neat.

Hello All—just a short reflection today on the potential media has to influence our thoughts and feelings. Flipping through channels, I caught the end of Inherit the Wind (1960), an excellent film that dramatizes the events surrounding the so-called Scopes Monkey Trial, The State of Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes. The trial ultimately struck down the Butler Act, which made the teaching of evolution illegal in Tennessee. It seems like déjà vu with the recent arguments over the teaching of evolution and intelligent design in schools.

Honestly, it seems like both sides could ease up a bit—my biology teacher handled it well, I thought. She explained Darwin’s theory, and carbon dating, and then some students offered that these methods might be incorrect, following Biblical text. Our teacher agreed that we could believe what we wanted and consider all sides in the argument—and that was it. Everyone was satisfied, no trials necessary.

Watching Inherit the Wind reminded me that it’s been a while since a film really tried to present a social argument—in the film, two fundamentally opposing sides clash, but ultimately respect each other. Sometimes creating antagonism where there was perhaps none seems to be the purpose of the media—in the news we fight wars against evil to save others from oblivion; in film we are given no reason for the crafty villain’s deeds, but cheer his inevitable death. This film doesn’t oversimplify, and I’d like to see that again.

There’s been a lot of buzz about Joost lately, the new software from the creators of Kazaa and Skype, which allows users to watch television over the internet. My first thought was, “yeah…and?” It seems counterintuitive to take a technology as old as television and simply give it a new form. But it does seem to have a few added bells and whistles—rewind and pause (though with television’s instinctive paranoia against pirating, “record” is not a likely feature)—it also includes a ratings system and chat windows, so you can discuss programs as they happen. Joost will be presented in a channel format, rather than the click-to-play per program or clip like most of the video currently on the internet. And, spurned by YouTube, Viacom has signed up to broadcast its programs on Joost (any relation to the lawsuit, I wonder?).

Joost is P2P, so it will make its money through advertising, again, much like traditional television, and this may really be the advancement that Joost can provide. Current television ratings are a generally agreed-upon falsehood. Advertising dollars are based on Nielsen ratings, meaning that what 1% of the population watches determines how much television networks can charge for airtime. This is why there are such things as sweeps—the periods when viewers are creating diaries that detail one week of their personal viewing—so they often save the exciting plot twists and guest stars for February, May, July and November. If internet television becomes the norm, it will give programmers even more opportunity to track viewer patterns through fuzzy logic, much like Amazon.com does. Not only will the content providers know what you are watching, but they’ll know how long you are watching it, when you are watching it, how you choose to rate it, whether you chat during it, and then they can take that information to create personalized recommendations, for content and products. So, even though the ads will be select and shorter, they may be more effective.

I can’t imagine that Joost will be around for very long before the advertising starts to become imposing. Given that television is an established technology, and content will need to come from the traditional television networks, the technologies will likely share the space for a while to come.

So, it seems that while Viacom has decided that to get its piece of the pie it has to sue YouTube, NBC and Fox have taken a slightly different route to make money off of the technology, by attempting to make their own YouTube, which will include full-length episodes of their programs, and some user-created content—how they will deal with the copyright troubles isn’t yet clear (though I have a mental image of hundreds of desk-chained interns developing carpal tunnel as they review each video late into the night).

I think what NBC and Fox fail to realize is that their behemoth size is not an advantage in this case. Google expanded from a search engine to an empire (a googlesphere, if you will) in the blink of an eye. The aging media companies simply can’t compete with that kind of speed, especially as they will no doubt stop to consider each legal ramification possible with every step they take…and that way of thinking is not the way things are anymore. Kind of like when your parents want to be cool, and fail miserably (or, how you try to be cool to your nieces and nephews and fail miserably). It really comes down to acceptance, which is why I think the major media corporations should have a bit of grief counseling 101:

Denial – This isn’t happening! It’s more popular than our shows!

Anger – You can’t do this to us! We’ve been doing this for years! We’ll sue!

Bargaining – Seriously, just deal with us—give us a little piece of the pie, and there won’t be any problems…

Depression – It’s over. We can’t compete. All we’ve got left is American Idol.

