11.27.2009

ALLY MCBEAL/JON BON JOVI BUTT-SNIFFING

So I just got off the phone with my brother, and he was telling me about how he has been teaching in this new building which has men and womens bathrooms on alternating floors. He ended up bumping into one of his students as he was leaving the men's room and they started up a conversation. There was a flush and a girl came out of one of the stalls and started talking to my brother and his student, and my brother was shocked that a girl was using the men's room. Apparently she didn't feel like going all the way upstairs or something. And my brother said it was a strange situation. A girl in the men's room.
And this reminded me of something. When I first came to Japan I would end up in conversations where girls would be asking me if it was really normal to have co-ed bathrooms in American office buildings. More than once. More than a few times I was asked this and it was pretty confusing.
It turned out that this was a major setting in the television show "Ally Mcbeal". There was a co-ed bathroom where the male and female characters would hang out together and talk. And this must have had some penetration into the consciousness of all these Japanese girls who watched that show. (In a similar but different way, I am constantly asked if it is normal in America for people to sit with their shoes on, in or on top of their bed. Of course it isn't. But I guess it happens a lot on American TV shows and movies. And in this country people leave their shoes at the door so I guess it is doubly horrifying to see someone sitting on a bed resting their shoes on the covers).
The thing is, I had never really watched Ally Mcbeal at all until a few years ago. The first time I really watched Ally Mcbeal was in Japan, dubbed in Japanese. My girlfriend of the time bought all of the seasons for cheap from a video store that was going out of business. And I would watch episodes of Ally Mcbeal with my ex, her little sister, and her roommate. They were hooked and watched multiple episodes every day.
I don't know if you have ever watched Ally Mcbeal. I have watched huge chunks of Ally Mcbeal. Not by choice. Ally Mcbeal makes no sense. Everything the characters say and do, all of their desires, hopes, and dreams are entirely unlike any actual person who has ever lived or died. They work in a law firm which has a co-ed toilet that they hang out in and talk about love and their biological clocks and flirt in a hollywood baroque robot manner. They hang out at a bar that is lit like a porno-scene where some women plays a piano and sings lite fm. Sometimes the songs directly relate to what has happened in the episode, sometimes the characters sing on stage. The artifice of Ally Mcbeal would be insulting if it wasn't completely baffling. This compounded by the fact that I was watching it with three girls who kept turning to me and asking "Is America really like this?"
The people on TV do shit, say shit, wear clothing, and end up in situations completely unlike our lives and what we know. Mike has double-booked with two dates to the prom and his best friend's name is Boner. There is a little girl with three daddies who looks like a troll and talks like a retard but every line she says illicits cooing or uproarious laughter from the studio audience. Kimmie Gibbler and Urkel are your neighbors and walk into your house uninvited, also, they exist. The boys have a frat party in the Hollywood hills and there is a fire raging across California; Donna Martin gets caught in the fire with a baby deer and waits to be rescued, eventually she is, and the deer reunites with its family. Family Doubledare and Michael Knight's chest hair. Melrose Place. Mr. Drummond. The Real World Road Rules Challenge and the romance that ensues. Night Court. Cosby Show sweaters and earrings and every character on Friends. Daytime advertisements for adjustible beds.
The point I am trying to make is that the majority of TV has never made sense to me, nor has it ever even seemed to me that it is supposed to be in anyway representative of the world that I live in. And for some reason Ally Mcbeal is even worse. It's not that it was "over the top", "edgy" or "stylized" (perhaps that was its intention), just that there was not one single character, emotion, or situation I could even relate to on a basic human level. In every soap-operatic instance of love, desire, sex, jealousy, etc. every character is a deranged mannequin doing and saying things that basically make no sense.
So I started telling my brother about the co-ed bathroom thing in Ally Mcbeal and how I am frequently asked if this is the norm in America, and how I have basically only ever seen Ally Mcbeal dubbed in Japanese. My brother has never seen the show and I started describing to him how strange and unattractive all the characters are, and how they do and say things that no one would ever do. While trying to describe this I remembered one of the strangest things I had seen on that show.
Specifically a scene in which Ally Mcbeal sniffs Jon Bon Jovi's ass.
I don't really remember the set up. Ally Mcbeal and one of her friends are walking down the street having a conversation in neo-nineties Cathy Guisewite language, when they see a bunch of construction workers. These construction workers are all attractive hunks of young men, the way most construction workers aren't, and one of them is Jon Bon Jovi looking like no one, including Jon Bon Jovi, should look. I wish I could remember what the fuck the rationale or the set up for this was, but Ally Mcbeal's friend describes how you just want to sniff a hot construction worker's ass like a dog would. Then Ally Mcbeal is chided by her friend into sniffing Bon Jovi's ass, and is caught by Bon Jovi in that embarrassing situation that I'm sure no one can relate to. Also Ally Mcbeal looks like a ninety-pound seahorse caucasoid lemur woman. Also she later meets up with Bon Jovi and embarrassedly apologizes for sniffing his ass and they end up dating after that awkward first meeting.
So there I was watching this in Japanese with three Japanese girls who keep asking me if all of the insane bullshit happening on this TV show is the norm in America and they don't believe me when I deny it.
Look. I like butts. I'll sniff a girl's butt. I love that. If I had to choose, I would choose an ass over any body part as a point of desire. But, if you had to sniff a stranger's ass on the street, I would guarantee that a construction worker on the job would have the foulest ass. Is this supposed to be cute? Is this supposed to be a subversion of cultural sexual mores to have Ally Mcbeal sniffing a strange man's ass on the street?
And as I am describing this bizarre butt-sniffing scene to my brother on the phone tonight I still can't believe it, to the point that I feel like I must be remembering it wrong. Like when you have memories from early childhood that are mixed up with dreams. IE "Oh like the time I was four and my stuffed animals started levitating, or maybe that was a dream I had when I was four." As I was describing the Bon Jovi ass sniffing scene to my brother I started doubting whether it was real. So I googled "Ally Mcbeal Bon Jovi Ass Butt Sniffing" and sifted through the internet.
Yes it is real. Salon, Oct. 7 2002:
(Bon Jovi) found himself filled with pity for the "Ally McBeal" star during his stint on her show.

"I never met this kid before, and on the first day, our first scene together she has to sniff my rear end. I'm bent over and she has to sniff my butt like a dog," he recalls. "I thought this is a tough gig, nice to meet ya."

Fuck you television. Fuck you internet. Happy Thanksgiving.

3 comments:

  1. First off, anything with JBJ's buns in it is better than chocolate in my book!

    This is like if I had asked all of your friends in Tokyo if everyone piloted robots and collected tiny monsters in small orbs, or if I had just seen that on tv. You should just agree with everyone's tv-blurred Americana, we all have crushes on Kelly Ka-pow-ski and we all have to ski the K12 at some point to win some shallow blondes heart.

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  2. The funny thing is, I came to this site for the same reason you mention. I was describing the butt sniffing scene to a couple of female friends, who immediately went "Ewwww!" and made me feel a little insecure about whether it really happened, or whether I dreamed it, and had just embarassed myslef by revealing some bizarre, Freudian truth about myself. I have never seen an episode of Ally McBeal, and happened to stop on that scene while channel surfing some years back and saw Jon Bon Jovi, and said to myself, "Hey, that's Jon Bon Jovi acting, and not in that submarine movie." So, I wasn't sure it happened or that I dreamed it, or what, and I Googled the same thing you did for the same reason you did, and this site popped up. By the way, you write very well and in a very engaging style.

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  3. Anonymous3.3.14

    Bon Jovi should have sniffed Alley Mcbeal's butt after she sniffed his.

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