Showing posts with label media. Show all posts
Showing posts with label media. Show all posts

Sunday, June 26, 2022

Not that there's anything wrong with that

The other day I saw someone tweet that cis Gen Xers need to talk more about how homophobic society in general was in the 80s and 90s. So my Pride post this year is a story from my small town adolescence in the 90s.
 
This story does not contain any violence, hate crimes, or actual homophobic acts, but it does contain extensive descriptions of my own thoughts and feelings from back when I knew nothing other than that culture and environment, and these thoughts and feelings do not age well.
 
***
 
In the Seinfeld episode "The Outing", Jerry and George are mistaken for a gay couple, and spend the episode flailing about vociferously denying being gay, each time qualifying their denial with "Not that there's anything wrong with that!"
 
When I saw this episode at the age of 15, I was super confused: why are they saying "Not that there's anything wrong with that"?? Surely if you suggest that there's nothing wrong with being gay, people will think you're gay, and then Bad Things will happen! Why wouldn't they just say nothing??

That was literally the very first time in my whole entire life that I had ever been exposed to the idea that a person might not want to come across as homophobic. I'm not even getting as far as the fact that there's nothing wrong with being gay - I had never, not even once, been exposed to the fact that there are people in the world who might perceive you negatively if you're homophobic.
 
Absolutely 100% of life experience to date had suggested that the strategic thing to do in any situation would be to come across as homophobic. After all, my life experience suggested, if you don't come across as homophobic, then people would think you're gay! And then Bad Things would happen!
 
(I wasn't clear what these Bad Things were, but the way my classmates talked about the idea of Gay left no room for doubt that it was Very, Very Bad.)

I hadn't even thought as far as deciding whether or not to be homophobic myself. All I knew was that 100% of the empirical evidence to date suggested that it was unsafe to not be homophobic. So I proceeded accordingly.

When the Seinfeld episode ended without anything bad happening to Jerry and George, I was completely baffled. This was completely outside of my experience or frame of reference. The story seemed completely unresolved. I literally could not understand it.

And that's what 90s small town homophobia was like - it left a sheltered 15-year-old unable to comprehend a situation where people can just . . . not be homophobic, and that's okay.

***
 
What's interesting is how 15-year-old me reacted to this after giving the matter a little thought.
 
Jerry and George acted as though there wasn't anything wrong with being gay, and nothing bad happened to them! Furthermore, no discourse about this had reached me - no one was talking about how it was bad or horrible or shocking that nothing bad happened to them for acting as though there wasn't anything wrong with being gay.

This meant that maybe, for some people, in some parts of society . . . it's okay to act as though there isn't anything wrong with being gay? The characters on Seinfeld were clearly cooler than me, so maybe the parts of society where it's okay to act as though there isn't anything wrong with being gay are cooler than me?

Now, if, like 15-year-old me, you're an awkward, dorky, bullied teenager living in a small town, it can be strategic to give the impression that you have hidden depths, aspects of yourself that are way cooler and edgier than even have an opportunity to become apparent in such a limited and uncool environment than school.

This (brand new! unprecedented!) notion that there's nothing wrong with being gay provided this very kind of opportunity. Next time the idea of gay came up, I could proceed as though there's nothing wrong with it, as though it's unremarkable and not worth mentioning! Maybe I could even pretend to be confused about why people think it's a problem! Surely that would be a super edgy thing to do that vastly exceeds the cool potential of our small town!

So I tucked the idea away in my metaphorical toolbox, and proceeded with life.


The opportunity to use it arose a couple of years later.

I was sitting in the library doing my calculus homework and listening to my discman when a classmate sat down across the table from me.

I didn't know this guy very well. The periphery of his social circle overlapped with the periphery of my social circle, but we had very little in common. He had a beard, drove a pickup truck, seemed like he'd know where to buy drugs - way cooler and edgier than me, and the very demographic who is likely to bully me! But, despite these demographic indicators, he had never been unkind to me, and sometimes had been a touch more kind than strictly necessary.

He sat down across from me, pulled out his own homework, and asked me what I was listening to.

"Ani DiFranco," I replied.

"Did you know she's very popular with the gay community?" he asked.

I didn't actually know that. In fact, I hadn't the slightest clue! (My first Ani DiFranco album was Dilate, and I hadn't yet discovered the online fandom.)

I briefly panicked: Oh shit, now he's going to think I'm gay! And if I deny it, he's going to think I'm hiding being gay!!

Then I remembered: when you want to be cool and edgy, act like there's nothing wrong with it.

So I looked him dead-ass in the eye and said, "Yes, she is."

Then, with a level of savvy I didn't even know I possessed, I offered him an earbud. "Would you like to listen?"

