Grey's Anatomy

One of my favorite TV shows is Grey’s Anatomy. When I first started watching Grey’s it was on Sunday evenings at 10pm after Desperate Housewives (my other favorite). As of March 28, 2005 right after the show came out and was on Sunday evening’s the ratings proved that the show retained 67% of Desperate Housewives viewers and averaged 16.2 million viewers.

This season the show was moved to Thursday nights at 9pm. The ratings did not drop after the show moved to Thursdays, in fact, I think they may be higher than before, so it obviously seems like Grey’s has a lot of loyal viewers that would follow the show to any night or time slot. According to Zap2it , Grey’s is ranked third in the Top 20 Network Primetime Series: Total Households. Now for household ratings Grey’s is ranked 14/4/22.0 in ratings/share which is about a 16,008,000 household audience. Zap2it states that this is about 22,304,000 viewers. Grey’s seems to have a wide population of viewers, although CBS airs its show CSI: Crime Scene Investigation at 9pm on Thursdays. Seems to me as if Grey’s still does quite well airing at the same time.

Now I know that these numbers are not exactly correct. My friend watches Grey’s at its normally scheduled time and while she is watching it, she tapes it for me. I miss Grey’s every week due to dance practice so I watch it either later that evening or Friday morning. After I watch it, I usually have several other friends who will borrow the tape to watch it as well. I know that many other people do this because there are over 100 members in our dance organization who all miss Grey’s each week. Therefore, the recorded number of viewers is not always correct, because they can record that my friend is watching it, but then they cannot record how many viewers view my tape of the recorded episode.

Seeing how high the ratings are even though I know that they are not always accurate leads me to believe that Grey’s will not be cancelled anytime soon. The ratings have steadily increased since Grey’s Anatomy was first shown, so I have faith that the numbers will continue to rise and I will be able to view brand-new episodes of my favorite show for many seasons to come.

Don’t Judge a Movie by Its Title, How Cliché...

Not being one for scary movies, it took me quite a while to see this movie. The title really throws you and for the longest time I thought it was a horror film. After realizing that it is not a horror film, but more of a chick flick I decided to see watch it and ended up enjoying myself.

Now nobody actually dies in John Tucker Must Die, but I do think it is still a movie worth seeing. Yes, it is a stupid romantic comedy. Yes, the girls act like big bimbos. Yes, most of the guys in the movie act like chauvinist pigs. And Yes, some might think you’d have to be a teenage girl to enjoy it. But deep in all of the bimbo’s and chauvinist pigs, the creators of the movie push some underlying issues that I think are important to today’s youth, in a fun, comedic way.

John Tucker is the guy that all the girls in school would die to date and who all the guys would die to be. He’s that amazing guy who is a great athlete, knows just what to say to girls, and everything always seems to go his way. Three girls who belong to different crowds all find out that John Tucker was dating them at the same time from the ‘new girl’. They automatically befriend her and decide that “John Tucker must die!” Through various pranks and silly ideas these girls plan their revenge on John Tucker. Most of the time, the pranks don’t work and John Tucker just ends up with more girls and more popularity.

I feel that through the revenge these girls plot we can learn a few vital things. Most importantly I think that this movie teaches young teenage girls the importance of standing up for themselves. A young girl might strive for popularity by wearing the same clothes and doing the same things as everyone else is. This might include doing whatever it takes to date the most popular boy in school. A girl needs to realize that it is never ok for a guy to use her. I’m not saying that I agree with all of the stunts and revenge plots these girls pull in the movie, but it still goes a long way to showing teenage girls that it’s ok to go against the norm.

Brittany Snow, Kate in the movie, especially shows girls what can happen if you wind up moving too fast with the crowd. She ends up acting like a completely different person than she really is. She starts to dress differently, joins the cheerleading squad, and goes along with the revenge of John Tucker just because she finally thinks she’s found ‘friend’s’ in the other girls who are plotting the revenge. Kate finally realizes who she really is, and puts an end to the revenge. She still remains ‘popular’, but she is able to be herself. I think that is the kind of message that the gatekeepers need to be sending young girls—be yourself. If you are yourself, you’re still pretty, you can still have friends, and you will still find guys to date. I feel that Twentieth Century Fox and Betty Thomas do a great job of adding these underlying themes in a funny high school romantic comedy that most teens would enjoy! Even I enjoyed it and laughed throughout the movie and I’m not a teen!

Crash, Burn, and Learn...

“Moving at the speed of life, we are bound to collide with each other. (Crash)” “Crash” is a movie where just that happens. A group of whites, blacks, Latinos, Koreans, Iranians, and others lives will collide during the 36 hours portrayed during the film. Paul Haggis writes so well that the characters seem very real after only a few words, it’s almost like you know them. The way that Haggis also directs the film with close-up shots, makes you feel as if you are a character in this movie.

The movie “Crash” was written and produced by Paul Haggis. The movie won three academy awards for best picture, best original screenplay, and best editing. If you don’t know him for his work with “Crash” or “Million Dollar Baby”, you may Haggis from his TV work where he co-created the series Walker, Texas Ranger.

The movie starts and ends with the same scene. A car crash. In between, there are many ‘collision’s’ of life between all of the characters and many different races. Two black men complaining about being discriminated against for being black suddenly turn around and carjack a well dressed white couple. After the carjacking, the couple who happens to be the district attorney and his wife head back to their house. Sandra Bullock, the wife, criticizes the man who is replacing the locks on their homes because he ‘looks’ like he belongs to a gang and that his ‘homies’ are going to come back later to break into their home.

