Progress Slow, then Sudden

After generations of discrimination, society has become far more accepting of homosexuality. This rapid transformation offers hope for other progressive changes in attitude.



Disclaimer: the post below discusses offensive language which I do not endorse.

A buddy recently mentioned his young son had just seen the animated film Despicable Me 3, which included a scene featuring '80s rock staple "Money for Nothing" by Dire Straits. Accordingly, he later played the song for his kid, and was shocked to discover the lyrics prominently featured the word "faggot". I was similarly surprised, having never noticed that in a song I've considered an innocuous bit of "dad rock" used in movies and car commercials aplenty.

In the song's lyrics the epithet is used to insult the protagonist -- a disparagement of the lead singer and his supposedly cushy lifestyle. It is not an affirmation of the flagrant homophobia of, say, early '90s NWA or early '00s Eminem (or the Beastie Boys' 1986 debut album, originally titled Don't Be a Faggot). But its casual appearance arguably makes it more jarring -- no popular artist today goes anywhere near such language.

"I used to use that word so freely in middle school," my friend noted. "I had a hard time typing it just now." It's a sign of how far treatment of the LGBT community and consciousness about the impact of language have come in such a short time.

Video Games are Big Business

I'm not much of a video game player--I don't have an Xbox, Playstation, or Wii in my apartment, and my gaming is limited to a rare bit of Madden or the like at a friend's place. Yet in recent years, it's no secret that video games have gone from being the pastime of kids and nerds to being in the mainstream--titles like Madden, Grand Theft Auto, and Guitar Hero are all centerpieces of pop culture. Not only that, they're a big business.

My eyes popped at an AP headline today that said "'Call of Duty' game sells $310M in 24 hours". That is referring to a new game called Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, which apparently sold a staggering 4.7 million copies in North America and Britain on its first day on sale. The $310 million is revenue from only those regions, not even total worldwide sales, but it still makes this game the "biggest-selling launch in the history of entertainment".

Wow. That's a bona-fide blockbuster, and far more so than any Hollywood theatrical release. By comparison, the biggest movie opening of 2009 was Transformers 2, which made "only" $109 million its first weekend. It's the only movie released this year that has a total gross more than Modern Warfare 2's opening, so even though movies nowadays often rely on DVD sales for half their revenue, there's no question this game has put up some serious numbers. View this as a sign of a shift away from the traditionally dominant players in the entertainment industry.

F--- the FCC!

Below is a version of an essay I wrote for today's Diamondback (link) decrying FCC censorship of "indecency" as arbitrary, harmful to creative content, and a substitute for poor parenting.



Since the infamous 2004 Super Bowl halftime show revealed to America that Janet Jackson did, in fact, have a nipple on her right breast, the government has become increasingly strict about cracking down on broadcast “indecency”. By raising fines for infractions to obscene amounts, the government is bullying content providers into submission. Meanwhile, the Federal Communications Commission continues to expand its regulatory reach.

Unfortunately, the FCC uses a completely arbitrary determination of what constitutes indecency. They also employ overly-punitive measures which stifle creative content. Most troubling of all, this brand of regulation is yet another substitute for uninvolved parenting.

There are many examples of the FCC’s vagueness over what exactly constitutes indecency. When Bono used the F-word as an adverb at the 2003 Golden Globe Awards, the commission ruled he was not being indecent because he was not referring to sexual or excretory functions. The FCC changed their minds a year later, deciding that the F-word is totally off limits.

The status of other words or content is notoriously nebulous. It is generally accepted that using the S-word is acceptable (as famously demonstrated in the South Park episode “It Hits the Fan”), but in early 2006 the FCC declared that the same word with the prefix “bull” was “grossly offensive”. Oh, and you can’t say “dickhead”.

You might reasonably point out that our culture has already become so coarse, so it’s good that we take a stand. One problem with that is that the FCC enforces unwritten indecency rules. That’s right, TV networks don’t know what infractions they are supposed to avoid; it’s up to the FCC to decide. The FCC claims that they don’t publish specific rules because that would constitute censorship; rather, they only react when someone complains.

Of course, with extremist organizations like the innocuously named American Family Association around, someone always complains. (The AFA, by the way, sought to boycott the animated movie Shark Tale because it supposedly promoted gay values.) For some reason these busybodies actually get taken seriously as representative of the general public. Family Guy’s Peter said it best in the Emmy-nominated episode “PTV”, explaining that to the FCC, “one complaint equals one billion people.”

