Over the past several months, Florida State University has been preparing to face the music in its latest athletic scandal. Now that the NCAA has made its ruling, FSU officials don’t seem to appreciate the tune. However, there is little doubt that many FSU athletes, with the proper academic counseling, could name that tune, although it might take more than three notes.

In late March of 2007, the story of academic fraud involving athletes and the Department of Athletic Academic Support Services (AASS) began to surface. The initial alarm came when a student athlete came forward and admitted that at the direction of a learning specialist in AASS, he took an online quiz for another athlete, and the learning specialist provided the answers to the quiz.

From here, the information moved up the chain of command on the academic side of the university, over to the athletic side of the university, up to the athletic director, and finally to the president’s office. As FSU’s internal investigation proceeded, it became apparent that this was not an isolated case. Many athletes had been provided answers to quizzes. Some had papers written for them in the online course, “Music of World Cultures.”

By mid-summer, 23 athletes with eligibility remaining were caught up in the fraud, and it was determined that each of them should lose 30 percent of their remaining athletic eligibility. At the end of 2007, the athletic director’s contract was not renewed, and three of his assistants had resigned. Several tutors and employees of AASS were also gone.

In February of 2008, FSU sent its investigative report to the NCAA, noting that FSU had taken putative actions on the case, placed the athletic department on two years probation, and reduced some scholarships in several sports. At this point, the NCAA took up the investigation.

Two weeks ago, the NCAA announced its findings: An academic advisor, a learning specialist, and a tutor had, over the course of three years, advised 61 athletes — 25 of them football players — to cheat in an online course. FSU will lose six scholarships in football over a three-year period, and the athletic program has been put on four years probation.

The university must now determine how many of the offending athletes in several sports participated in competition. When that is determined, any victories won will be vacated.

When you look at these penalties, they are remarkably mild. There is no loss of TV revenue, no loss of post-season competition. The loss of scholarships is minimal. This is a case that the NCAA termed “egregious,” “extremely serious,” and “intentional.” The violations were characterized as “widespread academic fraud perpetuated purposefully” by three AASS staff members.

(more…)

In other bowl news, a study (pdf) from The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sports at the University of Central Florida showed that graduation rates of football teams going to bowl games had improved slightly.

It also showed that the gap between the graduation rates for African American football players and white players increased over the past year. The study found that 19 bowl-bound teams graduate less than half their African American players, with half of those teams in BCS bowls in that category.

Oklahoma was the only team to achieve a graduation rate of less than 50 percent for its white athletes. Go Sooners!

This result may in part be explained by findings of another study conducted by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution showing that SAT scores for incoming football and basketball players at big-time athletic programs were hundreds of points lower than for the average student admission.

The leader in this category is The University of Florida, where there is a 346-point gap between its football players and the average student. The result is that these athletes find themselves competing in a student body where they are at a considerable disadvantage. Some would argue that the athletes are set up for academic failure in order to ensure athletic success for the university. In a less dishonest time than our own this was termed “exploitation.”

Still, the NCAA insists on using the term “student athlete,” claiming that the athlete is and must be treated like all other students. This invites the question of transfers. Most students can choose a transfer school. Not so for student athletes, who do not have this freedom — their current school can prohibit them from enrolling in certain schools.

A case involving a football player at the University of Miami has brought the policy into focus, as this player has been prohibited from enrolling at a number of other schools in Florida and the Southeast. In the meantime, coaches are free to go wherever they choose.

On the coaching front, this is the season for hiring and firing, which highlights another great failing of the American university: The number of African American coaches continues to wallow in single digits. The inability of institutions of higher education — which educate the next generation of American leaders — to produce any change in this area remains a mark of shame.

We now know that it is easier for an African American to become president of a university, or president of the United States, than it is to become a football coach at most universities.

Have you caught March Madness? The television ratings thus far indicate that there is a greater chance this year than last that you have not.

I have. I always do. I can’t help myself.

No matter how much I loathe the hyping of March Madness, no matter how mentally disturbed I find many basketball coaches, no matter how hypocritical I find the NCAA, and no matter that I have come think of elite intercollegiate athletics as one of the most corrupt institutions of our time, I still watch.

I love the competition. I love the pure illusion that Cinderella might actually win the Big Dance, even though Cinderella needs to buy a ticket to get into the Final Four. I love all those screaming college students who actually seem normal when they wander into my classroom. I love the all-out effort by the athletes, who enjoy the beauty of competing with such intensity, even as I wonder if they ever give half that level of intensity to their educational responsibilities.

