9.11 and its
Aftermath

11.16 
From
Hell and Back
Hell hath no fury like the
power of context. It can make what was once unsavory acceptable and turn the
innocuous into the inappropriate. It determines meaning. It redefines good
taste. And in the days and weeks AS11 (After Sept. 11), it has made us, as
consumers of mass media, reconsider our interpretation of cultural propriety
by Douglas L. Howard

………………..

11.16 
Coming
Home, With Colors Flying
I’ve come to the conclusion that it is time to buy a new car. Not that there
is anything wrong with the mechanics of my Toyota, but it lacks an essential
piece of wartime equipment: a radio antennae. Without one, it is impossible for
me to fly a flag that will flutter in the wind
by Richard C. Crepeau
………………..

11.14  Lessons
from Indian Cinema
You could escape into pop
culture disasters and urban destruction only if you lived in a cocoon of safety.
Now that the cocoon has been disturbed, the escape has to be a positive one. The
sentiments of Bollywood — with the resources of Hollywood — can make it all
quite pleasant
by Vamsee Juluri

………………..

11.14  The
New New West
I remember drifting off to sleep listening
to someone describe our allies in the war against terrorism as totalitarian
regimes and George W. Bush saying that bin Laden is wanted ‘dead or alive.”
Then I guess I nodded off for good. Next thing I knew, it was 1881 and I was in
Tombstone, Ariz. … 
by Steven C. Day
………………..

10.31  God
Doesn’t Make Cars Crash  
The tendency to blame (or credit) God for recent events reminds me of last
season’s finale of NBC’s West Wing
by Steven C. Day
………………..

10.31  Lack
of Words  
While it’s good to see famous writers donate their time, one can’t help but
wonder what has happened to some of our more profound cultural barometers when
we need them the most
by Paul McCleary
………………..

10.26  World
Chicken in the First Frontier  
Visitors to the annual World Chicken Festival in London, Ky., vie to win Col.
Sanders look-a-like contests. Meanwhile, in Islamabad, another KFC burns
by Jimmy Dean Smith
………………..

10.26  Living
in a Fear Factory  
I want to remain rational about the possibility of terrorism, but is it wise to
apply rationality to irrational acts?
by Bob Batchelor
………………..

10.12  Meet
the Allies  
There are numerous challenges to relying on the Northern Alliance, just as there
were to backing the South Vietnamese
by Bob Batchelor
………………..

10.2  Reaching
Beyond Ourselves  
Compassion becomes more difficult when it involves the suffering of strangers,
especially those we harbor grievances against
by Steven C. Day
………………..

10.1  Lost
and Found  
Following periods of national crisis, Americans have managed to regain their
innocence, only to lose it again in their next bout with reality. Will it be any
different this time?
by Richard C. Crepeau
………………..

9.30  In
Need of Recovery  
How the apparently meaningless struggles of a recuperating celebrity take on a
strange importance
by Cynthia Fuchs
………………..

9.28  Growing
Up, With Our Own Big Moment  
When I was a teenager, obsessed with the 60s, I used to long for something “big”
to happen in my time. Now I’m sorry I asked
by Rena Kraut
………………..

9.28  The
Date That Marks X  
For years, Generation Xers have been told they are cynical, apathetic,
unaccustomed to dealing with serious struggles and unpatriotic. All of that
changed Sept. 11
by Jen Chaney
………………..

9.25  Traveling
to Higher Ground  
After I watched it happen on TV, after I called everyone I knew in New York,
after I made sure my parents knew I was fine, I hopped on my bike, and, along
with my roommate, rode west down King Street
by Scott Cullen
………………..

9.21  Watching
Baseball on TV  
We can simply watch a ball game or we can pay attention to it — the real
affront is when we have to pay attention, when a mundane thing has to
mean so much, when America has to signify to be America
by Jimmy Dean Smith
………………..

9.20  An
American Story  
I am an American in experience and education, language and speech, customs and
culture. But at this moment it’s the superficial differences that matter most
by Dibya Sarkar
………………..

9.18  Why
We Watch  
When real TV coverage trumps ”reality TV” our desires remain the same
by Alana Kumbier
………………..

9.12  Now
Rolling  
Pop-cultural representations of Manhattan and Washington, D.C. — especially
those involving terrorist threats and attacks — have simultaneously prepared us
for this type of tragedy and distanced us from feeling and understanding
its impact
by Bernie Heidkamp

PopPolitics Weblog
a weekly roundup of pop culture and
politics in the news

Quote of the Week:
"The whole premise from the beginning was that either one of these guys
totally sucks, so it’ll really works either way." 
-Trey Parker, co-creator of South Park, commenting on the indeterminacy
of the recent election and how it will effect their upcoming TV series for
Comedy Central - a satiric, contemporaneous look at the "real" life of
the next President.
source: Salon

How To Look Presidential (Even If You Don’t Have The Votes!)
In a flurry of cultural commentary during Election Week, several film and
television critics decided to dissect recent and classic representations of the
Big Guy.  Little did these critics know that our hallowed election is
turning into more a public relations war than a vote count.  Whether it’s
calling premature Cabinet meetings or playing a symbolic game of family touch
football in Washington, it’s turning out to be a contest of who can look
presidential.  In this extraordinary case, any advice from the small and
silver screen could very much be appreciated.

Michael Wilmington of the Chicago
Tribune creates his own Top
15 list of the best political movies of all time, emphasizing how the
President comes off much better in movies than in real life: "Al Gore,
George W. Bush and their lackluster brawl may be the logical result of a
political system dominated by big-time media treasure chests and vitriolic
attack strategies, by image above substance, cash above idealism, and the demand
that a candidate must, above all, look like a movie president to get elected as
a real one. Yet how stiff and monotonous both men seem next to vintage movie
politicos: the heroes of films like The Best Man, State of the Union
or The Last Hurrah."

Reviewing the recent movie The
Contender, however, A.O. Scott of The New York Times comes
to a different conclusion: "Movie presidents have a way of appearing
blander, and better looking, than the real thing. Hollywood still loves the pomp
and luster of the office, but the presidency, real and imaginary, seems more at
home on television, where the inhabitants of the office are ritually subjected
to late-night ridicule and Sunday morning dissection. The success of The West
Wing proves that politics, like the law, medicine, and police work, is a
profession best served by the overlapping plots and ensemble rhythms of the
one-hour weekly drama."

