The Neurosis of Cat Valentine

welcome back to hell i filmed these videos with a cardboard toilet paper roll instead of a camera a smug and ambitious octopus could play dance dance revolution whilst barely moving quite effectively in 2014 at 20 years old ariana grande won the nickelodeon kids choice award for favorite female tv star it's the greatest accolade she's ever received and her career has been on a sharp decline ever since at the time she wasn't performing sexual acts on hurricanes so much as she was playing a character on a show for children nickelodeon shows are interesting to revisit because they're problematic now there's healthy dashes of racism and ableism minorities are used as inherent punchlines and the creepy old writers are always finding excuses to make underage actresses say and do weird sexually suggestive things with just enough plausible deniability that they the whole cast and crew doesn't get sent to the gulags immediately because her other hand has unfortunately been glued to a little red haired girl's foot the feet stuff is as pervasive as you were told don't worry they're not real feet but why does your brother have a bag of fake feet in the trunk of his car i'm not gonna lie my brother's pretty weird any body type that isn't stick thin teenager is treated as an inherent joke not requiring explanation the artificial laugh track is oppressive constant and terrifying it simulates descending into hades while the children of the river sticks cackle at your damn nation so in many ways this is a slightly outdated text that i do not recommend revisiting but i stand ariana grande so here we are cut up your drugs and cuddle your stuffed animals pour some sake and wish misfortune on your enemies evade your taxes and don't forget to floss we're doing the whole thing part one descent into madness cat valentine is a character that was created as part of the ensemble cast of victorious a show i half-heartedly skimmed just kidding [ __ ] i snorted prescription drugs and watched all 58 episodes of victorious and then 35 episodes of sam and cat twice then i watched i party with victorious the 90-minute crossover special with icarly and hours of interviews over the past decade with every single cast member the best interviews by far with their mutual long-time contact zac sang who through happenstance came up in his press career and his teens at the same time as most of the actors in 2008 then i went through the filmography discography and directorial efforts of every single alumni victorious and sam and cat i discovered where they lived i cut their names into my skin three of them are chained to a radiator in my basement at this very moment i now have an encyclopedic knowledge of every episode in this entire franchise and everybody in them you didn't think my power had limits did you the universe is my property you're living in it paycheck to paycheck and your rent is due i tip my waiters by shooting them in the face and running i can never die victorious is one of many nickelodeon sitcoms created and written by dan schneider in the 2000s starring victoria justice who we met an audition when she was just 12 years old he initially cast her as lola and zoe 101 from 2005 to 2008. she was the one on the left during the rejected dance rejected rejected yeah you just got rejected when zoe 101 ended victorious was created in his wake with justice now in the lead role they made three seasons the final one was split into two house for release purposes as part of the ensemble cast of artistic high school students they cast local nobody ariana grande as supporting generic ditzy [ __ ] grande was fresh off of a young music theater career having just performed in the broadway musical 13 alongside future victorious cast member liz gillies in 2008. in the casting process of victorious the creators sought out musically talented children that they could exploit they pulled their victims from broadway and previous nickelodeon shows production for season one started in 2009 when grande was 16 years old and it premiered a year later it immediately finessed a viewership in the millions to this day it's fondly remembered as ariana grande's cultural peak before she tragically faded out of the public eye into poverty in 2010 the character cat valentine looked like this calm down after school i'll go with trina to bakersfield pick up the solvent drive back and get the makeup off your face before the play starts by 2014 she looked like this may i come in sure it's this way she's on crack now part one a season one cat valentine the main characters and victorious are archetypes you get the fish out of water pretty but doesn't know it's self-insert protagonist you have the scary mean goth bully you have the cool dude you have the weird dude you have a black you have the annoying sister and finally you have dumb sensitive teenage girl cat's introduction in the pilot tells us everything the writers intended for the character she's over-enthusiastic she's easily distracted she's hypersensitive and she bounces between these three states quickly oh my god you're tori right my name's cat oh like the animal what's it's supposed to mean nothing i i love cats me too they're so cute in the initial rendering of this character these extreme qualities interrupted her otherwise normal existence she's a wholly relatable teen with extraordinary quirks i take criticism really well no you don't what's that supposed to mean consequently there's an occasional dissonance in cat's character because she's otherwise a functional human being her deepest moments of stupidity have the potential to break immersion and violate suspension of disbelief by the way when i say that i ain't talking about like plot holes or continuity i'm not one of those [ __ ] that whines so loudly about realism in movies that i'm talking over the art part of it however internal logic can sell things that are difficult to sell in season 1 episode 12 cat's new boyfriend while tori is apologizing to kat she says if i were you i'd just punch me in the face in a stroke of comedic genius cat misinterprets this as a request to be punched i swear cat if i were you i just punched me right in the face now turret what you just punched me in the face you said too my sides are splitting with laughter because cat has done a lot of normal people [ __ ] it's hard to believe she's this goddamn stupid the textual inconsistency simply makes it difficult from an acting standpoint to perform the type of person that could do both of these things i'll go with trina to bakersfield pick up the solvent drive back and get the makeup off your face before the play starts as such instead of watching an intellectually bankrupt child punch her friend the audience watches two teenagers acting on a set the main impression is one of artifice also relevant in this scene we see that sometimes cat's brain simply turns off what okay bye the whole brain just turns off again a difficult beat to sell but in salmon cat in 2014 in episode 35 we steal a rock star when her brain turns off i feel it in my bones what if we make a deal yeah yeah sure what well what's the deal oh sorry i forgot we were talking it's the same thing but now it's awesome this is called elevating the text now for the uninitiated let's define text text doesn't necessarily mean the written word a text can be any body of work into any medium that communicates meaning film acting music photography dance [ __ ] fortnite films and television shows are inherently collaborative texts where individual contributions are often indistinguishable from the final product actors and editors and set designers and makeup artists and writers can completely transform each other's merits if they do that positively i call that elevating the text the optimal result of this of course is that the script is good and then the cast and crew make it even better they do it justice and then do a little more actors elevating text can be hard to clock heath ledger's joker made his script sing so we tend to just remember he was excellent and we forget that the writing got him partway there but it's a little easier to notice when the script isn't particularly magnificent but the actor is [ __ ] flexing it anyways i am not going to let you jump a motorcycle over a tank full of 1200 pounds of dangerous tuna fish from nebraska from kansas yes from kansas so the textual inconsistency i speak of in victoria season one's cat valentine isn't necessarily resolved through an improvement in writing ariana grande's performance just [ __ ] takes it to the next level she truly goes super saiyan in season three of victorious but there are seeds sown in season one that will pay off later like uh being in the ground the main one we're gonna focus on is season one episode seven rabarazzi wherein cat has her first addiction plot line kat becomes obsessed with sky store magazine a catalog of heavily discounted useless niche gimmicky products it's like filled with all kinds of cool stuff you can buy it's the world's best alarm necklace it's the world's most powerful portable juicer producing on the go the world's brightest keychain yeah this never-ending list of new miscellaneous objects scratches an itch for her a baiting of her inane curiosity and subsequent satisfaction of that intrigue the addictive cycle of spending due to the excitement of a discount and being rewarded with spectacle can i browse some money for lunch uh yeah how much 49.95 plus shipping the closing joke of this episode is even though her community has acknowledged that this is a vice and is forcibly taking it away from her she in secret is still dosing come on let me have it well maybe i can