New Initiative to Support Staying in School

Posted on May 3, 2011 at 4:53 pm

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting has a new media initiative called “American Graduate: Let’s Make It Happen.” Every year, more than 1 million students drop out of high school. If that trend continues, over the next 10 years, it will cost the nation
more than $3 trillion in lost wages, productivity and taxes. Public television has done a great deal for preschoolers and early readers. Now it will try to serve middle and high schoolers. CPB has made a $.4 million grant to 20 public television stations in community “hubs” with the worst records for school dropouts, to raise awareness, coordinate action with community partners, and work directly with students, parents, teachers, mentors, volunteers and leaders to encourage teens to stay in school. As many as 40 more markets will receive grants through the National Center for Media Engagement. And The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, through support to CPB’s Teacher Town Halls and the StoryCorps National Teachers Initiative, will give teachers a way to share their perspectives and experiences with helping all students graduate high school prepared for college and careers. Stay tuned for more information.

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It’s Kind of a Funny Story

Posted on February 23, 2011 at 3:57 pm

A stressed-out teenager impetuously checks himself into a mental hospital in this semi-autobiographical tale based on It’s Kind of a Funny Story by Ned Vizzini. It is brought to screen by the talented writer-directing team of Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, who have demonstrated their understanding of teenagers struggling with difficult situations in the understated “Sugar” and “Half Nelson.” Here, they show a more playful side, with witty and imaginative fantasy sequences that make the unabashed decency and kindness at its heart even more touching.

Keir Gilchrist plays Craig, a 16-year-old student at a Manhattan high school for high-achievers. He is feeling a great deal of pressure to succeed and frightened by thoughts of suicide. He visits the emergency room and when the doctor tells him he can go home, he pleads to be admitted, not understanding that it will mean he must be kept under observation for five days. “I thought you guys could do something quick,” he says. “I have school tomorrow.” Craig also does not realize that the area where the teenagers are treated is being renovated, so he will be staying on the adult ward.

Immediately dubbed “Cool Craig” by a friendly patient named Bobby (Zach Galifanakis of “The Hangover”), Craig discovers a through-the-looking-glass world that challenges the connections and assumptions of his “normal” life. The kind psychiatrist (Viola Davis) immediately recognizes that all Craig needs is some breathing room and reassurance. That gives Craig a chance to look around. He develops confidence when he sees many people far worse off than he is, and when he sees that he can give and accept help. Art and music therapy help him think of what he can express instead of how he will be evaluated. And a pretty fellow patient (Emma Roberts, with her aunt Julia’s lovely smile) is the best medicine of all.

Boden and Fleck, whose previous films had an understated naturalism, make the most of the heightened sensibility of the mental ward setting with sequences that take us inside Craig’s fantasies and memories. In one, we see Craig remembering an incident when he was five, drawing inside a tent in his parents’ living room. The present-day Craig is shown as a five year old, and then in his teen-age persona in the five-year-old’s pajamas. When pushed into being the vocalist in music therapy, Craig swings into a deliriously Bowie-fied version of “Under Pressure.” Boden and Fleck continue to show skill in casting and directing. Gilchrist, Roberts, and Zoe Kravitz as the classmate Craig wishes he could date are all first-rate, and Galifanakis leaves every bit of his stand-up persona behind to give a real performance with subtlety and grace.

It is a relief to see a movie about mental illness that recognizes the real pain but focuses on the real humanity of everyone involved, patients, staff, and Craig’s family. Craig first comes into the emergency room and tells the intake nurse that he wants to kill himself. When she hands him a clipboard and tells him to fill out a form it comes across not as callous but as reassuring. Treating his fear as routine is part of what makes him feel safe there. Boden and Fleck are now among the most reliable and promising film-makers around.

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Big Sale on National Geograpic DVDs

Posted on February 15, 2011 at 10:28 am

National Geographic is having an amazing sale on their outstanding series of DVDs, with prices as low as $3.95 for “March of the Penguins” and $5.95 for “The Dog Whisperer.” It’s for a limited time only. Be sure to check it out!

Skins — Another Challenge for Parents of Teens

Posted on January 22, 2011 at 8:00 am

MTV’s latest series is Skins, an American version of a controversial British television show about teenagers and starring teenagers. It was co-created by a teenager, the son of a television writer who was challenged by his father to come up with an idea.
The characters in both the US and UK versions use drugs, have casual and sometimes predatory sex, and engage in a great deal of irresponsible and highly risky behavior. Hank Steuver of the Washington Post wrote:

By and large, “Skins” is a repugnant, irredeemably nihilistic viewing experience for grownups – the very thing for which “off” buttons are made.