Whatever our conclusion might be,
Comedy Central seems to have the answer.  In a
wide-ranging article about the flurry of recent cinematic and TV portrayals of
the President, David Ansen of the Associated Press reports: "The
creators of the bawdy South Park, Matt Stone and Trey Parker, just
announced they are launching a presidential sitcom called Family First
for Comedy Central.  The live-action series, to debut in February, will
focus on either Al Gore or George W. Bush, depending on who wins. It will try to
inject some life and personality into ‘one of these two extremely boring and
cardboard cutout kind of guys,’ Stone said. ‘We want to take it above caricature
and make them likable, because they’re not.’"

Carino Chocano of Salon
briefly interviews
Trey Parker and Matt Stone about the series.  Perhaps the most
revealing aspect of the interview is their admission that they didn’t vote.

More
Bamboozling TV
Continuing the conversation on representations of minorities on TV, Chuck
Barney of the Contra Costa Times uses the challenge presented in Spike
Lee’s recent film Bamboozled to take a fresh look at African Americans on
the small screen.  Although he has heard many critics say that Lee’s satire
is dated because networks have already addressed the lack of diversity in their
programs, Barney disagrees and still feels a sense of urgency:

"But the images of
African-Americans in television today continue to be limited in scope and
largely marginalized. Think about it: When you see a black person on your TV
screen — especially a black man — he is usually a criminal and/or a gang
member. Or a wily player only interested in easy sex. Or a gullible buffoon. Or
subservient hired help. So maybe Lee’s minstrel-show fantasy isn’t as outdated
as we’d like to believe. The situation becomes all the more unfortunate when you
consider that African-American children, on the average, watch about six hours
of TV a day — more than any other group, according to a Nielsen report. So
they’re being constantly bombarded with images in scripted programs, music
videos, movies and commercials that don’t exactly present their people in the
best be-all-you-can-be scenarios."

In a
review of several recent Halloween episodes of the UPN series Moesha, The
Parkers, The Hughleys and Girlfriends as well as Lee’s Bamboozled,
Marc D. Allan of the Indianapolis Star confirms many of Barney’s
conclusions:

"For every positive image –
Moesha and the Parkers attending college, the Hughleys living in an
upper-middle-class neighborhood, the women from Girlfriends holding good
jobs — there are many more situations where the characters are dancing, horny
and not terribly bright."

Not
Even a Sporting Chance
These troubling representations of
African Americans in TV series should be partially countered by the many
positive representations of African Americans in sports.  Unfortunately, as
Peter Noel of the Village Voice notes in his look at the representations
of the tennis superstars Venus and Serena Williams, many white sports
commentators and fans apparently cannot handle successful and strong black
female athletes:

"Although they are idolized by
many African Americans, backhanded bad-mouthing of the broad-shouldered,
long-legged, and attractive Williams sisters is not uncommon among the blueblood
cabals, who imply in their running commentary that poor Venus and Serena just
seem out of place in the lily-white world of professional tennis. They criticize
the sisters’ game (the way they rush the net”only souped-up niggers could be
that good, suggesting that Venus and Serena should be tested for steroids and
other performance-enhancing drugs); their walk (a ghettoized swagger is
unbecoming); their attitude (too moody, withdrawn); their nappy tresses (the
colorful beads are deemed "childish"); even their clothing (too FuBu,
and Serena is much too obsessed with the color purple); and, of course, their
parents (overprotective, amateur psychologists).  Says Harlem street
basketball legend Pee Wee Kirkland: ‘I think the Williams sisters intentionally
fight against the obstinate evil of racism. It’s almost unbelievable what black
athletes must go through to compete with people that the tennis world wants to
accept as their great players.’"

Briefly Noted:
Byron Beck of Willamette Week does
not appreciate the representations of gay men in Fox’s new series Normal,
Ohio, featuring John Goodman of Roseanne fame: "The
biggest crime this show perpetrates, though, is that it makes you feel bad for
being gay - and God help you if you’re poor and fat to boot. The whole shtick
spins on Goodman’s awkwardness in his own skin."
Conservative magazine The Weekly Standard takes a crack at feminism in
Jessica Gavora’s critical
review of Colette Dowling’s new book, The Frailty Myth: Women Approaching
Physical Equality and in Lauren Weiner’s thoughts on why
Henry James’ view of American women is still relevant today.

 - Bernie
Heidkamp

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Quote of the Week:
"The Simpsons is the ultimate metaphorical archetype of our time,
and an insufficient number of budding Platos, Descartes, and Hegels are looking
there for fodder for their latest argumentum ad ignorantiam."   
- TV critic David Roberts‘ one-sentence summary of The Simpsons, Hyper-irony,
and the Meaning of Life by Carl Matheson, head of the philosophy department
at the University of Manitoba

source: The
Globe and Mail

Everybody’s
a Comedian!
Caryn James of The New York Times discusses the intricate convergence
of popular culture and politics in a review of two pre-election TV specials - Saturday
Night Live’s "Presidential Bash 2000" and "Hollywood
D.C." airing on Bravo. The presidential candidates’ appearances on an SNL
program is significant, according to James, because this is the very type of
show that has mocked them throughout the campaign. 

"What is most notable about these
self-mocking appearances is that they do not represent some mind-boggling shift,
just politics as usual today," writes James. "The candidates turning
up on a show that has savaged them for months is simply an extension of doing
Top 10 lists with David Letterman."

Bravo’s special looks at  the convergence
from the opposite but equally intriguing perspective: how Hollywood has
attempted to find its own place in the political realm. James discusses the special’s
most revealing moments:   

"Countering the idea that Hollywood today is
overwhelmingly liberal, the outspokenly liberal actor Martin Sheen says the
industry still produces ‘the most nationalistic films you’ve ever seen.’ His
comments are among the documentary’s most cogent. Discussing Jane Fonda’s
protests against the war in Vietnam, he says, ‘The reason Hollywood could not
get behind Jane Fonda is that Hollywood is predominantly male and she made us
realize what sissies we were. She had more guts.’"

"Whether or not that is the reason,"
continues James, "the idea brings the discussion to a more thoughtful
level. Patrick Caddell, once Jimmy Carter’s adviser, adds: ‘Jane Fonda was doing
something. Politics now is a joke: let’s have a photo op and pretend we’re doing
something.’"

Also:  Tom Shales of the Washington
Post previews
"Presidential Bash 2000" and Paul Brownfield of the LA
Times reports that two
minutes of Bush’s appearance on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno were
edited out of the broadcast, apparently because they weren’t funny or
entertaining enough.