talk my parents into giving me my credit card back cats oh my god a litter box that plays classical music in season one episode nine wi-fi in the sky there's textual evidence that cat is still actively addicted to sky store as she's browsing it in the background of a zoom call cat's vulnerability to addiction reveals a great deal about her psyche stay woke we're nowhere close to done part 1b season 2 cat valentine in cat's first appearance of the second season robbie approaches his friends and asks a rhetorical question receiving literal answers hey what's wrong with me you are good there's a bunch of things you smell like a baby are you a little awkward you're irritated you guys cat doesn't say anything in this interaction but increasingly even ariana grande's passive participation in scenes is infused with energy an amateur mistake that actors make sometimes is if they're in the background of a scene they lose motivation and just kind of stop acting for little flashes this is why it's so [ __ ] painful to watch children try to do it this is one of the many reasons that i maintain we must trebuchet all children under the age of 10 into the sun with great haste we're running out of time even if your eye isn't a tune to notice an actor losing motivation specifically as an audience you tend to feel the artifice the hiccup of the amateur the lack of security you feel in a more professional performance cast members of victorious and sam and catfall pray to this occasionally because most of them are 16 years old when i was 16 years old i was in a school for troubled children sleeping three hours a night and suffering from paranoid delusions how do they do it in season two of victorious grande's performance starts to shine even in the background in these first few seconds of screen time for cat in season two before she even says a word there's confusion a desire to help and participate she looks back at her friends for guidance she presumes they're doing the right thing then looks back to robbie and nods in agreement earnestly the fact this small acting beat is describable in character terms is what makes it good maintaining a sense of motivation is part of the craft of acting whatever the [ __ ] is in the script you gotta make it make sense and build an internal logic that sells it for many roles this tends to mean behaving as ordinary people would in extraordinary circumstances certainly in season one kat valentine looks like a 16 year old to me but grande's season 2 performance starts to glue the disparate elements of cat valentine into a cogent hole part of how she accomplishes this is doing normal things wrong neuro divergent people already know this but there's a big difference between following social procedure naturally and attempting to behave as one might act cat valentine has a sincere desire to participate in society despite her incompatibility with it she mimics convention while fundamentally misinterpreting what part of convention is important in the first place in season 2 episode 1 begging on your knees due to a clerical error cat begins receiving calls on her cell phone from clients that believe they're calling a car accident emergency service oh yay north star how can i assist you are you injured and your location is help is on the way thanks for calling north star wait i've heard of north star isn't that um an emergency service for people who have just had car accidents oh my god she knows the social script for a phone call between an emergency service and a victim in need of help so she recreates it but she doesn't compute how this could be a problematic in this context she's so [ __ ] excited to be part of the process but she can't wrap her head around why there is a process we also see this and her contributions to conversation which if you didn't understand english when she talked you would seem regular except what she says is completely useless well that was the last time i was shot by a professional photographer my brother got shot by a clown cat call her the tiger yay crayons we're starting to see in the performance how cat's excitement idiocy and normalcy are all intimately connected we're also starting to get flashes of the affectation i gotta emphasize the writing is barely changed this is the definition of elevating the text the performance is adding value to the script she's finding a motivation that can sell this occasionally shoddy writing but we are not yet at the precipice in this season there are still many human level moments for cat for example take season 2 episode 6 locked up which is the first part of a two-part arc about the fictional war-torn country yerba and our main cast high school imprisonment there under an authoritarian regime which they escaped from by organizing a performance of want you back by the jackson 5. that really happens it's quite racially insensitive i liked it a lot in the yerba arc sometimes cat is a regular supporting character it says a person who's been bitten by a vampire moth will often experience hallucinations or bizarre speech patterns and sometimes her brain is a brick of cement where have you been i joined a prison gang throughout season two grande's performance fluctuates between grounded and this airy other worldliness that we've come to know and then i'm gonna do some juggling and then i'm gonna sing a song from my favorite musical although we're progressing further into her psyche it hasn't yet manifested in all its glory then she arrives for season three like a etch-a-sketch that went through a wood chipper during a nine-point earthquake just no brain cells at all and now i'll just zoom in i'm bowling part 1c final form cat valentine this [ __ ] is too stupid to live a change has happened a new essence acquired the elevation of the text is shockingly obvious even when i'm not laughing i'm fascinated by the specificity of her delivery give me the lighthouse everyone knows this thing that ariana grande can do and did for cat valentine but what is it the character description remains the same her personality traits are unchanged on paper this is the same character but it's distinctly not i theorize thusly the valentine filter a method of body language vocal affectation and character motivation that elevates the text of cat valentine a power exclusively controlled by ariana grande part two the valentine filter rather than analyzing the voice and the way she moves her arms and eyelids the valentine filter is better understood by understanding the character motivations that underlie everything because it's too pervasive and dynamic to attribute to a vocal tic just putting on a silly voice and waving your arms around doesn't create a three-dimensional character on its own consider the moon one-liner hey what about the guy who first landed on the moon he said one small step for man i would have just said oh my god i'm on the moon for context this line has nothing to do with anything before or after it it simply erupts from cat's tiny little heart non-sequitur throwaway one-liner stupid girl says stupid thing joke but imagine it played with season one energy hey what about the guy who first landed on the moon he said one small step for man i would have just said oh my god i'm on the moon it's not very funny on paper but watch your line read again watch where she slows down and speeds up how hard cat's brain is working to keep up with the stroke of inspiration the musicality she infuses into this inconsequential line the way she's trying to convince everyone around her to feel what she's feeling to absolutely no avail the failed attempt at charisma you get dynamics and a sense of character but most importantly it's [ __ ] funny the power of the filter so let's analyze and hyper fix it on the essence of this performance treasured in the hearts and minds of many but merely a stepping stone for grande into a career of much greater repute trait a imitation a great amount of cat's behavior is funny or interesting because it's a botched recreation of the real thing the difference between our off-topic tangents in season one in season three is in season one she's having a regular conversation with confidence but her stupidity makes her say bizarre things without her noticing is there any good reason why a grown man would soak his feet in chicken fat chicken fat alternatively through the valentine filter the strange thing she says rita's her attempts to contribute to a conversation knowing that's what people do but not being able to tell if whether or not what she's saying is relevant oh hey what's up boring girl oh hey he noticed our genders there are some truly brain dead moments for cat this season look up at the front of the line isn't that sinjin and birth oh yeah yeah yeah they're there breakfast engine's friend just like nothing going on i know words that relate to this scenario all movie directors have different styles of filming a movie action what that's what they say when they make movies we're not making a movie right now i guess this is the goodest time as any to point out that canonically cat valentine physically does not have a brain i'm so happy me too but the butterfly was in your left ear i know but it came out of your right ear it's a miracle but [ __ ] it cat's ineffective attempts to imitate normalcy also extend to her body language these shaky approximations are absolutely everywhere gina is kind of kooky in the head a little nutty in the old noggin some girls are like that you know we know yes it's what comes to define a lot of the identifiable traits of the character her circuit board is overwhelmed by what's coursing through it and she's barely contorting it to resemble human shapes stop it's