Matt is Not Here Right Now

Matt is currently unavailable. At this time he is recording an interview for the Canadian pop culture radio series, Definitely Not the Opera regarding the Pop Culture Supreme Court, as part of a show which will air on Saturday December 13th.

He is also likely freaking out, and regretting his decision to stop drinking, smoking, sniffing glue and referencing the movie Airplane on the same day. If you ever heard his one mini-podcast, you'd know why.

Update: And I blew it. I mean, I really tanked it. It was so horrific that they can't use it. UNUSABLE! As someone who was part of it, I totally understand. It was as if I was living as a Ricky Gervais character.

I mean, me and the oral presentation of information do not go well together. I think the word that best describes it is infamous. I have had a rather sorted history with being really bad in that format, and well, this was just one more occasions where I shot myself in the foot.

Tags: cbc, definitely not the opera, dnto, pop culture supreme court, airplane

PCSC Case 2: Are Radio Personalities held to a higher standard...

The question before the court this session is: In the current media environment, are radio personalities being held to a different and tougher standard than their peers in print and on television?

To answer that question, we must examine both if radio personalities are held to a different standard than their peers in the other mass media and then determine if they are in fact being held to a tougher standard.

And the tempest that began this whole discussion is naturally the firing of Don Imus and his producer for their remarks about the Rutgers Women’s Basketball team (comments that were in part lifted from a Spike Lee movie). The Imus incident had an equivalent immediate effect on the reporting of radio incidents that the Janet Jackson incident had on television… the operative word that is immediate. But the thing to remember is it was public outcry and not a regulatory offense that led to the dismissal of Don Imus. He did not break the law, and no FCC fines were levied in the case, despite the best efforts of people like Al Sharpton.

There are other incidents in the recent past, from a New York City shock jock stating he was looking to have inappropriate sexual contact with the daughter of a rival to someone castrating a pig on the air to even a pair of shock jocks playing an audio portion of the Nick Berg murder with music, jokes and laughter that have caused a stir.

The reason it seems like radio hosts are now being held to a higher standard is now a precedent has been set with the firing of Don Imus… and with the memories of that incident fresh in the minds of other interest groups, they have seen an opportunity to push their own agenda, and because of that, the networks that carry potentially offensive material are a little wary of courting controversy. The three recent widely known incidents (Imus, JV and Elvis and Opie and Anthony) have something else in common besides being offensive to a certain vocal segment of the population… all three programs were on the CBS radio network (Portions of Opie and Anthony’s XM show were being rebroadcast on CBS since April 2006), which means that the Imus situation was squarely pointed at one broadcaster, a broadcaster whose contact information is still fresh on the mind of those with a particular agenda.

Radio personalities, by and large, are allowed to express themselves in a much freer manner than their counterparts in print or on television because they aren’t as reliant on gatekeepers for the distribution of their content. Print journalists are constrained by editors and publishers who are often given the opportunity to have their sentiments and words softened or altered before they are publicly consumed, as well as some time to reconsider the way in which something is phrased. And in the world of television news and punditry, there are similar barriers to such free expression, because the use of scripts and teleprompters as well as a set list of reliable guests who present the information that is expected of them. And in many cases, such guest also employ a set of talking points which they consistently use across programs and networks. There are a lot of safety nets for the people appearing on these shows to avoid the wrong kind of controversy (by approaching the line, and not crossing it through clever editing and framing of issues). And on entertainment shows, it is usually the guests which court the controversy (one example that comes to mind is Sarah Silverman’s appearance on Conan O’Brien in July 2001 where she told a joke about getting out of jury duty by writing “I love Chinks” on her application), and not the hosts.

Therefore, it is general quite difficult to get through the filters and say something truly controversial. However, there is one venue on television where it is far easier to get into trouble, and that is any show that involves open debate of topics (as Bill Maher would likely be the first to admit), is also the most likely place to generate controversy because it is in that kind of setting where an off-the-cuff remark can turn into something much bigger.

Contrast that with the system radio hosts have. Radio personalities often don’t have the same kinds of intermediaries their peers in the other media do. In fact, for the most part, they have the freedom to explore topics at their own pace, and have ample time to fill on a daily basis (from two to five hours), and as such, there are fewer restrictions on what they can or cannot say, because frankly trying apply the same limits on those kinds of relatively freeform shows would require much tighter controls over the entire process which would lose much of its power and appeal. Controversial Civil Rights Lawyer and radio host Ron Kuby has stated, “Once you get beyond the FCC, a host is left to the discretion of a program director, station manager, bosses they’ve never seen, advertisers and a fickle public. What might be fine today results in a boycott tomorrow.”

And they are called shock jocks for a reason. They are encouraged to push the boundaries of good taste and court controversy on a daily basis. In fact, it is that very factor that Imus is using to dispute his firing, as there was a clause in his contract which stated that is exactly the kind of behavior that was expected of him. And in the arena of political punditry, the figures involved say the same sorts of things that draw fire for shock jocks, but because of the kind of reporting, very few groups and individuals try to bring the same kind of lobbying power to having their shows punished for their transgressions.

For the amount of latitude most of these figures have, a little controversy is a small price to pay, and given the sheer amount of work each of these radio personalities produces versus their counterparts on television and in print, the fact that there isn’t MORE controversy generated from their programs is surprising. I mean, if any one of us had to talk extemporaneously for ten to twenty-five hours a week to thousands or millions of listeners, we would probably say something within our first few days which would generate controversy.