Thus, we have situations like the one last year where ABC affiliates refused to air the movie Saving Private Ryan for fear of drawing complaints. Complaints can be very expensive. Under current FCC rules, CBS affiliates would have been fined a whopping $32,500,000 for a single racy scene in an episode of Without a Trace last year. That’s more money than it costs to produce all episodes of the series for an entire season. Given that kind of climate, it’s no wonder Fox Entertainment head Peter Liguori recently described the “chilling effect” the FCC’s recent rulings have had on creative freedom.

I’m not going to deny that there are some clear-cut instances of content that is inappropriate for airing over network TV. But the FCC doesn’t just police the obvious violations and leave the rest to the good judgment of viewers. In fact, in a report issued Tuesday, the FCC announced efforts to broaden its regulatory scope and even start patrolling the cable channels that viewers intentionally pay to bring into their homes.

The sad fact is that all this is being done in the name of protecting children. Of course, the easiest way to protect children is for parents to do their job. If parents monitored their kids’ TV habits and/or used the V-chip, we wouldn’t have this problem of government intervention. Seriously, if they start messing with Eric Cartman and Tony Soprano, I’ll get really pissed.

The Daily Subversion with Jon Stewart?

Given the explosive popularity of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and the rise of its eponymous host as a preeminent social commentator, it was inevitable that some people would take exception with the show and its methods. Last month, two researchers published a study claiming that The Daily Show has "detrimental effects" on its (apparently impressionable) viewers, "driving down support for political institutions and leaders" among a demographic that is already often indifferent.

I disagree with their conclusions, and not just because I take offense with the notion of stuffy doctorates thinking that college students are all idiots. The study compared the reactions of two groups of students; one who watched 2004 election coverage from The Daily Show, the other from the CBS Evening News. Based on their attitudes afterward, it was determined that The Daily Show engendered "cynicism". Without even taking the researchers' dubious methodology into consideration, I find fault with their analysis.

Unlike these researchers (and Tucker Carlson from his Crossfire days), the viewers of The Daily Show don't take it too seriously. The 48% of college students who watch the show know that this is a program on Comedy Central, and they turn it on primarily to hear jokes, not get the news. Most people my age I know, while not hard-core followers of the news, at least get the headlines from online news sites. To those of us who are fans of the show, Stewart and his crew are still comedians, not televangelists.

As to a drop in voter participation rates, I think it's interesting that despite the supposedly corrosive effect of the ever-popular Daily Show among youth, the 18-24 demographic had its highest turnout (47%) in 2004. This was an 11% increase over the 2000 election, proving that when it's important, young people do come out.

More to the point, I think that The Daily Show's irreverence plays a valuable service that distinguishes it from "real news" programs. At a time when "spin" is a rule for politicians and the news media only infrequently provides hard-hitting journalism, Daily Show viewers are continually reminded to be skeptical of B.S. They become critical of poor performance by their public servants, and they expect more of their government and public institutions.

What's wrong with that?

South Park vs. Cowardly Central

Having been laid out sick in bed for most of the past week, I finally got around to watching the recent, much talked-about South Park take on the Mohammed cartoons. And I have to say that the two-part "Cartoon Wars" episode was undoubtedly the smartest, most biting take on the controversy I have seen--better than any blog, op-ed column, etc. I'd also like to observe that just a few weeks after being ridiculed for pulling a South Park episode that poked fun at Scientology, Comedy Central has again stuck its head in the sand.

In the South Park spoof, America is gripped in fear when Family Guy (the stand-in show for South Park within the episode) decides to broadcast a cartoon of Muhammad. A terrified American public tries to avoid responsibility by burying their heads in the sand--quite literally. The few voices of reason who argue in favor of free speech are ignored. And the airing of the Muhammad cartoon in the U.S. is met by reprisal from Ayman al-Zawahiri and Osama bin Laden--who decide to produce their own offensive cartoon.

(On an unrelated note, the fact that Parker & Stone made a brilliant, funny satire while relentlessly lampooning Family Guy, a show I have soured on for the exact reasons South Park cites, made it twice as sweet.)

Of course, by now everyone has heard that Comedy Central censored the episode, removing South Park's innocuous depiction of the prophet Muhammad, a move anticipated by show creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone. While the frame with Muhammad was cut out, mirroring in fact the plot of the actual episode, Comedy Central had no problems running a purposely gratuitous scene involving President Bush and Jesus defecating on one another. How's that for a demonstration of the difference in tolerance?

Find a neighbor who Tivo'd it, and watch this episode!