not a date oh right that's why her face and eyes are constantly resetting even in simple interactions she has to force her shitty twitchy body to get what she feels across and the result is familiar but [ __ ] you know when you're extremely excited to participate in an interaction but your body can't keep up with your excitement and so it's glitching let ariana grande explain it to you i'm smiling too hard i'm like very excited to be here and i feel like i feel really really yeah peeking peeking is a great word to describe what cat's behavior indicates the same intensity applies to her negative emotions she can't quite bear the intensity of displeasure so her body flails like a squirrel getting shot by a water gun you said you wanted to work on our project at your house not here whatever let's just go in no you can't this state of approximated humanity is a result of the disconnect between her big feelings and her inadequate communicative skills but what are those big feelings am i about to introduce a new part is this a segway i know my sins are forgiven in the eyes of the lord but will my name ever be redeemed in the hearts of men why did robert downey jr follow up end game with [ __ ] doctor doolittle trait b curiosity i know you guys told me that i should not but i got a situation so i forgot to knock don't ask about a situation what's your situation new experiences are irresistible to cat valentine she wants to experience things not because she's considered whether or not she would enjoy them but because they exist her curiosity eclipses her reason experiences that we would consider either neutral or bad by theorizing the consequences she pursues with reckless abandon you have to try something handcuffs uh-huh put them on one wrist okay good and now we lock the other part around here fun her impulse towards satisfying her curiosity and imitating the behavior of others without understanding why one would engage with that behavior initially results often in negative consequences addiction obviously being the prime example of this the sky store narrative is one of many arcs involving cat's issues with spending it also crops up in season 4 episode 13 of victorious and episodes 21 and 32 of sam and cat when i went online to jellyhoojo.com they said i could have free shipping if i bought a a gross you bought 144 pajelli hujos free shipping where'd you get the money to buy all this stuff an atm hey it's about online shopping oh i like that the thing is if you spend money you get stuff which is so cool but then you don't have money which [ __ ] sucks how am i supposed to pay for therapy now how am i gonna pay the laundromat to get all this blood out of my garments how am i gonna pay these bohemian performance artists to wrap an entire low-income housing building with cellophane to fulfill my personal sexual desires spending money frivolously is a classic way to satisfy one's curiosity to the detriment of their well-being cat's constant need for stimulation and novelty is what drives a lot of her addictions in the first place including her crippling attachment to her phone as we see in season 4 episode 5 cell block why'd you get a dog chew toy cell phone to help me get through the week i mean i know it's not like having a real phone but at least i can pretend but what's the point this is all i've got her curiosity impulse works independently of her rational mind and often it just leads her to pain is it my turn to squat no come on cat you can take my place okay yay we're squat buddies [Music] it's not as fun as it seems however there are some things that satisfy curiosity that are not risky things that cat kind of understands and can successfully interact with are like anchors in her personal world of chaos and as a result are deep sources of endless joy things like saying hello to people hi hi [Music] doorbells bingo why'd you do that do it ding dong ding dong ding dong go get it i'ma get it ding you did my doorbell thing what doorbell thing this is weird and of course contributing extremely tangentially related information to a conversation that's tori vega i'm tori vega i'm tori vega i'm toy vega my sister collects rare butterflies my brother eats rare roast beef her offering is useless but boy is she happy to provide it because the curiosity and lust for new experiences and the eagerness to imitate people around her both speak to a deeper more animalistic impulse trait c pleasure hedonism is a succinct philosophy pleasure is good pain sucks we should strive for more pleasure and less pain this is a concise and compelling argument and it's not as shallow as it appears on the surface hedonist philosophers have done extensive writing on what is pleasure what pleasures are more valuable than others the prospect of denying ourselves temporary pleasures for longer term attitudinal joys what does this have to do with ariana grande how about you shut the [ __ ] up don't [ __ ] interrupt me when i'm talking about philosophy i'm not your friend i'll break your kneecaps for a nickel i'll [ __ ] integrate myself into your life in a manner that's beneficial to your career in the short term but has a long-term negative effect on your relationship with your father you'll fall for it because you're stupid and lack foresight and you'll consider the financial gain to be worth the social cost but at the end of your life you're gonna die filled with regret because you never fixed your paternal bond then i'll slip away my subterfuge utterly untraceable nothing behind me but the wreckage of one of the most important relationships in your life and you'll finally know not to [ __ ] interrupt me cat valentine more than anything else is driven by a barbaric attraction towards pleasure and revulsion against discomfort this impulse reliably bulldozes through her self-control and foils her attempts to navigate social situations with any level of subtlety you go i don't laugh like that puppy's wearing sunglasses dang it her weakness to pleasure is obvious and the many times the people around her use it in order to get her to shut up become distracted or cheer up this is tori's idea all right oh but all these ladies think they're auditioning for a role here open yeah that's right cat likes cereal good good want some more want some more yeah any more questions yeah i didn't think so her inability to withstand displeasure affects her just the same she may want to lie in order to get something she wants but she breaks down under the stress of lying before she can accomplish any of her goals because the immediate displeasure overrides any of her plans but i have to use the bathroom do you really yeah are you lying yeah in season 4 episode 6 tori fixes beck and jade cat gets a rare species of butterfly stuck in her ear because of course she does i think he's in my ear in your ear well maybe he's not i don't feel it anymore wait i think it's gone are you sure i don't feel it anymore cat has extreme difficulty understanding that the butterfly is still in her ear when it is not moving my sister's butterfly is he still in your ear well it was just a second ago she gets so high on relief from her suffering that she forgets that the cause of her suffering has not yet gone away when she does finally process that she's in a long-term position of discomfort she wishes death upon the source of her displeasure [Music] no offense mr butterfly but i sure wish you'd die although this is a benign example of this it's still indicative of cat's underlying propensity for cruelty in the presence of dysphoria her flowery exterior melts away revealing a savage state of nature underneath hitherto unseen you know how to optimistically [ __ ] with people who are slave to their pleasure impulse narcotics part three bible bible bible i'm ready for bible the sun came out it's a perfect time to trebuchet children there's a clear line of fire i look i look like i'm white now i'm white now in victoria season 3 episode 10 toy goes platinum part 1 tori gets signed to a bougie record label it's a two-part art about selling your soul to the illuminati and manufactured corporate controversy as a business strategy but [ __ ] all that noise cat does cocaine this episode like a witch cat has bible cat no it's not mine i'm holding it for a friend but i need it i mean my friend needs it in edward kalinian fashion cat valentine finds a substance that functions as a heroine specifically designed to affect her bibble is a fictional british candy it's offered to tori and her friends in the initial label meeting everyone seems to like it fine but cat in particular reflexively verbalizes her surprise at the pleasure oh yeah really good mouth feel i like it that's how it starts cat next thing you know you're borrowing funds from your stepfather to pay for legal fees i guess i'm keeping that i can't think of a better joke in a superficial performative act of generosity the label executive offers each of tory's friends a giant sack of bible to take home but nonetheless as the kids leave the room kat takes an extra handful on her way out you're getting a whole bag to take home cat why do you need the extra handful that evening a massive supply of that little burst of shocking pleasure cat experienced in the office lays at her bedside and as she consumes she is consumed her hedonistic impulsive psyche crumbles under the weight of the high and the darkest strain of addiction sinks its teeth into the place where her brain should be can't believe mason bought you this much this isn't even the sack he got me what i finished that one i went back and bought two more sacks she dosed through three bags in one day and then went back for more now she's carrying her dope