No, it’s not an MLA paper topic. But Negrophile points to an interesting economics paper on same-race voting preferences in American Idol. Short version: the number of black viewers rises with the number of black contestants, and voting behavior tends toward same-race recognition, with black viewers more likely to vote for black candidates, non-black viewers […]
Quote of the day:
"I am begging the scriptwriters to consider making the factory more glamorous and successful."
This from a study claiming that Coronation Street has turned a generation of young Brits off factory work.
UPDATE: Now I’m confused. The very same Guardian is reporting that Hollywood’s glamorous and successful mathematicians, including the ones on crime […]
I guess things like television ratings are a matter of perspective.
Ratings for Oscars Down a Bit, Despite Innovations
Rock gives Oscars a bounce
Chris Rock effect fails to boost Oscars
Trade Round-Up: Rock Boring, Oscar Ratings At A Five-Year High
Oscar ratings sink with Rock
Chris Rocked the audience numbers: ABC
Oscar ratings beat expectations
I’m not sure the Academy should be […]
Over the holidays I had a semi-heated discussion with friend on the merits of Sex and the City. He hated and thought it just a half-hour of product placement. I defended it, not too articulately. In hindsight, I realized I don’t mind the show’s consumerism — unlike true product placement which tries to add glamour […]
Despite the whiny, miserable people involved, I’m loving Wickedly Perfect. This week’s showdown involves synchronized swimmers! I will say for a bunch of would-be lifestyle mavens, their menu planning sucks - serving both lamb and lobster with white wine? or deviled eggs with red wine?
UPDATE: I should maybe expand a little bit, given that […]
Now the other Red vs. Blue story… currently watching The Biggest Loser on NBC, where the Red team and Blue team of overweight contestants compete to lose more weight. Is this is a genre parody?
“One must distinguish between naïve and deliberate Camp. Pure Camp is always naive. Camp which knows itself to be Camp (”camping”) is usually less satisfying.” - Susan Sontag, Notes on Camp.
Can one even distinguish - in the age in which video has collapsed cinematic and televisual history into an ever-accessible archive of style and genre […]
Document A
Now, 10 years later, “Friends” leaves the air as nearly the last representative of the once-ubiquitous “Seinfeld” clone. After its two-hour retrospective and finale special on Thursday at 8, prime time will be noticeably short on the singles-in-the-city series that defined TV comedy in the 1990s. The fast-declining “Will & Grace” will be the […]
I’ve been meaning - really - to write a post on NBC’s The Apprentice, and tonight’s finale seems like the time to get around to it finally. The surprise of the show has been that’s it’s made for such great television by juggling multiple dramas at once. It presented a battle of the sexes, stereotyped […]
So Sex and the City has gone out with, not a bang, but a whimper. Granted, it could have been worse. It could have been schmaltzier. Or off the deep end like Seinfeld’s finale. But in playing it safe, the writers played it a little too safe. I was struck thinking back to the replayed […]
I found the PBS documentary on Tupperware to be thoroughly entertaining. Yes, the archive footage as kitsch was a bit fomulaic, but the personalities of the history - whether the key figures of Tupperware inventer Earl Tupper and sales genius Brownie Wise or the everyday women who sold Tupperware - are fascinating subjects. Still, I […]
Slate has a hilarious, spot-on review of the new Keno twins antiques show on PBS, tackling among other things the disturbing sexual sublimation that forms the basis of the Kenos’ banter and their furniture adoration.
The twins’ very twinness is a kind of novelty act, the show’s ace in the hole, and they love to […]
Despite my initial misgivings about the new gay shows on Bravo, I have to say they’ve turned into the most exciting television on this summer season. So much of the debate centers on whether they perpetuate stereotypes or are good gay images. (See for example the American Prospect’s review). But that seems to me to […]
If the New York Times is to be believed, we’re in for a dire season of network TV come Fall. More rural sitcoms and divorce comedies, plus talking animals. I do love the horribly inappropriate name “Touch ‘Em All McCall” featuring Tom Selleck coaching a baseball team. But the prize has to go to a […]
It’s amazing how Fox’s 24 has moved from being topical in a vague but fantastic way at the season’s beginning (when NYT’s Caryn James noted how the far-fetched plots undercut the show’s reality effect) to acting as a creepily parallel to the Iraq war and in particular to this week’s speculation (discussed in The Daily […]