Author Archives: Karina

Journalism & Ethics

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As controversy rages over News International’s investigative reporting techniques, the accountability of journalists and editors is being scrutinised across the board. A self-righteous moral panic is in full swing, with calls for a new Press Complaints Commission, and tighter controls for journalists – it’s ironic that many of these calls are coming from journalists themselves.

Whilst the corporate culture at News International appears to have condoned some very shady practices, investigative journalism by nature is not about playing by a rule book. Journalists on the trail of a story need to get information that others do not want them to get. If your interviewee answers questions with a polite “No Comment”, what are you going to do? Go on to the next story, or keep probing, using any means at your disposal? Most journalists are committed to the latter course of action, which begs the question, where do you draw the line?

It seems the British public draw the line somewhere between hacking Royal phones and deleting the voicemails of a murdered teenage girl. But why is the former any less reprehensible than the latter? In The Independent, Dominic Lawson outlines some previous responses to phone hacking stories:

Thus when the Sunday People bugged the flat in which the Tory Cabinet Minister David Mellor was conducting an affair with Antonia de Sancha, nobody would have listened if Mellor had complained about being bugged, because we were all too busy enjoying his humiliation. The Royal Family, even more than libidinous politicians, were the principal targets of the red-top phone-tappers. Thus in 1992 the public were regaled with the so-called Squidgygate tapes, Diana Princess of Wales’s recorded conversations with her friend James Gilbey – apparently the result of the tapping of Diana’s landline. Within weeks the same public feasted avidly on the bugged night-time telephone conversation between the Prince of Wales and his mistress Camilla Parker-Bowles; millions rang a telephone line set up by the Sun, to hear the tape played on a continual loop.

Lawson argues that if there were no public appetite for “kiss-and-tell” stories, newspapers wouldn’t print them, and journalists wouldn’t be under such pressure to obtain salacious details by fair means or foul. However, social comparison is an intrinsic part of our psyche: it’s easy to see the appeal of downward comparison (gaining satisfaction from learning about those whose problems are worse than our own), but upward comparison (reading about the lives of the rich, famous and beautiful) can be a bitter pill to swallow. This is where newspaper exclusives come in. Upward comparison becomes downward comparison at the first whiff of scandal (“she may be rich, beautiful and famous but her husband’s been boffing the nanny”), which makes people more content with their place in the social order. The masses are less likely to protest at the unequal distribution of wealth, inequitable tax laws, and the hegemonic dominance of certain body types, if they are led to believe that wealth and status always has its dark side (hence those “secret misery of Angelina/Jennifer/Kim/Oprah” stories that grace magazine covers every week). Social comparison, as curated by scandal sheets like the News of The World, helps reinforce social structures. This is why politicians cosy up to journalists and newspaper proprietors; they all want the same thing thing, which is to reinforce the status quo.

Tabloid newspapers have traditionally represented themselves as ‘the voice of the people’. In The Guardian, George Monbiot points out that this is simply not the case:

The papers cannot announce that their purpose is to ventriloquise the concerns of multimillionaires; they must present themselves as the voice of the people. The Sun, the Mail and the Express claim to represent the interests of the working man and woman. These interests turn out to be identical to those of the men who own the papers.

So the rightwing papers run endless exposures of benefit cheats, yet say scarcely a word about the corporate tax cheats. They savage the trade unions and excoriate the BBC. They lambast the regulations that restrain corporate power. They school us in the extrinsic values – the worship of power, money, image and fame – which advertisers love but which make this a shallower, more selfish country. Most of them deceive their readers about the causes of climate change. These are not the obsessions of working people. They are the obsessions thrust upon them by the multimillionaires who own these papers.

Monbiot calls for a code of ethics that would make journalists more conscious that they have a role to play outside the circles of power, a kind of Hippocratic oath:

Our primary task is to hold power to account. We will prioritise those stories and issues which expose the interests of power. We will be wary of the relationships we form with the rich and powerful, and ensure that we don’t become embedded in their society. We will not curry favour with politicians, businesses or other dominant groups by withholding scrutiny of their affairs, or twisting a story to suit their interests.

