Art/Culture

The White House Press And The Colbert Curse

Posted by on January 19, 2007 at 11:25 pm. NO Comments :

Last year Stephen Colbert delivered what will probably be the most memorable comic presentation that the White House Correspondent’s Association will ever see. He showed up in character as the bombastic pundit that presides over his Colbert Report. And throughout the routine he pounded the media just as much as he did the president. Here’s an excerpt:

“But, listen, let’s review the rules. Here’s how it works: the president makes decisions. He’s the decider. The press secretary announces those decisions, and you people of the press type those decisions down. Make, announce, type. Just put ’em through a spell check and go home. Get to know your family again. Make love to your wife. Write that novel you got kicking around in your head. You know, the one about the intrepid Washington reporter with the courage to stand up to the administration. You know – fiction!” [Transcript] [Video]

Apparently the Colbert experience was too much for the WHCA. This year they have elected to go with the comfort food of comedy, Rich Little. The lasting legacy of Colbert’s performance may be that the WHCA may never have another poignant and provocative guest speaker. But not only did they book Little this year, they have also instructed him to layoff of the President. Says Little:

“They don’t want anyone knocking the president. He’s really over the coals right now, and he’s worried about his legacy.”

The latest salvo in this feud has Steve Scully. president of the WHCA, denying that any conditions were imposed on Little. If true, that would make Little a liar. But Scully’s statements have there own inconsistencies. After explaining to Little that the dinner is attended by, “people who live and eat politics,” he later critiques Colbert as being, “very sophisticated and if you’ve not seen his show you may not get it.” With Little, Scully added, “you don’t have to explain his humor.”

So Scully’s opinion of his White House press colleagues is that they are immersed in politics but incapable of understanding sophisticated political humor without an explanation. His opinion suggests that, despite going to all of the right congressional hearings and cocktail parties, they still don’t have a clue as to what’s going on.

Come to think of it, that’s my opinion of them too.

YOU Are Time’s Person Of The Year?

Posted by on December 20, 2006 at 7:18 pm. NO Comments :

In it’s homage to You, TIME informs us that it is no longer…

“the powerful and the famous who shape our collective destiny as a species.”

As a member of a species whose collective destiny is in dire need of reshaping, this news is received with cautious optimism.

Along with the Internet there has come a surge in popularity for collaborative media. The problem with TIME’s analysis is that it’s several years too late. 2006 was a great year for YouTube, but all of the other examples cited, from MySpace to Wikipedia, and a bounty of blogs, were viable and growing long before TIME’s taking notice this year. You could easily go back to the presidential primaries of 2004, when candidates and independent advocates were organizing and fundraising, to observe this new media’s maturing significance. And that significance extends far beyond the trivialities of MySpace, restaurant reviews, and other leisure activities on which TIME seems to focus. There’s nary a mention of citizen media or education.

TIME itself captures the award for cop-out of the year by declining to honor any of the people that made these innovations possible, choosing instead to praise everyone, no matter what their level of participation. So I assume that the producers of the lonelygirl15 videos on YouTube are partying right along with former Rep. Mark Foley (R-Perv), an avid social networker.

Furthermore, by choosing You, TIME rejected other candidates for “the person who most affected the news or our lives, for good or for ill, this year,” Candidates like Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, with his growing influence in the Middle East and nuclear aspirations; Al Gore, whose documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth,” rocked the eco-house; or even the founders of the year’s true web sensation, YouTube. That’s right – TIME threw over all of that as well as Iraq, Darfur, North Korea, and the Democratic takeover of Congress, for You. You, lounging on your sofa in your underwear with a bag of Fritos in your lap. And You, cowering in your cubicle hoping your boss doesn’t catch you reading this. And You, trying to figure out how to attach this to an email to 400 of your dearest friends. (Hint: Just use this link). You’re all Person of the Year.

Given the rank absurdity of this selection, why then did TIME choose You? Seriously, I know You and, frankly, I’m not impressed.

The explanation starts with the magazine’s inability to perceive its own demise. TIME is an old media, dead tree, anachronism, grasping for relevancy in a world that is passing them by. So they are paying their respects to the new Electronic Godfather on the block with the hope that it will keep their little shop safe. At the same time, they are putting everyone who picks up their magazine at a newstand on the cover. I think they really believe that if you see yourself in the strip of mylar stuck to the surface, that you’ll be unable to resist forking over five bucks for your own copy.

Perhaps the most profound revelation in TIME’s essay about You, is the part where they admit that…

“You can learn more about how Americans live just by looking at the backgrounds of YouTube videos-those rumpled bedrooms and toy-strewn basement rec rooms-than you could from 1,000 hours of network television.”