Selling
(With) Sexuality
Rob Walker of Slate delivers an "Ad Report Card" on the use of
gay images in television marketing.  He focuses on a ground-breaking ad by Giggo.com
that features a confrontation between a gay son and his father and a less
remarkable one from Visa
that simply uses homophobia as the basis for its humor.

"Obviously the days of simply ignoring gay
and lesbian consumers have faded fast, and we’ll continue to see advertisers
stumble around the issue, sometimes more successfully, sometimes less so. To the
extent that ad culture is a barometer of culture in general, this seems like a
net plus: It’s better than pretending homosexuality doesn’t exist or is somehow
too embarrassing or controversial to mention."

See the
follow-up to his first "Report Card" for more ads from Kia,
Dockers
and Hyundai.

A
Sign Of Things To Come?
Gail Shister of The Philadelphia Inquirer writes about Aaron Sorkin’s
latest addition to NBC’s West Wing: Ainsley Hayes (played by Emily
Procter). 

"Hayes is a composite, according to Sorkin,
of real-life Republican sage-ettes Laura Ingraham and Ann Coulter and South
Jersey’s Kellyanne Fitzpatrick, a pollster," writes Shister. "By sheer
coincidence, they all happen to be young, blond, conservative and leggy."

This addition occurs on the heels of the hiring
of Marlin Fitzwater, press secretary to Presidents Reagan and Bush, and Peggy
Noonan, Reagan and Bush speechwriter, as consultants. But TV execs weren’t just
looking to increase ratings among Republicans. Shister writes, "NBC had
asked Sorkin to introduce a 20-ish, ’sexy-looking,’ female character to attract
more young female viewers to The West Wing."

Zen
and the Art of the Simpsons
David Roberts of The Globe and Mail discusses the philosophical
significance of our favorite cartoon with Carl Matheson, head of the philosophy
department at the University of Manitoba.  A selected piece of wisdom from
Matheson:

"Despite the fact that the show strips away
any semblance of value, despite the fact that, week after week, it offers us
little comfort, it still manages to convey the raw power of the irrational (or
arational) love of human beings for other human beings, and it makes us play
along by loving these flickering bits of paint on celluloid who live in a
flickering, hollow world. Now that’s comedy entertainment."

Life, I guess, is not hell, after all.

Zen
and the Art of the Boss
Jon Pareles of The New York Times writes on the increasing popularity
of Bruce Springsteen as a subject of study in higher education.  His appeal
develops from many sources, but maybe the most significant is Springsteen’s
portrayal of the working class.  Cornell University professor Jefferson
Cowie explains:

"As race and gender and sexuality have
become the dominant modes of understanding our world, class has fallen out of
the picture …. There is nowhere else to turn in popular culture for such an
explicit and provocative analysis of blue-collar life"

Pareles also writes that historians, sociologists
and psychologists - as well as English professors - find a powerful depth in the
subtle simplicity of Springsteen’s lyricism.

Robert
Redford’s Minstrel Show
On the heels of Spike Lee’s Bamboozled, film reviewers took a look
at issues of race again this week with the release of The Legend of Bagger
Vance, which stars Will Smith as a guardian angel/golf guru to a
struggling golfer played by Matt Damon.

Critiquing Smith’s character, film critic A.O.
Scott of The New York Times writes:

"Mr. Smith, speaking in exaggerated Southern
black dialect, seems to have strolled out of the last five minutes of Spike
Lee’s Bamboozled, a brief, painful anthology of the ways African-American
performers have been mocked and demeaned in the movies of the past. His
character, with no history and no connections, exists for the sole purpose of
serving a white man’s needs"

In Lisa
Schwarzbaum’s equally scathing review in Entertainment Weekly she
writes:

"The similarity between Smith’s role and
that of Michael Clarke Duncan in The Green Mile is conversation for a
different dinner party; suffice it to say, they’re both Magical Negroes put on
earth to help white folk. What’s of greater interest -
maybe for white folk -
is how this par for the course fable, with its hero’s journey from despair to
triumph to hubris and back to faith, fits in with myths of American manhood that
enchant the director of Bagger Vance, Robert Redford."

Ouch.

 - Bernie
Heidkamp

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Quote of the Week:
"Trying to turn Ralph Nader’s stentorian tones into something vaguely
groovy and musical was more of a challenge than taking someone who’s tone deaf
and trying to get them to sing ‘Rigoletto.’" 
- Producer Don Was on setting the campaign speeches of "Big Daddy
Ralph" to dance music for the release of "Public Citizen Number
One"   

source: Washington
Post 

Pop
Go the Candidates
Eric Weisbard of The Village Voice
presents an engaging analysis of the history of music on the campaign trail,
from the 19th century to the current candidates’ reluctance to follow in
Clinton’s sax-playing footsteps. 

"In this, the first election to feature two
baby boomer candidates, America is called upon to pick not just a leader, but a
successor to Bill Clinton as rock-and-roll president. But the wildness that
draws people to rock runs the risk of bringing scandal and disreputability down
upon politicians. Rock too much and you’re not presidential; don’t rock and
you’re not only "stiff," you’ve left grave doubts about your tastes.
So Bush and Gore dance around the issue like radio stations afraid to play a
nervy song that would turn off as many people as it turned on." 

While the mainstream candidates fret, Weisbard
notes that Ralph Nader, the anti-commercial candidate, has "made the most
effective use of popular culture of all." Weisbard cites the Rage Against the Machine video
‘Testify,’ directed by Michael Moore, and the Madison Square Garden rally that
featured Patti Smith, Eddie Vedder, Ani DiFranco and others. 

"The Nader finale was Smith’s ‘People Have the Power,’
which finally seemed other than impossibly corny in a political context where
popular participation was essential," writes Weisbard.

Plus: Rock
critic and author Robert Christgau picks
six great books about the history of popular music (Salon)

Live
From The White House! It’s Saturday Night!

"Based on their TV appearances already this campaign season, it wouldn"t be
crazy to expect that Al Gore and George W. Bush, before Nov. 7, will saute
crawfish with Emeril Lagasse, submit aged muskets for appraisal on Antiques Roadshow and guest star as the bickering gay couple down
the block on Everybody Loves Raymond, writes Steve Johnson of the Chicago
Tribune. 

Johnson acknowledges that the candidates’ appearances on Oprah and Letterman
yielded some surprising, and important, responses, but he believes Bush and Gore sunk to an
all-time low when they taped parodies of their debate performances for Saturday
Night Live.  "[T]his SNL appearance, seeming to mock the very
idea of substantive discussion, is troubling, especially when you try to imagine
the potential upside for the candidates. If you don’t win the election, Lorne
Michaels might cast you as Tim Meadows’ sidekick in Ladies’ Man II?