sack around with her in public even though it's clearly socially unacceptable she simply cannot leave the crack pipe and you needed to bring all of it to school i can't help it it's so good she now medically as well as physically resembles a red flag snorting three bags isn't a fun night out that's comatose binging in your bedroom alone after everyone else has gone to sleep everything we take for granted about cat and her disposition is stripped away because she tasted god and now everything else tastes like the absence of bliss and a hidden raging violence is unlocked by that state of dysphoria well it is pretty good stuff don't touch it oh oh we've seen her curiosity and desire for pleasure override her kindness before sure let's see w w but drugs and withdrawal take it to another level now she's an imminent danger to herself and those around her she's having a panic attack slamming on her drug dealer's door as they refuse her service my friend cat said that she really needs to talk to you mr thornsmith you know that store barney's bibbery mm-hmm they won't tell me anymore bibble would you mind calling for me sure later all right no i need more pebble now she's irrational and paranoid that is a lot of bibble yeah please don't look at it it's all for me cat don't be stinged you just give him a little nibble of the bible no by part two of torigo's platinum kat has done so much damage to her life off-screen that literally everyone around her is aware she's fiending and is working together as a community to rehabilitate her against her will what's this it's a special gum if you crave and bible just choose some of that it'll make you feel better see just unwrap it and then chew i know how gum works and the withdrawal wrecks her [ __ ] tori has a big problem cat maybe you want to back off that biblical don't tell me what to do that thing she's doing it's called scraping the bag if you know you know this story arc channeled through the valentine filter is an eerily beautiful portrait of what addiction does to an ill-equipped mind cat goes on to be assigned a sponsor to enforce her unwilling sobriety hey kat hi look she's so sad she's not even enjoying saying hi oh this is oliver my parents hired him to keep me away from bibble so he's your bible guard that's right i used to have a bible problem myself and now i'll help others can't i just have a little bible no baby you can't here's some people to tide you over the main plot ends with tori singing another [ __ ] song or whatever but the episode actually ends on the very dark beat of cat dragging her sponsor with her into relapse [Music] you can't tell anybody about this that's terrible bibble truly wreaks havoc on cat's life like little else can but one other thing can abandonment now i have borderline personality disorder so i don't have to do research on this part abandonment can hit as hard as drug withdrawal i'm fine cat's relationship with bibble remains fraught for the rest of her days we get mentioned to it at various other points in the episode particularly in the robbie cells rec story and in the first brit bratz episode of sam and cat and then in episode 11 of simon cat hashtag revenge of the brit bratz it's used to [ __ ] with her mind specifically by a hostile force oh go have some bible yeah you gotta make a last cause you never know when you're gonna be able to get another camera where is it good but the same short circuiting of her system that draws evil from her pure heart is also incurred by our complicated romance with robbie shapiro no relation so beyond the subjectivity of me just not enjoying rap all that much uh it's what i've said before is not music so tell me why i'm wrong no robbie is in love with cat he pines after her throughout all of victorious cat's impulsive knee-jerk prepubescent reaction to this is flipping disgust and rejection that was really fun yeah maybe we should make out some time robbing yourself girls gross gross don't say gross i like robbie so go to the dance with him no gross she has a reflexive aversion to considering her best friend in a romantic light and as such refuses his love and remains comfortable until she can no longer i'm not gonna keep that the most romantic moment that the couple ever shares in the entirety of the canon is in season three episode 13 the blonde squad when robbie sings her a song you wrote about her called i think you're swell which is funny and adorable but even at the end of that interaction cat reveals that she was thinking about another guy the whole time and every day when you're walking down the street it's like every other day because you're constantly walking down the street [Music] hey what if i just dyed my hair blonde where this tension culminates and finally breaks is in season 4 episode 7 1000 berry balls there's a dance happening at the school and kat knows that robbie is almost definitely going to ask her to the dance and she's avoiding him like the plague because she doesn't want to experience the displeasure of rejecting him concretely hi hi listen why i'm gonna go no but eventually he catches up to her and subversively he's preemptively accepted that cat would probably say no so he's asked a different girl and he tells her that he respects their friendship more than anything else [Music] hello hey you don't have to keep running away from me i already asked gabriella to be my date to the cow wow gabriella mm-hmm well yay you got yourself a pretty girl to take to the cow wow yeah well i just wanted to let you know you don't have to run away from me anymore thanks robbie see in class okay and cat really appreciates this just just kidding she freaks the [ __ ] out [ __ ] can't take it she spends the rest of the episode in a chaotic rage trying to make him jealous her pleasure impulse is spasming due to having two conflicting desires i thought you told robbie you didn't want to be his date tonight joe that doesn't make it okay for him to bring another girl so you don't want to be robbie's dad and you don't want robbie to bring another date yes thank you her body language throughout this tantrum is also a good example of her behaving approximately how a furious person would after shenanigans ensue and tori sings another [ __ ] song cat gets exactly what she wants robbie spends time with her instead of his date then he kisses her on the lips can i tell you a secret and she flies again into full panic mode sprinting away at maximum speed [Music] the feeling she has for robbie are too complex for her primal pleasure instinct to figure out what thing would bring her satisfaction so instead she just freaks out in different directions sadly for fans of victorious this plot thread was never wrapped up in a beautiful tiny bow that would go on a mouse and the mouse has a job so he wears a suit and he goes to work every day in a tiny little car and he sells insurance to people but people that need it and he cuts good deals and at home he's got a mouse wife and when they go home they play tiny mouse cards and they have a fireplace victorious notoriously denied closure to its chorus despite its glorious laborious teen-oriented success performing for us sometimes i write sentences just in hopes god will kill me victorious was canceled abruptly and as such robbie and cat's relationship ends on a very ambiguous note she thinks he's gross but she hates when other people date him they're young adults and their bodies are going through changes and then tori sings a [ __ ] song or whatever victorious is no more us if we want more canonical information about this character and this relationship we must move on to sam and cat we had a lot of fun together over the past couple days we sort of have this whole fun odd couple dynamic built-in conflict you're gonna stay here in l.a with me for a while and help me find a roommate i already found you a roommate shut up who is she part four sam and cat sam and cat was a mild stroke of genius as two giant tv shows ended nickelodeon plucked two contrasting underdog side characters out of their respective properties and then created a crossover spin-off show starring them two very different personalities but they're roommates i wonder if we're gonna have enough material here there's a subtle and necessary character progression that happens between victorious cat valentine and sam and cat cat valentine she's actually allowed like six brain cells instead of one i'm trying to do my homework in a two-person sitcom both characters have to play the straight man sometimes cat cannot be catatonically dissociated at all times sam and cat also elaborates on her existential struggle of self-awareness with the fact that she's cognitively and socially limited but being unable to change that despite being aware of it just like how we're all gonna die do you see a drone no maybe wait i see a drone really [Music] right there that's the moon yeah it's probably just the moon who is this moon dang it grande's performance this many years in is so refined in particular that she can effortlessly put on this mask and just do well [ __ ] i need to think of an actual thing to say you can't just start talking and imagine you're going to figure something out god [ __ ] damage i'm i'm going to delete i'm going to leave your channel i'm deleting the youtube channel and then jumping off that balcony right granny's performance this many years and is just so refined and perfected that watching the show it functions kind of as just a showcase of her chops there's this moment in episode 32 drone baby drone where three people are just ad-libbing an argument with each other and she's one of them but for some reason grande's performance stands out as a highlight