Acceptance – Hey, it’s ok—let’s just keep on truckin’—after all, we’ve still got American Idol!

It’s OK mass media—just keep repeating: “I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and doggone it, people like me”

I can’t decide whether Twitter is the next big thing or the next of the latest and greatest Web 2.0 technologies to bite the proverbial dust. It seems like the natural progression of blogging—a universal blog that everyone can contribute to. But, there’s not necessarily the same amount of thought put into contributing. It’s more like a non-synchronous chat. It reminds me of the game telephone (you start with “President Bush should rethink his foreign policy” and end up with “Messing with tusking shook peering fusion peas”). Is it a conversation? Not really—more like pining something on a bulleting board. But why pin something when you have nothing to say, necessarily?

Then again, it can be entertaining—much in the way reality television is—predictable, but still like watching a car wreck; everyone else is slowing down to look, why not me? It gives us concourse to the world, and, unlike a lot of mainstream media, gives us others we can directly identify with. After all, if we are looking at Twitter, we have been drawn in by the spectacle of it, and reading it, you can see people just like yourself, or who remind you of your own experiences. This comment reminded me of my time at UT Austin (if you’ve spent time in Texas, you’ll understand). Vicarious nostalgia. On the other hand, it can also confirm your schema of the world—someone from San Fran who likes Bikram yoga and chai lattes for example. Nothing wrong with it, just nice to reflect on. And let us not forget the advantage of the virtual-being-there; I couldn’t be at SXSW (more Austin nostalgia), but I knew what was happening there, moment to moment, because of Twitterers.

I suppose it could go either way at this point. Blogging takes a lot of dedication, but Twitter has random charm—I offer no predictions. Except that I don’t think John Edwards will be elected—just a hunch.

I watch a lot of television, and I’ve seen a lot of commercials—and sometimes, you just see some really bad commercials…commercials so bad that I’ve made a vow never to use any of these products. So here, for your enjoyments, are the worst three—feel free to expand on the list—

1) Botox – Most pharmaceutical commercials are either remarkably vague or incredibly specific (from people cuddling and watching the sunset for erectile dysfunction, to people discussing in detail their abdominal issues) but this one just made me slap my forehead in disgust. Women, dancing and loving their Botox and/or plans for Botox, while the song “Express Yourself” plays in the background. The thing is, the entire point of Botox is to prevent you from making expressions. Gotta love to hate it.

2) Taco Bell – Dear Taco Bell advertising executives: get a new ad agency. Seriously…the Chihuahua was better than the deplorable crap you have been forcing on viewers lately. The bottom of the barrel involved a young lad espousing the virtues of the “4^th Meal”—that’s right America, knowing full well that we are becoming so obese that our life span is actually getting shorter, Taco Bell wants in on the action. They’ve also taken to renaming our food groups for us—how thoughtful! Now I don’t have to worry about those pesky vegetables—but did I get my daily allowance of melty?

3) V-cast phones – Let me get this straight—I’m a stranger to you, just minding my own business, and you approach me, armed with what can politely be called poor taste in music, and you stick you disease-ridden earbuds in my ears. For what? Do you want me to validate your existence? Well, I can’t. I don’t know you, and I don’t want to. Keep your hands to yourself. Freak.

So, please, stop.

The web allows for some remarkable meta-experiences—today, several people experienced a happy bout of ‘hey-remember-that-guy-now-he’s-dead!’ forwarding when they discovered that comedian Sinbad had died of a heart attack. Unfortunately, Sinbad was not dead—he, or rather, his biography, was the victim of a prank on wikipedia.

The wording used to describe this act (by wikipedia spokesperson Sandra Ordonez) was “vandalized”—which got me thinking—can you really vandalize that which is truly not there? In proper Web 2.0 fashion, wikipedia is one part of a constantly shifting database, growing, changing, inhabited by a variety of people; the web is a society, complete with criminals. And like it or not, we entered into a social contract with the web, giving it assumed power.