Those of you who’ve seen 1,000 hours of network television know only too well how true that is (and you may want to leave the apartment once in a while). But I’m not sure whether that’s a tribute to YouTube or an indictment of television. Well, actually I am sure.

You Better Watch Out

Posted by on December 1, 2006 at 11:04 pm. NO Comments :

Santa Clause is Coming Town
And if you know what’s good for you, you’ll lay low. Operating from a secret, undisclosed location, Claus’ Dark Ops program is without parallel. That might explain Dick Cheney’s frequent visits. There has never been a credible sighting of the mysterious man and it is said that he never ventures out in daylight.

Still, he manages to maintain an impenetrable network of personnel and data. Admiral John Poindexter’s Total Information Awareness initiative pales by comparison. The methods by which Claus accumulated his data are unknown but they are, by all accounts, accurate to the smallest detail. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales must envy this guy. He can enter anyone’s home without first obtaining a warrant and he can peer into the most intimate corners of your personal life. In fact, he sees you when you’re sleeping and likewise knows when you’re awake. Frankly, he’s beginning to creep me out.

What do we really know about him, anyway? Some experts have speculated that he is being treated in his hideaway for diabetes and heart disease. But that speculation may just be based on reports of a persistent weight problem. Reports have also leaked from the compound that Claus suffers from obsessive-compulsive disorder evidenced by a reflexive desire to produce lengthy lists and check them over twice or more.

Despite controversy, Claus does have an impressive array of supporters both inside and outside of governments throughout the world. But one look at the sort of people that count themselves as his defenders is another reason for concern. People like Bill O’Reilly who has gone so far as to declare that there is a war on Christmas. Jews, Muslims, and other non-Christians are characterized as secular in this war and accused of wanting to cut and run from Jesus.

Other interests in the Claus empire include commodities like plastic and timber. His firms have virtually cornered the market in pine. He is also a major player in transportation and shipping and has been called the brains behind Onassis. But his net worth can only be guessed at. We do know that he came in first on the Forbes Fictional Fifteen.

Claus’ detractors have learned the hard way what it means to tangle with him. He can be a ruthless competitor and he has demonstrated an ability to endure sleepless nights and daunting schedules that include heavy lifting and world travel. The one sentiment that is most frequently expressed by those who have challenged him is an admonition that has gained mythic proportions. Ask one of his victims and they will invariably warn that…

“You Better Watch Out!”

[The Flash movie linked here is my entry in the Huffington Post Contagious Festival. If you like it, please send it to everyone you know and put links to it on your blogs, MySpace pages, etc.]

Leave It To Blather

Posted by on November 2, 2006 at 9:59 am. NO Comments :

Leave It To Blather
Who would have thought that after 50 years the Cleaver brothers would be looked back upon as media visionaries? But the insight and stark analysis preserved in this video unmistakably marks them as the intellectual peers of Minow, McLuhan, and Colbert.

This archival footage was discovered inadvertently while desperately searching for anything on television that wouldn’t induce vomiting. After hours of review (and 14 pints of Ben & Jerry’s Chunky Monkey), this startling and historically significant clip surfaced. TV will never be the same.

The video linked above contains an actual clip from Leave It To Beaver. In the episode’s customary moralistic epilogue, the boys tackle the same defects in television news that Jon Stewart so elegantly skewered in his Crossfire appearance.

To me, seeing this icon of innocence and family values humorously addressing a media problem that persists 50 years later, illustrates just how entrenched these problems are (and how easy they are to make fun of). But the fact that we’re still laughing at the same jokes is a bit disheartening. It’s not exactly an affirmation of progress.

The parade of prattling pundits that populate the closing credits are only a taste of the Blathering Class that infects our national discourse with deceit, diversion and division. And yet, people watch. Are we gluttons for punishment, addicted to conflict, or just starved for knowledge and hoping some will inadvertently reveal itself?

I don’t know. I guess I watch too much TV.

NBC: Shut Up And…Oh Just Shut Up

Posted by on October 27, 2006 at 2:29 pm. NO Comments :

Following the recent announcement of censorship by CNN and NPR when they refused to air ads for the film, “Death of a President,” it seems the dawn is not yet here, because it’s still getting darker.

NBC has now refused to broadcast ads for the Dixie Chicks’ new movie, “Shut Up and Sing.” (See the ad here). This is the same NBC whose censors just finished editing Madonna’s TV special because they didn’t like the religious content. The distributor for the Chicks’ film, The Weinstein Co., says NBC told them that they…

“…cannot accept these spots as they are disparaging to President Bush.”

Harvey Weinstein said in response…

“It’s a sad commentary about the level of fear in our society that a movie about a group of courageous entertainers who were blacklisted for exercising their right of free speech is now itself being blacklisted by corporate America. The idea that anyone should be penalized for criticizing the president is profoundly un-American.”