He accepted the earbud, and we sat there doing our math homework and listening to Ani DiFranco. And no Bad Things happened.

And, in that small town in the 90s, that was what passed for progress.

Sunday, March 07, 2021

The Toronto Star should print URLs next to QR codes

During the pandemic, I've been reading the epaper versions of the my newspapers rather than getting my usual home delivery, and I've noticed an annoyance: links to further information on the Toronto Star site are provided as a QR code, without a corresponding URL provided.

This is an annoyance by itself in the print version, because it only gives you the option of opening the link on a mobile device, even if you'd prefer to read on a computer.

But it's all the more annoying in the epaper version, because epaper readers are already reading on their preferred device for reading a newspaper electronically! If I'm reading on my computer like I usually do, I could, theoretically, grab my phone and scan the QR code. But what if I was already reading on my phone? Surely there are many households that don't have extra mobile devices just sitting around unused for every time you want to click a link!

If the Star would simply print URLs next to (or instead of) QR codes, everyone could access the links by the means most convenient to them, thereby maximizing the number of eyeballs on the Star's website. Using the QR code alone is inconvenient to many and impenetrable to some. There's no reason not to continue printing URLs, like they have since the advent of URLs.

Saturday, June 20, 2020

Sanditon fanfic bunny, free for the taking: "I Will Toil and You Can Blossom"

This post is a full spoiler zone for the Sanditon miniseries.

I recently finished the Sanditon miniseries, and was pleased to see that my ship of Charlotte/Arthur is still a possibility.

I have a massive fanfic bunny and lack the skills to write it, so I'm posting it here in case someone else wants to write it. Steal this idea!

Premise:

Charlotte and Arthur enter by mutual consent into a companionate marriage (in the sense of companionate love as opposed to consummate love.)

This puts Charlotte in a good position to continue her work with the Parker family's business, which she found so self-actualizing in canon. (After all, it's much more respectable for a Mrs. Parker to be acting on behalf of the Parker family than a Miss Heywood.) She gets to be married to someone who is pleasant and harmless and respects her.

Meanwhile, Arthur gets to continue enjoying the simple pleasures of life without having to work too hard, because Charlotte is pulling their share of the weight in the family business. He gets to be married to someone who is pretty and personable and accepts him for who is he is without playing games. He can spend his days enjoying his port wine and buttered toast and getting down on the floor to play with the children.

(Despite it being a companionate marriage, I do imagine that Charlotte and Arthur would consummate their marriage. They've both shown themselves eager to try new experiences (e.g. sea-bathing) and sex is a new experience that's now available to them. And they may well continue to make sex part of their lives, either to have children, simply because they think it's fun.)

So where's the conflict in this scenario? From the whole rest of the town of Sanditon! Nearly everyone we've met in canon has some kind of drama, and with Sanditon being a resort town all kinds of personalities could pass through. And meanwhile, Charlotte and Arthur build themselves an oasis of peace in the midst of all the drama.


Interesting notions this fic would explore:


- A mutually-satisfying and mutually-respectful companionate marriage. In fiction, we see explorations of passionate marriages, unhealthy marriages, abusive marriages,  bickering marriages. I've never seen a portrayal of a marriage between two people who like each other and respect each other and get along well, but aren't in love with each other and are okay with that.

- Sex as fun, but not passionate. I do think if Charlotte and Arthur were married, they would explore sex. They've both shown themselves game to try new experiences (sea bathing, horseback riding), and I think they would have a go at consummating their marriage in a similar spirit. After all, they're allowed - even encouraged! And if it turns out to be an enjoyable experience for both, they'd probably make it a regular part of their life. Sex in fiction tends to be portrayed as imbued with great emotion and meaning (as it often is in real life) - either positively or negatively depending on the character being portrayed. But some people must find it just...fun. (After all, friends with benefits is a thing.) It would be interesting to see that explored in fiction.

- The value of a harmless husband. We normally see the notion of a "safe option" in marriage portrayed negatively, or as a person in a safe marriage yearning for something more. But in a historical era where a wife is entirely at her husband's mercy socially, legally and financially, a harmless husband like Arthur would be quite the catch! He's cheerful and happy to be pleased, he's happy to cede the floor to Charlotte when she knows better, and he's not going to bankrupt them (c.f. he's hardly touched his inheritance).

(Charlotte is also harmless and I'm sure that has value for Arthur, but given the realities of the era, I'm more interested in how Arthur's harmlessness enhances Charlotte's life.)

- Young newlyweds growing up together. Once upon a time, I read something that said that in the 21st century, people expect to finish growing up and then to get married. But in the past, when people married younger, they'd get married and expect to finish growing up together.  I haven't a clue whether that's true as a general societal attitude (I've only heard it once from a source that is lost to history), but it must have happened in some cases, and it would be an interesting thing to explore. Charlotte and Arthur, while of marriageable age in their historical context, are both very young and both still have some growing up to do. At the same time, living and working within the extended Parker family would give them a context in which they can safely do this growing up together.

