Tag Archives: movies

Female characters in recent movies and TV shows still marginalized

Posted on by

A new study shows female characters in recent movies and TV shows still play very different roles than men:

The study, lead by sociologist Stacy L. Smith, analyzed 11,927 speaking roles on prime-time television programs aired in spring 2012, children’s TV shows aired in 2011 and family films (rated G, PG, or PG-13) released between 2006 and 2011. Smith’s team looked at female characters’ occupations, attire, body size and whether they spoke or not.

The team’s data showed that on prime-time television, 44.3 percent of females were gainfully employed — compared with 54.5 percent of males. Women across the board were more likely to be shown wearing sexy attire or exposing some skin, and body size trends were apparent: “Across both prime time and family films, teenaged females are the most likely to be depicted thin,” Smith wrote in the study’s executive summary. The ratio of men to women in STEM fields was 14.25 to 1 in family films and 5.4 to 1 on prime time TV. Perhaps most telling are the percentages of speaking female characters in each media form: only 28.3 percent of characters in family films, 30.8 percent of characters in children’s shows, and 38.9 percent of characters on prime time television were women.

In a summary of the study’s findings, the researchers reported that they found a lack of aspirational female role models in all three media categories, and cited five main observations: female characters are sidelined, women are stereotyped and sexualized, a clear employment imbalance exists, women on TV come up against a glass ceiling, and there are not enough female characters working in STEM fields.

This reminds me of the video Killing Us Softly 4: similar images of women are spread throughout advertising and other areas. Television and movies don’t exactly depict reality but we can still ask what values they are portraying. It is not just about entertainment; sure, people want to escape from the real world from time to time but any sort of media is creating and working with values an ideas. Of course, the real values portrayed by television and movies may be consumerism (for example, in the latest Bond film) and making money.

Is James Bond’s social status diminished by product placement?

Posted on by

Product placement is rampant in Hollywood films and here is a look at what products James Bond is now selling:

Never mind the other products basking in the superspy’s aura, such as Sony mobile phones and Vaio laptop computers, Macallan single-malt Scotch, Honda cycles, Bollinger Champagne, Globe-Trotter suitcases, Crockett & Jones footwear, Walther guns, Aston Martin cars, Swarovski jewelry, Omega watches, OPI nail polish, Land Rovers and Range Rovers and all the rest.Some pay for the privilege, some make other arrangements. Some, like the new James Bond fragrance hawked by Procter & Gamble, aren’t in the film. But all told, sponsorship and other ancillary deals for “Skyfall” are said to have brought in $45 million, about a third of what it cost to produce the film, one of the best in the Bond series…

Today’s sophisticated media consumer expects to see brands in TV shows, movies and even video games, according to Tom Weeks, senior vice president at LiquidThread (formerly known as Starcom Entertainment), the branded entertainment and content development operation within Chicago’s Starcom MediaVest Group. But proper context — proper casting — is a must…

Caterpillar, which first tied up with 007 in 1999’s “The World is Not Enough,” hopes the “Skyfall” connection boosts brand awareness, particularly in emerging markets like China, which seems a manageable goal.

Perhaps this kind of brand integration is inevitable: brands are always looking for subtle and not-so-subtle ways to associate their products with being “cool.” And what could be better than Bond, an international spy who doesn’t have stuff at home but instead uses all sorts of gadgets all around the world?

But, I’m reminded of Naomi Klein’s arguments in No Logo about the increasing branding of our world. If Bond is so cool, why does he need to be so connected to brands? Isn’t Bond, like the rock ‘n’ roll stars of the 1960s who built their initial popularity on rebelling and not selling out, just selling out? If Bond has to shill for products, what hope is there for the rest of society? Something doesn’t connect here: Bond’s status is tied to the idea that he isn’t beholden to the trappings of life that hold back average people yet the newer movies are now suggesting he too is just another part of the capitalistic world. Thus, Bond is just another commodity who needs other commodities to be successful. His status is now less dependent on his character or his unique actions, but, like other commodities, is tied to the fate of other commodities.