But is our Rousseau-like democratization of media helping or harming us? In this case, it spurred the spread of misinformation—after all, are we more likely to trust a news article from cnn.com or from wikipedia? As I’ve said before, this democratization can be helpful—you can communicate with people you would have never had the opportunity meet before, enabling an impossible-to-measure exchange of ideas. But this exchange requires trust, and faith that those who are doing as you do (contributing) will follow the Golden Rule.

Just a reflection on how those very old systems of power still remain—but somehow I don’t think that overthrowing the web is an option. Like most systems, it requires a certain amount of blind faith and skepticism.

Today Disney announced that it is introducing its first black princess, Maddy. Maddy will star in The Frog Princess, based on the Grimm Brothers’ fairytale “The Frog Prince”—this story will be set in New Orleans. Maddy is already being touted as a “strong princess character,” by Walt Disney Studios Chairman Dick Cook. But I have to wonder how this character will play out in the film, loaded already as she is with gender-bias and racial implications.

As Peggy Orenstein discusses in her article “What’s Wrong With Cinderella?” the Disney princess empire is booming. Disney Consumer Products has sales in the range of $3 billion. Most disturbing about this trend is the message these characters send to girls. I argued with my husband about this just the other day—being a student of the media, I started to insist that any children we have not watch Disney films. He claimed they are harmless, that we all watched them when we were kids…until I argued that these films would convince our fictitious future daughters that their goal in life was to be pretty and rescued (being an engineer, he of course desires that they should be the same—and engineers fix problems themselves!).

One has to wonder what kind of expectations the princess creates for women—they not only have to be smart, but also kind and beautiful. I still wonder how much I succumb to this in life—do I dress or act certain way because I choose to, or because it is expected of me? Do I find it difficult to openly show my anger because it is a part of my personality, or because as a girl I am supposed to be kind and courteous?

So, does Maddy provide a strong role model for young black girls where there was none before, or does she serve to assimilate an untapped demographic into the princess empire? I suppose we’ll find out in 2009…

I’ve just watched Brokeback Mountain (2005) for the first time—I couldn’t stand to watch it the first time around; there was just too much hype around it. I myself almost started laughing when I heard the line “I wish I knew how to quit you.” But with some critical distance, I found it to be quite good. Ang Lee was the perfect director for this film—his combination of sweeping, still landscapes and almost unbearable restraint really fed into the frustration of the characters at their situation, while surrounded by such unwaivering beauty.

This inspires me to write about my next two “essentials” (see my post here explaining the thought process).

The Searchers (1956)

Without a doubt, John Ford’s finest film. This film revises the western genre as it begins to question what was previously taken for granted; representations of the ‘good’ settlers versus the ‘bad’ Indians. But throughout his career as a director, Ford always blends the two—no one is completely right or wrong, and in the end the complexity is powerful. John Wayne is an aging cowboy, Ethan, returning to his family after a life of wandering and a stint in the Confederate Army. His unrequited love for his brother’s wife leaves him obsessed when a band of raiding Comanches kills her and his brother, taking their two daughters. For the next four years he tirelessly wanders the desert searching for his youngest niece, Debbie—but as the search progresses we find more and more that Ethan is less interested in saving her than he is in making sure that her new life as an assimilated Comanche ends—one way or another. When he at last returns her to her remaining family, he can’t bear to enter the family space—like it or not, John Wayne isn’t the hero here—his racism overwhelms him, and he slowly backs away.

Shichinin no samurai (Seven Samurai) (1954)

As a director, Akira Kurosawa looked for ways to translate the Japanese traditions of honor to film—and he found it in the American western. Sadly, over the years the film has succumbed to a horde of editors who balked at the original nearly three hour and 30 minute run time, but thankfully it has been restored almost to its original state. But to watch this film, you would never sense the length; the narrative is remarkably efficient, as farmers seek out rogue samurai to defend their village from impending marauders. They soon find Takashi Shimura, one of Kurosawa’s stock players, and the search progresses until enough samurai (including the spectacular Toshirô Mifune) are found to defend the village. The quiet honor of these men, once of a noble class (until there way of life was abolished by Emperor Meiji as an attempt to modernize the country) take payment in rice, and they earn it. There’s simply not enough room here to espouse the marvel that is this film—just watch it!