Life
Imitates Art Imitates Life
Allison Janney and Joe Lockhart chatted about their respective jobs in The
New York Times Magazine (she plays C.J. Cregg, the dynamic White House press
secretary on The West Wing; Lockhart was, until recently, the real
White House press secretary). Here’s the beginning exchange: 

Q: How
has viewing each other’s performance changed the way you each do your job?
Lockhart: I don’t think it affected the way I did my job. The benefit of the
show is that it has helped people see us as real people. It’s kind of odd,
because you needed fake people in order to do that.
Janney: We make you look good, huh?
Lockhart: Yeah, that’s something I’m never going to forget. In the season
premiere I saw a little bit of myself in the absolute look of disdain on C.J.’s
face when a dumb question was asked. Maybe you can’t learn that; you have to
have it naturally. That was a pretty good dirty look. I liked it.

Plus: From the same issue of the magazine,
Charles
McGrath looks at authors who, despite their age and the age of their
well-known characters, are still writing novels about relationships and sex.
Consider Philip Roth, John Updike and Saul Bellow. "Novels, and realistic
novels especially, are supposed to tell us about ourselves, and we are, as the
experts keep reminding us, a graying population. We live longer, we enjoy better
health and at middle age we, like the people in these novels, are unwilling to
exit gracefully from the stage," writes McGrath.

Morality
Play On Culture 
Commenting on the soul-searching conversations and gray-area dilemmas that are
an integral part of many television dramas, Ken Parish Perkins of the Star-Telegram
writes that many shows use dialogue "as a kind of postmortem for what it
means to be a doctor - or a lawyer or a cop or even a vampire cursed with a soul
- in a difficult and troubling world."

"[Hill Street] Blues, which
ran from 1981 to 1987, stood in stark contrast to, say, Dragnet 25 years
earlier. As such, it measured pop culture’s journey from the absolutist - and
largely false - morality of the 1950s to the much messier gray-area ethics that
most of us actually live with. This new morality is less reassuring in its
premise that we are all - even heroes - sinners. But it does hit home much more
readily, with its post-modern twist that our failings are cause for sorrow
rather than condemnation. (Witness the willingness of many to separate Bill
Clinton the president from Bill Clinton the philanderer.)," writes Perkins.

"This isn’t to say that viewers of these
dramas necessarily embrace moral relativism, but it does suggest that they
experience a kind of catharsis in watching the melancholy travails of their TV
characters," he adds. "And the ratings successes of many of these shows stand in direct
contrast to notions of the dumbing-down or moral bankruptcy of America. People ‘are’
thinking about the difficult moral and ethical issues in society, and more than
that, they ‘want’ to think about them." 

Plus: Greg Baxton of the L.A. Times on why City
of Angels
is labeled a "black drama" and Gideon’s Crossing is seen as
an intense medical drama, although both are centered on African American actors
and feature multicultural casts.

Appearance
Matters
Judith Shulevitz of Slate reports on the retrospective of Giorgio
Armani’s clothes at Manhattan’s Guggenheim Museum. Though the show favors
celebrity endorsements over social context or fashion history, Shulevitz
discusses how Armani’s deconstruction of the suit jacket in 1974 
"[H]elped to bridge the gap between denim-clad members of the counterculture
and the stuffy establishmentarians of the professional world … When it came to
women’s clothing, his social foresight was equally keen. Women wanted to compete
in the workplace? He altered the suit, the basic unit of male power, by adding
shawl collars and drawstrings and other feminine touches, without losing the
androgynous mystique that women thought they needed to be taken seriously."

Appearance
Matters (Part II) 

Sony PlayStation 2 wasn’t the only long-awaited sequel to debut
this week. Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 also came to town. Most critics
gave mixed reviews at best to the follow-up to The Blair Witch Project phenomenon. 

Rick Groen of The Globe and Mail writes that director Joe Berlinger
"starts in reality, and then layers in the artifice - a wackload of cheesy
artifice borrowed from movies past. En route, the screenplay pretends to examine
larger themes - the supernatural horror around us versus the psychological
horror within, the tenuous link between media violence and the real thing, the
fallacy that video is more trustworthy than film. But it’s just a pretense.
These highbrow issues get swallowed up in the lowbrow drama. … By eroding the
‘reality base’ of The Blair Witch Project, he’s removed the one quality,
the appearance of authenticity, that made it interesting - the very quality
audiences are now responding to on screens large and small." 

Only three more months to go until Survivor 2.

 - Christine Cupaiuolo

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Quote of the Week:
"Whatever spin you put on it, The West Wing has delivered the
best image upgrade that both politics and popular culture have seen all year." 
Kristin Tillotson 
source: Minneapolis
Star Tribune (Oct. 15)

Still
A Vast Wasteland?
Lois Romano of the Washington Post asks: "So here it is 19 days
until the closest presidential election in decades, and where are the candidates
today?" Just turn on your television. Vice President Al Gore visited Regis
Philbin and showed him how to hypnotize a chicken and later taped an appearance
with Rosie O’Donnell. Gov. George W. Bush did Late Night with David
Letterman. Sen. Joe Lieberman also showed up on Regis’ show; instead of
singing he recited the lineup of the Brooklyn Dodgers from the 1950s. Both
presidential candidates taped debate parodies of themselves for a future Saturday
Night Live special. "The shows offer candidates the opportunity to show
themselves as regular guys and to deliver unfiltered messages to millions of
viewers - particularly women," writes Romano.

David
Letterman pitched tougher questions (and more follow-ups) to Bush
than many reporters on the campaign trail, writes Salon’s Jake Tapper.
From the death penalty to air pollution, Letterman stuck with Bush, inserting
his trademark humor just enough to keep the show from resembling a Sunday
morning talk show. Bush flubbed his first appearance with Letterman (when he
appeared via satellite). This visit was a redemption of sorts. 

This
Just In: Joking Is Serious
Is the presidential race making you laugh? You’re not alone. The number of
political jokes recited by the likes of Letterman, Jay Leno, John Stewart and
Bill Maher has increased in the past decade. Matthew Curry, a George Washington University
student, gets paid $7 per hour to watch video tapes of the late night shows and
catalogue the jokes for the Center for Media and Public Affairs. The "Entertainment
Study" aims to monitor the influence of late-night comics on the nation’s
political discourse, writes Dana Milbank in the Washington Post.

