Media Matters

Now that it's the end of the year, media critics are submitting their favorite films and TV shows of 2018. Which then soon starts  an avalanche of international  awards, like The Golden Globes and Academy Awards. It's interesting to see if our own personal " bests" win any of those awards. They should. After all,  we select special works that people may neglect, not recognizing that they are extraordinary?  We  critics, in other words, have better aesthetic taste than the so- called  media "judges" who are considered primarily representatives of popular culture, not "art."  What's more, we critics don't, hopefully, single out winning media for political reasons ( ie. It's Joe Smith's turn to garner a  best actor award because he's getting old ).     While describing what media critics are and are not, I have often wondered what characteristics we do consider when picking the "Best." The obvious criteria  include ...

Have you noticed there haven't been  many  fictional films about Donald Trump's rein as President except Spike Lee's  BLACKKKLANSMAN? And then again,  some viewers may say it's not really about Trump at all.  Maybe because not many people saw the movie in the first place.      I, for one, am glad I did see it. Why? Because  I can maybe now tell which side Lee is on: white or black. It always frustrated me that I didn't really know if this provocative and excellent director preferred to sit on the fence instead. Was it even possible he was not on anyone's side, that both whites and blacks were equally unsympathetic  and unlikable? Or, sympathetic and likable?       I have been trying to answer that question whenever I see Lee's movie, "Do the Right Thing" ( 1989 ): questioning his motives when one character Mookie ( played by Lee himself ) throws a trash can through the window of Sal's Pizzeria, thus starting a...

If we had been committed TV viewers watching the Vietnam War, we would have known it as "The Living Room War," based on its qualities of intimacy and frequency. Today, news broadcasts, while not aways about a war, have those similar elements. Yet they exist for different reasons.      Back in the day, "intimacy" meant watching the same group of soldiers and their often- daily exploits. We came to know them. We came to care about them. They were the main "characters" leading the parade. Presently, such characters in a newscast are the hosts or broadcasters themselves, not the topics. These individuals are those who carry the dramatic weight, and we look forward each day to seeing and hearing them: people who have potent personalities, like Fareed Zakaria, Sean Hanity, Rachel Maddow and loads of others, who cover  broad  demographics based on race, gender, sexual preference and political ideology, among other aspects.        Regardless ...