All this being said, the commercialism that now totally dominates intercollegiate athletics is beyond the pale. The corporate sponsors seem to be omnipresent. General Motors is hyping its “March Madness” sale, hoping that hoop fans will catch this form of March Madness for which this staggering corporate giant has paid a pretty penny. The length of the so-called “TV Timeout” is now approaching infinity (actually three minutes). I watched nearly an entire hockey game during these timeouts.

CBS advertising sales are estimated at $545 million on an investment by the network of an estimated $529 million. Advertising rates for the championship game will be $1.256 million, second only to the Super Bowl. General Motors, AT&T and Coca-Cola are the three biggest advertisers for March Madness and pay additional fees into the NCAA’s “Corporate Champions Program,” the NCAA’s top sponsorship level.

This gives these champs additional opportunities to build marketing programs around March Madness and other NCAA sports and the right to use the NCAA logo. One report put the cost of this status at $500 million.

Again this year, CBS and the NCAA will provide online video streaming. This time it is free to users. Sponsors such as Courtyard by Marriott and Dell will pay the freight, and commercials will appear during the games just like real television. Facebook purchased the exclusive rights for the CBS Sports Official Brackets contest. Indeed everything that moves or does not move seems to have a sponsor.

Not to worry, however, because the athletes themselves will not be able to exploit their commercial value while advertising the virtues of Enormous State University and pushing ESU’s merchandise on an adoring public. They will also find little time to pursue their education during a basketball season that sends them around the country to compete at all hours of the day and night so that ESPN, FOX and CBS will have sufficient programming to fill their schedule.

One of my favorite discussions these days is about the David Stern Student Athlete (DSSA). That’s the freshman superstar who has been forced to go to college for a year, rather than to head into the NBA after high school. The television analysts have termed them “the one and done” players. I prefer to think of them as victims of a drive-by education.

One of the more revealing discussions during one of the game telecasts this past week was speculation on whether or not these “one and done” players actually bother to go to class during the spring semester. If they plan on leaving for the NBA after the end of their David Stern enforced exile, why would they bother? It doesn’t matter if they flunk out of school because they’re not coming back to school anyway.

I love this sort of candor.

I doubt that NCAA President Miles Brand enjoyed that discussion on national television. The NCAA, of course, is all about education and student athletes, even if it is only for one year — or even one semester. I am sure someone somewhere is saying, yes, but these players are getting exposed to college (the raincoat theory of education).

This is true and, in the end, much less dangerous than being exposed to high levels of toxic waste or even all that NBA money.

Always equally edifying is the report that comes out of Richard Lapchick’s Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport at the University of Central Florida, showing graduation rates (PDF) for those universities involved in March Madness. Just how strong the commitment is to education in NCAA athletics is evident from these studies. Although they show some improvement in graduation rates over the past few years, unfortunately once again this year the gulf between graduation rates for male African American athletes and others remains quite significant (PDF).

When all is said and done, then, March Madness really is about the money, and it has either a detrimental effect on higher education or at best no effect. Its purpose, as is the purpose of intercollegiate athletics generally, has been stated quite well by former University of Michigan President James Duderstadt. He said that they exist “for the entertainment of the American public, the financial benefit of coaches, athletic directors, conference commissioners, and NCAA Executives, and the profit of television networks, sponsors and sports apparel manufacturers.”

And finally, did you know that there is an official ladder of the NCAA Championships? When the winners cut down the nets next Monday night, look for this new star of the latest NCAA revenue stream.

No word yet on the scissors.

A Virtual Moral and Spiritual Crisis: Mitt Romney’s latest campaign ad identifies video games as part of “a cesspool of violence and sex and drugs and indolence and perversions” in which “our children now swim.” Matt Peckham of PC World (yes, PC World) correctly tags Romney as just the latest in a long line of politicians that have fomented a “climate of fear” to create a more malleable populus.

By the way, is gambling “indolence” or a “perversion”? In either case, Romney will probably be happy to know that the producers of Second Life have outlawed gambling in their virtual world — which is beginning to feel like a “ghost town,” according to ValleyWag.

