Play Like a Girl: Peacock Rocks

Clip: Buffalump, Etsy; Necklace: Betsey Johnson, Amazon

Peacock rocks, but I'm not talking about "Peacock" by Katy Perry (although I do like that tune).  I'm talking about NBC's streaming platform and its not one but two new comedies about all-girl rock groups, Girls5eva and We Are Lady Parts.  

Girls5eva follows four forty-something New Yorkers trying to resuscitate their defunct '90s pop group.  The players include Dawn (Sara Bareilles), the sensible one; Summer (Busy Phillips), the dumb one; Wickie (Renee Elise Goldsberry), the crazy one; and Gloria (Paula Pell), the workaholic one.  It's wacky and witty and reminds me of 30 Rock, which tracks because Tina Fey is one of the producers and also cameos as a faux Dolly Parton.  Indeed, Dawn is like the Liz Lemon of the gang, which is to say that she's no-nonsense yet put-upon and the glue that holds them all together.  The songs are hilarious, and the fashion is fierce.  As a bonus, Stephen Colbert, Bowen Yang, and Vanessa Williams guest star.  Girls5eva is a snarky-yet-feel-good treat for anyone who grew up in the '90s or appreciates Fey's brand of humor. 

We Are Lady Parts is the coming-of-age tale of Amina (Anjana Vasan), a twenty-six-year-old Muslim Londoner academic torn between tradition and joining a Muslim punk rock band.  Amina is my favorite kind of heroine, which is to say earnest, awkward, and always getting in her own way.  She has such a severe case of stage fright that she always vomits -- and also sometimes has diarrhea.  Yet We Are Lady Parts frontwoman Saira (Sarah Kameela Impey) is looking for a guitarist and is convinced that Amina is it, barf bucket notwithstanding.  Passionate and serious about her music, Saira spends the greater part of the series resisting her bandmates' pleas to take to social media, insisting that We Are Lady Parts "is not about being famous; it's about being heard."  Being true to yourself and your art, even when it's hard, especially when it's hard, is a major theme in We Are Lady Parts and one that will resonate with artists and misunderstoods everywhere.  

So, two girl power anthems and two ways to rock add up to heart and limitless laughs.  

Peacock, you've got something new to strut about.

Desperate Housewives Season Premiere: One Housewife Gets Crafty

During last night's season premiere of Desperate Housewives, when Susan (Teri Hatcher) announced that she was going to help pull her husband Mike out of debt by selling the "really cool handmade jewelry she'd been making," I knew I was in for something good. Sure enough, Susan, who is an art teacher, pulls out several trays of oversized baubles to display for her Wisteria Lane cohorts in Lynette's kitchen just scenes later. Dubiously, the others examine the too-large necklaces and earrings while trading sideways glances. Bree jokes that she'll buy Gaby a pair of huge earrings because "her Latino ears can handle them," and Gaby retorts that she's buying Bree a bulky necklace to wear around her "sturdy Protestant neck." Oblivious as ever, Susan blithely regales her friends with the story of how she set up a table at the park to market her wares. Yet the climate of bitchiness hasn't reached its full pitch until Lynette's old college friend Renee (played by guest star Vanessa Williams) bursts into the room and starts sparring with Lynette. Ever the peacemaker, Susan urges them to stop before someone gets hurt. Right on cue, Renee asks Lynette if things have gotten so bad that she has to resort to wearing the earrings her kids made her at summer camp, leaving a crestfallen Susan to plaintively utter that too late, someone already did (get hurt, that is).

I know this little tableau was designed to make Susan appear as naive and dippy as ever. And I did think it was funny. Yet as a fellow jewelry creator and peddler, I also felt a little stung. Of course, I'm usually commiserating with Susan over something or other. I can't not, what with her being to Desperate Housewives what Betty White's Rose was to The Golden Girls. (If that left you in the dark, then I should interject that I'm wont to spout off my enthusiasm for all things Golden Girls and Betty White at random intervals.)

It must be mentioned that Susan endures far worse than snide remarks about her handmade jewelry in this season's inaugural episode. By the end of the show Mike is talking about going off to Alaska to work on an oil rig to earn enough to repay his creditors. Understandably alarmed by this prospect, Susan abandons her jewelry enterprise in favor of the far more lucrative gig of doing housework in her lingerie on the Internet. Which is very depressing. But that's another post for another day.