on today's agenda...
1. i don't really have a lot to say on the numbers below. i'm sure i could contrive something, but i think the numbers make a statement on their own. take from it what you will...
6 min. 21 sec. - amount of time a typical half-hour local tv-news broadcast devotes to sports and weather
38 sec. - amount of time a typical half-hour local newscast devotes to u.s. foreign policy, including the war in iraq
- time (february 28, 2005)
2. on the academy awards (or the oscars...call it what you want) last night. i didn't watch them. not in protest or anything, but mostly because i don't really care. i'm not going to let a group of rich, wrinkly, cranky old men tell me what movie was good and who can or can't act. so, i went to see the movie that i thought should have won "best picture" instead of whatever the hell won (the boxing one maybe?). if you haven't seen it...go see "finding neverland." it makes "peter pan" an even better story. but, i won't waste your time telling you about it. just go see it and enjoy it.
but, back to the oscars. during my reflection on the awards show i didn't watch, i also decided that i find it more respectable to play a character that has never existed than to be somebody who has already left their mark on this world. now, i don't mean to say that i thought jamie fox did a bad job of portraying ray charles, hell...i haven't even seen the movie, so i wouldn't know. but as a general theory (which, as many people who know me are aware of, i have a lot of theories) i think it takes more skill to invent a character than to assume a pre-created one. personally, i don't really care who is the best actor or actress. i like who i like. i am my own academy. dammit.
3. finally...i want to address the michael jackson case. well, more the media around it. tonight, jon stewart (who i am sure i will fondly mention on several occasions) showed clips from various news stations reporting from the scene of the case all using the phrase "media circus." the abundance of "media self-criticism" was nuts. do they really think that by bad-mouthing themselves i'm going to trust them any more. no, i'm sorry...the thought running through my head is "christ, can you get any more self-righteous and egotistical? i don't watch the news to see you report on yourself." shit, i don't really watch the news. but, it's mostly for reasons like the one i just mentioned.
now taking from the format of a blog i'm constantly enjoying, i leave with you a quote:
"i'll take an oscar from one of the sound or light people that win and give it to him. jamie foxx is not going to walk out of that place without an oscar." - chris rock, host of this year's oscar telecast, on the star of "ray" (time, january 31, 2005)
Monday, February 28, 2005
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1 comments:
1. First of all, America has no foreign news-breaking involvement (that citizens follow) besides the war in iraq, and everyone is already tired of it. No news channel would devote much time to the war unless they want their followers to switch to another broadcast. Don't forget that even news agencies are in the business of making money for their network. Capitalism is what america does best. if you don't like it, move to canada, we don't want you anyway.
Sports is what America does second best. The USofA is typically the leader (typically as in lately) of gold medals at the olympics. We have so many good athletes that we typically don't compete on an international level (canada excluded). We are the only country to have futbol americano, a decent basketball organization, decent baseball organization... Every European country has international teams or international competitions in order to organize enough good players to make the match or game worth the publics eye (ie, worth a profit). point being, america is the most competitive nation in the world (though, many people, yourself included, do not choose to partake) and nobody outside the US would ever disagree. Heck, we successfully recruit for our sports teams from all over the world.
The best thing the local news could do for their followers would be to give them what they are interested in most, right? 6 minutes, 21 seconds worth of it.
2. Surely it would be 100 times more difficult to portray a character that has already existed. You're confined by action, body language, emotion...shit the way they look, talk, smile, laugh... Anyone can make up a character as they go along. It's like waking up on the wrong side of the bed, one day you just feel different so you act different. professional actors, those who make a living doing it, can move in and out of different characters in minutes. Poof!
3. i think you've missed the medias point entirely. If you've read any newspaper with any regularity for the past few years, you'll realize that michael jackson is bigger than life to the world public. I mean, really, who is the guy? nobody knows! stories are made up, the truth is stretched, maybe questioned, and it becomes reality. It doesn't help in the least bit that the guy is a bit abnormal.
Let's also not forget that America is one of the only countries that has superstars. Our superstars are the same superstars in the rest of the world. When something happens to one of them, it's only fitting that it becomes a media frenzy. The rest of the world wants to know about it. Read an international newspaper, you'll see what I mean. It's what the world community wants to know about, probably even more so than the war in Iraq. maybe 3 frenzied minutes, 28 frenzied seconds worth of it.
Anyway, for your next post, take some time to post something more profound than a regurgitation of what you see on the news with your own opinion attached. It's boring. The rest of us would rather fill our time with 6 minutes 21 seconds of weather and sports, 31 seconds of the Iraq war, 10 minutes of the Oscars, and 2 minutes of Jacko.
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