On the other hand, evangelizing is making a much smoother move into that same world — at least for the Jesuits. Father Antonio Spadaro tells the Financial Times: “This virtual Second Life is becoming populated with churches, mosques, temples, cathedrals. synagogues, places of prayer of all kinds. And behind an avatar there is a man or a woman, perhaps searching for God and faith, perhaps with very strong spiritual needs.” (Thanks, Lede, for the lead)

And whether it’s Second Life, MySpace or Facebook, Henry Jenkins, building off of Danah Boyd’s research, wants us to consider the “participation gap” among online users.

Drawing Well: Tim Cavanaugh of the Los Angeles Times is surprised to learn that sales of comic books have been increasingly steadily for the last five years. He’s been used to hearing only of the impending death of the genre:

If it’s striking how many movies are based on comic book properties these days, it’s even more striking how few of those properties were minted within the last decade or so … A favorite sport of industry watchers is figuring out just how the form went from being something youthful and dynamic to becoming something fearful, risk-averse and cramped.

He sees some hope in — you guessed it — the web, where sites like PvP and Modern Tales are pushing the envelope and turning a profit.

Comic books, of course, have always been a strange mixture of regressive and forward-looking ideologies. Lyle Masaki at AfterElton is sure to spark a conversation with his list of “ten of the coolest gay superheroes you (probably) haven’t heard of.”

Adhir Kalyan as Raja in “Aliens in America”

Aliens in Hollywood: Lisa de Moreas, whose laugh-out-loud columns make me feel like she’s a stand-up comedian in a television critic’s body, is having her usual fun at the summer press tour in Beverly Hills. But the story she tells in the second part of this column is both funny and revealing.

De Moreas loves the upcoming CW sitcom “Aliens in America” — in which a Pakistani exchange student finds both friendship and prejudice in America. She sees it as the next coming of “Freaks and Geeks” (and from the hilarious trailer, I’m probably going to agree).

Other critics, though, took great offense at its portrayal of a bigoted Middle America. De Moreas’ transcription of the critics’ confrontation with “Aliens in America” producers could be the basis for a sitcom itself.

Black is Intellectual: African American public intellectuals are not a rare breed — the incestuous mainstream media just make it feel that way, according to David A. Love’s insightful analysis in The Black Commentator.

Mark Anthony Neal’s defense of Michael Eric Dyson in PopMatters makes a similar point from another direction. Dyson, according to Neal, has been the source of scorn both for his popularity and for presenting too reductive and celebratory a picture black life: “This widely circulated and decidedly worn ‘poverty pimp’ thesis has been applied to figures as diverse as Reverend Jesse Jackson, Cornel West, and the current cadre of hip-hop generation intellectuals, who supposedly, as the critique goes, wallow in victimization and refuse to hold the black rank-and-file, particularly black youth, accountable for bad behavior.”

But Neal says we should show praise Dyson and others who have “leveraged the appeal of popular culture” — whether that’s television, hip hop, etc — to fight the good fight. Neal brings up BlackProf.com and Professor Kim’s News Notes — which we have been long fans of here at PopPolitics — as examples of how black intellectuals have harnessed the blogosphere.

Finally, Cornel West himself reinforces both Love’s and Neal’s perspective in a recent interview with the Washington Post, where he defends Dyson and his own forays into music and other modes of cultural expression.

I Want My Culture Back: David Browne and Alan Riding, from two very different perspectives, are lamenting the demise of serious culture — art that challenges us, both intellectually and politically.

Browne, in his “Anti-Cheese Manifesto” for the Huffington Post, admits his own obsessions with low-brow pop culture but refuses to celebrate them: “The danger in perpetually embracing the awful is the way it trivializes sincerity and makes earnestness seem mawkish and old-fashioned. It says: Don’t take it all so seriously, since nothing matters … Perhaps it is simpler to chuckle than invest genuine feeling in anything, since that can be too chancy, too uncool, and too emotionally risky.”

And Riding, in a column for the International Herald Tribune, writes from a more nostalgic perspective, recalling the way the arts in the past have directly challenged corrupt and repressive governments. He sees recent spectacles like Live Earth as symptomatic of a culture that values performance over action.

Viva Ruth Frankenburg: Speaking of intellectuals, culture and political engagement, it’s worth reading some of the homages to the recently deceased Ruth Frankenberg, a ground-breaking British-born sociologist. Donna Haraway, an exemplary intellectual in her own right, wrote the obituary for the Guardian, in which she praised her feminism and anti-racism — and her nuanced exploration of the complicated intersection between the two. Dana Goldstein has a more personal response to Frankenburg’s work on her blog, Une flâneuse.

