Category: media

When people say, “There’s nothing on TV,” it isn’t because there’s nothing on TV. It’s because there’s so much on TV that they can’t find the stuff they really want to watch.

The folks at NPR’s On the Media (not produced by NPR) explain the difference between public radio in general, the actual NPR network, the competitor networks (APM, PRI) whose shows air alongside NPR programs, the local public radio stations where most of us actually hear the shows, and local member stations who produce national programming.

“Many of the defining aspects of Twin Peaks can seem clichéd today: Its narrative intricacy, its darkness, its reliance on antiheroes. But that’s just because we are by now so used to the show’s sensibility in our televised diet. What set this show apart [in 1990] has so thoroughly been assimilated that talking about it is like pointing to the sky and calling it blue.”

“You might say that the teen weepie picture is cathartic of all these adolescent anxieties, but theorists are increasingly dubious about whether or not catharsis exists, at least where tears are concerned. Do you actually purge emotions when you cry over art?”

“Charlie Chaplin was famous in a way that no one had been before; arguably, no one has been as famous since. At the peak of his popularity, his mustachioed screen persona, the Tramp, was said to be the most recognized image in the world.”

“When everything is available — and previously ephemeral, arcane, or rare footage is only a click away — an appropriate scholarship can only begin by tracing the robust trails of information radiating from any given object.”

“From the beginning, Netflix chief content officer Ted Sarandos has been abundantly clear that what Netflix values most is a piece of content’s ability to continue attracting eyeballs long after its premiere. That’s why there isn’t a single episode in its vault of original and library content that isn’t at least semi-serialized storytelling.”

“Ahluwalia wanted to make a documentary. He spent a year and a half researching and talking with actors and directors. After putting in that time, no one would agree to talk to him on camera.”

Netflix’s best shows are prestige pieces born fully-formed for our binging pleasure—House of Cards, Orange is the New Black, Arrested Development—not the looser medium of the celebrity gabfest. But if the service is going to tip its toe into the waters of what we typically call “late night TV” (a term that’s nearly meaningless in the on-demand world of streaming television) there’s no one better partner than Chelsea Handler.”

“While no sensible person would ever claim that the Hero’s Journey (another name for it) is the only form of narrative on the market, the model has proven indisputably pervasive, undeniably powerful, and irrefutably profitable. But is it inescapable, too?”