A Day Spent in the Media

“Hey guys, I want you to cheer as if you’re having the best time of your life whenever you see me clapping!”
“Just laugh as if I told the world’s funniest joke”

These were just some of the things that we had to fake to make a haircut seem as if Kanye West has just come to Toronto. It’s amazing how they have the power to make anything look interesting. They lied to us, they manipulated us, and my bum still hurts from sitting on those uncomfortable wooden boxes for two hours. Put on a fake smile, just do what they tell you to do and don’t ask questions. You can see that there really isn’t much to it to make a show look interesting. The set was small, cramped and very hot since there were so many bodies in that one tiny area. It’s disappointing when Leah came over and sat next to us and she wasn’t as great as we thought she would be. Not even half as great. She constantly swore around us, wrinkles on her face, and she wanted to get a razor for Keegans head but really needed it for her arms.

During the show, one of the people behind the cameras would come up to Leah during commercials and tell her to say that Keegan should be cutting it short since that’s how Canada voted but he chickened out. All he did was get a little trim and some emo bangs. It’s pretty sad how a haircut was the main highlight of their show. The only thing that kept me entertained was the faces my friends and I made at each other and at the show’s hosts. It was pretty cool how they only needed one camera to film the whole show and us learning how the camera works earlier in the day made it easier to understand.

The national film board has a pretty cool workshop where we got to make our very own stop motion animation. It was interesting to learn how a video is just thousands upon thousands of images in a row to get the feeling that it’s moving. They showed us many videos that were interesting and very open to interpretation. It is like how they say that a picture is worth a thousand words, stop motion animation is worth a billion words.

It is hard to believe how much work has to go into stop motion animation and just makes you appreciate the work even more. We made about a 10 second clip that took us about 20 minutes to film and about an hour to make the parts. Tim Burton spent 6 years making that movie and makes me wonder how he did not go insane. We had to find the image, exaggerate the image, and capture the image to be successful in stop motion animation. I think it would be an interesting career profession to pursue or even just as a hobby. It really makes a difference in your own knowledge when you take the time to appreciate the small things in life.

The Price to "Free" Speech

Entertainers should just entertain and give the people what they want. If they wish to express and stand up for their opinions then they should run for office and become a politician. Where does freedom of speech and equality come in then? Is “free speech” even the correct terminology? Is there a price to pay for “free speech”? Yes. Whatever you say or do will have positive or negative repercussions. Media loves to spin things more negatively/positively then the facts actually are which makes it more entertaining to watch.
Natalie Maines comment on how she was “ashamed that the president of the United States was from Texas” stirred more controversy because she said this while the president was very popular. Also, their home state (Texas) is a very conservative state that follows many old school traditions. Although the North American society claims that women are equal and treated the same as men, this does not shine through to its full potential. Women are still not treated equally and are still degraded in many ways.
How come when it comes to the issue of race, society frowns upon it and shoves it under the carpet? A statement about being ashamed about the president ruined the careers and reputation of three young women while a comment about the president not liking black people made society barely flinch. We live in a society where racism is not supposed to exist but unfortunately it does exist and it is not limited to one race. Racism is colour-blind and can apply to anybody. We are so afraid and sensitive to racism to the point where we are afraid to discuss it and act like it’s not there.

These were just some of the ways that the celebrities of our era decided to retaliate and protest. Musicians as early as the 50’s used their talent to protest against things they did not believe in but the 60’s was where the true passion of anti-war feelings came in.
This time era was during the Vietnam War which caused a lot of protest chants and songs to come out against the war. The main chant that was used a protest rallies was: “And its 1 2 3, what are we fighting for? Don’t ask me I don’t give a damn! Next stop is Viet Nam. And its 5 6 7 so open up them pearly gates. There aint no time to wonder why. Whoopee! We’re all gonna die.” Since the Vietnam War had soldiers who had enlisted and some that were drafted. This groups main protest chant was “Hell No! We won’t Go”. There were over 23 protest songs against the war during this era. Generations like these have changed and influence our society today to how it has become.

