She went on to list -- with links -- websites, blogs, newspapers and more that have quoted from Ava and C.I.'s writing. My advice to Susannah is don't let Jim see your e-mail, he'll hit the roof. (I'm joking, but a large number of the things linked to by newspapers are pieces Ava and C.I. wrote jointly for The Common Ills. Jim sees that list and tries to embargo all future Ava and C.I. pieces for this site only.)
Ava and C.I. have always been tremendously popular with readers and the bulk of e-mails every week are about their writing. This may be our last year online so I'm planning to pull some themes from the e-mails from time to time and write about them.
Due to their popularity, Ava and C.I. were the obvious choice to start with.
Ava considers herself the Stevie Nicks of the group. Nicks often says she wonders if she was only invited into Fleetwood Mac because they wanted a guitarist (her then boyfriend Lindsey Buckingham). Ava notes that Jim wanted Dona to work on the edition and Ava was her roommate. Ava truly was wanted all along. Jim, Jess and I were roommates back then and we often discussed starting a site. Sometimes we discussed it with Dona but more often it was one of those things we discussed watching TV late at night or any other time we wanted to avoid studying for classes. Ava's name was always mentioned.
This site was up for two years before C.I. would take billing as more than 'special guest star.' The first edition we published took place because Jim went to a campus event and the speaker was C.I. We were all reading The Common Ills and something in the way she spoke told Jim this was C.I. After the speech he waited in line to talk to her and, when it was his turn, his first question was, "You're C.I. of The Common Ills, aren't you?" C.I. had no response because she'd never encountered the question and didn't expect to. Jim insisted the secret identity was safe but please, pretty please, could you come back to the apartment because a group of us wanted to start a website and this would be the thing that would push us to do so?
C.I. agreed and Jim was calling me asking me to round up Jess, Dona and, yes, Ava.
Our first weekend set a number of patterns. First up, they are always all night editions that never, ever seem to end. Second of all, Jim pushes for whatever he wants. Thirdly, Dona is the practical one who will argue what's possible and will argue (loudly) with Jim. Fourth, Ava and C.I. were kind of left out.
That's not a joke. C.I. saw it as a one time thing and wasn't looking to put any imprint on this site. Ava was already doubtful that she was truly wanted and found Jim overbearing. (Ava and Jim get along just fine these days.) As the edition was done a hallmark event happened.
"How can we publish this without a TV article?" asked Jim who went on to insist that he didn't know a single college student who, regardless of what they said, didn't watch TV.
Dona argued the practicalities against the feature ("not enough time"). Ava and C.I. argued that the last thing needed was a TV piece. Jim won on both points.
As we wrote that first TV piece, we were all shouting out things. Ava's observations were not being included. As the thing was typed up, it was a disaster. C.I. took a look at it and suggested a refrain be added which instantly improved the piece. C.I. then repeated Ava's remarks and said they needed to go in there. Ava pointed out C.I.'s remarks and said they needed to go in there.
Much later, the two would realize C.I. had long known (and been friends with) Ava's aunt.
At that point though, they were bonded over the fact that each other's observations had been dismissed.
Everyone had been so focused on getting the thing written quickly that none of us (not just Jim) noticed that everything Ava and C.I. had contributed was stripped from the article. Even the stuff that had prompted us to laugh at out loud.
It was put back in.
It was a stronger piece but not the strongest piece in the first week's edition. However, it was what everyone responded to. Jim saw that as proof that he was right about TV needing to be covered. He was correct on that. But as e-mails continued to come in on that and on the following week's TV piece, it was very obvious that the sentences being highlighted by readers were the ones Ava and C.I. had contributed (solo or together).
By the third week, there was no denying what was taking place. We'd included even more of Ava and C.I.'s contributions that week (C.I. was by now participating over the phone) partly as a test (Dona and I devised that). We got the strongest response. We took that to Jim, identifying the lines that were being quoted back to us in e-mails and identifying them to Jim as the ones Ava and C.I. wrote.
Jim wisely suggested (before we could) that the feature needed to be turned over to Ava and C.I. They didn't want it. They never wanted TV to be covered in the first place. They agreed at the last minute only after we agreed not to put a byline in. As far as anyone would know, the pieces were still written by all.
The volume of e-mails leaped the minute their first piece went up and continued to.
Offline, Jim, Dona, Jess and I were getting compliments from friends and family and, while we were happy to give Ava and C.I. credit, we hated that the things our own family and friends were praising always required us saying, "Yeah, that is great . . . but that's Ava and C.I.'s writing."
As a result, Ava and C.I. agreed to allow us to note that they were writing the pieces and only them. This prompted the first shift in e-mails. Suddenly, with two women writing them, the e-mails that disagreed (and some had always disagreed with their observations) got very violent. That really is important to note because when it was assumed that men and women were writing, people disagreed. Sometimes respectfully, sometimes not. But there were never any threats of physical violence. By the time Ava and C.I. were tackling John Stamos, Nick Lachey and Tom Welling, death threats were a common theme in a number of e-mails.
