Happy Birthday Lucas Grabeel

Posted on November 23, 2008 at 8:00 am

Today is the birthday of Lucas Grabeel, an extraordinarily gifted performer I’ve seen in four different movies in the past few weeks. He’s still best known for playing Ryan, the twin brother of the scheming Sharpay, in the High School Musical series.

They highlighted his singing and dancing, especially the third one, where he gets a little more screen time. In Alice Upside Down he played the title character’s older brother, showing an appealing on-screen confidence and a deft touch with comedy. They had to add a line to explain his shaved head — he had just completed an appearance as a young Lex Luthor in an episode of “Smallville.” He took the lead in the cute comedy The Adventures of Foodboy as a high school senior who discovers he has the power to make food appear.

And he has a small role in the prestige film “Milk,” co-starring with Sean Penn in the story of the first openly gay man to win major elective office in the United States. Grabeel plays photographer Danny Nicoletta, and you can glimpse him with a camera in this trailer for the film. I am very impressed with the range, screen presence, and charisma of this talented young actor and I expect him to be a breakout star.

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Is the Internet a Waste of Time for Teens?

Posted on November 22, 2008 at 8:00 am

Parents often fear that their kids are wasting their time clicking around the web. But a new study on teen use of online media commissioned by the MacArthur Foundation found that “America’s youth are developing important social and technical skills online – often in ways adults do not understand or value.”
The most extensive U.S. study on teens and their use of digital media was conducted over a three-year period by 28 researchers and collaborators at the University of Southern California and the University of California, Berkeley. They interviewed over 800 young people and their parents, both one-on-one and in focus groups; spent over 5000 hours observing teens on sites such as MySpace, Facebook, YouTube, and other networked communities; and conducted diary studies to document how, and to what end, young people engage with digital media.
“It might surprise parents to learn that it is not a waste of time for their teens to hang out online,” said Mizuko Ito, University of California, Irvine researcher and the report’s lead author. “There are myths about kids spending time online – that it is dangerous or making them lazy. But we found that spending time online is essential for young people to pick up the social and technical skills they need to be competent citizens in the digital age.”
The study found that there were two primary categories of online activity, “friendship-driven” and “interest-driven.” “While friendship-driven participation centered on ‘hanging out’ with existing friends, interest-driven participation involved accessing online information and communities that may not be present in the local peer group….Youth are navigating complex social and technical worlds by participating online.” But, the study concluded, they are not taking full advantage of opportunities to go beyond their known social connections to reach out to new contacts and educational opportunities.
I agree that these skills are important. But I worry that we are ignoring some other skills children and teens also need. No matter how wired we become, in-person social interaction (call it analog if you must), from polite conversation to thank-you notes, will always be indispensable skills, as will research that can only be conducted off-line and the ability to write complete and grammatical sentences. The online world is an important one, but so is RL.
Thanks to my dad (and BFF), Newton Minow, for sharing this study with me.

Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2

Posted on November 18, 2008 at 8:00 am

When the first five minutes of a film show us a wedding, a graduation, a pregnancy, some kisses, and two grave sites, followed by a reunion scene involving shrieking and hugging, we know we are in for an irresistible saga of friendship through love, loss, risk, and clothes. What older sisters get in Sex and the City and their moms find in Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood and Steel Magnolias, middle and high schoolers find in the “Traveling Pants” movies.
In the first “Traveling Pants” summer, the four BFFs used a magical pair of blue jeans that somehow fit them all perfectly as a sort of proto-Facebook for staying in touch. They sent the pants back and forth, embroidering status updates with mementos from their adventures.
Three years have gone by and now cynical Tibby (“Joan of Arcadia’s” Amber Tamblyn), athlete Bridget (“Gossip Girl’s” Blake Lively), shy Lena (“Gilmore Girls'” Alexis Bledel), and writer Carmen (“Ugly Betty’s” America Ferrara) are all in college, meaning they now have the kind of problems that raise the rating from the PG for the 2005 original to a PG-13.
The pants are about to get some serious mileage. Tibby is in New York, working at a DVD store and trying to finish a screenplay assignment. “Romantic comedy is an oxymoron,” she complains. Lena is in Rhode Island, blushing through a figure drawing class and trying to forget her first love, Costas. That nude male model she is drawing has a great…smile. Bridget has gone on an archeological dig in Turkey where a sympathetic scholar (Shohreh Aghdashloo) reminds her that it is not only the bones and artifacts we study but the people and their stories. And Carmen finds herself unexpectedly cast in a Shakespeare production in Vermont while at home her recently re-married mother is about to have a baby. As they face a pregnancy scare, repair an estranged family relationship and struggle with romance, the girls must find new resolve and confidence in themselves and in their connection to each other.
The real love story that is the heart of the movie is the friendship of the girls. They wonder at times if they are still able to communicate but they are always there for each other when needed. Like the first film, the sequel is refreshingly honest about complicated and messy problems and it avoids tidy resolutions. The girls learn that sometimes even with the best of intentions, people — and life — let us down but that courage, sincere kindness, and friends can help even when they cannot fix what is wrong. Even more appealing is the girls’ endearingly tender support for each other’s differences of personality and interests and the matter-of-fact mix of racial and ethnic pairings. The movie makes it clear that, as Eleanor Roosevelt said, no one can make you feel inadequate without your permission and it is one movie that does not imply that a girl has to have a boyfriend to be successful, happy, or complete.
A character in “Steel Magnolias” summarizes the female friendship genre: “Laughter through tears is my favorite emotion.” The talented young actresses and a quartet of appealing swain make this story’s travels between laughter and tears a journey worth taking.

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Parenting the Facebook Generation

Posted on November 15, 2008 at 9:00 am

Be sure to take a look at the excellent Ten Tips for Parenting the Facebook Generation from Beliefnet’s Hesham Hassaballa. Technology has made the risks and humiliations and cliquishness of the early teen years exponentially more treacherous, and these guidelines will help keep kids safe until they can become wise. The most important rule, as always, is loving involvement in your children’s lives, so they know they can talk with you about all of their concerns.

Teenagers, Sex, Religion, and Media

Posted on November 8, 2008 at 11:00 am

The Washington Post reports on the first study to link teen pregnancies to sexual content on television. The study is being published today in the journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics. The authors found a “strong association” between teen pregnancy and watching sexual activity in television programs.
Teenagers who watch a lot of television featuring flirting, necking, discussion of sex and sex scenes are much more likely than their peers to get pregnant or get a partner pregnant, according to the first study to directly link steamy programming to teen pregnancy.
The study, which tracked more than 700 12-to-17-year-olds for three years, found that those who viewed the most sexual content on TV were about twice as likely to be involved in a pregnancy as those who saw the least….
Studies have found a link between watching television shows with sexual content and becoming sexually active earlier, and between sexually explicit music videos and an increased risk of sexually transmitted diseases. And many studies have shown that TV violence seems to make children more aggressive. But the new research is the first to show an association between TV watching and pregnancy among teens.
The problem with these studies is always cause and effect. Do teenagers who are already sexually active or considering becoming sexually active tend to watch more of these programs or do these programs promote unprotected sexual activity?
It is stupid to suggest that media does not affect behavior, especially of teenagers who are just beginning to look beyond the home and school for guidance on behavior. There is a billion-dollar industry devoted to the impact of media on behavior — it is called advertising. Television programming may not be selling clothes or toothpaste, but it is always selling a notion of what is — and is not — cool. And that does affect the choices made by viewers.

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