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