“We will stand up to the interests of the businesses we work for, and the advertisers which fund them. We will never take money for promulgating a particular opinion, and we will resist attempts to oblige us to adopt one.

“We will recognise and understand the power we wield and how it originates. We will challenge ourselves and our perception of the world as much as we challenge other people. When we turn out to be wrong, we will say so.”

While these are noble sentiments, it remains to be seen whether they can fly in an increasingly fragmented electronic media, driven by a 24/7 need to get hits from readers, rather than selling copies to a loyal readership at the newsstand. Nonetheless, this past week has proved above all else that newspapers still have an important function to fulfill in our society, especially when they move beyond simply reporting stories about the elite, and move towards commenting on and condemning them. Thomas Jefferson famously said “No government ought to be without censors & where the press is free, no one ever will”. The New York Times suggests that the News Of The World’s demise may have a ripple effect on the rather moribund version of democracy currently active in the UK.

In truth, a kind of British Spring is under way, now that the News Corporation’s tidy system of punishment and reward has crumbled. Members of Parliament, no longer fearful of retribution in Mr. Murdoch’s tabloids, are speaking their minds and giving voice to the anger of their constituents. Meanwhile, social media has roamed wild and free across the story, punching a hole in the tiny clubhouse that had been running the country. Democracy, aided by sunlight, has broken out in Britain.

We Got The Phone Hacking We Wanted – The Independent
This media is corrupt – we need a Hippocratic oath for journalists – The Guardian
A Tabloid Shame, Exposed By Earnest Rivals – New York Times

Rihanna: moral panic poster child?

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RihannaRihanna’s new music video release, Man Down, coincides with calls in the UK for a music video rating system to protect younger viewers from adult content. In the opening sequence of the video she shoots a man – who is later revealed to be her attacker – in the street. Given that this comes hot-on-the-heels of the controversy surrounding the sexual content of her last video, S&M, the cumulative outcome is that Rihanna becomes the poster child for this latest moral panic about media effects, whether she likes it or not.

We can see all three formal stages of a moral panic illustrated nicely here.

1. Occurrence and signification

Rihanna is a female pop star who goes on the record as saying she suffered abuse as a child. In 2009, she was also involved in a domestic violence situation with then-boyfriend Chris Brown, for which he was sentenced to five years probation; the drama of the assault, arrest and sentencing are all played out in the public eye. Therefore, when she releases a series of videos that speak to the topics of sex and violence (Love The Way You Lie, S&M, Man Down), the media exploit the personal angle, and devote many column inches to exploring the connection between Rihanna’s life and her songs. Rihanna’s raunchy performance on The X Factor in December 2010 is the subject of several complaints to OfCom, garnering further headlines. Rihanna’s star persona is therefore a combination of elements, from the sexy projections in her performances, to the vulnerability she displays in her very public personal life. She is both victim and temptress: news outlets can use her any way they want.

2. Wider Social Implications (fanning the flames)

Rihanna’s videos coincide with growing fears about the over-sexualisation of children. This fear derives from advertising, clothing, books, TV, movies and music aimed at pre-teens. In April 2011, Reg Bailey, head of the Mothers Union (a Christian group) in the UK claims that parents are

“struggling against the slow creep of an increasingly commercial and sexualised culture and behaviour, which they say prevents them from parenting the way they want…[They have] little faith in regulators or businesses taking their concerns seriously”

BBC News (among other outlets) reports:

A survey carried out for the review suggested that almost nine out of 10 UK parents thought children were having to grow up too early.

About half of the 1,000 parents questioned were unhappy with what was shown on television before the current “watershed” of 2100.

A majority of parents of five to 16-year-olds said music videos and a “celebrity culture” were encouraging children to act older than they were.

Rihanna’s image and videos are used to illustrate news stories about the moral dangers of overly sexualised pop music (which has been perceived as a problem since the jazz age), although there is no evidence that her output has a particular impact upon young minds.

