Blaaaaag Again

This MDIA 3110 class has been a good experience. I would enjoy more chances to get up in arms and discuss tv shows or an aspect of a medium. However I think that this class environment is difficult to create discussion anyway so I think that this was a good balance of assignments, collective commenting, and work.

Reflect and Blag

At the beginning of this MDIA 3110 course we listed grouping of television shows based on different criteria. Now that this course is drawing to an end I can better review my own list and see how that list may change or reflect my own preferences in television.

I guess my tastes of favorite and less favorite television shows that my personality wants more depth in a program. I also enjoy watching shows where I can see some sort of angle from outside of the reality of the television show itself, even if it is simple. Here are a few examples of this:

Hannibal: I believe that it is becoming popular to have a main character in a program to have an accent, specifically an accent that is difficult to hear at some points. Hannibal Lecter is played by Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen and his accent is quite thick but somewhat pleasing. Another angle I see in Hannibal is its writing. I found it to be very good compared to other recent television shows I've seen in the past, I come away from the season wanting more.

Adventure Time: I personally get more involved in this show because I've done my research on the studio and it's creator, Pendleton Ward. I feel I have a deeper connection to the show because I know a little more about its creation then the average viewer. I guess you could say that I feel included while everyone else is a 'them'.

Accents/Internationals: This isn't a tv show... This is one of the angles I've picked up that I also mentioned in Hannibal but I realize that I can back this angle up much more to even convince some of you that it's true. The following new shows that I've seen have difficult accents to understand: Hannibal (duh), Siberia, and Crossing Lines. Why this is a trend I have absolutely no academic guess because the television is a distracted medium. Viewers often multitask while watching television. They would not contribute this amount of attention to decoding the characters accents and thus become disengaged from the series... My best guess as to why this is becoming to producers is for those viewers that do focus enough to hear the words and thus get more involved. (That or I am just really bad at understanding accents and this whole argument is null).

So from the above examples I'd say that my viewing habits have been transformed from the uneducated viewer to the more keen television critic. I am very pleased with this transformation however it does leave me slightly regretful. Because of my new approach to television I lose some of my childlike wonderment of shows I previously adored. Prison Break was and still is a great series. However I watched some seasons again and I caught some very cliché dialogue and some uncomfortable plot points. It was definitely disappointing to go back and realize that it wasn't like how I had remembered it.

As for my sense of identity I find this to be a great step in my growth. I aspire to be involved in television when I have the chance. It is a wonderful surprise if not a relief to realize that I am adapting to the viewer point of a producer/critic instead of the average viewer. If I ever wish to succeed it is important that I have my eyes open to the right clues not only in my own projects, but others as well.

I haven't really stopped watching the tv shows I mentioned earlier (except The Office) but I'd say that if I stopped watching a show it would be due to an underdeveloped story or a shallow program in general. When I watched The Dog Whisperer to comment on a groups post I was so bored out of my mind that I actually asked myself why I was wasting my life...

I'm very glad to have taken this class. It developed my viewing style and I believe that it can only get better from this point on.

Group Work

Video: http://www.hulu.com/watch/486883#i0,p0,d0
Other members of group:
John T.: http://johntemmingmedia.blogspot.com
Nick Y.: http://nickyak311.blogspot.com

The show we were assigned followed the lives of 4 couples right at the start of their marriage together. It is an interesting concept when the viewer's attention is brought to the fact that these marriages might not actually still hold at the end of the television show. I think that it is an interesting perspective on marriage and how people base their decisions on each other and themselves. There were many different cultures represented in the show, most not stereotypically, but some were.

As a group I found that we agreed on most topics. We arranged contact through email. Unfortunately I was only able to submit my initial response before the deadline for the assignment. In reading John and Nick's thoughts I found that I agreed with much of the topics and we found a central agreement, for example there was a specific group that was quite stereotypical and we all spotted that. We didn't really find the need to argue on any subject, I think we saw each others perspectives quite clearly. As a whole I found this show to better than what I thought it would be when I first clicked the link. It has broadened my perspective on couples and their interactions.

Group portrayal in media

Firstly, I think that media is highly dependent on the ideology for which it is created, Shutter Island was not created in the same way Garfield The Movie was created.. I will do my best to think of media representation as in ‘All Media’ and try to consider all ideologies but obviously I myself am biased due to my own personal preferences and choices.