Indeed, the idea that a national broadcast network would abuse its power by prohibiting the use of public airwaves to promote a legal product on the grounds that it is “disparaging” to the president, is un-American and unacceptable. Since when is the characterization of a president a factor in whether or not a product can be advertised? This policy would also prohibit ads for “Dump Bush” t-shirts or even ads for car dealerships if they employed a silly Bush impersonator.

NBC is owned, don’t forget, by General Electric, the largest defense contractor in the world, and one of the biggest beneficiaries of Bush’s war industry as well as his pro-corporate tax giveaways. They also have a stake in the FCC’s determinations regarding media ownership and consolidation.

The Dixie’s doc tells the story of how they were silenced because they they chose to exercise freedom of speech. Now NBC is silencing them again for much the same reason. Their decision not to air these ads raises the question as to whether they were pressured by Washington to road block the movie, or are acting on their own to prop up their benefactor in the White House. Either way, they are demonstrating that their loyalty is reserved for politicos at BushCo, at the expense of the Constitution, the American people, and free expression.

Write to express yourself (while you still can):
Bob Wright, GE Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, NBC Universal
Jeff Zucker, Chief Executive Officer, NBC Universal Television Group
Randy Falco, Pres and Chief Operating Officer, NBC Universal Television Group
Keith Turner, President/NBC Universal Sales and Marketing
Marianne Gambelli, Exec Vice President/NBC Universal Sales and Marketing
Victoria Morgan, Vice President – Advertising Standards/NBC Universal

Other NBC Network Entertainment Sales & Marketing Contacts
NBC Advertising Standards Guidelines – PDF (See page 11).

Death Of A Prez Ads Nixed By CNN, NPR

Posted by on October 24, 2006 at 4:26 pm. 1 Comments :

Death of a President is a new film that has been generating both controversy and acclaim. It is the winner of the International Critics’ Award from the Toronto Film Festival. The film’s web site describes it as…

“a fictional TV documentary broadcast in 2008, reflecting on another monstrously despicable and cataclysmic event: the assassination of President George W. Bush on October 19th, 2007.”

Sadly, the media’s martinets of virtue are again patrolling the avenues of our psyches, deciding what is safe for our aesthetic consumption.

CNN and NPR are refusing to air advertisements for the film. There is nothing in the ads that is inappropriate for broadcast. Indeed, the ads were approved by the Motion Picture Association of America for all audiences. But that fact has not deterred the programmers from engaging in censorship. CNN issued a brief statement that virtually admits its intention to censor, saying that…

“CNN has decided not to take the ad because of the extreme nature of the movie’s subject matter.”

By basing their decision on the movie’s “subject matter”, they have installed themselves as the public’s nanny. They believe that they are in the best position to decide for us which subjects matter. While they are a couple of yards further over the line than NPR, the public radio network’s excuse is not much better:

“The movie is fairly likely to generate significant controversy and we’ll cover it as a news story. To take a sponsorship spot would raise questions and cause confusion.”

One wonders if that criteria also applies to sponsorships from Ford or McDonald’s. Surely they have generated controversy connected to their products. Has their sponsorship raised questions or caused confusion?

This film already has an uncommon burden to overcome as a result of its premise. Two of the nation’s biggest movie exhibitors, Regal Entertainment and Cinemark USA, have announced that they will not play the movie in any of their ~8000 theaters. Newmarket Films, the movie’s distributor, insists that they will be able to open in plenty of theaters. They say that they are getting support from many exhibitors including the Landmark Theater chain.

These broadcasters and exhibitors, who have appointed themselves the protectors of the public’s tender sensibilities, deny that any partisan motive is at play. But an objective observer would note that they all previously played nice with another controversial release distributed by Newmarket, “The Passion of the Christ.”

So what is the reason that this film is getting such a different reception? It couldn’t be the subject matter, could it? Look at the trends:

  • The Dixie Chicks criticize the president and they’re thrown off the radio. Has that ever happend to a right wing artist?
  • A network TV biopic about Ronald Reagan is protested by conservatives and it gets shuttled off to cable. But ABC’s Path To 9/11 airs despite opposition.
  • An artist exhibits a work entitled, “The Proper Way to Display the Flag,” and the gallery is told to shut it down. But when Bush walks on a flag at Ground Zero, it’s just another photo-op.

It appears that everyone has an equal right to protest, but only Republicans can turn their protests into edicts that deny all Americans access to the embattled works. It’s called censorship, and it’s alive and well in America.

Update: Tim Graham at NewsBusters takes issue with this story. Responding to my criticism of NPR he asks…

“Can’t this blogger differentiate between a Bush assassin and Ronald McDonald?”