Although the jokes have become part of the
political discourse, as Dan Rather, the Associated Press and The New York Times
all keep track, "[T]here’s no evidence that this actually
has any impact on the way people vote. For its years of studying and counting
late-night political jokes, the Center for Media and Public Affairs hasn’t found
any links between the jokes about a candidate and the candidate’s electoral
success," writes Milbank. Still, Bob Lichter, who runs the research center,
isn’t laughing: "It’s one small blip in the gradual decline of Western
civilization," he says about all the joking. "There’s no distinction
anymore between news and popular culture." Geez. We didn’t think it was that
bad. 

He
Said/She Said
The voice emanating from your computer or car in the future is more likely
to sound like your father than your girlfriend. In a story by Anne Eisenberg of The
New York Times, researchers acknowledge that gender stereotypes and cultural
expectations play a large role in determining the types of voices companies are
likely to incorporate. 

"Our studies show that directions from a
female voice are perceived as less accurate than those from a male voice, even
when the voices are reading the exact same directions. Deepness helps, too. It
implies size, height and authority. Deeper voices are more credible," said Dr.Clifford Nass,
a Stanford University professor who has studied how people react to
voices. 

Caroline Henton, a researcher for Tellme Networks
counters that listener’s prejudices should be contested rather than accepted. "This is really a question of listeners
equating machines with human beings who are being understood to perform servile
functions," she said. "To support that without questioning is
essentially to uphold the bastion of male social power." 

Plus: A
graduate student at the University of Indiana sees gender stereotypes being
reinforced on TV. Xiaoquan "Kevin" Zhao studied 55 hours of dramas and
comedies on the four networks, seeking to determine how characters spoke to each
other. According to Marc D. Allen of The Indianapolis Star, "Zhao
counted the number of times characters interrupted and corrected each other and
found that men interrupted far more often than women. They also were interrupted
more than women. Men tended to interrupt more to give their opinions; women to
offer facts." 

"My data suggest that while
women might be put into the same (job) positions as men (on TV), they’re not
really put into that kind of power because they’re not expressing
themselves," Zhao said. "In working situations, men still tend to be
dominant. Women are more dominant in a social setting."

"I think the representation of
reality in television is a very important thing to look at," he said.
"… The viewers, by observing those television characters, can construct
their perception of reality. They would think: ‘OK, that’s the way men usually
speak. Men are assertive. They are constantly interrupting others.’ "

But
What About The Honeymoon?
Conservative radio host Dennis Praeger argues in The National Review that
the reason single women vote Democrat is because the they view the government as a
"surrogate husband." "Most women have a primal desire to be
protected …" writes Praeger. "Whether because of evolution,
socialization, nature, divine design, or an amalgam of all of these, women have
a powerful need to feel secure (the shift of American priorities from liberty to
security can be regarded as one example of the feminization of American
society). For the vast majority of women in history this need was met through
marriage. That is why almost no woman marries ‘down.’" 

Praeger probably doesn’t think highly of Samantha, the unabashedly sexual
character on HBO’s Sex and the City. New York magazine’s cover
story, "Single in the City" features an
interview with the actress Kim Cattrall who plays Samantha. "Never has
a woman character so brazenly, and unapologetically, taken the world quite
literally by the balls, gotten what she wants on a nightly basis, and not been
stabbed to death or otherwise tortured for it," writes Lisa Depaulo. A
writer for the show adds: "I think this type of woman is so fresh that the
only way people can relate to her is to pretend she’s a man." The issue
also includes a
night on the town with an upscale matchmaker who specializes in finding
"glamorous, smart, skinny, feminine, soft-spoken women" for
high-paying clients.

Draft
Bartlet
TV critics are having a difficult time avoiding making comparisons between
Josiah Bartlet, the straight-shooting, family-minded, liberal president played
by Martin Sheen, and the current presidential race. "This election year, life should imitate art, with all candidates
taking cues from the brilliant strategists of The West Wing.
Bartlet’s fictitious administration engages people because it is unabashedly
idealistic. It bulldozes over smokescreen issues to tackle what matters. And
most importantly, it does not underestimate the American public," writes
Kristin Tillotson of the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

"It’s a bit too risky - in a race this close, anyway - for a real presidential candidate to admit to
being influenced by such a trifle as a TV drama. Still, I couldn’t help thinking
that Gore’s forthright, no-strings apology in the second debate for getting some
facts wrong in the first seemed a lot like something Josiah Bartlet would do,"
she adds. Now there’s wishful thinking. 

In another wishful
piece, Joyce Millman of Salon writes: "With
the presidential election three weeks away, it’s clear that America has finally
decided that the best man for the job is … a TV character." Calling
Bartlet the "POTUS with the mostest," Milman says the show has caught
on with viewers because it is "an optimistic show. It insists that
politicians don’t have to be jaded or spineless, and that it’s not futile for
people to get involved in politics or work for a cause." And, it’s got
great acting.  

Plus: The
West Wing: Leader of the Free World (Free TV, That Is) from The New
York Times

Briefly Noted: 
Chicago
Alderman Walter Burnett Jr., who served two years for armed robbery, teams
up with a rap artist to tell his story. The song is appropriately titled "A
Changed Man." (from Chicago Tribune)
Rage
Against the Machine singer Zack de la Rocha has called it quits. The band’s
”decision making process has completely failed,” he said in a statement. ”It
is no longer meeting the aspirations of all four of us collectively as a band,
and from my perspective, has undermined our artistic and political ideal."
Lori Reese of Entertainment Weekly suggests Ralph Nader as a replacement.

 - Christine Cupaiuolo

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- Oct. 13  |  Sept.
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|  Sept.
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 Sept.
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PopPolitics Weblog
a weekly roundup of pop culture and
politics in the news

Quote of the Week:
"The point is, politics and entertainment - especially TV - are
increasingly mixed. Or hasn’t anyone else noticed Gore’s makeup job?" 
Bill Goodykoontz 
source: The
Arizona Republic (Oct. 11)

You
Know You’ve Arrived When ... 
Will & Grace moved into the coveted Thursday 9 p.m. slot on NBC this
week, the position once held by Seinfeld. Virginia Rohan of the Bergen
Record writes, "Will & Grace has become such an industry
darling that the networks are scrambling to develop gay sitcoms. More amazing is
the reason for industry response: American TV viewers, seemingly ahead of
society as a whole, have accepted the homosexuality of witty lawyer Will Truman
(Eric McCormack) and his over-the-top pal Jack." 