That’s all for now—stay tuned for future installments of the essentials.

So it looks like Viacom has decided to sue YouTube for showing clips of Comedy Central shows like The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. What’s interesting, however, is that another Viacom property, CBS, has been using YouTube to show clips and drum up interest in its shows. CBS would seem to be ahead of the curve.

Honestly, there’s no stopping the influx of content onto the web now that the tools are in the hands of the people (not to sound Marxist or anything…it’s really a more democratic process). Bottom line, Viacom is waging a costly battle—should they win, they could be loosing out on millions of free advertising revenue—should they loose, they’ve lost close to a million marketers.

I’ve just gotten a hold of the book Citizen Marketers, by Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba, the minds behind creatingcustomerevangelists.com, the bible on citizen-created content and the 1% rule. Their theory, which I happen to adhere to, is that there’s no such thing as controlling the content that users will put out there—they will do it whether you want them to or not—and the content that they create will influence other potential users/customers.

It’s now become standard practice for me to see what other users are saying about a product before I buy it—and I find these reviews to be more trustworthy in most cases. If 100 people say that a product is worth buying, it influences me more than a possibly biased mainstream media review. With more and more media conglomeration, it’s becoming too difficult to tell where your information is coming from—and citizen marketers are bringing more certainty to the process.

It looks like Carrie Fisher has joined “The Essentials” on Turner Classic Movies. I think she’s an excellent choice—she’s been in the biz from a young age (as the daughter of Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher) and entered our lives as cultural capital with cinnamon buns stuck to the side of her head.

As co-host (with Robert Osborne) Fisher gets to pick the films—and this got me thinking about a few films I’d like to declare “essential” to film study, and my own personal enjoyment. This is in no way a complete list, so feel free to add—someday soon I hope to also create a “non-essential” list…as Fisher jokes about many of her own films. Warning: there may be mild spoilers ahead…

Treasure of the Sierra Madre (194

Infamously, John Huston directed his father to an Oscar as Best Supporting Actor in this film, (as he would also do later for his daughter Angelica in Prizzi’s Honor) and it’s easy to see why—this film is an essential story of greed, madness, morality and fate. Three men (including a fantastic Humphrey Bogart) go up a mountain in search of gold…how many men come down the mountain is another story.

Vertigo (195

What I would consider to be Alfred Hitchcock’s best film—the ultimate combination of his themes of obsession, the perfect icy blond, and the MacGuffin. James Stewart’s Scottie follows Kim Novak’s Madeleine, a woman seemingly possessed by her past. When he is unable to save her because of his crippling vertigo, he breaks down…until he finds Judy, a perfect twin of Madeleine. Hitchcock draws us in to Scottie’s obsession with transforming Judy into Madeleine—making us irresistibly identify with his misogynistic desires.

Singin’ in the Rain (1952)

This is the musical for people who hate musicals. You can’t help but laugh at cleverness with which this film mocks the Hollywood star system at the shift from silent film to “talkies”—and if that still doesn’t convince you, the dancing will—Gene Kelly is mesmerizing, and for you fellas, there is Cyd Charisse…and her legs go all the way to the floor…

Double Indemnity (1944)

Evil is Barbara Stanwyck in this perfect film noir. As a bored and greedy housewife, she quickly entices Insurance salesman Fred MacMurray into a plot to take her husband out of the picture. Stanwick often gives perfectly nuanced performances, but none so garnered her the praise of this film. To simply watch her face as the ‘deed’ is done is a remarkable experience. Also worth mentioning is Edward G. Robinson as MacMurray’s fast-talking and sweetly sentimental boss.

That’s all I can muster today…stay tuned for my other essentials:

The Searchers

Raise the Red Lantern

Rear Window

Star Wars: TESB

The Godfather: I and II

The Third Man

Halloween

Jaws