Category: media

At the 1999 Electronic Entertainment Expo, the booth marketing the new game The Sims was placed in convention Siberia and no one was paying any attention to it, including the company that was putting it out. “But, within hours, an unplanned, illicit kiss between two of the game’s background characters made The Sims the talk of the show.”

“The big ratings swings perplexed industry leaders and analysts. The correction in audience share raised questions about how just two families in Nielsen’s audience pool of 2,700 Los Angeles-area families could have such an enormous effect on the ratings.”

“For the next generation of television the consumer product must be the service, not a device with individual content services added as an afterthought.”

“Action movies are all about wish-fulfillment. Does she fulfill any wishes for herself, rather than for other characters? When female characters are routinely “strong” enough to manage that, maybe they’ll make the “Strong Female Characters” term meaningful enough that it isn’t so often said sarcastically.”

“When Americans make films about a world in which the only law is the gun, they tend towards the romantic – for example, almost every western … Everybody else’s dystopias, from The Matrix to 1984, are those in which the powers that be are all-pervasive. Our dystopias are those in which they cannot or will not help us.”

“Public broadcasting officials worry that universities and states, including New Jersey, that hold public station licenses but are not primarily broadcasters may decide to give up some or all of their spectrum and use the proceeds for other needs, such as unfunded pension liabilities.”

“Outrage is a special artistic achievement. [Ida] Lupino approaches the subject of rape with a wide view of the societal tributaries that it involves. She integrates an inward, deeply compassionate depiction of a woman who is the victim of rape with an incisive view of the many societal failures that contribute to the crime, including legal failure to face the prevalence of rape, and the over-all prudishness and sexual censoriousness that make the crime unspeakable in the literal sense and end up shaming the victim.”

“If you look at the rise of popular criticism since World War II, the trajectory had been an engagement with larger social issues with relation to popular culture. I don’t see recappers doing that now.”

“If the contemporary rom-com is filled with the stresses of urban life — text messages, high heels, workplace drama, stylish high-rise apartments, shopping montages — then the Sparks love story is rooted in an almost pre-digital arcadian space, a stone’s throw from the ocean, filled with ancient trees bathed in golden light.”

“The real journey started with the questions – Who is she? Who is the white girl sitting next to her? But even more importantly – who commissioned the painting?”