3. Social Controls

Thanks to the work and recommendations of Reg Bailey and the Mothers Union, an official government policy is to give music video broadcasters eighteen months to come up with a voluntary code that will rate music videos on a content basis and restrict broadcast times accordingly. This coincides with record label boss Richard Russell’s proclamation that Adele’s success is based on her specifically non-outrageous, non-sexual image, which suggests that public opinion is no longer in favor of sexy female popstars like Rihanna.

Music videos are only a small component of the “wallpaper” of supposedly dangerous images surrounding children, but they are one of the few areas of the media that remain unregulated – therefore they make an appropriate target for social control. News stories imply the tide is turning against explicitly sexual and violent music videos, and vulnerable 5-16 year olds will no longer be able to watch them on TV before 9pm. Phew! Problem solved, moral panic over.

However, BBC News duly notes :

Campaigners will scrutinise the full recommendations when they are published to see how effective they might be in the digital age, when most young people view music videos online and on their telephones.

And, on June 2, a bemused Rihanna, who is only making pop music to entertain people the best way she knows how, tweets:

I’m a 23 year old rockstar with NO KIDS! What’s up with everybody wantin me to be a parent? I’m just a girl, I can only be your/our voice!

Rihanna Defends ‘Man Down – ABC News
Music Videos Need Age Rating – BBC
Music Videos Face Crackdown Over Sexualised Content– The Guardian
Watchdog sniffs Rihanna’s ‘gently thrusting buttocks’ – The Register
Rihanna’s Twitter Feed

History Repeats Itself

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3d spectaclesIt seems the latest 3-D movie boom is over, and with it the boost to box office receipts that Hollywood was counting on to bolster their income against falling video rentals and DVD sales. The same rejection of 3-D happened the first time the technology was introduced in the 1950s, and again with the brief flowering of 3-D in the 1980s, with audiences getting tired of wearing the glasses (or not being able to wear them if you’re colour blind), and paying extra for tickets for 3-D movies.

In 2011, audiences have started to buy tickets for “flat” (or 2-D) versions of the big movies being released in 3-D. Whether this is because they baulk at the price of tickets (which can be anything up to $20), or because they prefer watching movies with a traditional depth of field is not known. However, the numbers are clear:

Ripples of fear spread across Hollywood last week after “Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides,” which cost Walt Disney Studios an estimated $400 million to make and market, did poor 3-D business in North America. While event movies have typically done 60 percent of their business in 3-D, “Stranger Tides” sold just 47 percent in 3-D. “The American consumer is rejecting 3-D,” Richard Greenfield, an analyst at the financial services company BTIG, wrote of the “Stranger Tides” results.

One movie does not make a trend, but the Memorial Day weekend did not give studio chiefs much comfort in the 3-D department. “Kung Fu Panda 2,” a Paramount Pictures release of a DreamWorks Animation film, sold $53.8 million in tickets from Thursday to Sunday, a soft total, and 3-D was 45 percent of the business, according to Paramount.

3-D (or stereo vision) has been around since 1894, so it’s not going to disappear anytime soon. However, as happened in the 1950s and the 1980s, many of the movies currently being shot in 3-D may only ever see a 2-D theatrical release. Will we lose a classic 3-D experience because of this? Hitchcock shot Dial M For Murder in 3-D in 1954, and included some sophisticated and innovative use of the technology, especially in the scenes with Grace Kelly wielding a pair of scissors that bring a whole new level of tension to the narrative. Unfortunately, this came at the end of the 3-D boom, and the move was eventually released as 2-D (although there are occasional screenings held of rare prints of the 3-D version).

Will the studios keep pushing 3-D onto audiences? This time, 3-D TV has a part to play, as those who have invested in 3-D sets will demand content to justify their investment. However, the signs are that 3-D 2010s style is just as much of a short-lived gimmick as its predecessors, until the next Avatar comes round to spark interest in the format once more.

