Merry Christmas from Kukla, Fran, and Ollie
Posted on December 24, 2011 at 4:00 am
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FCC Tells Advertisers To Stop Yelling
Posted on December 13, 2011 at 2:46 pm
The Federal Communications Commission is announcing new rules today to address one of the most frequent viewer complaints — the volume of commercials. If it feels like the commercials are louder than the programs, that is because they are. Last year, Congress passed the CALM Act (Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation Act), and today’s rules will give television channels a year to comply.
USA Today reports:
“I never characterized this as saving the Union,” says Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., the original sponsor of the bill. “But consumers have been asking for it. We may not have peace in the world, but we may have more peaceful homes.”
Lowe’s Public Relations Mess over “All-American Muslim”
Posted on December 12, 2011 at 11:31 am
“All-American Muslim” is a TLC reality show about five Muslim families in Dearborn, Michigan. According to TLC, “Each episode offers an intimate look at the customs and celebrations, misconceptions and conflicts these families face outside and within their own community.” The hardware and home improvement chain Lowe’s, one of the advertisers originally supporting the show, has cancelled its commercials because after the Florida Family Association complained, saying the program is “propaganda that riskily hides the Islamic agenda’s clear and present danger to American liberties and traditional values.” They are urging all advertisers to drop their affiliation with the series.
My friend Christian Toto thoughtfully reviewed “All-American Muslim” for the conservative website Big Hollywood and did not find what the FFA charged:
At times, the show feels like an extended public relations video for hardworking Muslims to show their fellow citizens they have nothing to fear. But “All-American Muslim” is honest enough about some less flattering components of the Islamic faith to keep our respect. And watching an Irish-Catholic family merge peacefully with a Muslim clan reminds us our differences truly can make us stronger – no more how treacly that might sound.
What’s more, “Muslim” makes the case that American culture can have a positive effect on a religion which has festered in some repressive societies. The families of “All-American Muslim” have incorporated the best of their own religion with their American roots.
In responding to the shrill attack from a small group of activists to try to avoid controversy, Lowe’s has only made it worse. A state senator from California has called for them to apologize for what he calls “naked religious bigotry.” Music executive, social activist, founder of a center for inter-racial and interfaith harmony (and brother of a pastor) Russell Simmons has said, “this is the kind of hate that tears this country apart.”
Lowe’s response: “Individuals and groups have strong political and societal views on this topic, and this program became a lightning rod for many of those views,” the statement said. “As a result we did pull our advertising on this program. We believe it is best to respectfully defer to communities, individuals and groups to discuss and consider such issues of importance.”
As a Muslim poster wrote on Facebook, even Muslims who did not care for the show will watch it now. In attempting to silence the program, the FFA has only generated more interest and support for it. In attempting to appease one group of extremists, Lowe’s has infuriated a broader group and found itself better known at this moment for the controversy than for its products and services. A shame that all of this was generated from a television program intended to promote tolerance and understanding.
The TV Preferences of Republicans and Democrats
Posted on December 11, 2011 at 3:43 pm
Entertainment Weekly commissioned a study showing political differences in television-watching and they are so pronounced it provides some explanation of the increasing polarization and partisanship of our political conversations. In the early days of television, Marshall McLuhan famously called it the “Global Village.” With so few choices available to watch, we all saw the same programs and that created a common framework and vocabulary, whether it was “The Ed Sullivan Show” or “I Love Lucy. But the range of choices has led to such disparity in our sources of information and entertainment that television now separates us more than it brings us together. EW asked people who described themselves as “liberal Democrats” or “conservative Republicans” to list the television programs they liked and didn’t like, so the results are intentionally focused on the extremes, and the survey excluded news, sports, and music.
Are you surprised by any of these? 
Liberal Democrats like “The Daily Show” and “Masterpiece” and generally picked comedies, highly verbal shows like “30 Rock,” “The Office,” “Modern Family” and “Saturday Night Live” more than the conservative Republicans. They don’t like “Dog the Bounty Hunter” and “Cops.”
Conservative Republicans like “Castle,” Jay Leno, and cable reality shows like “Swamp Loggers” (one of the liberal Democrats’ least favorites). They don’t like anti-hero shows like “Weeds” and “Dexter” and left-leaning political comedy shows like “The Daily Show” and “The Colbert Report.”
Encouragingly, if a little predictably, both sides like “The Middle.”
Less encouragingly, this data will be used to determine where political advertising dollars are spent, which promotes even less overlap in world view and understanding between the extremes on both sides.
Becoming Santa: Tonight on OWN
Posted on December 8, 2011 at 6:24 pm
Hank Stuever has an excellent piece in today’s Washington Post that addresses an issue that has really been bugging me. But first, he recommends a documentary premiering tonight on Oprah’s OWN station called “Becoming Santa.” It is the story of Jack Sanderson.
Sanderson, a single Los Angeles man in his mid-40s, decides to learn everything he can about the men who dress as Santa Claus every November and December to work in malls or at other paying gigs or who volunteer for charity appearances. While going through old family photos, Sanderson discovers a picture of his recently deceased father dressed as Santa Claus, taken not long after the death of Sanderson’s mother. Was his father finding some mysterious comfort in donning the red suit and white beard? Would doing so help Sanderson cope with his own feelings of loss and mortality?
Santas and historians provide background as Sanderson attends Santa school, rings a bell on a street corner, listens to children’s wishes, and leads a parade. Stuever likes the show a lot.
“Becoming Santa” would have quickly become hokey and glib in someone else’s hands, but Myers and Sanderson approach the project with an earnest and searching tone. The result is both happy and melancholy, and admirably real, as we learn more about the icon’s complicated history — a mashup of religion, superstition and marketing. The act of being Santa is far from perfect, Sanderson discovers, but something about it remains magical. “Becoming Santa” is filled with a fresh take on hope.
What I especially like about Stuever’s piece is the way he contrasts the sincerity of this film with the ugliness of some of the Christmas shopping ads on television this season. Ever since those awful Black Friday ads with the woman in training for shopping at Target it has seemed to me that commercials have been harsher than usual and off-key with current economic conditions and sensibilities.
Best Buy, in particular, is running a terribly callous series of commercials called “Game On, Santa,” in which obsessed female shoppers purchase the gifts that their loved ones really want at Best Buy and then wait up on Christmas Eve to accost Santa Claus in their living rooms and gloat that they’ve already beat him to the punch. In your face, you outdated fat man with your outdated presents!
“Awk-ward,” a woman mock-hisses at a baffled, sweet Santa caught standing at her tree, ready to lay out his gifts to her family. She points out that she’s already filled her children’s stockings with Best Buy junk, offering him a chance to fill her dog’s stocking instead. No one can watch this ad and feel at all good about its message, or about a society that would become so fixated on transactions that it viciously turns on Santa.
His description of these and other commercials in the context of this program’s sweet reminder that playing Santa can keep alive the spirit of giving is well worth reading.