If the world of pop culture criticism were like the Hollywood it covers, then Robert Thompson would be George Clooney, Martin Scorsese and, oh, Scarlett Johansson — all wrapped into one. He’s not just our greatest celebrity. On days when a story breaks with a pop culture angle, it feels like Thompson is our only celebrity.

Are you sensing a little jealousy? Well, it’s not there, to be honest. Maybe it’s because even though it feels Thompson is the only person the media looks to for opinions about pop culture, his analysis is usually right on. He’s always ready to give pop culture credit for its complexity and depth — and, at the same time, he’s willing to question the often questionable ideology behind some of it. And he does it all in very accessible, yet still eloquent and original, language.

Of maybe it’s because, as AP reporter Jocelyn Noveck explains, he’s a genuine, friendly guy who really knows his stuff.

Ironically, the dominant theme of Noveck’s story about Thompson is that Thompson is a media darling. The irony is not lost on Noveck, though, who points out that many media outlets, including her very own AP, have an unofficial moratorium on using him in their stories:

So often has Thompson been quoted, over 17 years at Syracuse, that some news organizations (including The Associated Press) have lately tried consciously NOT to quote him.

But nobody said we couldn’t write ABOUT him.

How often has he been quoted? “At The New York Times alone,” Noveck writes, “an archive search shows Thompson quoted more than 40 times in the last four years, by writers in a wide range of areas. At the AP, he’s been quoted close to 20 times in the past year.”

And David Rubin, dean of the Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, where Thompson works, give first-hand testimony to Thompson’s popularity: “I’ve seen Bob get 60, 70, 80 media calls in one day. I’ve seen him in a hallway on his cell phone for hours. You could go so far as to say Bob is the most quoted academic in the United States.”

Besides reveling in Thompson’s hyper-popularity, Noveck also gives a lively synopsis of how Thompson got to his present position. A primer, perhaps, for the rest of us? Unfortunately, as with most things in life, including quality pop culture and pop culture criticism, it’s a combination of inspiration and hard work:

He did his undergraduate work at the University of Chicago, where he initially planned to be an art history professor. But on Sunday nights, when the dorms didn’t serve food, he would eat takeout in front of the TV. He found that he chose “CHiPs,” with Erik Estrada, over PBS, and became fascinated with the question: “Why do smart people watch dumb TV?”

He did his thesis on Dante’s “Divine Comedy,” but came to believe that “art could be something that came out of a TV set.” That led to a broader interest in popular culture. “I realized that to understand TV you needed to understand the network radio era. And vaudeville. And the circus. And comic strips. Every year I would binge on something.” [...]

Thompson, who’s written or edited six books of his own, gets up each day at five to read; he consumes three new books a week, not to mention uncounted hours of TV. (He also has a family that he spends time with.) He’s constantly becoming enamored with new areas of pop culture.

A couple years ago, for example, he realized he didn’t know enough about Shakespeare — a pop culture figure of his time, after all. He decided to watch all existing plays on VHS or DVD. In three months he watched 113 plays and read 25 books on the bard. “I was crazed,” he says contentedly.

In case you think his interests aren’t diverse enough — or that he’s all about TV — it’s good to know he’s also gone through an obsession with aluminum lawn chairs, which he believes are “really taken for granted.”

That’s not something that’s likely to happen to Mr. Thompson any time soon.

Every day in every way my admiration for the National Collegiate Athletic Association soars to new heights. Who could not but admire the latest blow delivered by this august organization on the behalf of the purity of intercollegiate athletics?

The NCAA Management Council has recommended that the NCAA place a ban on all electronically transmitted correspondence, including text messages, between coaches and recruits. This policy position, should it be given final approval, is breathtaking in its scope and significance. One day it will be considered by sport historians as the turning point in the struggle to contain corruption in intercollegiate athletics even though it exempts faxes and e-mails from the edict.

Florida head coach Urban Meyer, who is credited with perfecting, if not actually initiating, text messaging to unprotected high school football players, is yet to comment on this new roadblock facing his ongoing effort to repeat as BCS champion. One can only imagine how much this action will be deplored by Pope Urban of Gainesville. As to the alternative use of e-mails and faxes, they seem a poor alternative, as they are so 20th century, and Urban is so 21st century.

The earliest this ban actually could go into effect is August of 2007. Enterprising high tech coaches have another three to four months to text away. One can only imagine the urgency with which they will be mass texting in every direction. One can only imagine how many high school, middle school, and red-shirt pre-schoolers will be permanently scarred in this interim period of free-fire texting.