Argos hints at the negative foreign actions of the United States from the 1950s through the 1970s

Posted on by

I recently saw the movie Argo (95% fresh reviews at RottenTomatoes.com) which was quite well done for a movie for which you know the outcome. One part of the movie that intrigued me was an early timeline scene where the relations between the United States and Iran were described. The events of 1979 shouldn’t have been a complete surprise; the CIA had helped install the Shah through a coup in 1953 and the US supported the regime even through its abuses. This is the back story through which the events of the movie take place. (See the story of Iran-United States relations.)

However, the actions of the United States in Iran were not an isolated incident. Indeed, following its rise to superpower status after World War II, the United States was involved in a number of countries. Some of these actions are more well-known. A war in Korea which ended in a stalemate and reaching the brink of war with China. A war in Vietnam which became unpopular and the US didn’t reach the result for which it entered the war. The Bay of Pigs where the US hoped to depose Fidel Castro. But, there were plenty of actions that were not as well-known. Here are a few places to find out more about these actions:

1. The Church Committee was a Congressional committee that operated in 1975 and uncovered and reported on US foreign actions. The committee produced a number of reports that included information like this:

Among the matters investigated were attempts to assassinate foreign leaders, including Patrice Lumumba of the Congo, Rafael Trujillo of the Dominican Republic, the Diem brothers of Vietnam, Gen. René Schneider of Chile and President John F. Kennedy’s plan to use the Mafia to kill Fidel Castro of Cuba.

2. Former CIA operative Philip Agee wrote a 1975 book titled Inside the Company: CIA Diary where he detailed what he knew about CIA actions to influence politics in Latin America. For his actions, Agee’s passport was revoked and he became a persona non grata in some countries friendly with the US. In 2007, Agee described why he came forward with what he knew:

“It was a time in the 70s when the worst imaginable horrors were going on in Latin America,” he says. “Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay, Guatemala, El Salvador – they were military dictatorships with death squads, all with the backing of the CIA and the US government. That was what motivated me to name all the names and work with journalists who were interested in knowing just who the CIA were in their countries.”

Watching Argo in light of this information may just change the interpretation of the final scenes. At first glance, these scenes can be viewed as yet another American success story: American ingenuity and hard work again fights off the forces of darkness. But, with the more complete back story, the final scene might appear more bittersweet.

Seeing low-density Nashville as well as its revived core on TV

Posted on by

Nashville may be about country music but it also provides some views of sprawling Nashville:

Nashville remains one of the lowest density cities in the United States, and both film and series rove widely over its suburban homes and scattered music venues. ABC’s principle location, the Bluebird Cafe, occupies a strip mall in traffic-snarled Green Hills, surrounded by chain retail and McMansions. Reyna James lives in snobbish Beale Meade, a former plantation turned moneyed bastion that pointedly excluded the music community in the 1970s. Then country was considered the music of loud and ugly bumpkins. But as legendary Nashville producer Tony Brown observes: “Money can kinda pretty you up.”

Sprawl now competes with new urban designs in Nashville. Employing soaring aerial views, the series’ opening sequence scans acres of wooded hills and pasture, within which are carved oases of development, including the Opryland Hotel, the Mall in Green Hills and the Belle Meade estates. But no longer is Nashville a city without a center. The camera circles the downtown’s middling skyscrapers, zeroing in on Nashville’s resuscitated heart, the 120 year-old Ryman Auditorium, a former tabernacle and “the Mother Church of Country Music.”

The rest of the article provides some interesting insight into how Nashville has been viewed in movies and on TV.

One thought while reading about the changes in Nashville and how it is portrayed on Nashville: TV and movies tend to show the “high points” of urban and suburban life. In other words, we tend to get sweeping shots of urban cores that show off tall buildings and lights. When showing suburbs, we tend to see big houses and well-kept lawns. Both sets of images tend to promote a more glitzy image. What we tend not to see is the more mundane aspects of suburban and urban life. In the suburbs, you don’t see much of the big box stores or strip malls or fast food joints or local institutions like churches, schools, and civic buildings. (I’m also thinking here of Modern Family – we don’t see much of their actual community as most of the action takes place inside of several large houses.) In the city, we don’t see “normal” neighborhoods but tend to see neighborhood hangouts, which always tend to look like nice bars or coffee shops, as well as cool apartments or condos. Perhaps “normal life” is too boring for these story lines but movies and TV shows aren’t exactly providing an honest image of places.