Monday, December 17, 2018

Default couple genders in sketch comedy

I'm late to the game on this, but I just started watching the Baroness Von Sketch show this season, and I'm really enjoying it.

One little thing I appreciate is when a sketch involves a couple but the gender of the couple is irrelevant to the sketch, they most often make it a same-sex couple played by two of the (all-female) leads.

Here's an example:



That sketch is entirely gender-irrelevant. It would have worked out the same way regardless of the genders of the characters.  So they simply cast two of the leads as characters who are the same demographic as the actors - two women played by two women.

If you think back to older sketch comedies like Monty Python or Kids in the Hall, they wouldn't do that.  If the genders of the couple were irrelevant to the sketch, they'd make it an opposite-sex couple.  They'd only use same-sex couples if there was a specific reason why a same-sex couple was needed.

But another thing that Monty Python and Kids in the Hall often did was have female characters portrayed by the all-male leads rather than using a female supporting actress to play a female character.  They did use female supporting actresses as well (just as Baroness Von Sketch uses male supporting actors), but the default seemed to be a male lead dressed as a woman.

If you think about it, it's kind of bizarre that in a sketch comedy environment that couldn't perceive a same-sex couple neutrally, a sketch comedy couple consisting of one male actor dressed as a man and one male actor dressed as a woman was seen as neutral and unmarked (in the linguistic sense).

Someday in the future, probably sooner than we expect, people are going to watch those sketches and think all the Monty Python pepperpots are meant to be trans or genderqueer, and they'll need a historical explainer to understand what the Pythons are doing. And they're going to think this post, noticing that gender-irrelevant couples are portrayed as same-sex couples by the all-female cast, is going to come across as having homophobic undertones, like how someone's grandmother who gratuitously mentions the race of everyone she brings up in conversation comes across as having racist undertones.

Wednesday, August 15, 2018

Young Sheldon

The interesting thing about Young Sheldon is it hardly ever makes me laugh, but is still very effective.

Each episode is a gentle, heartwarming, effective piece of storytelling, and every story told is a story worth telling. But I very rarely end up laughing. Is there even anything else like that on TV?

I don't think it would have gotten made if it weren't a spin-off about a break-out character from a hit sitcom. I don't see how they could have marketed it in a vacuum. I don't see how the idea of watching it would have occurred to me in a vacuum.

But because it is about a character I enjoy, I did start watching it. And I am enjoying it, even though I would never have thought I'd enjoy gentle, heartwarming storytelling that only rarely makes me laugh.

Saturday, January 13, 2018

Do tone and aesthetics make TV audiences self-selecting?

Even before the PTSD plotline, there was some discussion around whether Star Trek: Discovery was appropriate for children.  Some have fond childhood memories of watching Star Trek and want it to be suitable for their children, others pointed out that even if children did enjoy it, it was always intended for adults.

TNG is my primary Star Trek, which I watched and enjoyed starting in my preteen years.  However, when DS9 and Voyager came out, I wasn't able to enjoy them because they were too dark for me at that age.

The interesting thing is I could tell by looking at them that they were too dark for me.  I perceived this to be a function of lighting and set design, although incidental music may also have had an impact (I wasn't mindful of incidental music at the time, and blithely allowed it to manipulate my emotions without giving it a single thought.)  I watched like half an episode of each, and I just felt like "This is going to be too scary or sad for me," so I stopped watching.

Aesthetically as well as tonally, Discovery is even darker than DS9 and Voyager.  So I wonder if my child-self's reaction to the aesthetic darkness of DS9 and Voyager is typical and, if so, people who aren't ready for Discovery will screen themselves out?

As an interesting side note, other shows that I found too dark aesthetically as a child were Cheers and MASH.  I've watched both of them in adult life and they worked for me, but I do think they were too adult for my younger self.

My parents watched Doctor Who in the mid-80s, and I found the theme music so scary that I'd leave the room. Many people talk about hiding behind the sofa when the scary parts of Doctor Who came on, but I didn't even get that far because the theme music so accurately conveyed to me that it would be scary!

I wonder if TV shows also work this way for other people?

Tuesday, October 17, 2017

Will & Grace

I've been watching and enjoying the Will & Grace revival, but there's one thing I have trouble overlooking: the characters haven't evolved.  They're exactly the same people they were 11 years ago.

Real people would grow and change somewhat over 11 years.  Fictional characters who are being written for 11 years would evolve.  But Will and Grace and Jack and Karen have been in stasis.