Jim has written about how he didn't get what Ava and C.I. were doing. What they were doing (and are doing) was important to the reaction from readers. Ava and C.I. wrote about TV as if women were worthy subjects. They did at a time when the characters like Phoebe, Rachel and Monica were disappearing and being replaced with non-stop home makers who didn't work outside of the home. They did it when the whole nation was on a Bully Boy kick. And they questioned that each week. They called out the sexism.
They took a feminist view point (they always say "a" and not "the") and that is the thread that connects every TV commentary they've written. They raised consciences among all of us here and they did so with our readers. Older women would write in to say how Ava and C.I.'s writing reminded them of when the feminist movement had real steam. Men of all ages would write the, "Okay, now I get it." (That's the most common comment to this day from men about Ava and C.I.'s writing.)
Readers would share how the writing made them think or, in many cases, made them take some action. I read the bulk of the e-mails that come in to this site and there are some amazing ones from their loyal readers. There are young girls (some may now be women) who saw in Ava and C.I.'s writing a reason to stand up for themselves at school or at home. But that was never limited to young girls or even to just females.
Jim once tried to celebrate their writing by noting his favorite pieces by them. He did that while guest-blogging at a community site and we never got so many complaints here. He'd picked his ten favorite and readers took huge offense that their own favorites didn't make his top ten. So I won't make the same mistake and risk angering readers. But I will note that each week, when they finish writing their latest and Jim reads it out loud to us, I never fail to be impressed.
They are the only two who have never had a weekend off. They have been here for every edition. They have written countless TV pieces. One week, we asked them to cover a movie and they did. Readers enjoyed it but wanted to know where the TV article was? So the following week featured two TV articles by them.
The writers strike was interesting for a number of reasons. First, having spoken to writers before the strike, they were going to continue covering entertainment shows. They did that and then got a different reaction (probably because the strike moved from hypothetical to real). When they had time to speak to the ones objecting (and they credit one show runner especially with convincing them to not cover entertainment programming during the strike), they made the call over Jim's objection that they wouldn't cover entertainment again until the strike was over.
Over Jim's objection? No one has pressed them more about what to cover than Jim. Since the start, he has begged them to cover 'news' and public affairs show. They largely resisted. So you might think it was a dream come true for Jim that they were dropping entertainment programming for an unspecified length of time. Jim's concern was over the fact that their commentaries are the calling card for this site. People come by for that. Some stick around for other features, some don't.
As Ava explained to Jim (paraphrase), "Don't worry. We're not going to write stuffy pieces. We'll do it the way we do entertainment." He still worried. For four weeks he worried before he got that the strike was important to our readers and they were willing to wait it out with Ava and C.I.
I won't say what they did during that period was their finest writing because that would lead to multiple e-mails accusing me of forgetting something they did in 2005 or 2006 or pre-strike in 2007. I will note that by having them cover the 'news' program, Third was a leader in calling out the sexism in the Democratic primaries.
There are many people who have still not been called out anywhere else online for their sexism. Bill Moyers clearly tailored his coverage to Barack Obama and he clearly took shots at Hillary. "Moisty" for the New Hampshire moment. Saying he didn't know if it was real or fake. Saying that viewers should judge for themselves as he pretended to set up a clip only instead of playing that Hillary moment, he replayed Jesse Jackson Jr.'s MSNBC attack on Hillary. How were viewers supposed to decide from that whether Hillary had faked or not? Who else called that out? Moyers is the left (and 'left') sacred cow. No one calls him out. No one ever comments on how very few women are ever booked by his show. No one else pointed out that it was a weekly discussion on race (with male guests always) and yet Moyers never devoted a segment to gender.
That's only one example but it's the one that always comes to my mind because, while Moyers does much that is good (as Ava and C.I. point out regularly), the program was a launching pad for attacks on Hillary as it rushed to promote Barack non-stop.
They did a piece during that which had a number of journalists trembling in e-mails. They noted that Frontline would have never gotten on the air without Jessica Savitch as an anchorwoman and how many had dined out on trashing Savitch, even after she was dead. It's not uncommon for journalists to write in about Ava and C.I.'s commentaries -- some pleased, some displeased -- but that really struck a nerve as various ones rushed to weigh in that the topic wasn't needed or that it wasn't needed and they never did that!
But, of course, many did. And when Ava and C.I. named someone who did, they went with someone who had laughed it up in public and on the public record. Circle the wagons elsewhere, Ava and C.I. aren't interested.
They were the first to point out that Katie Couric was being attacked for being a woman. It wasn't for her anchoring because it was months before she even moved behind The CBS Evening News desk. They were the first to tell you -- even before the news broke in the press -- that Elizabeth Vargas was about to be forced out of her co-anchor chair because ABC wasn't pleased she was pregnant. (And they may have been the only ones to point out -- before and after it was made public -- that this was against the law.)