Argument: George Lucas is the “greatest artist of our time”

Posted on by

Camille Paglia explains why she believes George Lucas is “the greatest artist of our time”:

Who is the greatest artist of our time? Normally, we would look to literature and the fine arts to make that judgment. But Pop Art’s happy marriage to commercial mass media marked the end of an era. The supreme artists of the half century following Jackson Pollock were not painters but innovators who had embraced technology—such as the film director Ingmar Bergman and the singer-songwriter Bob Dylan. During the decades bridging the 20th and 21st centuries, as the fine arts steadily shrank in visibility and importance, only one cultural figure had the pioneering boldness and world impact that we associate with the early masters of avant-garde modernism: George Lucas, an epic filmmaker who turned dazzling new technology into an expressive personal genre.

The digital revolution was the latest phase in the rapid transformation of modern communications, a process that began with the invention of the camera and typewriter and the debut of mass-market newspapers and would produce the telegraph, telephone, motion pictures, phonograph, radio, television, desktop computer, and Internet. Except for Futurists and Surrealists, the art world was initially hostile or indifferent to this massive surge in popular culture. Industrial design, however, rooted in De Stijl and the Bauhaus, embraced mechanization and grew in sophistication and influence until it has now eclipsed the fine arts.

No one has closed the gap between art and technology more successfully than George Lucas. In his epochal six-film Star Wars saga, he fused ancient hero legends from East and West with futuristic science fiction and created characters who have entered the dream lives of millions. He constructed a vast, original, self-referential mythology like that of James Macpherson’s pseudo-Celtic Ossian poems, which swept Europe in the late 18th century, or the Angria and Gondal story cycle spun by the Brontë children in their isolation in the Yorkshire moors. Lucas was a digital visionary who prophesied and helped shape a host of advances, such as computer-generated imagery; computerized film editing, sound mixing, and virtual set design; high-definition cinematography; fiber-optic transmission of dailies; digital movie duplication and distribution; theater and home-entertainment stereo surround sound; and refinements in video-game graphics, interactivity, and music.

Read the entire interesting argument.

Four quick thoughts:

1. This broadens the common definition of artist. It acknowledges the shift away from “high art,” the sort of music, painting, and cultural works that are typically found in museums or respectful places to “popular art” like movies and music.

2. The argument doesn’t seem to be that Lucas is the best filmmaker or best storyteller. Rather, this is based more on his ability to draw together different cultural strands in a powerful way. Paglia argues he brought together art and technology, combined stories from the past and present, promoted the use and benefits of new technologies that were influential far beyond his own films.

3. Another way to think of a “great artist” is to try to project the legacy of artists. How will George Lucas be viewed in 50 or 100 years? Of course, this is hard to do. But, part of creating this legacy starts now as people review an artist’s career though it could change with future generations. I wonder: if technology is changing at a quicker pace, does this also mean the legacy of cultural creators will have a shorter cycle? For example, if movies as we know them today are relics in 50 years, will Lucas even matter?

4. How would George Lucas himself react to this? Who would he name as the “greatest artist” of today?

New cultural gatekeepers: paid online reviewers

Posted on by

After recently discussing buying Twitter followers, the New York Times explores another new online realm: paid online reviewers who only give extremely positive reviews.

In the fall of 2010, Mr. Rutherford started a Web site, GettingBookReviews.com. At first, he advertised that he would review a book for $99. But some clients wanted a chorus proclaiming their excellence. So, for $499, Mr. Rutherford would do 20 online reviews. A few people needed a whole orchestra. For $999, he would do 50…

“The wheels of online commerce run on positive reviews,” said Bing Liu, a data-mining expert at the University of Illinois, Chicago, whose 2008 research showed that 60 percent of the millions of product reviews on Amazon are five stars and an additional 20 percent are four stars. “But almost no one wants to write five-star reviews, so many of them have to be created.”