Which is really a catch-22 for the writers. If they had somehow managed to write the characters after 11 years of evolving, they wouldn't be the characters we know and love.  But their not having evolved feels unnatural.

However, I am enjoying having new Will & Grace, so what I'm doing as a viewer is just treating these new shows as though they're syndicated reruns I haven't seen before. The cultural references are from 2017, but all of Will & Grace's cultural references have been current at some point of my cultural awareness. And the characters feel the same as always, which isn't at all incongruous if I don't think about the timeline.

Friday, August 26, 2016

Late-breaking story on the CBC

I know this has already been thoroughly commented on in many, many places, but I feel the need to post it here for the record:

The CBC's coverage of the Tragically Hip's final concert was an outstanding example of our public broadcaster meeting the needs of Canadians.

We had a need that could be met with a television broadcast.  But, at the same time, this need was not super compatible with the conventions of television broadcasting.  The format required it to be commercial-free, despite the fact that it was in prime time and had a huge number of viewers.  And it happened to be during the Olympics, for which the CBC held broadcasting rights.  It was of unpredictable duration.  The content would likely contain some swear words.  Canadians abroad needed to be able to see it just as much as Canadians at home.

And the CBC overcame all these obstacles to make it happen, prioritizing the needs of Canadians rather than bureaucratic or penny-pinching requirements or the need to put commercials in front of eyeballs.  They could just as easily (actually, far more easily) have shrugged their shoulders and said "Sorry, we're committed to the Olympics", or "Well, we have to run commercials to earn our keep," or "You can't say 'fuck' on television!" or "Broadcast only available in Canada" and we wouldn't even have noticed. But instead they stepped up, figured out a way to make it work, and served a huge number of Canadians - more than twice the number of Canadians who voted for the winning party in any election in my lifetime!

Many people noticed and appreciated this, and I hope that creates and sustains the political will to give the CBC the resources it needs to keep meeting our needs in the future, even when they don't correspond tidily with the conventions of broadcasting.

Friday, August 12, 2016

Ad-supported media should never have worked in the first place

There's been a lot of media talk recently about how declining advertising revenues put various media outlets and websites at risk and how websites especially are taking extraordinary efforts to get ads in front of people who don't want to see them.

And in all of this, it occurs to me: it's bizarre that ad-supported media has lasted this long in the first place!

I can see why a business might consider spending a certain amount of money to make potential customers aware of it. And I can see why a media outlet might consider offering paid placements.

But it doesn't even make sense that businesses would be willing to spend so much on advertising that it supports the existence of entire media outlets, to the point of being their primary or only source of revenue!

Think about all the ads you're exposed to in a day. How many do you even notice?  (If you're like me, you're not even looking at the parts of the newspaper pages where they put the ads, or going to the bathroom during commercial breaks.) Of these, how many do you pay attention do? Of these, how many affect your purchasing decisions? Maybe a handful over a lifetime, compared with the dozens (hundreds?) you're exposed to every day.

How is that worth businesses' while to pay for?

The decline of the advertising model is a market correction. Something that never made sense in the first place is ceasing to function. Yes, it's inconvenient, but it was inevitable, long before the dawn of the internet or of ad blockers.

Saturday, February 20, 2016

How to reboot Are You Being Served?

I was very surprised to hear that they're rebooting Are You Being Served? because that show is very much a product of its time and totally out of step with modern comedic sensibilities.

But then my shower gave me an idea of how this might be carried off.

Grace Brothers a struggling department store, conveniently located in London's West End so as to create a situation where all its sales staff are struggling actors, working in the store as a day job until they get their big break.

The sales staff are established as modern, relatable people - savvy, witty, reasonably worldly, aware of irony, texting and snapchatting, dressed like regular Londoners. They're also very good at their jobs as clothing salespeople, able to serve as personal shoppers and do alterations and bra-fitting and such, but in this modern world there's simply less call for this sort of service.

Then store management hands down a new dictum: in an attempt to boost sales and draw people back into the store, they're going for nostalgia. There is now a dress code - suits for the men, brown jumpers for the ladies, and all kinds of finicky rules about who's allowed to wear what kind of hat and how many frills you're allowed to have on your blouse. Staff are ordered to address each other as Mr./Mrs./Ms. Surname, and strict scripts are introduced, such as "Mr. Humphries, are you free?" and "Are you being served, Madam?"

The staff thinks this is ridiculous, so, being actors, they decide to make it a game. They see their new dress code as costumes, and start getting some character acting practice in when dealing with customers and management.  They do their job and do it as well as possible under the circumstances, but they do so while playing over-the-top roles and having a standing wager to see who can utter the most double-entendres. It's an ongoing improv game, creating foolish, outdated characters to go with store management's foolish, outdated vision. Also the fact that they're all actors creates an opportunity for song and dance numbers as sometimes occurred in the original - someone has an audition piece, they're yes-anding the fuck out of something that happens on the floor, etc.