It is good to know the NCAA is alert to the sort of abuse emanating from the new technologies. It is also reassuring that the NCAA is not just a reactive organization, but also proactive: Discouraging evil and encouraging good.

(more…)

Don’t Ask, Don’t Make Me Dance Around the Question: Watch the Democratic candidates squirm when asked, in light of Gen. Peter Pace’s comments, if they too believe that “homosexuality is immoral.”

When are the Democrats going to realize that backbone is a turn-on for voters? Even if they might disagree with you on a specific position, nothing shows character like having real values.

My Cousin Pookie: Speaking of Obama’s awareness of audience, he said the following during his recent Selma sermon: “If Cousin Pookie would vote, if Uncle Jethro would get off the couch and stop watching SportsCenter and go register some folks and go to the polls, we might have a different kind of politics.”

Wondering who Pookie is? Jonathan TiLove of the HNIC report has the complex, nuanced answer:

In their interviews and e-mails, Pookie emerges as a stock character of the black popular imagination, a name that has come to personify the kind of layabout kin who, if endearing, is also a source of some embarrassment and consternation to his more successful relations. And, it turns out, in his use of Pookie, Obama reveals something about himself …. In dropping Pookie’s name, Obama is signaling to those who question his blackness — because his mother was white and his father an African without slave ancestry — that he is not an outsider to black life.

Michael Eric Dyson, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, claims, “It’s a way of Obama getting purchase on that brand of black self-critique and establishing … his bonafides as a black figure willing to be critical of his own.”

Mark McPhail, an expert on rhetoric at Miami University of Ohio, see it somewhat differently: “This is the type of appeal that reveals Obama’s willingness to play on the worst type of stereotypes.”

The Real Black Youth: Cathy Cohen, a University of Chicago professor, is the author of the Black Youth Project, which interviewed 15 to 25 year-old African American women and men about their attitudes and actions. Their “Topic Area Primers,” which provide very accessible and well-organized results of their research, should be required reading for anyone who strives for accurate image of possibly the most stereotyped demographic in America.

NPR’s News and Notes has held repeated conversations with her and other academics about the state of black youth. The latest installment on the role of sex in their lives is what triggered my interest.

Free Love: A University of Alberta study found that one third of Canadian boys are heavy users of pornography:

Ninety percent of males and 70 percent of females reported accessing sexually explicit media content at least once. More than one-third of the boys reported viewing pornographic DVDs or videos “too many times to count,” compared to eight percent of the girls surveyed.

The great majority of the students surveyed use the Internet as their main conduit to the pornography.

Conservatives have latched onto the study as proof of our collective moral decline. Sonya Thompson, the author the study, however, has a more relevant question: “What kinds of expectations will these young people have going into their first sexual relationships? It may be setting up a big disconnect between boys and girls and may be normalizing risky sex practices.”

Between the Thought and the Act: From Scientific American: “People who play car racing video games may be more prone to drive recklessly and get into accidents, according to a study that adds to evidence that video games can influence the behavior of some players.”

Which brings us to the age-old question of the power of media in altering behavior, particularly of youth. Jonathan Turley, writing in the Washington Post, considers himself a “weapons-tolerant parent” who is not concerned about his sons playing with toy guns. Citing a few disparate psychologists — but mainly ruminating — Turley believes their games model “notions of courage and sacrifice,” work out “more basic emotions in more basic ways,” and, in the words of child psychologist Penny Holland, make sense of the world through “timeless themes of the struggle between good and evil.”

Oh, for a world so simple.

*See update at end of post.

This past December, in a post about authentic explorations of masculinity, Bernie took the opportunity to praise “Friday Night Lights” and its unique, complex portrayal of young men searching for their “deeper, sensitive identities.”

Like mother, like daughter: Tami and Julie Taylor on “Friday Night Lights”

Now, as the season is coming to a close, we could easily do another post about the show’s varied and nuanced representations of women — both young and old.

The season’s second half shifted subtly by giving more depth to Tami Taylor (Connie Britton), school guidance counselor, coach’s wife and mother struggling to stay protective of her teenage daughter; Julie Taylor (Aimee Teegarden), the smart, self-aware daughter; Lyla Garrity (Minka Kelly), the popular cheerleader slowly coming of age; Tyra Collete (Adrianne Palicki), the tough outsider who has come of age too fast; and, to a lesser extent, Waverly Grady (Aasha Davis), the preacher’s daughter whose mix of political activism and poetic sensibility expands a football player’s horizons.

