No Heene Family Wife Swap

Posted on October 23, 2009 at 3:59 pm

The savagely funny Washington Post television columnist Lisa de Moraes takes on the Heene family’s lust for reality television fame. The Heenes and the family behind the balloon boy hoax and subsequent media blitz. Slate’s Culture Gabfest noted that it was not until the post-rescue effort interviews that law enforcement suspected that the whole thing was a publicity stunt.
de Moraes notes that Lifetime has decided not to air the Heene family’s previous attempt at reality television fame and fortune, an appearance on the “Wife Swap” series. I like the way she makes it clear that Lifetime should have pulled it from broadcast based on its exploitative and overall disgusting content, completely apart from the subsequent discrediting of the family’s authenticity.

Lifetime…had no problem with Dad, a.k.a. Richard Heene, observing that “once a woman hits 25, it’s all downhill from there,” creating a “meter” to gauge his temporary, pretend wife’s behavior and when she asked him to help around the house, shouting at her, “You’re a man’s nightmare! I’m so glad my wife was born in Japan. Nag, nag nag! Over 25 years old. You sag!”

Which we believe qualifies as not only sexist and ageist, but maybe also racist, which would make it a veritable Hat Trick of Prejudice.

It’s one thing if the so-called adults in the Heene family want to humiliate themselves for fame and fortune; it’s another to take young children into the media circus with them. We should think carefully about whether the Heene parents’s behavior constitutes child abuse. And we should think even more carefully about the extent to which the robust ratings for this kind of reality television make us all enablers.

Paranormal Activity: Marketing or Art?

Posted on October 22, 2009 at 8:00 am

Jen Chaney has an astute article in the Washington Post about the latest movie phenomenon, “Paranormal Activity.” Like The Blair Witch Project, it is more concept than movie, taking advantage of what most would consider a disadvantage: no money. The premise of both films is that they are found footage from rudimentary amateurs. And both films arguably had more creativity in their marketing campaigns than in the films themselves.
Chaney calls it a “a pop cultural sneak attack,” not just in terms of its box office (exceeding its under-$15,000 budget many times over in its first weeks of release) but in its buzz. The title is a top-trending topic on Twitter. It “outsold a 3-D Pixar double feature (the “Toy Story” re-release), a Bruce Willis thriller (“Surrogates”) and a Michael Moore documentary (“Capitalism: A Love Story”). ”
The movie’s trailer audaciously showed the audience’s shocked reaction to what they were watching, like the film recognizing that our imagination is much scarier than anything that could appear on screen. And Chaney describes the “you have to ask for it” marketing campaign.

Apparently because we — the same individuals who relish our right to elect a president, choose our American Idols and watch our favorite TV shows OnDemand — voted to bring this slow-building shocker to a theater near us. Or at least some of us did. Paramount Pictures, the studio distributing “Paranormal Activity,” has dubbed it the “first-ever major film release decided by you,” mainly because of an online polling system that guaranteed a nationwide roll-out for the micro-budget movie once 1 million supportive votes had been cast.

Whether those votes reflect actual audience demand for the film or whether they were an appearance that created a reality, it worked, and “Paranormal Activity” will unquestionably be one of the most profitable films of the year.

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Understanding Media and Pop Culture

A Teacher’s Inspiration

Posted on September 13, 2009 at 1:46 pm

There’s a great essay in today’s Washington Post by a high school teacher named Nancy Schnog who found inspiration in a book written by another high school teacher, Bel Kaufman, in 1964. It is Up the Down Staircase. Kaufman, the grand-daughter of beloved writer Sholom Aleichem, whose stories inspired “Fiddler on the Roof,” wrote an epistolary novel (made up of notes, letters, memos, reports, fliers, and other written ephemera) about

an English teacher’s struggles with school bureaucracy, with students up and down the axis of caring to couldn’t-care-less, and with her inner self as she strives to do a job that asks everything — oversee, organize, proctor, chaperone, coach — except the thing she’s there to do: teach.

The book was an enormous hit in the 1960’s, translated into 16 languages and made into an award-winning film starring Sandy Dennis.

Schnog writes:

The novel poses the question that still haunts many an English teacher: Should I stay and fight on behalf of literature, or go earn money at a job with intellectual challenges, edible food, bathroom breaks and a blissful absence of school bells?

This was the dilemma ruining my sleep. Even though as a private-school teacher I benefited from small class sizes, the multitasking high school grind was dragging me down. My daily rounds included five literature classes with roughly 10 minutes to review assigned books before class. That was all the time I had to prepare lessons and grade papers too. In between 250 minutes of instruction each day, the “free periods” were a mind-numbing dash from students’ questions to parents’ e-mails to administrative duties. Throw in, too, the daily troubleshooting: investigating a case of plagiarism, fixing the Xerox machine (again), explaining to the girl texting during class why she is going to the discipline committee.

All this, plus the biggest problem of all: how, while on the run, to instill passion for serious literature in a generation of students with a shrinking interest in reading, as iPods, Facebook and YouTube consume their mental universe.

Schnog was able to speak with Kaufman, now 98 years old and glad to explain “that the human encounter between teacher and student is often a more powerful teaching tool than the academic content on a paper or test.” Now that is a good lesson.

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Books

Tribute: Budd Schulberg

Posted on August 6, 2009 at 12:00 pm

Hollywood legend and Oscar-winning screenwriter Budd Schulberg died this week at age 95. His best work documented the anguish and corruption he observed growing up as the son of one of the top executives of MGM at the height of the studio era. The Washington Post’s Adam Bernstein wrote:

Mr. Schulberg was the son of a legendary Hollywood producer whose fortunes rose and fell dramatically. As a result, he once said he was intrigued by “how suddenly go up, and how quickly they go down.”

He used his insider knowledge of Hollywood politics to write his first novel, “What Makes Sammy Run?” in 1941. A grotesque account of vice being rewarded, the book was widely praised (though not in Hollywood) and made him a star author at 27.

Vivid, crackling dialogue was his hallmark in about 10 other books and a handful of riveting films. He wrote the memorable speech that included the line “I coulda been a contender,” spoken by actor Marlon Brando in “On the Waterfront” (1954)…

Mr. Schulberg’s next project, “A Face in the Crowd” (1957), skewered the television industry and became a lasting favorite of critics and moviemakers. The film, again directed by Kazan, featured Andy Griffith in what many regard as his best role. Griffith played “Lonesome” Rhodes, a cracker-barrel prophet who self-destructs after he lands a national television show. “Face” was an underrated gem, a perceptive look at the future of television and politics.

This scene from “On the Waterfront” is one of the best-remembered in the history of film:

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Behind the Scenes Tribute Writers

Washington Post Online Discussion

Posted on July 6, 2009 at 5:18 pm

The transcript of my online discussion about the Washington Post profile is up on their website. Many thanks to all of you who participated!

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Media Appearances Q&As