Archive for April, 2007
The Last Lion King of Scotland
Davis Jung, Brown University — April 12th, 2007|
With the age of the internet and such websites as YouTube, GoogleVideo, and Ebaumsworld.com, I've discovered that new found footage media tended to stray away from the obscure found film scavenged in trash dumps to more mainstream and visible footage from popular Hollywood culture. The implications of this are many, but of interest to me was what effect this transition from using unknown footage to highly visible footage had on the work as an art piece. For me, I have been watching video mashups [...]
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Heroes and Comic Book Aesthetics
David Lavery, Brunel University, London — April 11th, 2007|
As these five clips (all but the last from the pilot episode, "Genesis") demonstrate, the hit NBC television series Heroes has imported the aesthetics of comic book art into television in unprecedented ways. Although Heroes' creator Tim Kring has not, because of dyslexia, been a comic book reader, collaborators Jeph Loeb and Tim sale (a veteran writer and artist respectfully) have supplied the series with its comic book touches.
In Clips One and Two, we see how the mise-en-scene of indivi [...]
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“She’s a Marvel”: Daytime Soaps and Transmedia Storytelling
Elana Levine, University of Wisconsin — Milwaukee — April 10th, 2007|
Harley Davidson Cooper is a busy cop and mom, but in the November 1, 2006 episode of CBS's 70-year-old soap opera, Guiding Light, she also becomes a superheroine. In this episode, Harley receives an electric shock and wakes up with blue-streaked hair, glowing eyes, and new powers. Once struggling to prepare a meal, grapple with escaped prisoners, and sew a Halloween costume for her son, she is now able to make appliances do her bidding, and she trounces the bad guys with a quick flick of a vac [...]
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It’s That Time of the Season: The British Invade American Idol
Alisa Perren, Assistant Professor, Department of Communication, Georgia State University — April 9th, 2007|
Simon Cowell wasn't the only British performer viewed live by American Idol watchers on Tuesday, March 20th. On the same day that Sanjaya's strange Mohawk graced screens across the U.S., something even more unusual was viewed by more than 30 million Americans: a montage of images from "British Invasion" performers of the 1960s. Not only were the Beatles and the Rolling Stones discussed, but attentive viewers could see and hear about other performers such as the Zombies, the Animals, the Foremost [...]
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No such thing as a slam dunk: Sport as unpredictable, undeniable reality television
Doug Battema, Assistant Professor of Communication, Western New England College — April 6th, 2007|
Sport is the linchpin of the contemporary mediascape. It's the ultimate reality programming: unscripted, improvisational, emotionally compelling, bounded only by the rules of whatever game is being played. It attracts mass audiences in an era of fragmentation. It's fun. And as the announcer in this clip says, "You could not have written a script that would match the drama here" – a statement both trite yet undeniably accurate. (Doubt me? Watch The Natural and its exploding light-tower fi [...]
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The Making of “Desi” Culture on MTV
Madhavi Mallapragada, University of Texas at Austin — April 5th, 2007|
In this video titled, "You are not an Indian," a young male addresses viewers who like him are neither just American nor Indian but desi. Wearing a t-shirt with the word "desi" written prominently in Hindi across it, the young man points out that desis are not South Asians but of South Asia. People of South Asian origin in the United States commonly refer to each other as Desi. The term means "from the homeland" and simultaneously invokes one's identity as South Asian but also as being "outside [...]
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Listening for “The Game” in The Sound of Young America
Tim Anderson, Denison University — April 4th, 2007|
Pictured: Killer Mike of Adamsville, GA and leader of Grind Time Official.
In hip hop "The Game" refers to two issues that every contemporary performer from poor, urban American realities must negotiate: the hip hop scene and the underground business of illegal drug distribution. Knowing "The Game" is not only essential to success as a rapper (often to demonstrate one's authenticity that is part of the perpetual task of all hip hop and rock performers), but to making it in the day-to-day live [...]
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Subway Subtext: Jack in Japan
Miranda Banks, University of Southern California — April 3rd, 2007|
The subway hurtles through the tunnel, paralleling Jack Bauer’s dogged, singular intention. No one—not even an entire subway car full of nubile Japanese schoolgirls—can keep him from his mission. The average heterosexual male might take pause at these fantasy-rich surroundings, but Jack only stops for one thing, a quick gulp of his nutritional supplement drink, Calorie Mate. This commercial finally answers the question so many fans of the series have wondered: how Jack maintains his frenet [...]
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Fox News: “Don’t Worry, Be Anxious”
Mark Andrejevic, University of Iowa — April 2nd, 2007|
In keeping with the spirit of Flow, this video juxtaposes the soundtracks of several advertisements aired on the Fox News Channel with clips of Fox News alerts and crawl captions. The soundtrack, including the musical clip, is taken entirely from the commercials, the video from the news content and promos. The result is an attempt to capture a recurring theme in right wing commercial media from Talk Radio to Human Events to Fox News: a portrait of a world of proliferating risks for which viewers [...]
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“Define Good”: The Anxious Pleasures of Subscribing to HBO
Avi Santo, Old Dominion University — April 13th, 2007