Even as over-the-top improve characters played ironically, it would still take quite a delicate bit of writing to have the original Are You Being Served? characters work in the 21st century.  I mean, Mr. Humphries' whole schtick is that he has stereotypically gay mannerisms, and that's supposed to be intrinsically funny in and of itself. No competent writer or performer would think of that as a viable comedic choice in the 21st century!!

But that gives me the idea (which may or may not actually be a good idea) that perhaps the actors staffing Grace Brothers are not actually good actors.  (That's why they're working a struggling department store!) And the broad characters of Are You Being Served? are a result of their imperfect acting/improv skills. For example, Miss Brahms is a creation of an American actress who thinks she's speaking with a posh English accent, but it actually comes out Cockney.  Mrs. Slocombe is an attractive middle-aged woman trying to play a young hipster character, but her bold hair colours and makeup are actually unflattering and make her look even older than she actually is. Mr. Humphries is the creation of a Michael Scott type with no sense of judgement or appropriateness, but the character goes over well with customers (who have no clue that he's meant to be a joke and simply think he's fabulous) so no one stops him.

Or maybe that's what the original Are You Being Served? was doing all along...

Friday, December 25, 2015

Shamy

This post contains spoilers for the most recent episode of Big Bang Theory. If you follow the show but haven't been spoiled for this episode yet, I highly recommend not reading this post.


***


I got spoiled for last week's Big Bang Theory, so I knew going in that Sheldon and Amy were going to have "coitus", as Sheldon likes to put it.  I had some speculation about this that didn't end up getting blogged because life got in the way, but there was one thing I didn't see coming, and actually didn't realize was even possible: the writers created a situation in which the sex was actually better for both people because one party wasn't actively into it.

Mayim Bialik (who portrays Amy) has blogged about how people keep asking her "Is Sheldon good?"  But the first thing that popped into my head when I got spoiled is "Is Amy good?"

As we know, Sheldon is a finicky person with a tendency towards self-absorption. If he's half as particular about his sex as he is about his meals, it's quite possible that an inexperienced partner like Amy won't be able to meet his expectations first time around - especially if, like nerdy virgins since time immemorial, he's been getting ideas from the shadier parts of internet.  What would that do to the relationship? What would that do to Amy's self-esteem?

I was also contemplating whether the writers would hand-wave this by making them both end up being surprisingly good together. (They're intelligent people, they would have researched, if they used good sources instead of porn and happen to have certain physical compatibilities, it might just work out fine the first time.)  Then I was hoping the writers wouldn't overdo it and make it a joke that awkward nerds might be good at sex.

I was also pondering the situation from the other direction: what if they're not able to have good sex together at the outset, but the show chose to explore that?  Not every couple can always have good sex together the very first time, and the likelihood of it not going perfectly increases it when it's a first time for both. But this isn't something you often see depicted in media or fiction, so it would be an interesting approach to take. Then I was hoping that the writers wouldn't overdo it and make it a joke that awkward nerds have awkward sex, or make it cringingly horrible with Sheldon's finicky nature.

However, the Big Bang Theory writers did something that I didn't know was coming: they had Sheldon come up with the idea of having sex with Amy as her birthday present.

Normally I dislike the dynamic of a sex act being a gift and it's certainly not something I'd want in my own private life.  But, by making it a gift from Sheldon to Amy, they eliminated the problem of Sheldon's finicky nature.  He doesn't actively want sex for himself, so he doesn't have highly specific needs and preferences like he does with seating arrangements and bathroom schedules and take-out food. He's simply interested in making the experience work for Amy - kind of the sexual equivalent to accompanying your partner to a high-school reunion or something (which is quite an emotional/interpersonal milestone for Sheldon!)

The fact that Sheldon (as the person who's less enthusiastic about sex) came up with the idea of having sex on this particular occasion himself, without any pressure or suggestions from Amy or anyone else, goes a long way towards mitigating the any potential distastefulness of the "sex as a gift" dynamic.  It's also somewhat mitigated by the fact that both parties are nervous and tentative beforehand, and that we learn that the experience ultimately exceeded expectations for both of them.

Another fantastic choice by the writers and producers is that the combination of script, editing and choreography gave us no indication of exactly what sex acts they engaged in, or whether they were perfectly successful or it was a trial-and-error kind of situation. This was an excellent choice because it attends to the audience's emotional needs.  Certain people have certain feelings about certain sex acts, including feeling that certain sex acts are degrading or humiliating or other negative emotional baggage. It would probably ruin the heart and sweetness of the scene to see a likely-asexual character engaging in a sex act you consider humiliating or degrading as a birthday gift for his partner. As it stands, all we know it that Sheldon was at peak emotional generosity, both parties were nervous beforehand, and both parties were happy afterwards. And every viewer can fill in the blanks with whatever fits those criteria in their own worldview.