3-D Starts to FIzzle, and Hollywood Frets – New York Times
A history of 3-D cinema – The Guardian

Angels & Whores

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AdeleAfter Adele topped the Guardian‘s Music Power 100, her label boss, Richard Russell, attributed her success to the focus on her voice rather than her looks, which, he believes, puts her in stark contrast to other female pop artistes.

“At the level it is at now, it is radical,” he said. “It is clearly about the music and the talent and the things it is meant to be about. I think there has been a certain amount of confusion, and it’s resulting in garbage being sold and marketing with little real value to it. I think Adele is a good thing to be happening.”

That a strong female performer is gaining success without bowing to pressure to conform to a certain body type or being over-sexualised, is “unbelievable”, he said.

“It’s just so boring, crass and unoriginal,” he said, adding that the problem goes “way beyond” the music industry.

While it is good to see diversity, and to think that a talent like Adele’s can find an audience without being dressed up in a sequinned corset, Russell’s remarks reek of old-school patriarchy. He describes watching female popstars on MTV as “faux-porn” and says it made him feel “a bit queasy”. This suggests he is unnerved by the idea that women might feel empowered by and even enjoy raw sex, the kind that has had the ties to love, romance, marriage or reproduction stripped away. The kind of random, no-strings-attached sex that men have been allowed to enjoy (and discuss) for centuries.

Flamboyant sexuality has been part of pop music from the very beginning; lyrics have always contained innuendo and slang references to the sex act (rock ‘n’ roll being just one). From Elvis Presley’s hips to Mick Jagger’s lips, the defining moments of male pop artistry have always been about celebrating sex appeal. If you’ve got it, flaunt it, whether you’re a glam rocker stripping down onstage to reveal a chiselled torso circa 1976 or hip-hopper humping air in a 2011 music video. However, these displays of male sexuality don’t tend to be critiqued as “faux-porn” or make anyone feel sick.

Russell’s righteous indignation suggests that he has missed the point. Pop music is pretty much the only area where a female performer can take control of her sexuality and use it to communicate a message, or spark a discussion. Against a backdrop of abstinence-only sex education, and generally repressive attitudes towards reproductive rights, pop music might offer the only open forum in which to debate the anomalies of the human sexual spectrum. Rihanna’s recent embrace of S&M allowed her to discuss her past experiences of abuse, and explain how playing a specific role in the bedroom allowed her to overcome that. Lady Gaga has used her Little Monsters tour as a platform for discussing the problems faced by LGBT individuals.

By positioning Adele as a Good Girl, one who is more talented and more deserving of acclaim because she diminishes her sexuality, Russell is tarring Lady Gaga, Rihanna, Katy Perry et al with the Bad Girl brush, making the judgment that because they rock’n’ roll as part of their act, they are of less value as performers. The suggestion is that because Adele conforms to Russell’s idea of propriety (she sings, nicely, and doesn’t do anything that would scare a man or make him throw up), she should be rewarded more than the out-of-control Bad Girls. This is a division old as time, when Lilith (so ancient Jewish legend goes) was cast out of Paradise (and wiped from the orthodox version of the creation myth) for insisting on being on top during sex. It seems the Angel/Whore dialectic, that tired Victorian trope, is being perpetuated in today’s pop music.

Adele Can Change How Music Industry Markets Female Acts – Guardian
Female Sexuality Is Not A Pandora’s Box – Stephanie Vega

How Does A TV Pilot Get Picked To Go To Series?

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It’s pilot pick-ups week! As various bright ideas (A Wonder Woman reboot, anyone?) bite the dust, the WSJ has all the answers about the rather arcane pilot development process used by the US Networks.

The nuts and bolts are simple:

The development process starts with writers making pitches in early summer, submitting first drafts in the fall and revisions at Christmastime. In January, writers hear if the network has ordered up a pilot. If a pilot is picked up in May, there is a mad dash to hire writers, build sets and write additional episodes before a show airs in the fall.