of the episode like her her ad-libbing of nothing conversation what the why what happened to you look at it you know how much it's gonna cost to get back her distinctive velvety voice also becomes extremely purified in salmon cat and also her vocal work is not limited to that she can scream [Music] there's this bit in episode 33 hashtag first class problems where she keeps screaming hot rags and it's funny exclusively because of the way that hot rags erupts through a vocal tract and at the end of the flight they give you fresh baked cookies and hot rags hot rice hot rock grande is firing on all cylinders at various points throughout all 35 of these episodes but one of the plot relevant highlights is episode 23 the killer tuna jump hashtag freddy hashtag jade robbie this given what we currently have serves as the pseudo conclusion for robbie and cat's relationship this is a crossover episode with guest appearances from icarly and victorious the premise is jade and sam become friends and cat feels left out cat tries to [ __ ] sam's ex in retaliation the situation escalates and eventually they realize that they value their friendship over jealousy and then i don't know maybe tori sings a song when cat feels like she's losing her best friend and roommate she retaliates exactly like she did with robbie performatively lashing out in anger and trying to make the object of her affection jealous without a lick of subtlety oh hi robbie sorry i can't talk right now i'm dancing with stinging having such a good time so kat seeks out sam's ex and flirts with him aggressively to hurt her feelings but sam is a cold-hearted [ __ ] with a criminal record and so off screen she hunts down cat's ex-boyfriend and i gasped when i heard this what it sounds like robbie you [ __ ] [ __ ] he wrote that song about cat and now he's singing it about this random [ __ ] robbie was just singing me a little song he wrote called i know what it's called he wrote that song for me cat i'm swell me i don't know why this inspired genuine feelings of betrayal in me whatever whatever whatever i'm over it i literally i literally don't care in this episode we're provided the information that cat has a crush on robbie and has for a while now his name's robbie and cats had a crush on him like forever she also calls him her kind of boyfriend at one point which seems both emotionally true to their relationship and is a funny meta-textual bit about the lack of conclusion and victorious you stole my friend and then you kissed my kind of boyfriend robbie on his pink patty lips she also says that she's kissed him and i know that literally probably refers to season 4 episode 7 as afer mentioned but i'd like to imagine that it happened a few times since i know i've kissed him sidebar i weirdly appreciate kat valentine's sexual liberation in this episode she is overtly sexual on purpose fully in her power good for her i haven't fadoodled with cat you could have if you wanted to get get that dick at the end of the episode robbie and cat get the tiniest most non-committal implication that they might date in the future and then i don't know toy sings a song or something in summary ariana grande's performance as cat valentine was unnecessarily nuanced and i think that's a big part of the reason it's burned so irrevocably into our cultural memory she elevated the text of cat valentine to the point that [ __ ] like me are writing dissertations on it part five little victories i know too much about the victorious and salmon cat universe now so here's an appendix of underrepresented elements i found within them exhibit a tory's mom is [ __ ] gary tory's mom is [ __ ] gary we need cops when does dad get back in town not till sunday well can you call his partner okay i'll text gary yeah text gary i like that guy i know he's handsome right kinda thanks gary sure i'll text your mom let her know you're okay good she's a special lady mom you're flagrantly cheating on her father tori and trina's parents are regularly neglectful to borderline criminality but the fact that her mom is actively having sex with her one of her husband's colleagues what who texted you oh it's just gary your father's friend on the police force what do you say no nothing i'll just delete this mom there's the moments where it's directly mentioned but there's also this moment where she's clearly sexting gary while her child is cuddling with her [Music] read your book mom no exhibit b andre's locker the students of hollywood art customized their lockers in obnoxious pretentious and inconvenient ways andre customizes his locker by gluing a [ __ ] piano to it the locker was designed to unlock and open when he plays some particular chord voicings on it like batman i find this to be a massive security concern batman only plays his piano access code in private not in crowded hallways also they're in an auditioned arts high school i went to one of those there are many talented people there a lot of pianists a lot of jazz pianists a lot of people where it is not very difficult for them to lift your [ __ ] chord voicing a nefarious and competent student could easily lift the chord voicing by ear and rob andre blind it's not that hard you might say oh it was the victorious universe no one would rob andre then why have a passcode at all exhibit c laverne and shirley the actors in the classic 1970s sitcom laverne and shirley cameo and sam and cat and it's adorable we had individual scenes with the girls and then we just had this one physical scene which i have thought of course thought this will be a cakewalk i have never felt so old fat and winded in my life now punch her right in the face i said this is a children's show i am not going to hit her in the face i don't think that's correct no you were right in the end i wasn't thinking of it like that grandi and mccurdy even do the huss and fever incorporated it's so cute one two three four five six seven eight seven zamasu fed for incorporating it's so [ __ ] cute exhibit d recurring bits first and foremost something happened between cat and robbie while playing pirates and i have a very bad feeling about it then let's make this interesting yeah let's dress up as pirates don't play pirates with you no i don't like how you play pirates i'm so upset did you try to play pirates with her bobby i'm bored i don't want to play anymore all right well do you want to play something else like what [Music] what the [ __ ] did he do second tori's cheekbones look it's tori vega with the beautiful cheekbones hey cheekbones yes rex what about you miss cheekbones stop oh guys oh man look at those cheekbones your cheekbones are like this perfect little sugar plug are those real cheekbones it's true she has beautiful cheekbones third cat cannot say hawaii hawaii then dice is somewhere in hawaii i like that and also cat evidently doesn't understand the number three one two four five five oh good four don't count three oh i love three i like that even more and finally and most importantly tori's mom is [ __ ] gary exhibit e sickowitz said nb rights all right boys girls and others i'll take it he's sort of a him [ __ ] it that counts too exhibit f five fingers to the face in victoria's season one episode six tory the zombie cat and trina go on a road trip and at one point they wrap a song together you know i flanked you cause girl i really want ya and you're looking nice got me cooler than a bag of ice now [Music] much later on in season three episode eight driving tory crazy the gang in the back of a limo wraps to a baby got back rip-off called five fingers to the face i ain't realized until my second watch through that five figures to the face was the son of cat and trina was singing our cappella way back with the full-on canonization of the song in season three we retroactively have information about its initial introduction wherein cat refuses to rap part of the song because she says it's dirty you smell so fruity sing the next line i can't why not it's dirty so officially the bar that kat valentine refused to wrap pirate so according to the text at least in whatever year she was in in season one she thought that the word booty was a swear word fast forward a little bit she's trying to [ __ ] freddy from icarly fast forward a little more she's fingering a tropical storm exhibit g the theme song's ambiguity the theme song reminds me of a million other [Music] songs [Music] and while we're on this topic songs like i think you're swell were written by the actual young cast members in these workshops where they brought in songs to be performed on national television and one of them that was created was ariana grande's early single uh put your heart up put your hearts up so people think she hates this song she doesn't hate this song it's just so obviously a product of nickelodeon and more brands her as her character than a goddamn human being everyone thinks i hate that record i do not but i do i do consider it a transitional part of my life that's why i never make to an album or anything because it's like i didn't feel like that was an accurate reflection of who i was as an artist or a person but there's an element about it that's extremely important [Music] exhibit h i j k l m n o p nickelodeon has never shied away from fourth wall breaks which i enjoy the biggest most beautiful example of this is season 3 episode 7 of victorious april fool's blank which for no reason at all is a genuine piece of abstract comedy that refuses to explain itself i gotta go recycle some aluminum oh say can you see we only have three and a half minutes the same amount of time as a commercial break it is the greatest episode of the entire show and if you watch anything watch