Despite the fact that I still think it would be helpful for sexual novices if the spectrum of media portrayals of sexuality included occasional (and sympathetic) depictions of  unsuccessful first-time sex, I think the writers did right by Sheldon and Amy.  And I hope that the physical part of their relationship can now fade into the background where they can explore it in private, much like the show did when kissing was introduced into their relationship.

Wednesday, November 11, 2015

The Toronto Star ipad app problem

The Toronto Star recently came out with an ipad app, and they seem to be pushing it pretty hard, perhaps even prioritizing it over everything else.

The problem is that this renders some content inaccessible to people who don't have ipads.

If an ipad user tweets an article from the Star, it provides a link to the ipad version.  If you're reading on a computer, it doesn't autodetect that and direct you to the web version, or provide a link at the bottom to the full version like many mobile websites do. The ipad link doesn't always provide the full text of the article, and (so far, at least) when I've searched the Star website for the headline or the lede, it hasn't turned up anything. 

There have even been one or two times when an article is teased in the print version of the newspaper, and they tell you to go to the ipad version for the full story!

So it seems that there are Toronto Star articles that can't be read in the print newspaper, on a computer, on a non-ipad tablet, or on a non-ipad i-device. They can only be read on an ipad.

Which is not a negligible inconvenience for people who don't need or can't afford ipads!

An ipad costs several hundred dollars. (Currently, the prices in the Apple Store range from $329 to $1429.)  My experience with other Apple products has been that I can only get a few years of use out of them, and I see no indication that this would be any different for ipads.

So the Star is creating a situation where, to get access to all the journalism in your local daily, you need to pay at least $100 a year to another, unaffiliated corporation for a device that you may well have no other need for.

Do the owners of the Toronto Star own Apple stock?

I'm also wondering how this will affect googleability and archivability. Since I can't seem to get at them via web, it seems they aren't googleable. Can you access old articles in the app, or does it give you solely today's content? (I have no idea, because I don't have an ipad.)  Do they turn up in library periodical indices so they'll be available to people doing historical research in the future?  If the Star writes an article about your kid's awesome science project or gives your play a glowing review, is there a way to save the article for posterity? Even after the ipad is obsolete?

Tuesday, March 18, 2014

The real problem with The Agenda's guest booking

Steve Paikin's blog post on the difficulties The Agenda has been experiencing with getting female guests has been getting a lot of attention, but buried in this post is a far bigger problem for everyone who watches The Agenda and/or trusts its journalism:
No man will say, "Sorry can't do your show tonight, I'm not an expert in that particular aspect of the story." They'll get up to speed on the issue and come on.
 In the graphic at the bottom of the page, they describe it as follows:


The female character in the cartoon is saying "I'm not sure I'm the right person for this", and the male character is saying "I can read up on this. I'd be happy to join you."

This is a problem.

The problem is not, as Steve Paikin suggests, that the female character declines to go on TV because she doesn't feel she's an expert.  The problem is that the male character isn't an expert and is just cramming for the interview, but they let him go on TV anyway!

I was shocked to see such a widely-respected journalist as Steve Paikin suggest that agreeing to go on TV and be interviewed as an expert when you aren't actually an expert and are just going to read up on the subject in the short time before the interview is laudable.  Because it is not laudable. Rather, it does a huge disservice to viewers and society as a whole.

If I'm taking the time to watch a TV interview about a subject, I've already read up on it.  That's how I know I'm interested enough in it to involve myself in the more time-consuming process of watching a video.

If the person being interviewed is just reading up on it too, as opposed to having long-standing independent and practical expertise, it's quite likely that they're reading a lot of the same stuff I am. So not only do they have a far more limited pool of knowledge than an actual expert, their knowledge is closer to mine than an actual expert's.  And, of course, when they're interviewed, we only see a fraction of their knowledge.  So I'm tuning into hear what the experts say, and I'm hearing someone parroting a small fraction of my own knowledge. So not only am I not learning, I'm getting an over-inflated sense of my own expertise (I already knew everything that expert on TV said!)

Giving people an over-inflated sense of their own expertise is detrimental to society as a whole.  I'm probably not the only one watching TV who is not an expert but has read up on the subject.  If everyone who is doing the same thing comes away feeling like we already know enough about the subject, we'll probably stop reading up on it.  And then we'll end up in a situation where we're all taking action and making decisions while underinformed, without even knowing that we're underinformed.