Tim is veering off on a detour to address a point that’s right in the middle of the road. If NPR declines an ad for this movie because of the appearance of bias in the event that they cover it editorially, doesn’t that same consideration come into play for any sponsor that they might cover editorially? And by the way, I can differentiate between a Bush assassin and Ronald McDonald. The Bush assassin in the movie harms no one except another character in the film. Ronald McDonald’s influence on real children harms thousands of them every year.

Eat At Cheney’s

Posted by on October 1, 2006 at 2:39 am. NO Comments :

Now at Cheney’s,

It’s The Grand Scam Warfest Breakfast
A celebration of culinary barbarism.

At Cheney’s, abuse is on the menu 24 hours a day. So tie up the wife, bind and gag the kids and come on down to Cheney’s.

Don’t Torture Yourself!

With the passage of the Freedom to Torture Act of 2006, all Americans can learn to appreciate the joys of Waterboarding and Sleep Depravation. In fact, we should be able to partake of it in our own communities in the comfortable surroundings of establishments we commonly patronize. Torture is no longer an elitist pastime reserved for the priveliged few. Thanks to the United States Congress, discrimation is once again cast out of American society. Aren’t you proud?

The Flash movie linked above is my entry in the Huffington Post Contagious Festival. I would appreciate it if you’d take a look and, if you like it, send it to everyone you know. And I do mean everyone. I’ll be checking so don’t try any funny stuff.

Deep In The Heart Of Dixie Chicks

Posted by on September 19, 2006 at 1:26 am. NO Comments :

The Toronto International Film Festival recently screened the documentary, Shut Up and Sing, chronicling the travails of the Dixie Chicks after their righteous slap at Crawford’s Lost Idiot. In remarks at a post-screening news conference, the Chicks demonstrate their grasp of the hazards of institutional media:

…the Chicks say they have absolutely no regrets about speaking their mind. If anything, the experience made them realize just how vulnerable to censorship we are in the world of consolidated media ownership and nationally uniform radio playlists.

“Consolidation means one guy at the top decides everything and I don’t think the media has been successful in pointing out why it’s so dangerous,” [Emily] Robison says.

Of course “the media has been [un]successful in pointing out why it’s so dangerous.” The handful of corporations that control the media are the architects and beneficiaries of consolidation. That the Dixies recognize the significance of this issue speaks to the fact that they are well informed and aware of the forces that they have learned, the hard way, are dangerously encroaching on press and creative freedom.

Since the media cannot be depended on to act in the interests of the public, it is up to all of us to act in our own interests. Visit Stop Big Media, bookmark it, and email the link to your friends and family. Contact the FCC and tell them that more consolidation does not create competition. It is critically important that people realize that we cannot solve any of our society’s problems without solving the problem of the media first. No matter what your pet issue is, you need access to communication channels to produce movement. Without a free, diverse and independent media, those channels will be denied to us.

The Dixie Chicks get it. They continue to be impressive, both artistically and socially. Their honesty and courage shines through the mud that is hurled at them. And throughout the ordeal they’ve refused to back down as evidenced by their hit single “Not Ready To Make Nice” and by the audacious declaration in the documentary that Bush is a “dumbfuck“.

Ah…the simplicity of truth.

The Hypocritical Patriotism Of George W. Bush

Posted by on September 13, 2006 at 6:54 pm. 1 Comments :

"What is the Proper Way to Display a U.S. Flag?" [by Dread Scott] is an “installation for audience participation.”…In 1989, while on display at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, [it] became the center of national controversy over its use of the American flag. President Bush Sr. declared [it] “disgraceful” and the entire US Congress denounced this work as they passed legislation to “protect the flag.” U.S. President George W. Bush and first lady Laura Bush stand on a carpet commemorating the date of the attacks of September 11, 2001 near a mural depicting those attacks outside the Ladder Company 10 firehouse opposite the site of the World Trade Center in New York, September 10, 2006.

REUTERS/Jason Reed


The News Corpse Film Salon: Update

Posted by on September 13, 2006 at 11:23 am. NO Comments :

I have added a couple of films to the Salon that deserve some attention. You can see the full list of 11 progressive-themed films that are scheduled to be released between now and election day in November at The News Corpse Film Salon.

Al Franken: God Spoke
The makers of “The War Room” turn their cameras on yet another burgeoning political career. AL FRANKEN: GOD SPOKE is a cinema verite pursuit of Al Franken, shot over the course of two years, which follows the former Saturday Night Live comedian from his highly publicized feud with Bill O’Reilly to his relentless campaign against George Bush and the right wing.


The War Tapes
In March 2004, just as the insurgent movement strengthened, several members of one National Guard unit arrived in Iraq, carrying digital video cameras. THE WAR TAPES is the movie they made with Director Deborah Scranton and a team of award-winning filmmakers. It’s the first war movie filmed by soldiers themselves on the front lines in Iraq.