Don’t Trust the Toy Lady

Posted on September 17, 2010 at 8:00 am

The LA Times reports that back to school reports on a number of national and local newscasts have included commentary from “a young mother and ‘toy expert’ named Elizabeth Werner,” described as “perky and positive-plus” in her demonstration of seven recommended toys for children. She talks about all the things the toys do in her segments on the air, but does not mention one fact parents might like to know — she is paid $11,000 for each toy she presents by the same company that is hoping you will buy them.
James Rainey points out that it is a violation of FCC rules for a news program to present a sponsored segment without disclosing that it is, in effect, an ad. It is also a violation of journalistic ethics which even chirpy morning shows are supposed to uphold.
Rainey, who by example demonstrates exactly what those standards are for, notes that

Werner is a lawyer who worked for a couple of toy companies before she went into the promotion business. She told me that the company that hires her to do the tours — New Jersey-based DWJ Television — scrupulously notifies TV stations that toy makers pay for the pitches. DWJ founder Dan Johnson, an ABC News veteran of decades gone by, said the same.

So I picked three stations and morning programs that Werner visited over the summer — Fox 2 in Detroit, Fox 5’s “Good Day Atlanta” and the independent KTVK’s “Good Morning Arizona” in Phoenix to see how they plugged the Werner segments. A spokesperson for the two Fox stations and the news director at the Phoenix outlet told me they had been told absolutely nothing about Werner being paid to tout products, which ranged from a Play-Doh press to a new Toy Story video game to the Paper Jamz electronic guitar.

He notes that the burden is not on the promoter who is being paid but on the news programs, who should always be suspicious of anyone who claims to be an expert, especially one who is touring the country without any visible means of support.
The burden, unfortunately, is on parents, who must also learn to be skeptical about “experts” who are just live-action versions of Marge the manicurist or Mr. Whipple the store manager.

Teen Sex in the Movies — What Has and Hasn’t Changed

Posted on September 16, 2010 at 8:00 am

This week’s releases include two films different in tone and style but both about the same time-honored subject of teenagers and sex. Every generation of teens thinks it invented sex and every generation of novelists and film-makers finds some new way to address one of the most significant moments in coming of age. “The Virginity Hit” and “Easy A” are both teen sex comedies set in affluent suburban communities with affectionate parents who are permissive to the point of being ineffectual (curiously, both families have adopted children). Both movies assume and portray an omni-networked community with technology deployed to make the most intimate details of everyone’s life and everyone’s responses to those details instantly and publicly available.
In a way, this is the update of the famous opening scenes in movies like “Bye Bye Birdie” and “Grease,” where news about going steady or a summer romance are transmitted with very different focus from the sexes via those predecessors to Twitter: the phone and actual in-person communication.
While the theme of teen sex and romance is eternal, the specifics in these new films are very contemporary, even emblematic of the age of social networking, texting, and YouTube. While individual sexual experiences continue to produce anxiety and intense emotion, the overall portrayal of sex and especially the all-but universal awareness of and involvement in each other’s sex lives is very different from earlier films. But in a more fundamental sense, the two movies are downright old-fashioned. They exemplify the double standard. Even in this casual world free from judgment in many respects, sex is seen very differently from the perspective of a boy and the people around him than from the perspective of a girl and the people around her.
“The Virginity Hit” is the story of a boy who is the last of his group of friends to have sex. The title refers to a tradition for observing — sometimes literally — this rite of passage; when one of the group has sex for the first time, they bring out a special bong shaped like a naked woman and smoke marijuana while they discuss all of the details. (Yes, I know, heartwarming.) Matt is the only one left but he has high hopes; his girlfriend of two years is willing and he has made plans for a special night.

In the world of this movie, sex is always a triumph for the boy and always a group bonding experience to be shared without restriction or inhibition. Indeed (and this is not unprecedented in movies of this genre) it feels as though the real act of consummation is the sharing; the sex itself is just the means to that end.
The medium is a part of the message in “The Virginity Hit,” which is shot as though it is a documentary. The other film opening this week is the more traditional “Easy A” in both style and content. It, too, is the story of a widely shared story of a teen sexual encounter. In this case, however, the main character is a girl, the encounter is fictitious, and her reputation is ruined. Emma Stone plays a girl who falsely tells her best friend she has had sex with a college boy just to appear interesting and important. And then she pretends to have sex with a closeted gay classmate to protect his reputation as a “manly” man, with pretty much the whole school listening at the door. No celebratory bong hit for her — she just becomes the talk of the school and the subject of open censure from the chastity club. She also, inexplicably and completely out of character, accepts payment for her pretend sexual encounters.
“The Virginity Hit” portrays sex from a male perspective. It is about conquest and masculinity and the other person does not really matter (there are three possible prospects he goes after in the course of the film). “Easy A” is the sadder but wiser tale from the girl’s side, told to us as explanation and apology. Like “Virginity Hit,” it is written and directed by men. And it continues a tradition going back to “Where the Boys Are” and even “The Scarlet Letter” referred to in the title of assuming that girls who have sex are branded forever as tramps, even, in this case, when the sex is faked.
I’d love to see the movie Stone’s wise and witty character would write and direct. In the meantime, parents of teenagers who see or hear about these films might want to try to get them to talk about the risks of the over-share and the even bigger risks of the over-judge.

