The Netflix Lounge Club

[Perfect Cell]

AUGUST'S SELECTION IS... BLACK MIRROR​

Borrowing heavily from the Hype TV Club, I present a dedicated club for all-things-Netflix. I understand that this is TV-focused, but it is also Lounge-focused, so... please don't move this thread, ye Red Ones. Similar to the TV Club, members will vote on which Netflix property to watch, and the one with the highest vote total will enter the spotlight for the following month. All discussion will be contained in this thread, but the first post will be updated with the current month's selection.

RULES:

1. The property must be a Netflix Original. This means it must have originally aired on Netflix. Due to licensing restrictions, Netflix catalogs vary wildly from country to country. Theatrical movies and traditional TV shows may be available on the US Netflix, but not abroad. But Netflix Originals (such as Daredevil, Orange is the New Black, Okja, etc) tend to be available worldwide more readily.

2. The first three weeks of a month are reserved for discussing the current selection. The fourth week of the month will be reserved for voting for the next month's selection.

3. The property can be any type of programming. Whether it's a television series, movie, documentary, comedy special... as long as it is a Netflix Original, it is fair game. Should a movie/documentary/special be selected, the floor will be opened up for additional selections later in the month, due to shorter total runtimes.

4. Spoilers must be tagged at all times IF THE PROPERTY IS LESS THAN SIX MONTHS OLD. If Daredevil season one is selected for some reason, spoiler tags will not be required.

5. Rules are, of course, open to suggestion.

SELECTIONS:

Click the photo for the beginning of each selection's discussion.

 

[Perfect Cell]

I vote for GLOW season one.

 

[KRYPTON INC.]

I was meaning to get around to GLOW anyway. Sure, I will give a vote to it. I'm old enough to remember watching it occasionally as a kid.

 

[Perfect Cell]

Since this is going to be a truncated month, voting will be open until 12:00am July 12. That's midnight eastern... the one true timezone. Discussion will go until July 26, at which point we will begin voting for August's selection. There is no poll, I'll just tally the votes manually. So... POST YER PICKS.

 

[dude stannis]

I'll echo GLOW.

 

[Black Narcissus]

90 Day Fiancee.

 

[DarthSkywalker]

 

[KRYPTON INC.]

90 Day Fiancee.

This a documentary about your life as a strip club customer BN?

 

[DarthSkywalker]

90 Day Fiancee.

The TLC show?

 

[Perfect Cell]

I still marked it down.

 

[Roose Bolton]

I've had GLOW recommended to me by a lot of people, might as well pull the trigger.

 

[DarthSkywalker]

I've had GLOW recommended to me by a lot of people, might as well pull the trigger.

You really should.

 

[KRYPTON INC.]

For those unfamiliar with the subject matter, the original GLOW from the 1980's.

Original GLOW pilot:

Spoiler

[YT]qwbNjHfoNn4[/YT]

GLOW opening:

Spoiler

[YT]wH65MPnKojk[/YT]

Profile of "Soviet" Colonel Ninotchka:

Spoiler

[YT]Op6kE_CweXo[/YT]

Ninotchka Vs. The Cheyenne Cher :

Spoiler

[YT]b2lnh8fHlks[/YT]

 

[Perfect Cell]

Well, voting is pretty unanimous so far, and I'm not expecting a lot of votes to start pouring in, so I think we can probably close the poll by tomorrow. That way people can start watching GLOW over the weekend and whatnot. If they haven't started already.

 

[jokesonm3]

Alison Brie is smokin hot.

Emmy show right here.

 

[Perfect Cell]

Hey, none of this premature articulation. Wait until the vote is finalized...

Ah, **** it. GLOW wins. I must begin watching.

 

[KRYPTON INC.]

Alison Brie is smokin hot.

Emmy show right here.

Once again j3... PANTS UP!!

 

[jokesonm3]

Once again j3... PANTS UP!!

Fine

 

[Perfect Cell]

I just watched the first episode.

Spoiler

I knew that real wrestlers were going to make appearances this season, but it was still funny to see John Morrison pop up... and for him to do a three-count to end an actual fight.

Marc Maron seems like he's going to be the highlight of the show, already. Alison Brie's character is pretty damn awful so far. I mean that in a good way, since she's clearly written to be a selfish *******. And....yes... Annie's Boobs. We try not to sexualize her.

I may have read this wrong, but how much of the general public knew wrestling was scripted back then? The characters in this show seem pretty surprised at being cast for a wrestling show, and seem to believe it's a legitimate sport, just with costumes. I'd be interested to know when public perception of wrestling shifted.

Finally, here he is: the author of all Ruth's pain:

 

[KRYPTON INC.]

I just watched the first episode.

Spoiler

I knew that real wrestlers were going to make appearances this season, but it was still funny to see John Morrison pop up... and for him to do a three-count to end an actual fight.