Children:

I believe that children are underrepresented in media. In most television shows they may have one child in one episode and feature that child as the hook for that episode. I think that this is so because it is difficult to relate to children as adults or teenagers. I think the purpose for most media makers is to create a relatable set of characters and most media makers strive for an older demographic that are not children. This concept comes up with women as well, unfortunately. I think children’s stereotypes are that of innocence, purity, and deception. The first two are obvious and positive reflections of children. I believe that deception is a stereotype of children now as well. I’ll explain with a few examples:

Criminal Minds: Young twin psychopath kills his brother

Game of Thrones: First episode, small child is revealed to be evil

&

All horror movies that have a kid in them…

The point of the deception is to shock people but I think that it is becoming so frequent that I can classify it as a stereotype.

Women:

Women, REAL women, are underrepresented in media. The default gender of the camera is male so immediately it is difficult to change that ideology. The stereotypes of women are eye-candy, not-as-capable-as-men, and ignorant. I don’t think that any of these attributes are positive (the first one can be positive but I think that eye-candy objectifies women). This is where my bias may affect what all media says but from my experiences there are very few strong, protagonist, hero, women characters. I think a great example of objectification could be Machete Kills. Sofia Vergara’s outfit says it all.

Rich:

I think that the rich are represented more in media then they would be in real life. I think this is because the vast majority of viewers want to be like the rich characters and enjoy watching them. I think the stereotypes of rich people are ignorance (again), carelessness, and rudeness. Granted, depending on what film or tv show you watch this might be drastically different but I believe that these are three characteristics that fit well. These characteristics aren’t positive. I think that most shows that have the one or two rich people in them are good examples of how rich people fit these stereotypes. An example of an outlier would be Suits because these characters are more well of than the average person and yet are not careless or ignorant at all (sure are rude though).

Again I think that anybody’s singular answer to these questions would be undereducated. If you asked a child what characters were underrepresented the answer would be very different from an adult white male. Keeping that in mind it is still interesting how these patterns emerge for treating groups of people, even varying from each demographic to the next!

The Construction of Celebrity: Arnold

Now that the Terminator is no longer governor of California he has time to continue on acting as he had. But before leaving office he played a small cameo acting, almost parodying himself, in The Expendables. It revisits his role as the big action hero protagonist purely because he is in a movie with other action hero geezers. Hero Complex argues that The Expendables was Arnold's first step back into the old way of things.

Anyway, Arnold's first lead role since a long time was The Last Stand. Didn't see it myself but I can still say that it looks like the action movies he became known for. From what Ben Kendrick says in his critique of the movie he believes that Arnold embraces his character and fully satiates those jokes we saw too much in The Expendables series. The actor also continues his old look with what you would say is the larger-than-life hero.

I guess, from what I've seen, what others have said about The Last Stand, and from the list of futures titles for Arnold on imdb, there isn't anything new to expect other than more of the old same... And also what we've seen Bruce Willis do since... I don't even know... maybe Surrogates?

I feel that since Arnold is playing his age card intertextuality comes naturally. They depict him to be the guy whose done everything in The Expendables, even though he's in it for maybe a solid 3 minutes. In The Last Stand he's old, and he's old in real life. He's really just going with the flow in my opinion.

If I were Arnold I don't know if I'd want to reshape my image. I'm having trouble finding something that he can go to now that he hasn't already sort of covered. He's been in action and comedy. For giggles lets say that Arnold wanted to change his image from what he is now, build up by all of his past experiences, to an actor that nobody really respects anymore like Charlie Sheen. All Arnold would have to do is get into some trouble first, more trouble than he has now, and the entertainment media would do a lot of the ground work for him. Once that plaster of 'bad actor' is molded he can go into some acting roles playing less heroic characters than he has played in the past. More importantly less decisive and powerful. With these less solid characters people would change their image of the strong body builder to that of a plain old actor.

Cited:
http://screenrant.com/last-stand-movie-reviews-2013/
http://herocomplex.latimes.com/uncategorized/arnold-schwarzenegger-expendables/
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000216/?ref_=sr_1

Some Media Critics

The three critics/orgs I chose:

NYTimes A.O. Scott- http://movies.nytimes.com/movies/critics/A-O-Scott
www.Spill.com
http://www.catholicnews.com/movies.htm

A.O. Scott: When it comes to critics they can talk about nearly anything they want. I like Scott because he talks about the rhythm and pacing of stories and their overall feel rather then just focusing on the plot or a specific aspect of a movie. When I was younger I may have enjoyed something along the lines of what I just described however now that I am more knowledgable in movie making I find the overall picture more interesting.