And while I love those strong pieces, I also love the creative pieces where they either write as if they're characters on a show or as if they've been cast in a show. "How do they make that decision?" wondered JBL in an e-mail last week? They usually have far too much to say and figure it will be easier to write it that way and make the points that way. The first time they went fictional, it was our sixties edition. We had a theme that week. We didn't carry it far enough in our pieces but Ava and C.I. did. So much so that the review still gets e-mails and the most asked question is, "Were they really stoned?" No. They were pretending they were children in the sixties. Isolated, people assume that (the same way some assume they really filmed an episode of 7th Heaven and got fired for ad-libbing).
The piece that first got over 2,000 e-mails in one week. It was Moronic Mars, a very bad show and they pulled no punches from the first paragraph:
Feel for Kristen Bell. Really feel for her. She's twenty-five and stuck playing a headstrong and plucky high schooler. On TV -- which means her character, Veronica Mars, is a real drip. As if a 25 year-old trying to portray Shirley Temple sans curls isn't difficult enough, it gets worse, oh does it get worse. Sexual tensions flies all around Veronica, but none of it is aimed at her. She's like a straight woman hoping for a hook up at a Cher concert.
As many have noted, Cher is probably the most cited person in any of their articles. If they could, they would work her into every piece they write. But they returned to the program knowing that they'd already offended a number of people (about 300 devoted Veronica Mars fans, as I remember) and they still didn't pull punches and addressed the sorry 'representation' of minorities on the program as well. That led to some of the most clueless e-mails the site has ever received (which led to my writing my first solo piece).
And what was really sad about that was grasping these weren't young teenagers writing but grown adults. Fortunately, the majority of the e-mails are more than worth reading. However, a note on that. After Gutter Trash's little stunt, no one is e-mailing replies anymore. If you're a regular reader or a TCI community member, I will continue to reply to you briefly (briefly due to the volume of the e-mails). All others? You're on your own. I will press for "Mailbag" features where we respond to e-mails (questions, comments) and I will try to have those included in "Roundtable" features. But after that stunt, we're not e-mailing private e-mails to strangers regardless of what 'organization' they may be with.
Jim's always said we shouldn't and always argued that we're judged by what goes up here not how many e-mails we answered. Dona and I (we read the bulk of the e-mails) have argued against that; however, in light of Gutter Trash, we're no longer interested in arguing the point. So note the policy change.
In recent weeks, a number of you have suggested that maybe we could do a compilation piece -- a best of Ava and C.I. You argue that they could have the week off and, we all know, they deserve it. However, we have talked of such a piece for some time. In a roundtable for the gina & krista round-robin, I explained the basics of how that would work using my own example from their reviews. We would list the title of the show, in this case Supernatural, and one or two sentences from the review that we felt captured it and was also funny. (My choice: "We're not sure what to make of this show. On the one hand, it's like really bad gay porn where the leads forget to take their clothes off. On the other, it's as though someone had a secret fondness for The American Girls.") That was in 2006 and the reaction from people participating in that roundtable was, "How could you go with that and not . . ." So that remains a possibility in case they ever are not able to write a commentary one week but we're all aware that selecting even thirty quotes from thirty different reviews would still leave many upset.
Susannah wanted their reviews of Jericho and Medium noted as well as their piece on Roseanna Arquette. I finished her e-mail and moved over to one from longterm reader Bob who argued they have never gotten credit for calling Studio 60 a bomb from the start and for picking Heroes as the must-watch show of that season. He asked that I "work that in somehow as soon as you can." So I'll work it in here. And note that the next e-mail I read was from Annie (writing for herself and her husband -- and they have been reading this site since the first week we went up) who noted this commentary on cartoons and advised that CW starts their new cartoons next Saturday "and I hope Ava and C.I. will be tackling that." In just those three e-mails, you see the range of favorites differ for three different readers. (And they do know that CW starts their new cartoon line up. That's a possibility for next week as is the new 90210 which features Shannen Doherty *Tuesday*. They're not sure what they're going to cover yet.)
Lewis (who is also a TCI community member) wrote that they need credit for calling out CBS' disowning of The New Adventures of Old Christine. He didn't provide a link and I know that they've covered that at least three times. But Lewis notes it's being buried on Wednesday nights this fall. Those were among the many e-mails that came in last week on older pieces by Ava and C.I. Ronald e-mailed to note several of their pieces and then wondered, "Do you ever get tired of e-mails about Ava and C.I.?" No, because as much as I love them, I love their writing.
And that's a good note to wrap on. (I'm sorry I couldn't mention more e-mails and, obviously, I couldn't mention all. I will note Dana, Melissa and Brent's e-mails were on my list to work in if I could.) So the plan is every now and then, I'll be grabbing some theme that's in the e-mails and addressing it here. Since we're no longer replying to e-mails from people we do not know, this will be one more place where they can be noted. By going with themes, I'll hopefully be able to have a topic and not just offering "___ writes and the response is ___."