The layers and internal conflicts of these characters now drive the series. While they bump up against stereotypes and social expectations, none of them fully succumbs. And they all exhibit a great deal of agency, which is all too rare among adolescent female characters.

But let’s hold that analysis for another day. I want to yield the balance of my time to encouraging you to do two things:

1) Watch “Friday Night Lights” (if you haven’t already). All episodes are available — and free — on the NBC website. It will grab you from the opening scenes, guaranteed.

Part of what makes it work is that it gives serious consideration to both adult and adolescent concerns, which overlap naturally. If the multiple teen crises feel like they’re slipping into a soap opera dynamic, rest assured the moment will pass quickly — and you’ll probably be genuinely surprised by their complex negotiations of everyday life. The writing is consistently authentic, and the characters are always remarkably human in their individuality.

Maureen Ryan compares it to two critically acclaimed HBO shows, and the praise is well-deserved: “The world that ‘FNL’ has created feels so real by this point that the characters’ interactions feel organic and unforced — just as they do on ‘The Wire’ or ‘Deadwood,’ or any other show that manages to get every single detail right without being showy about it.”

2) Once you realize how special it is, join the movement to save the show — which has always struggled rating-wise (no thanks to its impossible Wednesday night time slot across from “American Idol”) and which has recently been rumored to be in a precarious position for a second season.

Obviously, by watching the episodes online, you are sending the clearest message possible to NBC that this show is something that has enduring popularity — but you can do more. Letters and other “gift bags” (inspired by the show’s mantra: “Clear Eyes, Full Hearts, Can’t Lose”) can be sent to Kevin Reilly, president of NBC entertainment. And an e-mail to NBC wouldn’t hurt as well.

This type of grassroots campaign has worked before for “Veronica Mars,” among other shows. It reveals the power of fans who are not simply satisfied with consuming culture but who want to be active, critical agents in its construction.

“Friday Night Lights,” by encouraging viewers to appreciate the full social and cultural contexts surrounding hallowed American traditions and values, is a show that deserves this type of attention and engagement.

As Stuart Levine of MSNBC affirms, “‘Friday Night Lights’ came to be labeled by many viewers and critics as the best new series of the year. But it’s moved way beyond that now. Forget ‘new,’ it’s now the best show on TV, bar none.”

Update: Maureen Ryan today notes that Bravo is going to re-air the entire series through March and April on Fridays and Saturdays AND there’s a new save-the-show site: FightForLights.com.

Julie Bosman of The New York Times reveals that fans of Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are not the idiots we thought we were. They even read:

The Comedy Central audience is more serious than its reputation allows. The public may still think of the “Daily Show” and “Colbert Report” audience as a group of sardonic slackers, Gen-Y college students who prefer YouTube to print. But publishers say it’s a much more diverse demographic — and more important, a book-buying audience.

“It’s the television equivalent of NPR,” Ms. Levin, of Free Press, said. “You have a very savvy, interested audience who are book buyers, people who do go into bookstores, people who are actually interested in books.”

While those demographics might not come as a surprise to people who recognize that political comedy based on often subtle irony requires intelligent engagement, it’s still worth noting how few places in American culture cultivate that type of viewer/reader:

Television programs that devote significant attention to serious authors have practically gone the way of the illuminated manuscript, publishers lament.

But the Comedy Central shows are also becoming extremely competitive for publicists placing their authors. After a “Daily Show” appearance, several publishers said, the author’s Amazon ranking rises and the daily sales figures “pop,” in industry parlance. It is not at all unusual, one book publicist said, for a title to go from a 300,000 rank to a spot in the Top 300 — not often the case after shows like “Charlie Rose.”

Shortly after the terrorist attacks on 9/11, Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter announced,”It’s the end of the age of irony” — just one of many proclamations that augured a more somber cultural landscape.

The effect of 9/11 on pop culture is chief among the angles used to contextualize today’s five-year anniversary. Interested readers may want to start with a visit to the Boston Globe website, where in addition to reading a package of stories on how the arts world has responded — including theater, music and books — you can listen to the newspaper’s television, film and pop culture critics discuss the differences between television and movies’ handling of 9/11 and its aftermath.