Gatorade: "Winning Formula"

What if Michael Jordan had missed "The Shot" against the Cavaliers in 1989? Or if Derek Jeter's flip to Jorge Posada in the 2001 MLB playoffs didn't get Jeremy Giambi at the plate? Or if Dwight Clark dropped "The Catch"?

Gatorade's new "Winning Formula" commercial is one of the most clever ads I have seen in a long time. In a similar vein to Burger King's amusing series of commercials featuring "the King" edited into football highlight reel plays, Gatorade has edited some of the most memorable moments in sports to show you what they would have looked like had they gone wrong. The computerized manipulation is flawless--if you've never seen the original plays, you wouldn't know the difference!

I hit rewind on my Tivo twice to watch this commercial again--it's that good. Click on the play button below to view:



I hope they turn this into a series of commercials featuring even more altered sports moments. Very cool!

Quelling the Hip-Hop Hullabaloo

Last month, rapper 50 Cent became the first artist since The Beatles to have four singles concurrently in the Top Ten of the music charts. The very explicit music video for one of his songs, "Disco Inferno", features scenes with scantily clad women groping each other and another scene where 50 is pouring bottles of alcohol down a woman's...derriere. 50 himself has described his new album, The Massacre, by saying "I attempted to be as sexual as possible." Not that we noticed.

50's crude, violent, and derogatory lyrics enjoy such remarkable popularity that the New York Times' Brent Staples has stirred up a whole hip-hop hullabaloo. His May 12 editorial ("How Hip-Hop Music Lost Its Way and Betrayed Its Fans") carries a serious charge. As a teenager who has grown up in an era where rap has dominated popular music, I was interested to find out why Dr. Staples has such a forcefully negative opinion of the genre. Yet after reading his arguments I remain unconvinced. As much as he would like to hold up the almost-comical excesses of 50 Cent as proof of the deterioration of the hip-hop culture, his argument just doesn't hold water for numerous reasons.

In characterizing rap as a "medium for worshiping misogyny, materialism, and murder," Dr. Staples worries about the effect that the hip-hop culture has on African-American youth. He contrasts the supposed characteristics of hip-hop with those of the stereotypical "white", "middle-class". Dr. Staples himself probably realizes that idea to be meritless since it is whites who buy the most rap music, which in and of itself does not cause anyone to "[embrace] violence, illiteracy, and drug dealing." The focus on sex, money, and even drugs is not a phenomenon unique to rap music; rather, it has been an inherent part of popular music for at least the past half-century.

Furthermore, the violent agenda of Tupac and the Notorious B.I.G.'s era has faded since their shooting deaths in the mid-90s. Since then, the legacy of popular rap music has shifted from authentic "gangsta" rap to a more simplistic, hedonistic agenda. Witness the obsession with the "crunked" party-minded rappers who dominate the airwaves today: Lil Jon, Ludacris, Nelly, Outkast, etc. The only "beefs" going on are, as they say, "on the wax"--exchanges of lyrical disses between sparring rappers in song lyrics. Dr. Staples turns the isolated incident of a dust-up between 50 Cent and protégé The Game into evidence that today's rap stars still have their guns blazing. For the record, the aforementioned squabble was settled in a week, the only effect having been some excellent publicity for both of their new records. Coincidence? You tell me.

In his article Dr. Staples also refers to current rap icon Eminem. Eminem didn’t become a living legend from talking body counts and bulletproof vests. He did so by speaking--at times with comic absurdity, other times painfully candid--about the hardships of life in the dead-end towns of America. Rap music has always been a vehicle for insightful social commentary, ever since Grandmaster Flash's 1982 classic "The Message" up through Public Enemy's rap-rock in the early 90s and the tradition continues today with songs like "Mosh", Eminem's scathing anti-war diatribe.

The claim that hip-hop has "lost its way" is disingenuous. It may not be the music of the Woodstock generation, but rap can be serious when it wants to, as demonstrated by the examples above. Perhaps rap's critics are just disappointed that the current trend in popular rap music does not tend towards social consciousness. The truth of the matter, whether you approve or not, is that the current generation of rappers simply has different interests than their predecessors. The situation of the current generation is completely incomparable to the gangsta rap generation, in much the same way that no one would compare N.W.A.'s "F*** Tha Police" (1988) to Sugarhill Gang's "Rapper's Delight" (1980).

