TECK productions presents:

"Confidence"

A story about the life of Judge George "Tookie" James

The First African American Judge in Beaver County

Come and view this documentary that is produced by TECK productions of the Mass Communications/Sociology 109 cluster.

When: Thursday May 3 12:45pm-2:00pm

Where: Mueller Theatre

Westminster College Campus

New Wilmington, PA

"Confidence"

Our documentary has been going well. We’ve made three trips out to see Judge and we have everything filmed that we want. We’ve gathered some old pictures that we are going to use in the documentary and if we need more we are going to find some old Westminster yearbooks since the Judge is an alumni. We’ve started creating our poster to advertise the showing of our documentary. We really just need to edit everything and get it the way we want it.

Fantasy or Reality...Maybe Both???...You Decide...

For this assignment I decided to watch TV shows that I normally don’t watch. I usually don’t watch too much TV so it wasn’t hard to pick. My evening started out with “Little People, Big World” on TLC. I had never heard of this show before but my roommate had it on so I decided to watch it. I also watched “Dancing with the Stars” and “The Bachelor” on ABC.

Little People, Big World, on TLC, easily exposed me to things the I do not experience in my own reality. This show is all about the Roloff family — an extraordinary family composed of both little and average-sized people. The family starts with the parents, who are both little people, they are diagnosed with dwarfism. They have four children all of whom are average size except for one. It was quite interesting to see how the family interacted with one another as well as with others. TLC follows the family around and you get to see what they do everyday. The Roloff’s live on a farm. By watching how hard the ‘little’ people worked to make their farm successful as well as raise their children, I learned a lot about their lifestyle. I have never lived on a farm or met a ‘little’ person, so this experience is something that I would have only seen on TV.

On Dancing With The Stars I ran into a cast of people who I normally wouldn’t “know” since most reality shows lead you to believe that you “know” these characters in some way. Most had achieved some sort of fame all the way from a former Miss USA, an undefeated female world boxing champion, to a former USA Dream Team Ball Player. Now I normally don’t watch this show nor do I normally go ballroom dancing with my friends, but I enjoyed the show. I am involved with dance and love dancing so this show really appealed to me. During our weekly Dance Theatre Tech classes we’ve even had a few lessons on ballroom dancing so watching it made me want to take some more lessons.

Now, I faithfully watched The Bachelor a few seasons ago during my freshman year of college. No matter how much I knew that the reality of something like this ever happening, I still enjoyed watching. I tuned in each week to watch the women fight over this man they claimed to love, that they’d only known for um about three weeks. Not to be a Debbie Downer, but how can you claim to love a man you barely know, especially when there’s hordes of other women trying to get to know him as well. Anyways, I watched the show and although I disagree with the point, I have to admit that I enjoyed watching the drama. This show defies reality as I know it. Now the fact that all of these people are searching for their true love, I can relate too. All the drama and one guy dating 16 women—not a reality that I know. The only other place I think you might find as much drama between women is either on a cheerleading squad or on a sorority suite.

After briefly talking about Meyrowitz and Baudrillard in our mass communications class, I began to see how some of their arguments make sense. Meyrowitz argues “that the very existence of television is an influence on society because it breaks down the physical barriers that separate people (Hanson, 2005, pg. 256).” For example, in Little People, Big World, I experienced life firsthand through the Roloff family. I learned what it entailed to run a farm and I also learned some of the challenges and obstacles that little people overcome everyday to live a normal life. Because of the ‘physical barriers’ in my life I never would have experienced this. TV broke down these barriers and showed me what someone else’s life is like. This influenced me so that now if I ever meet or know a little person or even someone who lives on and runs a farm I know a little bit about them, therefore influencing society. Although the barriers are being broken, the barriers are broken are through the media, which is controlled by the gatekeepers. In a sense then the gatekeepers decide what barriers are broken and what we see.

Baudrillard argues that we can no longer distinguish between fantasy and reality, especially in television. I have to go both ways on this. I can see where Baudrillard’s argument rings true. In most TV shows, the distinction between fantasy and reality is very thin. Especially to most of the people who are on the shows (The Bachelor). Another example: Grey’s Anatomy. I watch this show faithfully (even though it was not included in my prime time viewing from above) and the show seems very real. The viewer needs to take a step back and realize that although the ABC producers do a great job of making the show seem real, making these people seem like real surgeons, they are not. If you do not understand that, then I feel you are in danger. I also feel that I can argue against Baudrillard’s theory as well. In the Bachelor, at least for me, it is very clear to me that this in fact is not reality. Twenty five women all competing for a man, to fall in love with him, and marry him. Honestly how long do they think that marriage will last??

I feel that if a person has a good balance in their TV viewing they will be just fine. A person can learn a lot from TV by having their physical barriers broken down and experiencing something new (Meyrowitz). This person needs to take Baudrillard’s argument into consideration though. It is ok to learn something or experience something new from the television you watch, you just have to be smart about what you consider to be real.

The American Dream....NOT!

While reading American Sports, for my “Sporting Spirit” English class, I was learning all about how in the 1970’s people started this quest for fitness. They would jog, run, swim, cycle, walk, or play racquetball all while they smoked fewer cigarettes, drank less alcohol, ate less red meat and consumed more white meat. The most interesting thing that struck me was this sentence, “Being fat in America became the greatest single sign of personal failure.”

WHAT??? Today over half of the population of America is fat or obese. Yes, according to USATODAY 65% of adults are overweight (half of those are obese, meaning about 30 pounds or more above a healthy weight for their height). This just amazes me that only 30 years after this ‘fitness craze’ that so many of our citizens have become overweight.

The book does let on though, “Dieting had its negative side; a Gallup poll in 1986 estimated that three million Americans, most of them women, suffered from the eating disorders of anorexia nervosa and/or bulimia. If exercise and dieting failed to obtain the desired figure, the most affluent Americans increasingly resorted to plastic surgery.”

So obesity is not our only concern, today it is estimated that 8 million Americans have an eating disorder. To me, what I learned from this is that in our world today most of our citizens are either fat or they have an eating disorder. What kind of image does this promote to young children? Now wonder they grow up with distorted pictures of what they are to look like. I know that I am not obese, nor do I have an eating disorder. I wonder what percent of Americans actually live a healthy lifestyle by exercising and eating right like I do???

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.