The Philadelphia Inquirer looks back at how quickly life returned to “normal” after 9/11 in an article titled, “A more serious country? Get serious.” Case in point: Within six months of 9/11, “Fear Factor” aired the Playboy-centerfold edition.

“Those irony pronouncements were coming from people who profoundly misunderstood the nature of American popular culture,” Robert Thompson, professor of popular culture and television at Syracuse University, tells the Inquirer. “No matter how horrific the event, to expect an entire culture to change in one day is like going on a diet and expecting to lose 100 pounds in one day. Cultures absorb events like 9/11. American culture is a powerful solvent.”

(more…)

One of the chief goals of cultural critics is to guide readers and viewers to make better choices in what texts they consume. And from the earliest days of their profession film critics on the whole have always been at the forefront of championing the art over the purely commercial.

Don’t look now, though, those same film critics are becoming irrelevant, according to Patrick Goldstein of the Los Angeles Times. Younger viewers, it appears, would rather turn to word-of-mouth (or, more accurately, word-of-text-message) and other new media resources than the old-fashioned long-form newspaper article.

What is most fascinating about Goldstein’s piece, though, is how the “old-fashioned” critics have a fairly sober, articulate perspective on their roles:

Most old-school critics insist they’re not threatened by the indifference of young readers. “When I was a kid I never listened to an adult, so why should we expect kids to listen to critics who are the same age as their parents?” says New York Times film critic Manohla Dargis. “I had a rich, intellectual life, yet I didn’t read reviews. They weren’t even on my map.”

She adds: “The real problem is that even if a kid wants [guidance] today, what they will find, overwhelmingly, is noise about celebrities and meaningless numbers indicating what big movie ‘won’ the weekend box-office. Who talks about film as something greater than a vehicle for celebrity and consumerism? Very few, I think.”

The biggest knock I hear about critics is that they are out touch with average moviegoers, a charge often leveled when films battered by bad reviews go on to make loads of dough. “I’m sorry, but we’re not supposed to be applause meters,” says Los Angeles Times critic Kenneth Turan. “If you wanted to go to a restaurant for a special occasion and someone said, ‘Why not go to McDonald’s? More people go there than any other place.’ Would that really be enough to convince you?”

I’ve learned too much from critics over the years to want to get rid of them …. But I do think newspapers, if we want to ever develop any following with younger readers, must do a better job of making our critics’ voices more relevant and immediate. If we don’t champion our critics, who will? We need to reinvent their roles to combat the $40-million mass-hypnosis marketing that occurs every weekend a big movie opens.

If I were king I would firmly plant our critics in the new media world with blogs and podcasts, allowing them not only to have more of a dialogue with readers, but extend their influence by addressing timely topics.

All I can say is that thoughtful criticism is always welcome in this new media space.

As Deadwood is winding down its third and last full season, we at PopPolitics and many elsewhere have been simultaneously reveling in what has become our latest “best show on television” (and probably the best show anywhere at this cultural moment) and mourning what could have been, if HBO had not cut it short .

The tension among characters and seemingly inevitable historical forces in this final season is almost unbearable.
Like the setting of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher,” the town of Deadwood itself — mirroring the fate of the series (and historical fact) — appears to be heading toward a premature implosion. Amazingly, the show is at its most classical (check the extended allusions to Shakespeare’s King Lear and Melville’s Moby Dick in this week’s Episode 34) when it is also at its most contemporary and relevant.

Which brings me to Deadwood’s next life — as an object of cultural criticism. Taking a lesson from Buffy fanatics and their continuing positive effect on Joss Whedon’s career, the more we talk about Deadwood, the more powerful a force it will become — not just culturally, but economically, as HBO and others see how great writing, while requiring patience, has priceless long-term benefits.

We’ve done only a little bit of close reading of Deadwood here, but we plan on doing much more (especially now that we’ve found the ultimate labor of love — Cristi Brockway’s beautifully compiled transcripts of every episode — and our friend David Lavery has a new collection of essays, Reading Deadwood, due out soon). The avenues for criticism seems endless: its multidimensional language, its insightful representations of women and men, its hyper-realistic portrait of the American frontier, its many potential allegorical targets, such as modern American politics.

While we’re waiting, though, one of the best early analyses available online comes from the AP’s Ted Anthony. He argues convincingly — with plenty of textual support — that Deadwood is first and foremost a look at an emerging media culture — something that resonates in our present-day:

Through its three-year incarnation, “Deadwood” — set on the eve of the telephone’s introduction into American society — has become a document of our own times, an era when every other pundit compares the new media landscape to the “Wild West.” Can it be coincidence that the ultimate force of evil in “Deadwood” is Hearst, patriarch of a clan synonymous with what many consider the birth of Information Age tyranny?