What’s the Future of 3D?

Posted on August 28, 2010 at 8:24 am

“Avatar” comes back to the screen this week in 3D IMAX only (with nine new minutes) and box office returns are inflated with 3D glasses surcharges. Theater owners like 3D because of the extra charges and the push it gives to audiences who might otherwise wait a few months for the DVD. Home entertainment systems are working hard to bring 3D effects to your home. Studios take films that were shot “flat” and convert them post-production to 3D in films like “Alice in Wonderland” and “Clash of the Titans.” Some 3D movies set records (“Avatar”). Others flop (“The Last Airbender” — coincidentally previously named “Avatar”). Where is it all going?

Slate has a good discussion on the pros and cons of 3D with movie critic Dana Stevens and “Explainer” Daniel Engber. I especially liked Engber’s list of his favorite 3D scenes. The “Dial M for Murder” Grace Kelly scissors shot he mentions is a classic. However, while Alfred Hitchcock shot the film in 3D, it was not released that way until 1982, 38 years after it was made.

3D is like any other tool available to film-makers. It is only as good as the imagination and judgment of the people who are using it. This year, it was used poorly (any movie where it was added after shooting, though the rabbit hole scene in “Alice in Wonderland” had a nicely vertiginous thrill) and brilliantly (“Despicable Me” — be sure to stay for the credit sequence, which both makes fun of and makes perfect use of the technology).

Reduced Smoking in Hollywood Movies

Posted on August 23, 2010 at 3:59 pm

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a government agency, has listed cigarettes in movies as a key factor in teen smoking. The Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences has said that studies show a clear link showing that kids who watch movies with smoking are more likely to smoke.
So, it is a small step forward that the CDCP announced last Thursday that scenes of smoking in high-grossing films fell to 1,935 incidents last year, down 49% from the recent peak of 3,967 in 2005.
This may in part be the result of a change in 2007 that includes smoking incidence in MPAA ratings, following four years of requests from state attorneys general and other groups. The MPAA has refused, however, to make smoking an automatic R-rating, even with an exclusion for historical accuracy in films like “Good Night and Good Luck.” “On April 22, 2009, the MPAA interrupted North Carolina Senate debate on landmark smokefree workplace legislation to demand a loophole for smoking in film productions. ‘The motion picture industry worries the bill would prevent actors from smoking on screen,’ reported the Associated Press,” according to Smoke Free Movies. They were successful in getting an exemption written into the law.
A significant factor in reduced smoking onscreen may also be pressure from websites that specifically review smoking in movies. Smoke Free Movies, a project of Stanton A. Glantz, PhD, professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, has a directory of actors with more than three smoking roles. Scene Smoking from Breathe California of Sacramento-Emigrant Trails, shows how smoking is shown in films, classifying it by whether it is the lead actor, a credited non-star, or an extra, whether the brand is shown, and whether the smoker is a good guy or a bad guy.
The CDCP says:
Although the behaviors and attitudes of family and friends are the main influences on adolescent decisions to use tobacco, the media–films, television, and the Internet–also influence these decisions.5-8 According to recent studies,
* Current movie heroes are three to four times more likely to smoke than are people in real life.5,6,9
* Young people in the United States watch an average of three movies a week, which contain an average of five smoking episodes each, adding up to about 15 exposures to smoking a week. Young people may be exposed to more smoking in movies than in real life.
* A teen whose favorite star smokes is significantly more likely to be a smoker.
* Approximately two-thirds of films seen today show tobacco use, including films that are rated PG or PG-13 and intended for young audiences.
* Films depicting tobacco use are increasing and are reinforcing misleading perceptions that smoking is a widespread, socially desirable, and normal behavior, and they fail to convey the long-term consequences of tobacco use.
Smoke Free movies notes, “The 390,000 kids recruited to smoke each year by the smoking they see on screen are worth $4 billion in lifetime sales to the tobacco companies. And that’s just in the United States.”
The CDCP has a video about the influence of movie smoking on teens called “Scene Smoking: Cigarettes, Cinema and the Myth of Cool.” It is available for view online or by DVD.

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Understanding Media and Pop Culture

Decode Scott Pilgrim’s Inside Jokes

Posted on August 15, 2010 at 3:34 pm

I’ve been hoping someone would do this — Moviefone has found 30 references to games, music, and pop culture in “Scott Pilgrim vs. The World.” Any that they missed?