Consumer reviews are powerful because, unlike old-style advertising and marketing, they offer the illusion of truth. They purport to be testimonials of real people, even though some are bought and sold just like everything else on the commercial Internet.

Mr. Liu estimates that about one-third of all consumer reviews on the Internet are fake. Yet it is all but impossible to tell when reviews were written by the marketers or retailers (or by the authors themselves under pseudonyms), by customers (who might get a deal from a merchant for giving a good score) or by a hired third-party service.

I am most intrigued here by the possible change in relationship between a reviewer and an author. The article suggests there is some sort of “sacred” distance between the two: the reviewer is free to criticize the work without recrimination. Some reviewers have attained elite cultural gatekeeper status, people who guide decision-making for millions of people. Think of critics like Siskel and Ebert and Robert Christgau who are seen as authoritative figures. Hence, people are upset when they learn that a positive review they saw wasn’t an “honest” opinion but rather a business transaction.

However, let’s not forget that these reviewers also make careers out of their thoughts – they may not have sold out to a corporation or a product but they do have a financial interest. I would argue that this distance between reviewer and author/creator has never really been so sacred and there are plenty of areas where we are used to paid reviewers. If you follow a reviewer enough, you can often learn what they do or do not like. Indeed, some reviewers have become outspoken proponents of certain movements and not others. Is this based on a completely rational, detached perspective? Of course not. Don’t many reviewers interact with the people who are producing the products they are reviewing? Think of blurbs on the back of books: are these truly unsolicited comments or from people who are truly judging the merits of the book? More crassly, commercials often present “reviewers” or “real people” or people made to sell certain products. Perhaps this is simply a sign of our times and will become normal as there is clearly a market for good reviews.

It will be interesting to see how websites like Amazon, heavily dependent on user reviews, works through this issue. I always try to read both the five star and one star reviews when considering a product. Additionally, there are other issues: the ratings can be about the product itself or a particular aspect of the product or about people’s expectations for the product or the shipping or the customer service or something else. I think Amazon could include a few extra questions, as other websites do, that would help one sort through the variety of reviews. Overall, the system is not perfect and we should be aware that we may not be getting the “unvarnished truth,” but at least it is better than going off anecdotal evidence from a friend or two…right?

Argument: New England neighborhoods attract movies because they have character and don’t have McMansions

Posted on by

A columnist in Swampscott, Massachusetts argues New England neighborhoods have a sense of place, don’t have many McMansions, and therefore attract filmmakers:

If you’ve ever traveled outside New England, you begin to notice that most of the rest of the country looks a lot alike. Rapid development on a budget lends itself to a landscape of boxy stores in strip malls and cookie cutter homes. Some of these cookie cutter homes are “McMansions,” and very nice to live in, but even so their exteriors are unmemorable, duplicated a million times over.

New England—Swampscott—looks different.  Neighborhoods have personalities. The roads curve in unpredictable ways.  Houses don’t all look alike. I happen to like the intricate purple paint on a certain home on Paradise Road, but we all have our favorites…

Yet there is true value in this difference.  Part of the reason that Massachusetts has attracted so many movies is because of our location—place matters.  Grown-Ups 2 is here because Swampscott looks like a typical New England town, and New England is a good brand, a marketable brand.

And crucial to the New England brand is a community’s willingness to embrace its historic past, to pay attention to its older buildings, and to, in short, care about the way something looks. A quick drive through the Olmstead District will remind all of us how lucky we are that the Mudges had the foresight to hire someone so talented to lay it out, that the town pays to upkeep the greens, and that the homeowners in the area now take such pride in their property.

New England does indeed have its own style and character though plenty of other places in the United States have historic preservation districts that are intended to save older buildings.

There is an interesting implication here that McMansions developed in places with less character. This would be intriguing to track: did the term first arise in Sunbelt locations or in more historic communities that felt threatened by new, big, mass produced homes?

I also wonder how many movies actually do film in New England compared to other locations. According to the Massachusetts Film Office, five films are in production or have recently finished filming. Like many other places, Massachusetts offers incentives for filmmakers:

Massachusetts provides filmmakers with a highly competitive package of tax incentives: a 25% production credit, a 25% payroll credit, and a sales tax exemption.