that [ __ ] episode so much crazy [ __ ] happens in it hey spencer what's up tori [Applause] get ready to match the star but there's one 9th dimensional chess move in season 2 episode 11 that broke me sitcoms focus on just a few characters with extremely colorful lives the suspension of belief and assumption that we take when we enter the genre is that everyone else in this universe has equally complex lives we just happen to be focusing on a particular few people we understand it'd be weird if the world really revolved around these few people and so we presume our perspective is limited but this bit in victorious destroys our ability to see the show that way tori cat andre robbie jade please stay the rest of you may wander the halls why did you make them leave uh i don't know they never talk yeah they just sit there and react that's right in this universe it's not a matter of perspective or focus that makes background characters silent or side characters insignificant it's a fantastical piece of world building that we haven't been privy to this entire time in season 3 episode 12 crazy pawnee jeanette mccurdy guest stars as a creepy classmate and tori calls her a shrugger to her face you probably never noticed me i'm one of the quiet kids who sits in the back and just reacts to stuff you're a shrugger in episode nine of sam and cat there's a crossover where they go to sickowitz's drama class at one point and we get another mention of the shruggers oh look the shruggers are here but also this crossover due to the world building they've established necessitates that all of cats classmates from victorious should be present and their way around this was backwards acting it's time to begin an exercise called backwards active class dismissed they're all here they're just backwards don't worry about it but before victorious ended there's a moment where the show addresses the concept of the shruggers in a deeply profound way sinjin is a minor character in victorious he shows up sometimes he's weird he's a loser that's about it oftentimes he doesn't show up at all and when he does it's mostly to get dunked on this man is not the victorious installment titled the slap fight is officially episode seven of season four but in the netflix ordering it happened to be the final episode in the entire series and so it's the last one i watched in it the main characters get into petty competition over who can get the most followers on twitter they resort to goofy hijinks and dirty techniques by the end of the episode their friendship is in tatters over this competition and then it turns out that the whole reason they got into the fight in the first place was nothing more than a farcical mishap the bloodshed has been for nothing trina told me that if i'd hack into this slap and change her number of followers from 34 to 900 she teach me how to jump rope you rigged her numbers and then sinjin gives a monologue that changes everything i just want to say you guys make me sick why because you're all great looking and talented and popular i mean you guys star in every play at this school and you sing all the songs and you do all the talking in class you guys have it all and you're really worried about which one of you has the most followers yeah feel the shame because you should feel the shame what the shruggers never existed our experience of the perspective of the main six characters was subjective this whole time these [ __ ] are just so conceited and privileged and elitist that they couldn't perceive the humanity of any person that wasn't in their friend group for this entire show there were a bunch of skinny popular [ __ ] that got all the parts and all the shows due to the nepotism of syquits who clearly had them as his favorite students the show victorious is a monument to their self-obsession you ran here sure i'm not usually invited to the maine people's houses [Music] serving as the ambassador between the so-called shruggers and these douchebags brutally dresses them down for their arrogance and they all hang their heads in shame this episode ends with them agreeing to be happy with what they have and be less self-centered and then it ends the show ends forever the show that is these six people's radically biased perspective on the world around them ends when that which they demeaned and ignored and belittled for years speaks back to power and calls them out for their egoism it collapses the subjective world collapses that to me is the true chilling end to victorious and now before the next show starts let's enjoy an intermission you'll find our snack bar chock full of good things to eat and drink a complete assortment of delicious candy and a full line of cigarettes part six where are they now the best part of victorious is the lovely and talented cast they're all my age or older but they're also my children as we all know ariana faded sharply out of relevance after a nickelodeon career so let's look at the other cast members victoria justice victoria is a sweetheart by all accounts including mine yeah she's a sweet girl she's got a new dramatic romance film though called trust and she released a single alongside it everybody's breaking up she's very open about the success of victorious and how pivotal was in her life oh well you know what's a pretty cool thing to say that isn't necessarily victorious obviously victorious was a highlight of my career you know that was a huge moment for me but another really cool highlight of my career was when i got to perform at christmas in washington for then president barack obama and his entire family all the victorious alumni are very candid and upfront about their history and how important victorious was in their careers and i don't know if i'm just conditioned at this point to expect child stars to resent their history but it's a strange sweet relief to have these young artists in their adulthood respect the impact that they left on all of our psyches despite of course the obvious baggage it must have come with hi i'm avin jogia is an author his book mixed feelings is a compilation of poems and stories about the complicated experience of growing up with a mixed racial identity sounds tough buddy i wouldn't know anything about it he's also an lgbtq plus advocate and he's been in several movies he started a band with his brother called saint ivory and then make beautiful music also look at the album art of this it looks exactly like this picture of me and my brother [Music] he also has made several irreverent tick talks about victorious hey guys i'm just here to talk about uh what a stone cold [ __ ] fox i was in this dress look at that calf look at that calf muscle so what we all came into work today and said [ __ ] [ __ ] having is that what it is we all have mics and and i don't get a mic we love to see it leon thomas leon and ariana obviously used victorious as a stepping stone to get into the music industry we used to be in that school room speaking about exactly what we wanted i was i was i was telling her about my dreams of being able to rock in the big studios and do my thing you know and she was telling me about her big dreams of being like whitney houston and mariah carey and and it's just really awesome to see that she she's went above and beyond and and and that even i've been able to go above and beyond what i expected i would be able to do after victorious ended leon thomas ended up mentored under the legendary r b artist baby face and now he comprises half of the production duo called the rascals he won a grammy with babyface he produced several songs on grande's debut album and also he produced the beat for gold roses with rick ross and drake which i don't know if that's the one you guys care about but this one i care about still blowing smoke after a long time working behind the scenes he finally released his first solar project in 2018 called genesis and is redefining himself as a sexy r b artist i look at where i'm starting from as a brand new artist even though i have close to a million followers on instagram and a million followers on twitter it's just gathering all the different groups of people who have been able to you know enjoy my creative process in the past hurting all of these people to to this new brand in this new journey and he also retained his musical relationship with grande most recently in 2020 he produced two tracks off of positions also before victorious he was in august rush which i didn't realize you remember that shitty movie about homeless jacob [Music] collier [Music] the kid even looks like [ __ ] jacob collier thomas is clearly a very ambitious and driven artist and he's been working his [ __ ] for his entire life to get his name respected and recognized and he's succeeding and i appreciate he's also gracious about victorious while being very distinct about pushing forward his new name he does name drop a lot in his interviews which do you have any big songs coming out with like any big artist i don't want to get too ahead of myself kodak black who's in who's in prison right future and thug and like i said kanye's you know miguel's in it with me will poulter anthony mackie this is cool this is apparently again but that's all i say okay look it's fine i'm just noticing because i'm i've worked with musicians and you noticed but it's fun he's worked his out he deserves it matt bennett weird dude and i'd say it to his face he's hot now you'll remember him from ariana grande's thank you next music video [Music] matt bennett liz gillies and ariana seem to still all be particularly close and that's really cute matt speaks a decent amount of japanese he twitch streams sometimes he wrote a concept album about his