Category: media

Native Americans have played virtually no role in Hollywood movies. “Today, say native American artists, that is slowly beginning to change.”

Radio dramas were once a staple of the dial. But TV changed all that, and though there are still die-hards plugging away producing shows, the outlets have shrunk. Fans hope new technologies like satellite radio or the internet might revive the genre. But will it?

The head of Telefilm Canada is urging the government to spend more on Canadian drama for domestic consumption. Canada already spends $1.4 billion every year to produce original television programs and films, and yet studies have shown that not a single Canadian program ranks in the top ten list of most popular programs. Is it that the American production juggernaut is just too powerful, or are Canadian-made dramas just generally not up to snuff?

For the first time in more than half a century, German television is showing a program about Nazis. And it’s a comedy. “Non-German directors in a long line that stretches from Charlie Chaplin to Roberto Benigni may have dug humour from beneath the horror-strewn surfaces of Nazism and fascism. But for Germans themselves, ‘the catastrophe’, as it is often called, has been too painful to be seen as anything but a tragedy.”

Forget sex and violence. What sells these days is humiliation. Some “reality,” eh? “Viewers have shown an insatiable appetite for the queasy thrill that comes from watching an ordinary person suffer searing public embarrassment in exchange for 15 minutes of fame.”

“Consumers love the Netflix rental model, which lets subscribers order DVDs online, receive them by mail, and keep them for as long as they want without late fees. Walmart.com likes it so much that it’s launching a nearly identical service early next year. ‘They’re printing packaging that is essentially identical to ours. Blockbuster is close behind’.”

What’s that, you ask? Praise the anti-arts, anti-NEA, anti-progressive, anti-anything-that-hints-of-compassion obstructionist US Senator? “While his actions may very well be motivated by the interests of small conservative Christian Internet broadcasters, his support for the Small Webcasters Settlement Act (SWSA) has compelled some noncommercial station backers to feel for him what they never imagined they could – gratitude.”

“The Future of Music Coalition (FMC) charges in a new report that the 1996 Telecom Act, which allowed companies to own more stations, ‘has not benefited the public. It has led to less competition, fewer viewpoints and less diversity in programming.’ Nonsense, says the National Association of Broadcasters. “Studies repeatedly show 75% of Americans express high satisfaction with radio. This report has all the credibility of Miss Cleo.”

A Melbourne University professor puts out a call for scholarly papers on the TV show Buffy the Vampire Slayer and is flooded with proposals. “Scholarly Buffyphiles prefer the Online International Journal of Buffy Studies (www.slayage.tv), a website governed by an editorial board with academic contributors examining notions such as Buffy as ‘transgressive woman warrior’, or Buffy ‘and the pedagogy of fear’. Intellectuals around the globe are deconstructing, dissecting and extrapolating from Buffy, across disciplines, in journals and at conferences too.”

As prices for digital video cameras drop and computers with sophisticated editing capabilities are more and more available, “home movies” are looking more professional, and budding movie “auteurs” are born.