Simple, but expensive, with individual pilot episodes costing millions of dollars to produce. And, if the show is not ordered to go to season, there is no way to re-coup the loss. Even if a show is picked up in May, it can be cancelled by October. Networks have to guarantee a certain number of viewers to advertisers prepared to take a punt on a new show, and if the show doesn’t reach the specified audience, it gets cancelled.

All kinds of things can turn a promising idea into a flop. Casting may not click. A story line that made for a compelling pilot can’t hold an audience’s interest for 22 episodes a season, a fate that befell ABC’s “FlashForward.” Overly acquiescing to focus groups can lead to a bland finished product, producers say. Last season didn’t lead to a single breakout success.

It’s a very hit-and-miss process: throw stuff at the wall (of viewers) and see what sticks. But all facets of the entertainment industry take this approach, according to David Madden, president of Fox TV.

Executives say any artistic pursuit comes with long odds. “Most movies fail, most books fail, and most albums aren’t that good, whether they’re by committee or solo practitioners”.

According to the LA Times, this year will be more competitive than ever, with only 5 of the 22 selected new series expected to run into a second season. TV Dramas have to find their narrative footing – and their audience – with lightning speed if they are to go the distance.

Part of the problem, explain producers, is that digital-age audiences don’t just focus solely on their screens these days. Like traffic cops dealing with distracted drivers who text and blab on the phone while sailing down the freeway, networks executives are facing viewers who are often fiddling with their computers, phones or iPads.

“Most people are watching TV with a laptop on their legs,” said Laurie Zaks, executive producer of the ABC mystery “Castle.” “If you don’t capture the audience in the first two episodes, you don’t have a chance.”

So for all the writers, directors, actors and crew attached to shows that got rejected, the wait and anxiety is over. For those whose livelihoods depend on their show being a success in schedules in the autumn, the nail-biting is just beginning.

The Math of A Hit TV Show– Wall Street Journal
TV Dramas Are Losing Favor With Busy Viewers – LA Times

Posted in TV

Judas

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Lady Gaga has released the music video for Judas with her usual fanfare, especially as we build up to the May 23 release of Born This Way. Like Madonna before her (a sentence which seems to apply to many of Gaga’s exploits), she seems to be aiming for the blasphemy dollar, representing Jesus as the leader of a gang of LA bikers, and herself as Mary Magdalene – decked in some fantastic costumes. Like Born This Way, it’s full of luxuriant symbolism (a gun that shoots lipstick!), and rewards repeat viewings.

Gaga has done a lot of careful explaining for this video. To E! she said:

“I don’t view the video as a religious statement. I view it as social statement. I view it as a cultural statement. It’s a metaphor. It’s not meant to be a biblical lesson.”

To MSNBC she said:

“The theme of the video and the way that I wanted to aesthetically portray the story was as a motorcycle Fellini movie where the apostles are revolutionaries in a modern-day Jerusalem… And I play Mary Magdalene leading them into the town where we meet Jesus and I will leave the rest for you to see. But it’s meant more to celebrate faith than it is to challenge it.”

The video and the lyrics are very respectful of Christian mythology, although there is some sly commentary about the importance of Mary Magdalene to the original Christians. From her first purple-clad appearance (purple is traditionally the color of kings and bishops) she’s shown as the center of the group, the one making all the decisions. Then she gets washed away – much as Mary Magdalene was rinsed out of Christian re-constructions of events.

We’re seeing an evolution in Lady Gaga’s star persona here, thanks in part to the fact that she directed this clip herself. The studded leather bikini is now the bottom, instead of the only layer to costumes, and make up, hair and lighting enhance her visage as weeping, yearning, human, rather than the ancient goddess of Born This Way. She’s asking for acceptance, not forgiveness, however (“In the most Biblical sense/I am beyond repentance/Fame hooker, prostitute wench, vomits her mind”). The narrative suggested by both the song and the images is of a woman who wants to do the right thing, but is drawn towards dark thoughts (‘Jesus is my virtue/And Judas is the demon I cling to’) – a basic binary opposition.