We've all seen what harm voting while underinformed can do.  The situation will become even worse if more engaged and activist people who make a concerted effort to be informed - by watching The Agenda, for example - come away underinformed unbeknownst to themselves.


As for the original problem of prospective female guests accepting far less frequently than prospective male guests, the solution becomes quite clear if we look at the situation in broader terms, without any explicit or tacit gender markers:

The Agenda is a TV show. They've noticed a recurring pattern where people they want to interview are unable to appear on the TV show, either because they do not have an opening in their schedule for the time of the interview or because they're unable to be prepared for the interview by the time of the interview.

Therefore, the solution is longer lead times.

If The Agenda gives the people they wish to interview more time and more warning, they can clear their schedule (including things like finding childcare, if applicable) and get themselves properly prepared (including things like getting their hair done, if applicable).

The Agenda is not a breaking news report, it's an in-depth interview and analysis program.  I'd rather see The Agenda interview the best expert weeks after the story broke than interview someone who wasn't up on the issue but crammed so they could be on TV the same day the story broke.


On top of that, I find myself wondering how I, as a viewer, can trust The Agenda knowing that they accept interviewees who aren't true experts but rather simply cram on the topic before the interview?  How do I know whether the person being interviewed actually has true in-depth knowledge, as opposed to having just read some stuff about the topic just like I have?  If everything they mention is something I already know, does that mean I know everything I need to? Or does it just mean that the alleged "expert" doesn't know enough?  If what they're saying sounds completely bizarre and ridiculous and incompatible with the world as I understand it, does that mean I need to question my whole understanding of the world?  Or does that just mean that they're ignorant but willing to appear on TV?

This is compounded by the blog post's invalidating dismissiveness of prospective guests' not wanting to appear on TV as experts because they don't feel they're actually experts.  Why would The Agenda trust someone to appear on TV as an expert informing the public about a complex subject, but not trust that same person to say "I'm not a good enough expert to do this job. You need someone who is more of an expert than I am"? It's quite likely the subject is far more complex than a TV producer perceives and there are layers of expertise that the producer can't even begin to fathom - which is fine, the TV producer has their own job to do.  But if you don't trust your would-be expert's expertise, why are you inviting them to appear on TV and educate the rest of us?  If you trust them that much, you should be taking them at their word and finding someone better.


If The Agenda can't get the guests they want because of scheduling-related issues, they should produce their shows with longer lead times.  If the experts they originally seek out tell them they need better experts and they can't get enough better experts to do the shows they want to do, they should do fewer shows - maybe one or twice a week rather than every day.  But they're doing their audience - and the public as a whole - a huge disservice by airing shows with people whose best qualification is that they're willing to be on TV.

Tuesday, January 21, 2014

Things They Should Invent: PBS donations conditional upon changing how Masterpiece is listed

I've been rather baffled and slightly irritated that PBS insists upon listing Downton Abbey as Masterpiece Classic in TV listings, when we all know that people are looking for Downton Abbey.

Wil Wheaton recently had the same complaint about Sherlock, which is listed under Masterpiece Mystery.

I don't understand why PBS does this or what they think they gain by listing popular TV shows under a less popular generic name, but I have an idea for how to stop them:

Everyone contact their local PBS station and promise to pledge money next pledge season if they start listing these things in a normal way. Then, as soon as we see our favourite programs being listed under their actual title, donate.  If they don't, don't donate (even if you normally do).

Tuesday, July 30, 2013

A royal baby watcher on why the royal baby watch was pointless


As I've blogged about before, I find the royal family interesting because they have this really bizarre job that they have to do and it's interesting to me to see how they do it.  I'm also interested in fashion, so I will totally click through for a picture of a female royal, just to see how they've costumed themselves for this bizarre job.

Despite the fact that I'm childfree, I also think babies are interesting.  They're all little and cute, with these ridiculously tiny (but fully functional!) hands and feet, and it's interesting to me to see what they can do and to speculate on what they must think about what's going on around them.  I will totally click through to see a picture of a baby.

So that makes me totally the target audience for royal baby media coverage, which I unrepentantly consumed when the time came.

However, I think it was a complete waste of time to have media staking out the hospital for weeks and weeks in anticipation of the birth, because there was no story to be had by doing so.

Don't get me wrong, I do think the royal baby is news, objectively speaking.  Under the current system, he's third in line to be our head of state.  His identity is approximately as relevant as the identity of a political party leader. (But he's much more adorable to look at!)  On top of that, there is public interest.  When you've got a large chunk of your audience wanting to know biographical information about a public figure, it is appropriate to report it.