As we delve further into the show’s complexities, let’s leave no coincidence unturned.

Ann Hornaday of the Washington Post provides an intelligent and level-headed overview of the power of media literacy. Not only does it empower youth, Hornaday reports, but it empowers parents — with a more productive and less confrontational way of having a conversation about what their children read, watch, and play.

Hornaday’ finds inspiration from a variety of sources, but Bill Yousman of the Media Education Foundation might say it best:

“It’s not about teaching kids how to watch TV …. It’s about teaching them to watch TV critically. In our schools we take it for granted that we should teach children how to analyze a poem in great detail. But in fact, children will be exposed to many more ads and sitcoms and video games and Hollywood movies in their lives than poetry.”

Media literacy, Yousman says, means “learning how to ask critical questions about things like who created this message and what were their intentions? What are they trying to persuade me of? What pieces go into this message that help convey a particular idea or a particular message? And what’s missing? When you see an ad for Nike sneakers, what don’t they tell you about how they’re made, where they’re made and under what conditions?”

Unpacking media messages is more crucial than ever, Yousman adds, in a media universe where marketers are increasingly taking the concept of “cradle-to-grave” consumers to heart. “They’re making programming now specifically designed for infants under 6 months of age,” he says, “and that starts training them to be TV viewers. Kids are becoming branded from the time that they’re babies.” (As any parent who has recently been badgered to buy a “Dora the Explorer” backpack and only a “Dora the Explorer” backpack will tell you, he speaks the truth.)

And I would only add — being a critic of culture can be even more fun that being a consumer. It simply opens up more levels of meaning, more ways to interact.

The story of Kaavya Viswanathan is a tragic one — but I’m not feeling too bad for her personally. I’m feeling bad for America. Whether it’s your steroid usage, your justification for war, or, in Ms. Viswanathan’s case, your blatant plagiarism — you are not allowed to simply say, “I screwed up. I had an idiot moment.” Instead, you have to craft some type of I-guess-I-technically-did-it-but-I-had-no-idea-I-was-doing-it excuse.

The tragic element in all of these stories is that everyone knows the excuse is just that — a cover-up for your clear wrong. Yet almost every public figure feels compelled to perform this role.

Granted, the legal and financial considerations sometimes shape the conversation — but in most cases, honesty would go a much longer way that these public figures realize — even in a legal and financial sense. Especially since nowadays speaking the truth would make you a trendsetter.

I’m doing a little catch-up work here, but there has been a flurry of stories over the past few weeks lamenting the disturbing trends surrounding boys and education — and I can’t resist chiming in.

Caryl Rivers and Rosalind Chait Barnett brilliantly defuse “The Myth of ‘The Boy Crisis’” in the Washington Post. Despite media reports to the contrary — and even if they are Laura Bush’s latest crusade — most boys are doing just fine.

Or, to be more accurate, the situation for white suburban boys hasn’t changed much. And they’re, of course, the only ones we are really worried about. Otherwise, we’d have to start talking about race and class divisions in America — and we wouldn’t want to do that.

To bolster this point, check out the historic figures just released from the U.S. Census Bureau concerning educational attainment. They are broken down very clearly in this PDF file. Boys, it seems, were also in “crisis” between 1940-1960 — but they caught up just fine between in the 70s, 80s and 90s. The real, persistent gaps throughout the years have little to do with gender.

The construction of the “boy crisis” is very telling. In a world that is still overwhelming patriarchal on every significant economic and political level, boys somehow still have an unfair advantage? Maybe the question we should be asking is how, if boys have become so lazy and stupid as these reactionary critics suggest, are they still running the country?

As a high school teacher myself, I do not mean to make light of real struggles boys are facing. Certainly boys face — as they always have, but now at an accelerated pace — conflicting ideals of masculinity. The violent, dismissive and emotionless action hero that boys are pressured to become does not mesh very well with personal and social worlds that requires sensitivity and tolerance. And I see them fight that battle in the posturing they perform everyday in my classroom.

But at least boys are pressured to have agency — even if it’s a mutant hyper-agency. Girls are still overwhelmingly taught — in and out of school — to be passive, to submerge their identity in their partner’s or their community’s. Any “crisis” for boys has to get in line behind that.