While Born This Way was compared to both the images and music of Madonna’s Express Yourself, Gaga seems to have resorted to musical cannibalism (Judas seems eerily derivative of her own Paparazzi). But, inevitably, the video invites comparison with Madonna’s seminal take on Catholic myths, Like A Prayer(which can be found here). Did Gaga have to do a religious-themed video that follows Madonna’s lead? Probably not but – a) she’s riffing on the same preoccupations about love and the way religion allows women to do so that Madonna did and b) the column inches expended on comparisons aren’t doing the advance publicity for the Born This Way album any harm.

Madonna’s music video, directed by horror movie doyenne Mary Lambert, has a much more complex narrative involving racism and an averted lynching. Although the video espouses similar messages of acceptance, it seems much less about self-indulgent angst and more about championing the underdog. While Gaga courts controversy by cavorting in a large gilt crucifix and hot tubbing with Judas and Jesus, nothing she can do matches the shock value of Madonna dancing on a lawn full of burning crosses, small crucifix round her neck, kissing a man many identified as a Jesus figure, and displaying stigmata on her hands. In 1989, these were outrageous things for a female pop singer to represent herself as doing, and it seems that not even Gaga will go that far now.

When it comes down to it, I still prefer this version of Gaga’s song, stripped of all the pomp and posturing. Perhaps she does herself, as she tweeted the link to all her fans?

“Better than nothing”

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The New York Times’ chief film critics discuss the recent spate of female-led action movies (Hanna, Suckerpunch, Kick-Ass, Let Me In) and whether or not this marks a cultural shift when it comes to the representation of women on screen. While there’s an uncomfortable patriarchal slant to a lot of these action femmes (Hanna and Hit Girl are both “run” by their fathers, and the women of Suckerpunch live in fear of their pimp/orderly), any female-driven movie has to be embraced as a type of positive. As Dargis says:

Bottom line: It used to be easier to make movies with women. You could put them on a pedestal and either keep them there (as revered wives, virginal girls) or knock them down, as with femmes fatales. If that’s trickier to pull off today, it’s partly because, to quote the great Kim Gordon, “fear of a female planet.”

I don’t see a shoot ’em up like “Hanna” challenging those fears, but at least it has female characters who do more than smile at the superhero or the guys having a swell bromance. It’s better than nothing.

Gosh sweetie, that’s a big gun – New York Times

A Product Placement Guru speaks

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Ready for the release of Morgan Spurlock’s Pom Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold tomorrow, Norm Marshall gets a profile in the Los Angeles Times today. He’s the marketing man responsible for pushing as much product placement as possible into Hollywood movies. He makes his job seem straightforward:

Marshall’s biggest business is cars. He keeps a fleet of vehicles from General Motors, a longtime client, on a lot across the street from his office near Burbank’s Bob Hope Airport — they’re cars in working shape that have been deemed unfit for one reason or another for consumer sale. (He has a separate lot outside New York City.) Marshall’s pitch to the transportation managers on a set is simple:

“Someone will come to me and say they need a car for an action scene. I’ll say, ‘I have an Escalade you can blow up. It’ll be a lot cheaper than if you tried to do it with a car from Avis or Hertz.’ ” All he asks in return is that the car is shown prominently, and that the scene doesn’t impugn the car’s safety record.

It’s a scenario in which everybody — at least everybody involved in the transaction — wins. The car is given to the transportation manager, who’s happy he can check an item off his list at no cost. Marshall has satisfied GM and justified his retainer. GM, meanwhile, has gotten a free ad for little more than a car it wasn’t going to sell anyway.

While a seamless blend of selling and storytelling might be every manufacturer’s dream, audiences are still a bit wary of being sold stuff when they’re not officially aware they’re the target of a hard sell. Like it or not, however, advertising has always part-funded mass entertainment, and it looks like product placement is a viable way, at the very least, of keeping production costs down.

Product Placement Guru Explains How It’s Done – LA Times