Any project that spends more than $50,000 in Massachusetts qualifies for the payroll credit and sales tax exemption. Spending more than 50% of total budget or filming at least 50% of the principal photography days in Massachusetts makes the project eligible for the production credit.

New movie to feature “nonviolent conflict resolution specialist teaching sociology”

Posted on by

It is relatively rare to find television shows or movies that feature sociologists. Here is a new one: the upcoming movie Hit & Run features one of the lead characters as a sociology instructor.

Charlie Bronson (Dax Shepard) is trying to live a quiet, respectable life in a small California town in Hit & Run. He’s doing right by his girlfriend (Kristen Bell), a nonviolent conflict resolution specialist teaching sociology at a local college, sharing a tender moment in bed as the film opens. But, things go south really quickly.

You see, Charlie’s actually in the witness protection program for testifying about a botched robbery turned homicide he witnessed in Los Angeles. Now his girlfriend’s been offered the opportunity of a lifetime in LA and, rather than lose her, Charlie decides to risk everything to get her there. The couple quickly picks up a few tails in pursuit, including Charlie’s assigned marshal (Tom Arnold), Bell’s jealous ex (Michael Rosenbaum), the cons Charlie ratted out (Bradley Cooper, Ryan Hansen and Joy Bryant), and a pair of local law enforcement caught up in the swing of it.

I wonder how much the film plays up the irony of a “nonviolent conflict resolution specialist” teaching sociology getting involved in exciting car chases…

Shoddy McMansions provide good settings for books, movies

Posted on by

A book review in the Christian Science Monitor suggests that McMansions lend themselves to good mysteries:

Forget crumbling castles or isolated mansions. The recession has created something truly rare: a whole new kind of haunted house. The summer’s best two mysteries are both set in shoddy subdivisions of McMansions – relics of wrecked hopes built just before the housing bubble popped in 2007. Both feature seemingly golden couples, one Irish and one American, who lose the ability to cope when the world suddenly throws out the guidebook to the good life. And both offer shrewdly written, darkly compelling stories that rank among the year’s best.

So there is at least one good thing about McMansions: they make for good dystopian settings!

I will note that this is not limited to fiction books. A number of movies and television shows also use McMansions as a backdrop. Think of The Sopranos or the Real Housewives series. As with books, there is some commentary here as well: McMansions are lived in by certain kinds of people.

Ph.D. degrees are pretty rare, The Five-Year Engagement notwithstanding

Posted on by

In the movie The Five-Year Engagement, one of the main characters has a post-doc at the University of Michigan in social psychology. I wondered how many people know what a post-doc is and this pushed me to think more broadly: just how common is a Ph.D. in the United States? According to the 2012 Statistical Abstract, there were 49,562 PhDs awarded in 2009, up from 42,437 in 1996. According to the National Science Foundation, here are some additional figures on the number of doctorates awarded:

-In the first year of their data, 1957, there were 8,611 PhDs awarded.

-The greatest years of PhD growth (measured by % change from previous year) were clearly in the 1960s with peaks of 14.1% in 1965 and 14.6% in 1970.

-There were 48,069 doctorates awarded in 2010.

(Unfortunately, these tables do not break down how many doctoral students graduated with degrees/concentrations in social psychology.)

Census figures from 2010 say 27.9% of Americans have a bachelor’s degree or higher. Figures from 2011 show that 7.95% of Americans have a master’s degree and 3% have a doctorate or professional degree.

All this suggests that PhDs are relatively rare in the United States meaning that many Americans may not be able to relate to this story (plus, how many movies or TV shows focus on academia?). However, the movie is set in San Francisco and Ann Arbor: 51.2% of residents in San Francisco have a bachelor’s degree or higher (with a California state figure of 30.1%) and 19.7% of residents have a graduate or professional degree (ACS estimates). In the college town of Ann Arbor, 71.1% of residents have a bachelor’s degree or higher (with a Michigan state figure of 25%) and 42% have a graduate or professional degree (ACS estimates).

So is Judd Apatow aiming for a more educated audience with his latest film?