parents divorce through the lens of robin williams films which you know is a less profitable business strategy than ariana went with but go off i was watching it and then i started watching his other films and i realized there are some through lines there's always something about not wanting to grow up there's always like strains on his marital bonds you look at doubt fire or parental bonds as well you look at jumanji hook you know his wife and kids are like you work too much you know you're doing too many things the album is called terminal cases and i was actually really surprised by it because i was expecting it to be more singer-songwriter but there's a lot of weird production on there there's parts where he's doing screaming punk vocals which i didn't know he was amazing at but the shine of it obviously is the writing and his wit within it he is really good with words and as a result the closer track which is like a giant spoken word poem about identity and anxiety [ __ ] me up worse than sinjin's monologue no stranger more strange than the strangest we've become if you're feeling like a footnote a hit and rerun welcome to the club also on spotify terminal cases says that it was released in 1991 which is a lie it was released in 2016 but 1991 is the year that matt was born which is a strange and beautiful thing to do his latest ep is called if not whenever he's funny as [ __ ] interviews and i like this moment and one with anthony padilla from smosh when it seems like he's implicitly just telling you he knows that the puppet was racially insensitive rex powers the puppet pretty thought provoking yeah but with that disdain i don't know if you can yeah yeah i just like oh yeah the puppet yeah all right yes rex says some questionable things that puppet's racist as [ __ ] man oh can you do a realistic american urban accent cycloids down the hall swinging left at the water fountain but he didn't do the voice so don't blame him psycho wits down the hall swinging left at the water fountain also apparently when he's hanging out with liz gillies in public he'll launch into an in-character bit as robbie talking to jade just to make her uncomfortable and cause a scene jade we gotta go to the bathroom we gotta go find tory in hollywood every time we're in like a like uh a toys r us yeah you're like i'm like matt and then they'll be like where's beck incredible matt i know you're fairly online if you're watching this call me liz gillies you know that kind of person where they're funny but their presence brings about a distinct sensation of fear here liz you want to clean that up clean it up the [ __ ] am i your maid it's like we're having fun but it's dangerous so basically that wasn't hurt don't touch me that wasn't big energy big dilemma elizabeth oh my god are you kidding me on her many appearances on the zak sang show liz relentlessly bullies people with a razor sharp wit that no one else can keep up with what is with this i have no money are you okay zach i'm doing okay someone hand me my bag zach do you need some money i'm doing okay it's it's people are gonna feel too uncomfortable to listen to you on the radio if they know that you're poor with the exception of matt bennett who can very much keep up yeah we have appeared to dragon with one arm oh yeah good for you good for you that's great that's so that's so brave of you heard zack saying interviews are absolutely golden and i highly highly recommend them for binge watching as you go to bed or um vegetate eating ice cream smoking weed i don't know what you freaks do it's such an incredible character for you to play found you guys are it's like you're perfect and yeah you know you want an oscar for that performance i don't buy anything you're doing right now i feel like you don't respect me i'm always surprised at how hard she's willing to go and that her uh press manager doesn't say can you [ __ ] stop doing these interviews you stood me up over christmas oh i feel really bad because i love your family on another level and i really should have come and i was very stupid and it was that's my big regret it would have promised it was it was ariana and her family it's okay i'm not mad it fills me to the brim with joy and through the victorious behind the scenes footage it seems like she's always been this way right over there as fast as you can slap it slap carter.com what would they do we just had a really to be intense to put your dream in action professionally gilly main gig is playing the lead in the dynasty reboot which is on its fifth season she's also had a healthy splatter of other roles and sometimes sings big band jazz tunes with seth macfarlane [Music] also she played lindsay lohan in the thank you next pastiche of mean girls in summary most of the people in this wave of nickelodeon shows has gone on to excel they're happy to talk about victorious and they seem to have transformed this child star phenomena into something meaningful to them [ __ ] miranda cosgrove and several of the icarly castmates are coming back for a reboot apparently the victorious alumni openly discuss frequently the prospect of coming back to do a victorious reunion finale if of course they can afford grande's expensive ass i just they all seem down it's just schedules you know when you become an adult you just stop blaming people for not texting you for a year overall they're at peace with their old show except for to an extent jeanette mccurdy i guess at the top of these types of videos i'm supposed to do like a trigger warning or whatever part seven jeanette mccurdy jeanette got into acting when she was just eight years old she had minor roles in shows like csi svu zoe 101 and malcolm in the middle in 2007 she landed icarly at just 15 years old for the next seven years she was known as sam puckett she describes this period of her life as hellish in recent years mccurdy has become increasingly open about the context of her childhood when she was three years old her mother was diagnosed with cancer when she was six years old her mother pushed her into the acting industry indicating that she would be the primary source of income for the family i guess 10 or 11 i was the main financial support for my family and it was very much like just the pressure of my family didn't have a lot of money and this was kind of the way out and cut wow it's like i lost you in that character it's like you weren't even my daughter oh my god which is good that's good [Music] at 11 years old mccurdy developed a debilitating eating disorder that hung over her life for the better part of the next decade it was perpetuated by the expectations of the entertainment industry and pressure from her mother this continued as she rose to fame as sam puckett a character who was written to be unhygienic boyish and eat excessively in 2012 in traditional nickelodeon kid star fashion mccurdy released a self-titled country pop album i listened to it it was solid but for whatever reason it didn't charge shortly after its mild commercial performance the label dropped her unceremoniously icarly ended the same year sam and cat started production in january 2013. it premiered in june in early september her now co-star ariana grande released her debut album yours truly it went platinum i've been so overwhelmed and so happy and so grateful about the reception of the album it went right to number one in like under 20 minutes which is the craziest thing in the world then later that month mccurdy's mom died after a 17-year battle with cancer in 2014 it was announced that sam and cat was now on hiatus there were rampant rumors about a feud between mccurdy and grande and speculation about nickelodeon paying them different salaries in one of mccurdy's old tweets she describes the time as such i was put in an uncomfortable compromising unfair situation many of you have guessed what it is and i had to look out for me a few months after the 2014 kids choice awards the cancellation of sam and cat was made official in the time that followed mccurdy started directing her own films her 2018 film kenny is about a burnt out son grinding in an unfulfilling career and taking care of his terminally ill mother hey i hate to bother you but never bother me i love your podcast thanks thanks so much what's your name barry nice to meet you it's good stuff good thanks her 2019 film strong independent woman is about a young girl with an eating disorder navigating a toxic relationship with her mom who uncomfortably prize about her daughter's illness while inadvertently perpetuating it i can see you calculating your calories i can see when you're bouncing your leg to burn fat i see it all i see all little compulsions so until those die down a little we're both going to have to keep doing things that we don't want to do after retiring from acting briefly she returned in 2020 for a final performance and a one-woman stage show called i'm glad my mom died then she quit acting forever i'mma spoil right now the geneva curtis story has a happy ending she's done with acting her films are striking and personal and she runs a successful podcast called empty inside where she talks about mental health abuse trauma and recovery but back in 2014 before all that directly after sam and kat's cancellation her first highly personal directorial effort was a web series called what's next for sarah what's next for sarah is about a young actor in a popular series that just got their show cancelled you've been adored by tweens worldwide for the last five years and your hit show is wrapping up its fifth successful season how does it feel well terrible what follows is an onslaught of callous abandonment and knives in the back from smiling faces