Spill.com: I came across this through hyperlink clicking and I found it very interesting. The website, from what I can tell, is a collective of four different hosts who do collective critiques on movies. What sets Spill apart is that they do their critiques set to an animated short, it's rather interesting in itself. I chose this critic/webpage because I like how you can get four rather different opinions on a movie. After watching a few of the videos myself I found that I agreed and disagreed with each of the four hosts at one point or another and took their critiques more seriously or frivolously according to our similarities.

http://www.catholicnews.com/movies.htm: This site doesn't click with me, however I do find it very intriguing and insightful (even if insightful means into something I may not believe 100%). For those who do not know the Catholic religion (forgive me for possible incorrect capitalization) has its own rating system for movies in the Media Reviews Office. The system reflects the moral views of The Church (again, capitalization). If you go to http://old.usccb.org/movies/movieall.shtml the ratings are at the bottom. I chose this critic/website because I find it very interesting. If you were to click through some of the movie ratings yourself I think you may agree. Firstly the MPAA ratings do not relate to the Catholic CNS ratings. Secondly some of the plot summaries and highlighted points might seem strange to point out or phrased in a jargon that... actually, yeah makes sense for the Catholic Church. Finally, and what I find the most interesting, is the base for which each system comes from. MPAA is fluid, it has the ability to change and mold with society. CNS is a religion, it is not fluid and is unaffected by the constraints of society. I think it is interesting reading the CNS "moral test"-esqu critiques because I never thought of it from that perspective. (It also brings into perspective on how much society has drifted from "morals" at least in the Catholic Church standard. For ex. The Great Gatsby was harshly rated because of it's general acceptance to adultery... The audience in the theater doesn't really care about that though.)

When it comes to finding specific critics however, I struggled. I searched for a solid day before writing this post. I'm not exactly sure how to come across critics with a similar [personality, driving factor, moral standard, thought process]. I guess the best way is to just keep looking!

Slate Articles on Criticism

I don't read many television reviews or keep up with the top TV critics, my favorite information is the ratings. However I did find Josh Levin's articles interesting and thought provoking. It was nice to get a simple explanation of how television criticism worked. I always assumed that there were different types of critics for television but having Levin use the restaurant analogy helped explain the situation further. I thought it was interesting how critics play a role in a television show. When it comes to Sepinwall I had no idea that Community cameoed him or that he was such an advocate for keeping Chuck alive (thank god he did). It is interesting to find out how shows are affected or effect critics.

I clicked on two links sort of crucial to my understanding of the article. For example one link was when Levin was summing up Sepinwall's career. I had no idea what NYPD Blue was. After clicking on the link I found that it brought me to Sepinwall's website on the show NYPD Blue. It looked very complete and full of information, if I had seen NYPD Blue before I may have been more interested in looking into the website. The second link I want to talk about is the Community link. Sepinwall had a cameo on the NBC show Community and I clicked on that to find out more. Having seen the episode and having a fairly good memory about it I can say that Sepinwall didn't have a large role, but I'm sure it was an exciting experience nonetheless (tying in Levin's concern about objectivity or duty towards a show).

When it comes to responses to this topic everybody has an opinion and a lot of people have voiced it. Looking at the comments from the assigned readings people have a fairly open mind about their opinions and are having discussions in the comments section. (Then there are those people that comment only about Lost...) What I think is important out of the responses is the idea of where the critics are posting from. There are two totally different expectations when you pull an article from NYTimes and The Onion. I'm sure that the reasoning behind this applies to subjective sites that criticize media.

I want to add my own response to Josh Levin's thoughts about television criticism and the idea of critics feeling obligated to say one thing or another based on extraneous experience. I think that Josh Levin and others are too focused on keeping a traditional sense of criticism. When all the cards are down it comes down to what people want to read. Criticism is just a persons opinion in the first place, what adds or subtracts from their opinion is not foul play as long as the reader knows about the factors. In the case of Sepinwall he has openly explained what happened and that he was in an episode of Community. Viewers should understand that his experiences with the show will effect his thoughts ergo writing. People should not scold Sepinwall for having an experience or a change in opinion, it is inhuman to remain the same all the time.