Dick Cheney and Joe Lieberman surprised viewers
during the vice
presidential debate when both said they were rethinking their views about
gay marriage and struggling with how to provide equal rights for gays and
lesbians. Conservatives, naturally, were displeased with Cheney’s comments,
particularly when he said, "I think the fact of the matter of course is
that matters regulated by the states — I think different states are likely to
come to different conclusions and that’s appropriate."  

During the second
presidential debate, George W. Bush made it clear he is against same-sex
marriage. Al Gore (naturally) agreed, then added: "But I think that we
should find a way to allow some kind of civic unions, and I basically agree with
Dick Cheney and Joe Lieberman. And I think the three of us have one view, and
the governor has another view."

In Vermont, Patrick Buchanan visited the farm where the “Take Back Vermont” movement (a movement to put more decision-making power into the hands of people) began and spoke against the state’s civil union law. Buchanan said Vermont was the scene of a “major skirmish” in a “cultural war going on for the soul of this country,” reports David Gram of the Associated Press.
Meanwhile, the Chicago Tribune reports that since the law took effect July 1, Vermont has granted 809 civil union licenses, 600 of which have gone to out-of-state residents.

Plus: Radio and television talk show host Dr.
Laura Schlessinger apologized, sort of, in a full-page advertisement.
Schlessinger, who has previously condemned the lifestyle of gays and lesbians,
conceded that "in talking about gays and lesbians, some of my words were
poorly chosen."

Home
Is Where The Rap Is
Is gangsta rap getting family friendly? The Washington Post asks that
question in a story about rap artists converging on Washington for the Million
Family March. "It’s cool to talk about family, or it’s much cooler
now," says Russell Simmons, the one-man hip-hop conglomerate and co-founder
of Def Jam Records. "I’m hopeful that this event will make it even
cooler." Snoop Dog, Jay-Z, DMX and Wu-Tang Clan are all expected to attend.
"This outbreak of domesticity isn’t that surprising. Many of these
performers are married and have kids, of course, and occasionally they rap about
the joys of child-rearing and abiding love," writes David Segal. 

Do(ug)h!
Tom Maurstad of The Dallas Morning News celebrates The Simpsons‘
10th anniversary noting that the show is both "television as its coolest
and most cutting-edge" and "television at its most commercial and
exploited." Not that that’s necessarily a bad thing, since the commercials,
promotions and corporate tie-ins have often been as funny as the show. "In
today’s consumer culture, selling out is no longer a sin. In fact, selling out
is just fine. It’s even good ” the whole point, really. The only sin is in
selling out stupidly or without any style. You see this inside-outing of the old
cultural order, the commercializing of cool, all over the media map ” the
transformation of the Internet into a dot.com marketplace, for instance. But as
with so many pop culture trends, television is ground zero," writes
Maurstad.

It’s
A Small World After All
Interracial and multi-ethnic couples are showing up in more commercials, a
trend that’s likely to increase when data from the 2000 census — the first to
allow people to list more than one racial or ethnic origin — is released two
years from now. "The trend has long been reflected in movies and more
recently in TV shows. Interracial romance has been portrayed as open-minded in Guess
Who’s Coming to Dinner?, tortured in ER, hip in Ally McBeal,
and dangerous in The West Wing," writes Thomas Ginsberg of The
Philadelphia Inquirer. "But advertisements bring the image to a new
level of acceptance by portraying interracial couples as consumers similar to
anybody else - untroubled by anything other than thirst, hunger, dirty clothes,
clunky cars."

Get
Your Motor Running 
Is there anything worse than being viewed as a Chevy station wagon? That,
apparently, is Gore’s fate, as male voters link the vice president to cars that
are "safe and kind of boxy" (think Ford Taurus and Volvos) while Bush
is viewed as a Maserati or Mustang convertible, according to Garry South, the
chief political aide for California Gov. Gray Davis, a Democrat. Todd S. Purdum
of The New York Times writes that while both candidates are pitching
themselves to women voters by showing off their sensitive sides on shows like Oprah,
Bush’s masculinity is still safely intact; Gore is trailing Bush among male
voters by up to 22 points, according to one national poll.

While we’re on the subject of gender, a Harvard psychiatry professor and two
colleagues who studied why
men are so much more concerned about their bodies than they were 50 years
ago put forth this hypothesis: threatened masculinity. "As women have
entered the work force and become heads of families, men have had to relinquish
their traditional roles as fathers, soldiers and breadwinners, the authors
speculated, which leaves their bodies as the only way to demonstrate their
masculinity," Emily Eakin writes in The New York Times. The findings
have been published in "The Adonis Complex: The Secret Crisis of Male Body
Obsession" (Free Press). One interesting point: the number of ads showing
men shedding their clothes in Glamour and Cosmopolitan jumped from
less than 5 percent in 1950 to as much as 35 percent in the 90’s. The percentage
of undressed females didn’t change.

And this commercial just heard on TV: "Amstel
Light — Think of it as the light beer that’s not in touch with its feminine
side."

Here She Is … Again
In a tribute to the annual Miss America contest, we look at several stories
about this year’s pageant.
  
Miss
America is Back Atop the Pedestal Gwen Florio of the Houston Chronicle
wonders why young women are still apt to put a premium on good looks. "Wait
a minute — female candidates are winning Senate seats, women’s soccer teams are
filling stadiums, and a beauty queen is a role model?" writes Florio, who
refers to post-feminist drive for beauty as the "I’m smart and a babe
phenomenon," ala Ally McBeal.

Checking
Out the Competition Megan Rosenfeld of the Washington Post relates an
amusing tale of her trip to Atlantic City  — with her teenager daughter –
to watch the preliminary rounds and interview the contestants. "Miss
Florida, one of the two (baton) twirlers here, says there is a move on to make
it an Olympic sport. And I say, more power to them. She learned twirling from
her mother, and on the Fourth of July the two of them flip flaming batons in
their driveway. Wow! ‘Cool,’ says my daughter. But she says it in a way that
means she’s trying to be polite. She is not as admiring of baton-twirling as I
am," writes Rosenfeld.

Missed
New York And for an up-close look at beauty pageants, Salon turned to
Julie Pham, who competed in the Miss New York pageant but blew her chances when
she took the advice "They’re looking for authenticity this year" to
heart, and revealed to the judges that she directed a documentary about college
students who fund their education through prostitution. The clincher?
"Although it seems unlikely, because they are polar institutions, I noticed
a parallel between escort agencies and beauty pageants — girls financing their
education by capitalizing on their feminine potential as women." Pham lost
to a "statuesque health fanatic with the Fitness for Kids platform."