Therefore while radio personalities are indeed held to a different standard, it is far from being a tougher one. So no, I do not think that radio personalities are being held to a higher standard than their counterparts in the other media. In fact, if anything, television for the purposes of entertainment seems to be the whipping boy for the entire media industry. I only have to mention such incidents as ABC’s reluctance to show Saving Private Ryan uncut on Memorial Day 2004, an event they had done twice before without major controversy, or Without a Trace’s recent run-in about a teen orgy scene, or even the period where the FCC and groups like Focus on the Family were going full bore against the networks over fleeting swearing during live events. Because the truth is, television personalities could never dream of getting away with some of the things their peers in radio do.

Tags: radio personalities, don imus, rutgers, dj star, conan o'brien, sarah silverman, spocko, paul levinson, spike lee, al sharpton, jv and elvis, opie and anthony, xm radio, shock jocks, pop culture, supreme court, cbs, pundits, bill maher

The PCSC deliberating its second case

The Court is currently deliberating the following question:

In the current media environment, are radio personalities being held to a different and tougher standard than their peers in print and on television?

We hope to render a decision on said question on June 27th.

Tags: deliberation, radio personalities, standards, fcc

The Pop Culture Supreme Court has arrived

A few months back, I pitched an idea to a group of my fellow pop culture bloggers, 8 to be exact, that we should form a Pop Culture Supreme Court, because as a group, we would be uniquely qualified to decide some of the most divisive issues, and I am pleased to announce that as of yesterday, we've decided our first verdict.



The question before the Court was whether there should be a moratorium on the making of remakes.

My own essay represents a dissenting opinion on the matter and is presented below.

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Remakes are the bane of the current Hollywood system, and with every passing year, the glut of recycled and modernized versions is slowly destroying our culture. Now I am not talking about movies that take an old tale and reforge for a new setting and audience, like for instance O Brother, Where Art Thou’s take on The Odyssey. No, I am talking exclusively about the direct remake, because let’s face it, for every Ocean’s Eleven or The Thing, there are five remakes like The Wicker Man, Alfie or Planet of the Apes.

And the onslaught of remakes is getting worse year after year, as the studios rely on these kinds of movies as safe investments. They choke out the flower of original thought from being developed by the studios much like weeds and with the power of those same studios and theatre chains behind them, for every remake that is produced, that is money that doesn’t go into original production. And it is getting to the point where even relatively recent independent films are starting to be remade as star vehicles, like 1992’s Meet the Parents, which was transformed into a Ben Stiller/Robert DeNiro blockbuster just 8 years later. And one would think that will television being less hospitable for writers because of reality programming there would have been a net increase in the breadth and quality of cinematic writing, but that has not been the case.

It is true the argument can be made that throughout the history of the arts, certain stories get told over and over again, and it is a totally valid argument. But at the same time, these stories were propagated in societies that produced a wide variety of original thought and expression, whereas the current crop of remakes are quite frankly creatively bankrupting our collective cultural experience. And it isn’t like this is a recent problem, as one only has to look back on 1976’s King Kong to understand that, or the fact that in the past 100 years, there have been 7 versions of Brewster’s Millions. Seven. Did there need to be seven version of this same story? I don’t think so. Granted, I can imagine young entertainment writers in the 1950’s and 60’s lamented about the fact that the major studios were remaking Ben Hur and The Ten Commandments with cutting edge technology, even though in many cases, the parties remaking these films were the original filmmakers themselves.

There is a certain arrogance that these filmmakers have to have, especially when they set out to remake a film that is either a classic or has a cult status, to think that they can somehow bring something new to these projects. For example, Gus Van Sant must have just been full of hubris when he took on the task of remaking Psycho shot-by-shot, one of Alfred Hitchcock’s classics, or Tim Burton believing he could somehow erase the memory of the original iconic Planet of the Apes with his own tepid effort. Yes, there are those rare occasions when a second look at material provided room for it to develop into a better story, but what usually happens is a ham-fisted production that is often devoid those elements which made the original what it was.

But my problem with this phenomenon goes further than that. When you look at the history of filmmaking, yes, there were almost always remakes, but the ratio of these kinds of films to original work was much more balanced. Think about it… if you compare how many remakes were being made even 10 years ago and the output today, it is quite startling. Using lists compiled at Wikipedia to come up with a rough estimate for remakes scheduled for this year vs. those released in the year 1997, the ratio comes out to 35:21, a 66% increase More than a few of those titles in 1997 were television productions as well, and if factored into that rough calculation, today’s remake output is nearly double that of a decade ago. At this early date, the totals for 2008 are already up to 14 in development or production, with almost 18 months left until 2009, so this trend looks likely to continue.

There are two things that happen when you see a bad remake of an earlier movie you haven’t seen. Either you want to see the source material to see what the current cast and crew were imbibing when they agreed to do the awful remake or you are forever soured to that storyline entirely. But I worry not so much about myself, because, let’s face it, I’m a big boy and I can look after myself. No… I worry about the children. I mean, if all they ever get to see are crappy remakes, how will they ever know quality cinematic entertainment? Even though a lot of the movies that are being remade now weren’t A-List material to begin with, they still collectively represent a sizable part of our shared pop cultural heritage.

So on the question of "should there be a moratorium on remakes", there is only one way I can answer? Absolutely, because if we don’t stop them now, they will soon come after every movie we ever loved. They are already coming for Clash of the Titans, Escape from New York, Adventures in Babysitting, The Birds and Logan’s Run. How many more of the movies we loved as children and young adults must be sullied by inferior remakes?

Tags: pop culture supreme court, electronic cerebrectomy, nik at night, popped culture, layercake, no smoking, skull cave, culture kills, apropos of something, semaj's blog your blog, fjetsam, remakes, moratorium, planet of the apes, psycho, ocean's eleven, odyssey, king kong, logan's run, clash of the titans, birds