Marc Maron seems like he's going to be the highlight of the show, already. Alison Brie's character is pretty damn awful so far. I mean that in a good way, since she's clearly written to be a selfish *******. And....yes... Annie's Boobs. We try not to sexualize her.

I may have read this wrong, but how much of the general public knew wrestling was scripted back then? The characters in this show seem pretty surprised at being cast for a wrestling show, and seem to believe it's a legitimate sport, just with costumes. I'd be interested to know when public perception of wrestling shifted.

Finally, here he is: the author of all Ruth's pain:

Spoiler

At the job now so I can't watch the show yet. As someone that lived through that period as a kid I can give you my impressions from experience. My father had a cousin Ritchie. Ritchie was a man in his mid thirties during the GLOW/WWF era and had grown up with the pre-Vince era of varying Wrestling outfits across the country. And I can tell you right now...
Ritchie thought it was real. He bought it hook line and sinker.

My guess is that the organizations did their best to keep up appearances out of a mix of fear and ego. I don't think Ritchie was alone in having to justify his fandom by convincing himself all the pageantry and drama was actually occurring as a legit fight sport. The powers that be behind wrestling I would guess assumed that if they admitted publicly it was entertainment that they would lose the fervor of the fans. Certainly among the youngster set the school yard debates about the "reality" of wrestling could get heated.
I saw more than a few actual fights start because one too cool for school kid needled a wrestling die hard about how it was all scripted and not a real fight between the forces of good and evil.

Times in general were different. I mean, the public by and large were not as media savvy as today (and for Zod's sake let's not pat ourselves on the back about that since large swaths of the North American public believes a **** metric ton of stupid stuff they pick up from various media today, so imagine a world without a resource like the internet?) and were a bit more credulous than we would easily believe but remember... The American public were aghast at learning about the Game Show scandals from the 1950's.
During this period the televangelist craze reached it's nadir with men asking for money to be sent to them or else "God would be calling them home".

It was a time that had a very simplistic view on most things. Despite the sex and violence in more graphic detail that had seeped into the culture, the 1980's had an underlying cultural thrust that wanted to return to the 50's and early 60's and that included a certain naivete that was kinda promoted on all levels in most entertainment, wrestling included I think.


I cannot say how widely such thinking was across the populace and for sure ther were plenty of people that called BS on the whole shebang. My mom was one. She honestly couldn't believe that wrestling for the most part had not changed much since the days of Bruno San Martino and Gorgeous George or that so many bought into it un-ironically. There is also the nostalgia factor to consider. My dad knew it was fake but he had good memories of watching Mexican Luchadores as a kid in movie theaters in Puerto Rico. Like, for real, you couldn't say **** about El Santo around my dad. He was really put out when I watched a MST3K version of one of the El Santo movies. People tend to defend the stuff they were exposed to at a young and innocent age and it was probably true for wrestling during that period as well. It could be that having gone through Watergate and Vietnam that the public just wished to be more innocent and if that meant kinda wink-wink, nudge-nudge saying and acting that wrestling was "real" then so be it.

 

[Perfect Cell]

Spoiler

At the job now so I can't watch the show yet. As someone that lived through that period as a kid I can give you my impressions from experience. My father had a cousin Ritchie. Ritchie was a man in his mid thirties during the GLOW/WWF era and had grown up with the pre-Vince era of varying Wrestling outfits across the country. And I can tell you right now...
Ritchie thought it was real. He bought it hook line and sinker.

My guess is that the organizations did their best to keep up appearances out of a mix of fear and ego. I don't think Ritchie was alone in having to justify his fandom by convincing himself all the pageantry and drama was actually occurring as a legit fight sport. The powers that be behind wrestling I would guess assumed that if they admitted publicly it was entertainment that they would lose the fervor of the fans. Certainly among the youngster set the school yard debates about the "reality" of wrestling could get heated.
I saw more than a few actual fights start because one too cool for school kid needled a wrestling die hard about how it was all scripted and not a real fight between the forces of good and evil.

Times in general were different. I mean, the public by and large were not as media savvy as today (and for Zod's sake let's not pat ourselves on the back about that since large swaths of the North American public believes a **** metric ton of stupid stuff they pick up from various media today, so imagine a world without a resource like the internet?) and were a bit more credulous than we would easily believe but remember... The American public were aghast at learning about the Game Show scandals from the 1950's.
During this period the televangelist craze reached it's nadir with men asking for money to be sent to them or else "God would be calling them home".

It was a time that had a very simplistic view on most things. Despite the sex and violence in more graphic detail that had seeped into the culture, the 1980's had an underlying cultural thrust that wanted to return to the 50's and early 60's and that included a certain naivete that was kinda promoted on all levels in most entertainment, wrestling included I think.


