Angelina Jolie is currently on the big screen playing the part of Marianne Pearl, “a French-born, brown-skinned, kinky-curly-haired woman of Afro-Cuban and Dutch heritage. Ponder the societal implications of Jolie sporting a spray tan and a corkscrew wig. Discuss: Is this the latest entry in the American canon of blackface –21st-century style? Or does Jolie’s color-bending turn as the wife of slain journalist Daniel Pearl herald a sea change in our racial consciousness?”
Author: sbergman
Those Dirty, Dirty Arabs
Hollywood has never been shy when it comes to stereotyping non-white characters, especially in time of war. As one young filmmaker puts it, “In every movie they make, every time an Arab utters the word Allah? Something blows up.” A new documentary tirelessly (some would say obsessively) highlights the industry’s one-dimensional treatment of Arab characters.
The Next Great Canadian Conductor?
Seemingly out of nowhere, 30-year-old Canadian conductor Julian Kuerti has emerged to become one of the fastest rising talents in a highly competitive business. He runs a new-music ensemble in Berlin, has served as assistant to Ivan Fischer in Budapest, and this fall, he’ll step into the position of assistant conductor of the Boston Symphony. Not bad for a guy who’s been conducting for less than a decade…
The Death Of Internet Radio?
Internet radio stations around the world will be going silent this Tuesday, in protest over new rules that could put many of them out of business permanently. “The Copyright Royalty Board ruled earlier this year to increase the fees Internet stations pay to record labels and artists to a flat fee for every track played. The increase is retroactive for the prior 17 months.”
The Man Who Demystified Architecture
A major retrospective of the work of David Macaulay is underway at the National Building Museum. “Macaulay created imaginary buildings that felt more alive than real ones. And in the process, he demonstrated the power of a sometimes maligned theory of education — that far more important than the recitation of particulars and facts is the understanding of systems and methods and context.”
Vatican Library Renovation Panicking Scholars
The Vatican Library is preparing to close for a three-year overhaul, which has set off a scramble among scholars to access texts that will shortly go into storage. “Petitions addressed to Pope Benedict XVI, the ultimate authority on Vatican matters, are circulating among scholars. Some ask that the manuscript division at least remain accessible to the public during the three-year renovation. Others request that the closing be delayed until 2008 so that scholars will have time to wrap up research and meet publishing or teaching deadlines.”
Who Will Speak For Rushdie?
With Muslim extremists demanding blood in exchange for Salman Rushdie’s pending knighthood, Tim Rutten wonders why there have been so few voices in the West defending Rushdie? “What masquerades as tolerance and cultural sensitivity among many U.S. journalists is really a kind of soft bigotry, an unspoken assumption that Muslim societies will naturally repress great writers and murder honest journalists, and that to insist otherwise is somehow intolerant or insensitive.”
Canadian Film On The Edge Of The Abyss
“On the brink of closing one of the biggest deals in the history of Canadian entertainment – the sale of Alliance Atlantis’s Motion Picture Distribution arm, also known as MPD, to Manhattan-based investment house Goldman Sachs – many of the most powerful names in Canadian film and TV are claiming that the sale of such a heavyweight distributor to a foreign company could decimate the industry here. And they’re demanding Ottawa do something about it.”
Shrinks Weigh In On Ultraviolence
Much has been made of the extreme brutality and unapologetic torture that goes on throughout such new-wave horror movies as Hostel 2. But do mental health professionals really believe that such over-the-top violence is dangerous to those of us living in the real world? A group of Boston psychiatrists watched the film, and concluded that normal, healthy people wouldn’t be inspired by the brutaility. Still, “by fusing the erotic and violent, there are ways you create fantasies that become a playground for serial killers.”
All That’s Missing Is The Real Blood
When Nintendo launched its Wii video game system late last year, some observers were cautiously optimistic that the revolutionary controller, which forces the user to use actual physical movement to create the action on the screen, would change the sedentary nature of gaming. But when the controller is being used to mimic the actions of a brutal serial killer, slicing and dicing in the privacy of one’s living room, a lot of hackles are raised.