Brent Staples thinks that hip-hop is reaching a "tipping point" where its vices will finally become too great to tolerate. I doubt it. Sure, rap today celebrates material excess, but that's not a betrayal. It's an evolution of a genre in much the same way rock has feted different themes, many of them not "wholesome", over the decades. Based on the way rap's flying off the shelves now, it hardly seems that people have had enough. They can't seem to get enough of this stuff!

Muslims Offended by 24

Fans of 24, myself included, are eagerly looking forward to tomorrow's installment of Fox's hit counterterrorism drama. This season, only a week old, has already attracted a lot of controversy over its negative portrayal of Muslims. In a show whose plot focuses on a terrorist attack against the United States, it is reasonable to expect Islamic extremism to play a part. Even then, through the show's first four episodes, I've found myself wondering whether the show had gone too far in caricaturing American Muslims.

The story centers around an upper-class Muslim family that is in fact a terrorist sleeper cell. Last week, the mother poisoned her teenage son's non-Muslim girlfriend. The son, who for all appearances on the outside is a good high-school student, is helping carry out the family's plot, which thus far includes an attack on a commuter train and the kidnapping of the Secretary of Defense. While all the villains are Muslim (not unexpectedly), there has been only one "good" Muslim character thus far. This was a minor, unnamed character given only a second or two on-screen to complain about how terrorists are giving Muslims in America a bad name.

In light of this negative portrayal of American Muslims, I was not surprised to read that complaints by Muslim groups have caused Fox to respond: "Fox Cuts Anti-Muslim Scenes From 24". Fox has agreed to air PSAs by the Council of American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) showing how Muslims in America have contributed to their society. I assume that upcoming episodes of 24 will also tone down its depiction of Muslims.

I've heard some people argue that all this fuss is unnecessary. Does every potentially offensive book or TV show or movie need to go to extra lengths to appease its critics? After all, The Godfather painted Italian-Americans in a bad light, and no one thought a disclaimer from the Pope was necessary. That's what artistic license gives you the freedom to do.

I think the situation here is different. My problem is not that the villains in 24 are Muslims. In all honesty, that is a completely fair and reasonable decision given current events. I think the problem though is that the show is relying too much on Islamophobic stereotypes to create its characters and plot.

This is not a major offense, but still an understandable issue of concern to the Muslim community. The public's attitude toward Muslims is influenced in large part by what is shown on television. Given that a recent study by Cornell University showed that nearly half of all Americans believe in restricting the civil liberties of Muslim Americans, they have a right to see that they are better treated in the media.

CAIR's Rabiah Ahmed pointed out that "There aren't any positive or even neutral portrayals of Muslims on TV." She raises an excellent point. That is something that should be remedied. And while we're at it, I'm going to suggest that more Muslims should go into the entertainment business. Reversing their underrepresentation in that field is one way for Muslims to help shape the public's perception of them.

In any case, I know where I'm going to be tomorrow night--parked in front of the TV to catch the new hour of 24!

Leave None to Tell the Story

"God already left Africa."
-- Tears of the Sun

Today I biked eleven miles to the nearest movie theater in the area that was showing Hotel Rwanda, a moving new film about the 1994 Rwandan genocide. I would encourage everyone to go see this movie, a remarkable true story reminiscent of Schindler's List. If while watching you are struck by the authenticity of the emotion, know that the film uses displaced Tutsi refugees as extras and some scenes were shot at the sites where real massacres took place. Through 3/4 of this movie I had goosebumps. Like numerous others in the blogosphere whose reactions I've read, Hotel Rwanda filled me with great sadness and great anger.

Prepare to be outraged at the impotence of the international community and at the indifference of the United States. President Clinton had the following to say in 1998 when visitng Kigali:

"It may seem strange to you here, especially the many of you who lost members of your family, but all over the world there were people like me sitting in offices, day after day after day, who did not fully appreciate the depth and speed with which you were being engulfed by this unimaginable terror.

Unfortunately for the hundreds of thousands of victims in Rwanda, far too many people did not appreciate the scope and magnitude of the disaster. Clinton, however, cannot be placed in that category. Ten years after the fact, Freedom of Information Act requests have shown that the Clinton administration knew that genocide was occuring, and chose to do nothing. Seeking to avoid the entrapment experience of Somalia, the U.S. did the unforgivable, unable to even muster forceful words of denunciation. I don't know if anyone can say with any certainty that Rwanda can ever recover fully; some suggest the country has hardly recovered at all.

The Holocaust. Cambodia. Bosnia. Rwanda. Darfur. Etc, etc, etc. Each time, we say "never again". Despite all the hand-wringing, you can count on it happening again.