We still live in a society where men can say on live television, “The Chicks deserve to be slapped around” or “They are the Dixie twits. These are the dumbest. Dumbest bimbos with due respect, I have ever seen”. These statements are degrading towards women but were said on live news shows. With men like these in the media influencing the public, how can there ever be equality? Comments like these make it seem okay and natural in society. It makes women like Rihanna have to make tough decisions because of public influence even though her mind and heart may be telling her something else.
We discussed earlier in the year that celebrities have the responsibility to be positive role models and that they need to act certain ways in the eye of the public. Should women like Rihanna handle the Chris Brown situation how the public wants her too? Or should she be allowed to make her own decisions and still be a positive role model? We have seen the photos of the outcome of her beating but how can we be 100% sure they were not altered? There are many cases where the news media alters photos to create a more drastic and stronger feeling towards one side thus making the news biased.
People will believe almost anything they see out of that 52 inch screen. We looked at many pictures that have been manipulated. We watched many news stations that are actually entertaining stations. They take entertainment and turn it into fact less news just to fill in time and keep their viewers entertained. They are using charisma to attract viewers but losing their integrity to keep people.
Many journalists and news/media personalities have the power to persuade the audience and even manage to convince people of a total lie. The government used the media to help gain support for the War in Iraq. Fox news even managed to convince the whole country that Bush had won Florida State in the 2000 elections which is greatly believed to be the cause of Al Gore’s defeat. They have the power to make you believe that the Dixie Chicks are women who deserve to be slapped around and hate them to the point you want to kill them. So if journalists and news/media personalities have the power to do this, then shouldn’t that power be restricted? Also, should monopolies of news stations be allowed? Conservative men like Rupert Murdoch control over 9 broadcasting channels, 3 production/distribution film companies, 2 major internet companies, 8 sports related ownerships, 6 publishing companies, 3 magazine companies and 8 newspaper companies. This type of monopoly leaves room for only one viewpoint to be shown and always shows a biased viewpoint of the news.
In conclusion, The Dixie Chicks received harsh critism because they made their statement at the wrong time. Personalities of the news/entertainment should not be given so much power and should not have such biased viewpoints. Kanye West’s statement touched on a sensitive topic which no one was ready to discuss or listen too. There are many artists from every era that have protest songs and are usually about war. Freedom of speech does not exist because there will always be certain limits and you cannot say everything you truly wish too. There will always be repercussions and you must be able to deal with the consequences.

Brownielocks and the 3 bears. War Protest Songs of the 60's (sixties) Vietnam. 30 Dec. 2008. 23 May 2009 .

Diversity is important because it’s something that affects everyone. It’s more than just gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation or racial classification. It involves every single aspect of each individual, culture, and background. So as the years go by and our society becomes more diverse, how come our entertainment doesn’t? It seems like we are backtracking and changing what reality really is to what producers want it to be. It’s disappointing to see that TV is still lacking diversity but good that progress is being made. In our recent class study we found that some races are being greatly over represented or greatly under represented. Referring to the “TV’s Great Black Hope” article, we found:

Race/TV Percentage/US Population/Over-Under Representation
White/74.72%/66.2%/+8.52%
African American/13.92%/12.9%/+1.02%
Latinos-Hispanic/6.38%/15.2%/-8.82%
Asian/4.5%/4.5%/=0.00%
American Indian/0.42%/1.00%/-0.58%

As you can see there are still some big differences for racial representation on TV. “White” is being greatly over represented while Latinos/Hispanic is being greatly under represented. What we are seeing on TV does not match the reality we live in. There are improvements being made with 3/5 races being within a 1% difference gap of zero but how long will it take till all 5 races reach that gap? There is still a lack of diversity and the statistics of the shows do not match what society really looks like. Even in our own personal findings for anime sitcom we found that racial representation was unequal. Compared to the 2007 US census we found that every group was under represented except for Caucasian.

We watched many popular anime sitcoms like Family Guy, The Simpsons, South Park, American Dad, and King of the Hill and each one was still pretty “White”. We first need to get equal representation on TV so we can get rid of the “if” factor. Which means is each racial group even represented in the first place? Once we establish that then we can move onto the “how” factor. How is each culture, individual, race, gender, or age being represented? Are they being shown negatively or positively?
Also in our own study, we found that certain racial groups were represented more negatively then others. We found that certain races would always play certain roles on TV. Latinos and Blacks would usually play a criminal part while a Caucasian would play everything else. There are many other stereotypes in TV, even involving gender. Many women on TV would be seen be seen as the traditional homemaker while the man would support the family with income. This is what our ground found for racial roles:

In the media we have been influenced to think that all Arabs are terrorists who want to spread fear and see America burn. What about Aboriginal People who are always portrayed as criminals, violent, rapists, deceptive, lower intellect, or as passive and full of childlike obedience? It doesn’t help that Hollywood is always backing up Washington’s policies. The media only portrays half the side of the story and are very careful to choose the words they use like “evil”, “dangerous”, “savage”, etc which always gives a negative connotation. There is still too many stereotypes and discrimination on TV. Many ethnic groups are still not fairly represented and even misrepresented. Obviously when someone else is painting the picture about you in a negative way you are going to feel bitter and angry. You feel cheated and wonder how can you fix this? Is this how others view me as?
North America is mostly influenced by the media and believes that what they see on TV is real life. We get confused between reality and reelity. It’s time to start creating equality on TV so that all races can relate to the TV shows.
According to Fall Colors, they found that prime time diversity increases as evening progresses, with the 8:00 hour being the least racially diverse, and the 10:00 hour being the most racially diverse. This shows that they put the more racially diverse shows late at night because no one is watching. Some things that producers can do are to just simply make TV shows more diverse. Give a different racial person a primary role instead of secondary characters. Don’t go with the stereotypes that are already out there. Just simply put reality into TV shows. It matters because “more than 10 million children, on average, watch television from 8-9 o’clock in the evening? The “family hour,” as it has been called, is the most popular time for children to watch television, yet it remains the least diverse.” All of these children are growing up watching TV with no racial role model. That is why TV diversity matters.
We should not undermine our worth by comparing ourselves with others. It is because we are different that each of us is special. This is what we need to show on TV.