to get up during shifts? For when the city was declared bankrupt? When lead was poisoning young children? It's not reductive at all.
To you expressing a desire for a neighborhood to remain a neighborhood, for businesses to still be owned by people as opposed to corporations, to not have cool place after cool place be closed down for yet another Starbucks or Froyo joint is akin to advocating abuse of workers, lead poisoning of children and bankruptcy? You sound like you're playing a cut off of Giuliani & Bloomberg's greatest hits.
Drucker wrote:You have a fondness for how you grew up, fine. But the notion that today's kids "ruined it" and it was better then is purely subjective
It's more about the kinds of people the city now attracts as opposed to today's kids. There was a concerted effort starting with Giuliani, continued by Bloomberg to not only eliminate neighborhoods but to attract a different kind — read anyone but the people who used to move here — of sort.
pzadvance wrote:
Black Hat wrote:Drucker, that's reductive. The issues of gentrification, homogenization and inequality in New York as well as other major cities run far deeper than grandpa wishing for a return to the good old days.
So to your point, one of the more racially/culturally diverse comedies currently on the air is the target of your criticism? :-k
To me it's more an issue of class than diversity. As I said tho, my bigger issue with Broad City is the 'oooh let me show you how wild and kooky New York is' — the cartoonish element — that rubs me wrong.

User avatar
Drucker
Your Future our Drucker
Joined: Wed May 18, 2011 9:37 am

Re: Broad City

#35 Post by Drucker » Thu Mar 26, 2015 7:09 am

This tweet is basically my reply.

Has the character of NYC changed? Of course. But that has at least as much to do with bad zoning laws that keep demand high and supply low in housing. Which is why D.C. and S.F. have the exact same problem. A huge influx of affordable housing would allow people to stay in their neighborhoods. Do I miss the half dozen good record stores (Underground Records, Kim's, Rockit Scientist) in the Village? Of course. But is it Bloomberg's fault? Or is it Napster and Amazon's fault? I'd strongly argue the latter.

And again, at the end of the day, things change. There is still a ton of amazing, culturally significant, and relatively inexpensive things happening in NYC.

Edit: One more point. Mayors just don't have a big effect on income inequality. It's no coincidence that the turning point you are calling out, the mid-90s is when things started to change, because that's when it started to change nationally into a huge problem, not just in NYC. (Now policing on the other hand...)

User avatar
mfunk9786
Under Chris' Protection
Joined: Fri May 16, 2008 4:43 pm
Location: Philadelphia, PA

Re: Broad City

#36 Post by mfunk9786 » Thu Mar 26, 2015 10:26 am

Black Hat wrote:Mfunk, I get that you're an emotional dude and it's a great presence on the board, a breath of fresh air around here even, but I wish sometimes you would chill out, let a conversation develop instead of admonishing posters with one liners that are not as clever as you think or in this case putting words in their mouth. It's lame. Be constructive.
Completely misplaced and inexplicable reaction to a super easy and lowkey joke noted

Robert de la Cheyniest
Joined: Tue Nov 21, 2006 9:06 pm

Re: Broad City

#37 Post by Robert de la Cheyniest » Thu Mar 26, 2015 12:45 pm

Love to use 15 years of uncontrollable national socioeconomic change as a reason to dislike a funny tv show

User avatar
Drucker
Your Future our Drucker
Joined: Wed May 18, 2011 9:37 am

Re: Broad City

#38 Post by Drucker » Fri Mar 27, 2015 1:14 pm

Sorry one more article to prove my point.
Much of urban America, and New York City in particular, is in crisis. Cities are becoming desirable again, but planning is still stuck in the post-war mentality of decline. Rents are skyrocketing as new housing supply pales against incoming demand, and while politicians and planners might see what’s going on, they are powerless to stand up to the NIMBY forces and stop it. From Palo Alto to Williamsburg back to Santa Monica, our wealthiest and most in-demand neighborhoods remain in their stunted states, walled off to growth, radiating everything from gentrification to global inequality. Our inner suburbs don’t densify, and the only other option for a growing population is to sprawl.

There is, however, another way: ignore “the community.”

Not the community writ large, but “the community” as a euphemism for those who are already lucky enough to live in a neighborhood that others want to move to, whether it’s a hip, gentrifying neighborhood or an uptight, leafy suburb. Land use governance should be shifted from the local level to the city, state or national level, where governments seem to be more willing to let cities grow.

User avatar
domino harvey
Dot Com Dom
Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2006 2:42 pm

Re: Broad City

#39 Post by domino harvey » Fri Dec 11, 2015 11:32 pm


User avatar
swo17
Bloodthirsty Butcher
Joined: Tue Apr 15, 2008 10:25 am
Location: SLC, UT

Re: Broad City

#40 Post by swo17 » Sat Dec 12, 2015 12:17 am

I trust her nudity will be pixelated.

User avatar
Gregor Samsa
Joined: Sun Aug 06, 2006 4:41 am

Re: Broad City

#41 Post by Gregor Samsa » Tue Jan 23, 2018 12:30 pm

I've belatedly binged all four seasons over the last week, and its been a pleasure to see how its grown and taken more risks while still retaining its voice. It'd be very easy to just keep putting out formula episodes and stagnating creatively, but instead they've taken on a much sharper political tone (following heavy rewrites after the 2016 election) as well as experimenting with their narrative structure and characterisation. Season 4 alone has dives into animation and alternate universes, as well as Abbi (Witches and Housesitting) and Ilana's (Florida and Bedbugs) directorial debuts. It will be very interesting to see where they go with Season 5.

In other news, Abbi also has a podcast on modern art, featuring some Broad City alums and other guests.

User avatar
mfunk9786
Under Chris' Protection
Joined: Fri May 16, 2008 4:43 pm
Location: Philadelphia, PA

Re: Broad City

#42 Post by mfunk9786 » Tue Jan 23, 2018 12:41 pm

I really disliked the fourth season, to the point where LQ and I just stopped watching. It happens with a lot of comedy series, but the show began to smell itself much too much. The Hillary Clinton episode felt like a real example of a "Jump the Shark" moment, because the show has not been any good since - probably a coincidence, but it was such a scrappy, energetic thing before, and now it's taking a very dull victory lap as the real life women behind it become less and less relatable to the way these characters were initially conceived. Success is poison for this kind of show.

Werewolf by Night

Re: Broad City

#43 Post by Werewolf by Night » Tue Jan 23, 2018 11:22 pm

Did you see the Florida episode, though? One of the best in the series, and I’m with you on the overall quality of this last season.

User avatar
mfunk9786
Under Chris' Protection
Joined: Fri May 16, 2008 4:43 pm
Location: Philadelphia, PA

Re: Broad City

#44 Post by mfunk9786 » Wed Jan 24, 2018 12:55 pm

No - we gave up during the animated episode that begins with some absurdly rote dialogue about how women are superheroes because they lactate or whatever. It seemed apparent to LQ and I that this was no longer the show we fell in love with.

User avatar
Gregor Samsa
Joined: Sun Aug 06, 2006 4:41 am

Re: Broad City

#45 Post by Gregor Samsa » Fri Apr 13, 2018 12:29 am


User avatar
mfunk9786
Under Chris' Protection
Joined: Fri May 16, 2008 4:43 pm
Location: Philadelphia, PA

Re: Broad City

#46 Post by mfunk9786 » Fri Apr 13, 2018 2:21 am

Should have ended with Season 3. Will be interesting if they can pull something compelling together for the final season, though. But like with a lot of things, the presidential election seemed to fuck with the vibe of this show in all sorts of unusual ways.

Post Reply