friends and lovers flippantly move on from her now that her time in the spotlight has passed two-faced agents coerce her into altering her appearance and taking on embarrassing roles it concludes with the main character retiring from the industry indefinitely for what fun victorious and sam and cat poke at hollywood culture what's next for sarah comes back to stab those sensitive areas with a [ __ ] samurai sword it's playful and self-aware for hollywood to make fun of itself but mccurdy's perspective is brutal and unforgiving all of mccurdy's self-produced work is intimate and autobiographical but what's next for sarah is so fresh off the heels of the events that it's recreating it's impossible to separate mccurdy's perspective from the history that is public this was a very personal and resentful reflection on extremely recent events as a result characters represent real people and real experiences so gloriana is hard to ignore part eight gloriana hull lee dickballs given my tendency to remind my audience you don't know me you're only seeing the tiniest snapshot of my life curated for your entertainment we are not friends it's only right for me to make absolutely clear i do not know ariana grande or jeanette mccurdy i'm going to analyze their art and attempt to represent their perspectives as they've described them in interviews that's it by all accounts mccready and grande never feuded the impulse that media has to pit women against each other as spectacle is sexist and voyeuristic and a delusional effect of celebrity worship but i'm not gonna pussyfoot and refuse to confront autobiographical art directly mccurdy's art deserves more respect than that the character glorianan what's next for sarah is a clear analog for ariana grande mccurdy has never denied that gloriana is a representation of grande's presence in her life at a time because gloriana clearly is that from the compulsive singing to the fashion to the excessive swearing to the suicide jokes to veganism to the simple fact of success at this time there isn't room for speculation she literally sings everything like she's just like too much kill myself suicide moments i feel like space would work out really well for you me too i feel you i'd love to go right now ship me out you'd be the person who goes and like you you'd be the one who survives and sets up civilization my luck i'm kidding that's really dark can i get some juice however it'd be folly to construe this artistic depiction as a personal insult to the contrary compared to the amoral exploitative executives and what's next for sarah gloriana is nothing more than annoying and appears for just one scene gloriana like the rest of what's next for sarah is simply a startlingly honest expression of mccurdy's experience in the industry for me it was just trying to be like oh this is something that i experienced and i'm trying to make light of it and you know make a joke and i think hopefully there were a good portion of people that took it that way this isn't drama mccurdy and grande spoke on the phone shortly after the airing of what's next for sarah they're fine first of all you know ariana is great we've had coffee since this web series and everything and we've talked and like she's awesome and i wish her all the best and i hope that she i know she does the same for me they've both moved on with their careers and have never said a bad word about each other but consider mccurdy's experience in this industry she didn't want it she was forced into it and then was abused into conforming to it she sacrificed her mental and physical health to become something that her abusive and chronically ill mother wanted her to be and then her mom [ __ ] died by the time mccurdy and grande took on sam and cat they both knew they wanted out of this system grande had a blossoming career in the music industry and mccurdy was realizing that her whole life to this point had been one of coercion misery and embarrassment ariana and i both started that show and we were um sort of i think we had already mentally graduated from like the nickelodeon space and everything and we both had different things that we wanted to pursue but i ultimately quit after my mom passed away because with her death kind of died a lot of her ideas for my life since grande first came into the spotlight at a very young age her talent and people's obsession with her has snowballed completely out of control and that crescendo can be traced all the way back to 2010. i don't know if it's just 20 20 hindsight or not but going back to the group numbers that the victorious cast would perform together hearing grande's massive velvety range soaring on top of everybody else's is distinctly difficult to not notice [Music] in the background singing harmony or ripping a hardcore riff in the middle of an otherwise straight ahead pop tune you notice it [Music] her acting ability stayed with me and is what drew me back to this property in the first place and she's not even a [ __ ] actor she's a musician through and through and music is all i really am here for like it's all i really care about do you know what i mean yes i mean other than like y'all but like it's like you know what i mean in all of people's myriad popular critiques of ariana grande and any of the thousand narratives that are so easy to weave about people you don't know no one comes at her for her singing because it's undeniably excellent but there's levels to this skill set that aren't as obvious one that strikes me personally is the efficiency with which she arranges vocals and directs an engineer from within a booth i'd love to get another note on the yeah i'm gonna add it yeah okay if that's okay thank you one more time i have an idea [Music] is that pretty okay let me double that you can punch me a little closer i've worked on the vocalist arranger and engineering side of this interaction multiple times it's not supposed to go that smooth it's a skill and she's insane at it i think i need the yeah yeah to happen listen to the [Music] yeah let's move it over to right after the first phrase this time even when she was a supporting character on a nickelodeon show named after a different person the writers were putting meta jokes into the script about people's obsession with her but in real life she's as sharp as a shih tzu and bursting with talent i speak of the delightful red-headed ariana grande oh uh i'm sorry i'm not ariana grante clearly this was before she'd even dropped an album in many ways she's built for this industry it's what she wanted she struck at the right time and her inclinations and work ethic has rocketed her to mind-boggling success but this echelon of achievement comes at a steep social cost did you know ariana grande's natural hair is extremely curly i wouldn't fault you for not noticing that because long ago she made the decision to never wear it natural in public would you ever start wearing your hair naturally like the curls i think i would i think i have a hard time marrying it to the music for me because i have kind of created this persona and this thing and this you know i think uh i don't know if i love it for work she consciously only shows her face with straightened hair and a high ponytail as a kind of work uniform that she uses in public to put up a wall between the hyper reality of people's perception of her and her actual intimate private life so few people get to see it and it's cute and it reminds me of me as a kid and it reminds me of you know it's who i am privately oh so you're not like a celebrity you're like just a person lame superstardom is something we do to people we cannibalize their life and take every aspect of their appearance their name and their behavior and we turn it into a commodity and brand and we use their name like we know them it's hard to reckon with in day-to-day life that you're not in control of people's perceptions of you i cannot imagine it on a global scale this kind of fracturing of identity is what comes with success in the entertainment industry you're gloriana to some people and that's unfair and you have no control over that but mccurdy's experience of gloriana and the several people that surely that character represents is indisputably also valid in 2014 at 20 years old ariana grande won the nickelodeon's kids choice award for favorite female tv star jeanette mccurdy was also nominated for that award she didn't show up would you part nine miraculous tales of ladybug and cat noir i think i'm an addict want the world and i'ma have it i'm so [ __ ] dramatic got all my bones up in the attic and i dance them all around like a [Music] got me cooler than a bag of ice now free now go faster moving real slow you smell so fruity i'm a pirate and you're my booty so move it in close and let me think about me what do you think about it five fingers in the face [Music] i love martina vanessa and georgina it's a lady's choice so i'ma make sure [Music] yacht in a garage full the classic cars what are you talking about boy i know you don't think you can just come over here come on you know what i got for you i pick it to the [Music] five face in the face

Channel: CJ The X

Views: 1,445,338

Keywords:

Id: IdDA9B2qiK4

Length: 82min 49sec (4969 seconds)

Published: Mon May 24 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/jiggaboooojones]

was just about to share this! SO good

[u/lilmonster1208]

I absolutely love his videos omg. I watched this one right when it came out and it's actually what got me into victorious!

[u/phatprog]

Absolutely love this video, and the rest of their videos tbh. Definitely worth the watch (or listen since the length might be more appropriate for a podcast lol)