 - Christine Cupaiuolo

Read previous weblogs

Sept.
23 - Sept. 29  |  Sept.
16 - Sept. 22  |
Sept.
9 - Sept. 15 |
Sept.
2 - Sept. 8 |
Aug.
27-Sept. 1

PopPolitics Weblog
a weekly roundup of pop culture and
politics in the news

Quote of the Week:
”I’m not registered with any major political party. I’m not a Republican and I
vote." — David Letterman, clarifying a description of his voting
record printed in The
New York Times Magazine. 
source: The Late Show with David Letterman (Sept. 26)

So Many Stories, So Little Ratings
With Big Brother ending tonight, we’d be remiss if we didn’t highlight some of the articles in the
press this week concerning the impact of the show. Here with the convergence
angle — David Kronke of the Los Angeles Daily News says Big Brother "changed
the way reality television and new media can interact," because Internet
viewers influenced story lines and altered the dynamics of the house. He quotes Robert
Thompson, head of Syracuse University’s Center for the Study of Popular
Television, who says Big Brother will ultimately be considered more important than
Survivor. “In the past, someone made it, they showed it to us, we watched. Now
they can create programs that are jumping-off points, that can become a
lifestyle. You watch the show, go to the Internet and follow it some more, and
use the Internet to plot and become part of it. It takes control from out of the
hands of the people making the show and into the hands of who knows who.” 

Caryn James of The New York Times on the
biggest difference between the American version of Big Brother and the versions
in other countries: "bland niceness. "Other
countries’ contestants sniped at one another, had sex, created drama,"
writes James. "The
Americans acted as if they were in some celibate, selfless commune, and just
happened to be wearing body mikes. They are walking, talking symbols of the
sensitive, Oprah-ization of American culture."

And, finally, Bill Wyman of Salon dissects
CBS’s ratings failure with a
thorough look
at what went wrong — from the casting to the noisy cameras to the
"vacuous" Julie Chen. Wyman concludes: "Maybe reality TV is an
oxymoron. Maybe humans aren’t set up, at this point in their development, to be
watched." 

As
Long As It Doesn’t Cost As Much As Whitewater
Despite all the grumbling and posturing, don’t expect much from
Congress’ displeasure with Hollywood, thanks in large part to the First Amendment and campaign donations.
"[W]hat is likely to come out of Congress this year is the same thing it
has produced almost every other time the evils of popular culture have become a
political issue. Whether the entertainment in question was peep shows (turn of
the 20th century) or gangster movies (1930’s) or comic books (1950’s) or disco
(1970’s), the result was always a lot of hot air and no consequential
legislation," David E. Rosenbaum writes in The New York
Times. 

See also: Hollywood
executives testifying in Washington; Parents
think politicians should focus on the economy and healthcare, not what is or
isn’t acceptable viewing for children
Plus: Noel Holston of the Star Tribune replays
a dialogue from the television show Action between a movie mogul and
a Senate panel

Language:
Past
and Present 
Hear anyone exclaim, "That’s so gay!" recently? Writing in Salon,
Nancy Updike charts the resurgence of the word "gay" — back in use on
school playgrounds and in gay pride parades — and gives examples of its
multiple usages, from homophobia to sheer delight. It’s a great piece, sorry we
missed it when it first ran two weeks ago.  

Here’s a preview to make up for it: All the
stories aren’t online yet, but keep checking Entertainment Weekly for
more from their Gay Hollywood 2000 report. The Oct. 6 edition of the mag
features more than half a dozen articles, including "Is Your TV Set Gay?
From Ellen to Will and Grace, How Television Led a Cultural
Revolution" and a list of 101 gay actors, directors, musicians and others.
What you will find online is a piece by EW managing editor Mark Harris
who chides
those who decided to remain in the closet.

Plus: Plato’s musings on homoerotic love
and other naughty language are
no longer kept out of the Loeb Classical Library series on Greek and Roman
literature (The New York Times)

Moms
With Attitude
Ellen Gray of the Philadelphia Daily News
writes that it took 30 years of watching television before she saw a mother
she recognized: Roseanne. "Realism, or her increasing removal from it,
would eventually render Roseanne’s sitcom persona unrecognizable, but nothing
will ever erase the first, delicious shock of seeing a TV character whose
sense of self wasn’t irreparably damaged by childbirth," writes Gray. Her
list of other characters who push TV’s definitions of mothers includes: Marie
Romano of Everybody Loves Raymond, Maxine Gray of Judging Amy,
Lois of Malcolm in the Middle, and Livia and Carmela Soprano of,
naturally, The Sopranos.  

Hear
Me Roar
While there’s no shortage of female-athlete ogling occurring at the
Olympics, and female gymnasts are still scary to watch, "[C]onventional
definitions of female athletes have expanded as women excel in traditional
sports while also testing themselves in 23 events added this year," Rachel
Alexander and Liz Clarke write in the Washington Post. With women now
competing in events such as pole vaulting and weight lifting, a new image of the
female athlete has emerged. "[L]ittle girls all across the country are
seeing a body type that usually our culture says they shouldn’t aspire to but
now is being held up as that of a role model," said sports sociologist
Richard Lapchick, director of the Northeastern University Center for the Study
of Sports in Society. (Couldn’t they have found an expert with a different last
name?)

Plus: In his review
of the new film, Girlfight, A.O. Scott of The New York Times
writes: "In recent years, athletes like Venus Williams, Rebecca Lobo and
Marion Jones have given the world a new, intoxicating image of female beauty
rooted in power and confidence as well as grace. Ms. Rodriguez is the first
movie star ” and she is, without question, a movie star ” to embody this new
ideal." 

** The Women’s Museum: An Institute
for the Future opened
this week in Dallas covering everyone from Lucille Ball to Fanny Lou Hamer to Althea Gibson

Sept.
16 - Sept. 22  | Sept.
9 - Sept. 15 |
Sept.
2 - Sept. 8 |
Aug.
27-Sept. 1

PopPolitics Weblog
a weekly roundup of pop culture and
politics in the news

Quote of the Week:
”I’m for any way that isn’t demeaning that gets politics into the popular
culture. I think we can learn more about a candidate in an hour on Oprah
than during an angry press conference.” — Craig Crawford, editor of The
Hotline political newsletter 
source: The
Boston Globe (Sept. 21)

Mind
Over Matter 
Brian Lowry of the Los Angeles Times
takes issue with a survey about objectionable television programming that was
touted by a group of advertisers who support family-friendly programming.
"Without diminishing the findings of the study, having advertisers carry on
about objectionable TV content is rather laughable, given that advertising has
always played an influential role regarding content on broadcast television and
that commercials are often as racy as anything else you’re apt to see in prime
time," Lowry writes, adding that ideas, not racy content, are more likely to scare off advertisers.