For actual teenagers, “Skins” might be something of a vicarious thrill, in which a scheming, savvy twerp named Tony (James Newman) arranges a debauched social life for himself and his other working-class friends, each of whom have their own overblown emotional issues and troubles at home. Imagine a kid with Ferris Bueller’s self-assurance and Eddie Haskell’s duplicity plunked down with his ethnically diverse peers in a den filled with drugs, porn and a stack of unmade “ABC Afterschool Special” scripts with the final scenes (i.e., the saccharine conclusions) torn out.

That is the key point. Some shows try to have it both ways; they display all kinds of bad behavior and justify it with a moral lesson by showing the consequences. These can range from the “very special episodes” that put favorite sitcom characters in the path of danger to movies like “The Hangover,” which let us enjoy the out-of-control behavior of the characters and then let us enjoy even more the pain of coping with the consequences. “Skins” doesn’t seem to care about anything but giving audiences a transgressive thrill. Knowing that the actors really are as young as the characters they portray adds to the shock value — and the appeal.
Parents should know that this series pushes the boundaries already pushed very far by shows like “90210” and “Gossip Girl.” New York Magazine reports that MTV is concerned that it might violate child pornography statutes. Wrigley, GM, and Taco Bell have already pulled out as advertisers. If you are going to give your children permission to watch, I strongly suggest you watch it with them — though it’s hard to say which of you would be most uncomfortable doing so.

Skins

PTC Report on Sexualization of Teenage Girls on Television

Posted on December 15, 2010 at 3:00 pm

The Parents Television Council released a new report today on the portrayal of teenage girls on television.
The report, ??Tinseltown’s New Target: A Study of Teen Female Sexualization on Prime-Time TV, is based on a content analysis of the most popular television shows for viewers ages 12-17 in the 2009-2010 season. “Girls as young as five wanting to be sexy are being robbed of their childhood,” said former model Nicole Clark, whose documentary “Cover Girl Culture” exposes the detrimental influence of media on children’s self-image. She added that she hears parents talk about their fears of sexual predators but they dress their little girls to emphasize their sexuality and allow them to watch unsupervised media “We wonder why America has the highest teen pregnancy rate and teen STD rate of all the developed nations.” It is especially troubling that the influence of these images is apparent on younger and younger children.
Every parent should look at this report and consider carefully how to protect both boys and girls from these media portrayals, how to talk to them to minimize the impact of what they do see, and how to respond to the PTC’s call to action to let broadcasters and advertisers know that this is unacceptable.
The PTC says:
Clearly, there are inherent dangers in having a cultural milieu that accepts and encourages this sexual contradiction of encouraging underage girls to look sexy, yet realizing they know very little about what it means to be sexual.
Of equal concern is the lack of experience teenagers have in making rational and responsible decisions within intimate relationships. For years, scholars have recognized that teens may be particularly vulnerable to media influence. Several studies report the negative impact that frequent exposure to sexualized media images and models of passivity can cause, ranging from eating disorders and depression to sexual risk-taking. There is a chord that is struck with every parent when understanding the devastating impact these sexual images and messages have on the cognitive, emotional, and physical development as well as the self-image of the average young girl well before they reach the stage of exhibiting these more outwardly recognizable disorders. Further, research shows that girls and young women who consume more mainstream media content demonstrate greater acceptance of stereotypes that depict women as sexual objects , and earlier initiation of sexual behaviors.
The impact of teen sexualization in the media is exacerbated by the continual increases in media usage among teens. A recent report revealed that children are spending more time than ever before consuming entertainment media -more than 75 hours a week. These rates indicate that teens are spending nearly twice as much time viewing media than they spend in school and 1/3 more time than they spend sleeping. This increase is due, in large part, to devices that allow children to access media content away from the traditional confines of the television and movie screen.
The report concludes that when underage female characters appear on screen: more sexual content is depicted; the teen girls show next to no negative response to being sexualized; more sexual incidents occur outside of any form of a committed relationship; and there is less accuracy in the TV content rating.
It found:

Underage female characters are shown participating in a higher percentage of sexual depictions compared to adults (47% and 29% respectively).

Only 5% of the underage female characters communicated any form of dislike for being sexualized (excluding scenes depicting healthy sexuality).

Out of all the sexualized female characters depicted in the underage and young adult category for the entire database, 86% were presented as only being of high school age.

Seventy-five percent of shows that included sexualized underage female characters were shows that did not have an “S” descriptor to warn parents about the sexual content.

Based upon a definition established by the American Psychological Association of “healthy” vs. “unhealthy” sexuality, the study findings show that 93% of the sexual incidents involving underage female characters occurred within a context that qualified as “unhealthy.”

The data revealed that 98% of the sexual incidents involving underage female characters occurred outside of any form of a committed relationship.

The data show that 73% of the underage sexualized incidents were presented in a humorous manner or as a punch line to a joke.

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