A Critical Forum on Media and Culture
A Critical Forum on Media and Culture
Media Spectacle and the Crisis of Democracy
by: Doug Kellner / UCLA
On March 10, 2004, when speaking to AFL-CIO union workers in Chicago, John Kerry said in what he thought was an off-mike comment: “Let me tell you–we’re just beginning to fight here. These guys are the most crooked, lying group of people I’ve ever seen.”
An Open Letter to the Food Network
by: Anna McCarthy / New York University
Dear Food Network, I like cooking and I like eating . . .
The 2004 Presidential Election and the Dean Scream
by: Lisa Parks / UC Santa Barbara
What was missing in this campaign in my opinion was the lack of discussion of media industry reform, which is surprising given all the ammunition on the democratic side to address such issues.
Terrorists Watching TV
by: Cynthia Fuchs / George Mason University
About a half hour into Antonia Bird’s The Hamburg Cell, a group of young Muslims are watching TV.
Black Zen Masters in the Dojo of Reality Television
by: L.S.Kim / University of California, Santa Cruz
Typically in reality television, the host is white – famous examples include Jeff Probst in Survivor, Ryan Seacrest in American Idol, and Regis Philbin in Who Wants to be a Millionaire? whose through-the-roof ratings jump-started the reality programming watershed. But in America’s Next Top Model, The Road to Stardom, and Pimp My Ride, the hosts are African American and already stars.
The Boob Tube
by: Heather Hendershot / Queens College CUNY
“It’s like Jell-O on springs!” Jack Lemmon declares as he ogles Marilyn Monroe’s fleshy derriere in Some Like It Hot (1959). Lemmon himself is in drag, and watching this film recently for the umpteenth time, I am struck again by its strange combination of heterosexual prurience and queer exuberance. I am also struck by Monroe’s plumpness.
Right Turn: Talk TV and Contemporary Politics
by: Rhonda Hammer and Douglas Kellner
Talk television has become increasingly political in the past years.
To Pee or Not to Pee: On the Politics of Cultural Appropriation
by: Brian L. Ott / Colorado State University
Although I appreciate the courtesy of my fellow drivers letting me know what pisses them off and whom they’d like to piss on, I can’t help but notice that they have adopted the same cultural icon to convey, at times, very divergent targets of distaste.
Sculpting a Digital Language
by: Robert Schrag / North Carolina State University
A number of responses to my last Flow column wondered what form the “digital language” I advocated might take. The question took me back to a very non-digital experience.
Race and Reality…TV
by: L. S. Kim / University of California, Santa Cruz; UCLA
A prime-time line-up without reality television programming seems a lifetime ago.