"What advertisers fear, rather, are ideas and issues, especially those
likely to stoke the fires of controversy," says Lowry. "Bring up abortion –
even without taking a position on the matter — and advertisers head for the
hills. Religion, in any substantive way, can be equally dicey … The irony is
that TV’s best programs  — The Practice, Law & Order, The
West Wing, etc. — do explore substantive issues, and many advertisers are
more uncomfortable with that than with sexual innuendo in the dopiest sitcoms or
karate kicks on Xena: Warrior Princess and Walker, Texas Ranger."

Plus: Dems
court Hollywood at fundraiser

Couch
Potatoes Introduced To Candidates
George W. Bush kicked off the week on The Oprah Winfrey Show (see story
and picture in The Washington Post) and ended with Regis Philbin, who
shared hosting duties that day with Sue the truck driver of Survivor
fame. Al Gore, who has already done Oprah and Late Show with David
Letterman, sat with Jay Leno. Sen. Joe Lieberman has visited The Daily
Show and crooned ”My Way” on Late Night With Conan O’Brien. Is there
an end in sight?

Coming Up – The cover story of the Sept. 24 edition of New
York Times Magazine judges the impact of Leno and Letterman on the election.
 

Scary
Ad
NBC banned a Nike ad featuring Olympic runner Suzy Favor Hamilton leaving a
chain saw-wielding bad guy in the dust followed by Nike’s Olympic Slogan:
"Why sport? You’ll live longer." The ad, a take-off of Friday the
13th flicks, generated complaints from viewers who objected to "the
scary and violent content" of the commercial, Paul Farhi writes in the Washington
Post. Lisa Schmeiser of teevee.net thinks the ad’s detractors should
be running
toward a sense of humor. "This spot is great," writes
Schmeiser, "chick athletes are being treated as actual jocks, with handy
physical skills." ESPN is running the same ad without controversy.

Plus: View
the banned Nike ad at AdCritic.com

Hollywood
(and U.S.) Still Divided
One year after the NAACP made a fuss over the lack
of representation of minorities on television, little progress has been made. "Hollywood
has a pervasive attitude problem," Bernard Anderson, an assistant secretary
at the U.S. Department of Labor, said during the 30th
annual Congressional Black Caucus
Foundation’s legislative conference. A study
by the Writers Guild of America found that 92 percent of all black writers are
confined to black sitcoms, most of which appear on the WB and UPN Networks.
"NAACP President Kwesi Mfume blamed not only the Hollywood studios for the
lack of minority faces on television and behind the camera, but also advertisers
and talent agencies for promulgating the conventional wisdom that black shows
won’t sell," writes Frank Ahrens of the Washington Post.

Plus: Eric Deggans, a TV critic for the St. Petersburg Times, compares
the majority of black-centered television shows with shopping in his old
neighborhood supermarket - in both cases, the options are terrible, but there
are few alternatives. "Who in their
right mind would sit through a drama as awkward as City of Angels or a
comedy as stale as The Parkers if they weren’t starved for the sight of
black folks on television?" 

A new
federal study released Thursday shows racism is still at large in the U.S.,
and it is visible in the differences between blacks and whites in income,
incarceration rates and access to education and healthcare — AP report in Salon.
Read
the report published by the State Department and the Department of Justice

"Mutual
Admiration Society"
One can only guess what Lieberman thinks of Frank Zappa’s "Catholic
Girls," but Chris Mooney of The American Prospect
writes that Zappa’s widow is a "fervent Gore supporter and a top
Democratic Party donor," despite the fact that Zappa labeled Tipper Gore a
"cultural terrorist" in the mid-1980s during the brouhaha over music
lyrics. In fact, Gail Zappa, who describes her relationship with the Gores as a
"mutual admiration society," says any antagonism has been overstated. 

Don’t
Ask, Don’t Laugh
Although NBC’s Will
and Grace, one of the few shows on network television to feature gay
characters in major roles, won an Emmy on Sunday for "outstanding comedy
series," the military still doesn’t find much humor in homosexuality –
though there are signs it’s lightening up. An Army panel ruled earlier this week that
Arizona State Rep. Steve May (R), an Army reservist who commented on the floor
of the Arizona Legislature on a bill that would have prohibited government
benefits for employees’ gay partners, should be given an honorable discharge for
revealing that he is gay. Many other members of the military who have been
investigated for violating the "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell" policy have
received dishonorable discharges. May, however, plans on appealing the decision;
he wants the Army to allow him to be retained, according to Reuters. The
military’s findings on May’s case can be viewed here.

Plus: The York Daily Record (Pa.) published a wedding announcement
last week for a male homosexual couple. Not surprisingly, it received numerous
letters and phone calls in protest. An
e-mail exchange between one irate reader and the newspaper’s
publisher/editor was posted on the paper’s site. 

Counting
For Your Supper
Advertising has penetrated children’s books in the form of familiar looking
characters — Cheerios, Froot Loops and M & M’s. Counting books featuring
brand name snacks are a big hit with toddlers, and with some teachers and
parents who think it’s a great way to get kids interested in, um, words. "We
love them. You hate to always use food, but it is such a hit with the kids
because they can count them and then it is so rewarding for them to eat
them." Judy Kelley, a kindergarten teacher, tells
The New York Times‘ David D. Kirkpatrick. 

Not surprisingly, Kellogg officials think it’s a brilliant match. "It
is a great way to get the Froot Loops brand equity into a different place, where
normally you don’t get exposure ” taking it from the cereal aisle and into
another area like learning," said Meghan Parkhurst, a spokeswoman for
Kellogg. The teacher who came up with the
idea is more blunt: "They (candy and cereal makers) can’t usually get to
the books parents read their kids and they can’t get to advertise in schools.
You can’t come in and blast the kids with advertising in those places, and these
books are actually getting the exact target age group."

There are, of  course, some critics who think the idea smacks of, well,
Sugar Smacks. "Some parents, educators and pediatricians object that the
books will engrave snack-food brands in toddlers impressionable minds, hook them
on junk food, and lead to eating problems later in life," Kirkpatrick
writes. 

- Christine Cupaiuolo

PopPolitics Weblog
a weekly roundup of pop culture and
politics in the news

Quote of the Week:
"Entertainment is just that - entertainment. Politics should be about the
issues." 
– Rock the Vote’s Mario Velasquez
source: Wired
News Entertainment Empire Fights Back (Sept. 13)