While all of this is going on two white cops make a so-called routine traffic stop where a wealthy black TV producer and his wife are humiliated to no end. We later see into the so-called Latino ‘gang’ members’ life that was repairing the locks earlier. He’s a family man who is trying to do well for his family so they don’t constantly have to hear gun shots. An Iranian man buys a guy although his daughter advises him not too. A black cop is having an affair with his Latino partner, while he tries to protect his brother from his life of crime. The story eventually twists and the two cops, in very different situations, end up finding themselves saving the lives of the black TV director and his wife.

I would recommend for anyone to see this movie. I would give it a nine on a scale of one to ten. The movie covers many themes and issues, with the most obvious one being race. There are many movies which depict race and try to show other ways to overcome race, “but "Crash" finds a way of its own. It shows the way we all leap to conclusions based on race -- yes, all of us, of all races, and however fair-minded we may try to be -- and we pay a price for that. If there is hope in the story, it comes because as the characters crash into one another, they learn things, mostly about themselves. Almost all of them are still alive at the end, and are better people because of what has happened to them. Not happier, not calmer, not even wiser, but better. Then there are those few who kill or get killed; racism has tragedy built in. Roger Ebert”

For me, the movie brought many concerns to mind. I try to think of myself mostly as a non-racist person who only believes in a few stereotypes. After watching this movie, it really made me think about who I am and what I believe. The way that Haggis writes the screenplay, it makes you feel as if you really are one of the characters in the movie. This movie with all of its coldness and cruelty makes you step back and consider how you live your life. Are you more racist than you thought? Do certain actions you make affect others of different races? I feel that if everyone watched this movie and tried to change at least one thing in their life like how they act or think about a certain race, the world would really be making progress. Step by step we could make progress until all racism in the world is obliterated. Crash helps us to begin these steps.

Of course I’m sure there are those of you out there who are skeptical, racism is too rampant, people have set beliefs, how is one movie going to change all that? We would never know the full impact that a movie like this could make in the world unless we each took a chance. So I urge you, watch this movie, learn something about yourself, and try to change something. Even if you don’t change the world, at least you’ll wake up in the morning knowing that you’ve done something to help prevent/change racism.

Wait...Should the World Revolve Around Me or You?

"We as a people, even among a common group, have problems. We have problems with teenagers, elders, obese, or thin people. Our biggest problem is “I”. I need to see that I am not the center of the world. If I accept that idea, then I can move on to understand that not all people live like me."
--Aurora Cedillo

I read this quote in an article for my multicultural education class....I thought it was interesting and tied in with a lot of the issues we dissus in the mass comm/soc class......just a thought that some people really might need to learn that the world does not revolve around them!

Who Is He????

Who knows who invented T.V.? I know for sure I didn’t. Philo Taylor Farnsworth is known for being the first person to demonstrate and patent a working electronic television system. How come you don’t know his name then? Because Vladimir Zworykin is the one who is credited with creating the first TV and was backed by RCA. Vladimir visited Farnsworth and basically stole his idea for the T.V. Since Vladimir was backed by RCA he had more power than Farnsworth. RCA went public with the TV, therefore gaining credit for it. But, after many lawsuits Farnsworth was awarded priority for the invention and RCA agreed to pay Farnsworth royalties (Time).

Farnsworth, a young Morman boy, had his vision to create what is now called television while working in the fields. “He [Farnsworth] wanted to send pictures over the air, like sound over radio. As the story goes, he had a vision in a potato field. He looked down at the tracks left by his disc harrow and imagined tiny electrons creating a similar picture, line by line (Farnsworth).” After undertaking the daunting task of trying to invent a device that would turn an image into a stream of electrons and a television tube that could turn a stream of electrons back into a picture, Farnsworth had a lot of work ahead of him. He had many setbacks and was constantly looking for people to finance his experiments, so that he could continue his work. Some bankers finally backed him with $25,000. Philo promised them a picture within a year. It took him a little longer than planned, but “the bankers were so eager to see some return for their money, that Phil decided to play a trick on them. So, he invited them to the lab and got them in the room where the broadcast would be received. And they had drawn on a piece of paper, a dollar sign. And as they were sitting, eager to receive this picture, on came this dollar sign, and this was his way of telling them that they would get their money back. And so, that was when this Mr. Gorrell, who was one of the backers, said, "The damn thing works!" (Farnsworth).”

Farnsworth’s battle with RCA demonstrates the powerful vs. powerless topic we’ve discussed in our sociology class. Basically the powerful people (the big guys) were RCA, while the powerless (the little guy) was Farnsworth. Farnsworth, the little guy, was only a farm boy from Utah who did not have extensive resources. RCA was powerful and wealthy, therefore, proving the fact that the dominate group always comes out on top. Farnsworth fought a good fight, but no matter how hard he fought, he was very likely to loose. Since the powerful people write history, acting as our gatekeepers, it is no wonder that many people have no idea who Philo T. Farnsworth is.

"Philo T. Farnsworth was always an outsider, a bright star blazing in the dawn of a new electronic age. His romance with the electron was a private affair, a celebration of the spirit of the lone inventor." -PBS