I cannot say how widely such thinking was across the populace and for sure ther were plenty of people that called BS on the whole shebang. My mom was one. She honestly couldn't believe that wrestling for the most part had not changed much since the days of Bruno San Martino and Gorgeous George or that so many bought into it un-ironically. There is also the nostalgia factor to consider. My dad knew it was fake but he had good memories of watching Mexican Luchadores as a kid in movie theaters in Puerto Rico. Like, for real, you couldn't say **** about El Santo around my dad. He was really put out when I watched a MST3K version of one of the El Santo movies. People tend to defend the stuff they were exposed to at a young and innocent age and it was probably true for wrestling during that period as well. It could be that having gone through Watergate and Vietnam that the public just wished to be more innocent and if that meant kinda wink-wink, nudge-nudge saying and acting that wrestling was "real" then so be it.

Spoiler

There's a spot in the episode where Brie's character is "cut" from GLOW, and what follows is a montage of her watching Ric Flair and Hogan on TV, and trying to emulate their mannerisms in her apartment. It all leads to her returning to the GLOW gym to try to win back her spot with what she "learned". And I won't reveal too much about what happens after, but the ironic thing is that all her emulated showmanship gets her nowhere, while a real, actual situation, with real, actual emotion, eventually leads Maron's character to look at her as a possible star.

And that probably ties in with the idea of whether wrestling is "real" or "fake". The moves have never looked real. The holds have never looked painful. I don't think many are fooled by that. But the emotion of the match, and the emotion the wrestlers exude to the audience, is the real thing that hooks people. And that can probably be a visceral experience, which can probably lead people to treating it as legitimate. Even though their brain screams it's fake, their heart says "**** no, I want to see Ted DiBiase get his teeth stomped in. That's real."

 

[dude stannis]

First episode has me in for the season. Marc Maron's character has me in stitches. Alison Brie is decidedly unsympathetic. Which is going to be fun to see.

 

[KRYPTON INC.]

Spoiler

There's a spot in the episode where Brie's character is "cut" from GLOW, and what follows is a montage of her watching Ric Flair and Hogan on TV, and trying to emulate their mannerisms in her apartment. It all leads to her returning to the GLOW gym to try to win back her spot with what she "learned". And I won't reveal too much about what happens after, but the ironic thing is that all her emulated showmanship gets her nowhere, while a real, actual situation, with real, actual emotion, eventually leads Maron's character to look at her as a possible star.

And that probably ties in with the idea of whether wrestling is "real" or "fake". The moves have never looked real. The holds have never looked painful. I don't think many are fooled by that. But the emotion of the match, and the emotion the wrestlers exude to the audience, is the real thing that hooks people. And that can probably be a visceral experience, which can probably lead people to treating it as legitimate. Even though their brain screams it's fake, their heart says "**** no, I want to see Ted DiBiase get his teeth stomped in. That's real."

Spoiler

Absolutely Bri. The basis of wrestling as entertainment is it's sort of passion play aspect. Hell when I first started this job there was a guy I worked with, same age as I and he really wanted to believe it was real,
or at least "more real" than what was so obvious. I mean if you are over the age of 15 you should know that Triple H can't wack a guy in the face with a sledge hammer and that guy comes back a week later no problem (or that Triple H would not be arrested for criminal assault with a deadly weapon,
sport or not). I think that basis in wanting to believe is the same double edged sword one finds in the fandom for super heroes for sure. Same kind of pageantry, and simplicity.

I think with both in the modern world there is a more rationale view of these entertainments than before... BUT the primal hold the emotions they evoke are harder to shake and can contribute to a simplistic and infantile view of the world in general. Again, I lump the super heroes I love into that mix as well.
I have been as susceptible to the charms of that sort of binary though pattern as anyone. I think it's telling about the culture to a degree that around the same time, the 1990's that wrestling abandoned the idea of good vs. evil to simply champion "toughness/bad ass-ness" that a similar thing was happening with Marvel and DC comics. They too suddenly focused on superficial aspects over the any kind of morality play. With comics though I think there was eventually a correction. Wrestling? It still simply champions the more "bad ass" over the less "bad ass" pure and simple. The categories of heels and baby faces have kind of no meaning these last few decades.


You can see that the female side of wrestling in the 80's was no different than the male in this aspect. You had the obvious good girls and the obvious love to hate em' bad girls... But I digress Bri. I don't want to dominate your thread about GLOW on Netflix without having seen it. When I get home I hope I can crack the first one open.

 

[Perfect Cell]

First episode has me in for the season. Marc Maron's character has me in stitches. Alison Brie is decidedly unsympathetic. Which is going to be fun to see.

Yeah, Ruth ****ing sucks. Seems like things are going to lead to her channeling her selfishness into her character, which will make her the standout heel. Judging by Maron's "vision" he had for her, at least. The show seems to have established a theme pretty early on that you can't pretend to be something you're not, even as a pro-wrestler.

I'm on to you, Roman Reigns.

 

[dude stannis]

I'm on to you, Roman Reigns.

I had the exact same thought when Maron turned her heel lol.

Also I swear if people from the 80's watched a modern New Japan match, they'd be calling ambulances left, right and centre.