The thing is, what is there to know about a newborn in the first day of their life?  Their name, gender, date and time of birth, weight and length, whether they're healthy, and what they look like.  That's literally all there is.  There isn't any more yet because the poor kid hasn't been around long enough yet.  Even his parents aren't yet able to answer questions like "Is he a good sleeper?" or "How's he nursing?" because they haven't had enough time to find out yet.

All they could get by camping out in front of the hospital was pictures of the baby and maybe a soundbite or two of royals charmingly expressing appropriate delight at the birth of the baby.

All of which the palace would have released anyway.

All that time and effort and sitting out in the hot sun, and it made no difference to us as the interested audience. It just took up a lot of airtime and column inches on "no baby yet", all of which could have been better spent on something else.  We still would have gotten all available information through official channels, and there was simply no other information to be had.

Wednesday, June 19, 2013

Zap2it vs. TV Guide online TV listings


For as long as I can remember, I've been using zap2it.com as my primary TV guide.  They could be customized to my TV provider so they'll tell me what's on the channels I actually get and they tell me the actual channel number (unlike the TV listings in the newspaper, where they say it's on channel 5 in the listings and then I have to look it up in the chart to see that channel 5 is really channel 6 on my TV).

However, Zap2it's advanced search function recently stopped working, which makes it significantly less useful to me.  For example, as you may have noticed, I'm an Eddie Izzard fan, so I like to know when Eddie's going to be on TV.  So I'd use Zap2it's advanced search function to search for "Izzard" under "Cast & Crew", and I'd get a list of every program Eddie's in for the next two weeks.  In the absence of this function, I'd have to either look up every single entry on Eddie's IMDB page separately (which is a wee bit inconvenient) or miss opportunities to see Eddie on TV (which cramps my style).

Fortunately, it turns out TVGuide.com's listings aren't powered by Zap2it (as many TV listings are), and they have celebrity-specific listings (like this) that fulfill the function for which I'd previously been using Zap2it's advanced search (and with a much nicer interface too - TV Guide lists every appearance in chronological order, whereas Zap2it would only list the titles of the shows the performer appears in, and I'd have to click on each one to see when it's on.)  However, I've noticed a variety of pros and cons of each system:

- TV Guide lets you add movies, or even celebrities (which basically means anyone with an IMDB entry - Jane Austen is in there), to your watchlist, whereas Zap2it only lets you add TV shows.  This means that, on Zap2it, if I want to watch The King's Speech, I need to search for it every couple of weeks to see when it's on, while on TV Guide I can just add it to my list and they'll let me know.

- TV Guide's celebrity pages also show you episodes of TV shows that have that celebrity in it, whereas Zap2it's show you every episode of any TV show that has that celebrity in it.  For example, Wil Wheaton has been in a few episodes of Big Bang Theory.  If I look him up on TV Guide, it will show only the episodes of Big Bang Theory in which he appears.  However, if I look him up on Zap2it, it will show Big Bang Theory as a whole, even if the episodes he appears in aren't airing any time soon.

- Unfortunately, TV Guide's watchlist is set up so that it only shows you the next instance of each list item, which is problematic when the item added is a celebrity, who may appear in multiple movies or TV shows. So if Eddie's in one show tomorrow morning and another tomorrow afternoon, the watchlist will only show me the one he's in tomorrow morning (unless I click through to his individual page).  But it will still show me the next airing of King's Speech even if it's a week from now.  In comparison, Zap2it's "My Calendar" function is set up like a calendar, and tells me which things are on each day. (Unfortunately, it's only limited to TV shows, not movies or celebrities or other search results.)

- TV Guide allows you to add as many channels as you want to your "favourites", so you can have a grid that consists of all the channels you get.  Zap2it limits you to 100 (which is frustrating when you get more than 100 channels but nowhere near all the channels).  Note to Zap2it: it's not about wanting to watch my "favourite" channels, it's about what's on the channels I get in my cable package. If I just wanted to watch my favourite channel, I'd turn the TV on to that channel.

- However, TV Guide's watchlist shows you what's on all the English-language channels offered by your cable provider, even if you've meticulously set up your favourite channels list.

- The problem is the "English-language" part - TV Guide doesn't show non-English channels (even if they're part of a basic cable package) in those celebrity-specific page.  If Eddie is on a French channel, I'll never know unless I try to deliberately search for the French title of everything he's ever been in.  Note to TV Guide: some people who speak English do speak non-English languages too!

- Another advantage of TV Guide's watchlist is there's a checkbox that says "New Airings Only", so you can only see episodes that aren't reruns.  This is useful if you're interested in  new episodes of the Simpsons, for example, but don't want to be informed of every single rerun.

- A disadvantage of TV Guide in general is it doesn't show the end times of programs in search results - you have to look them up in the grid.  This is particularly annoying for movies.  It will tell you that the runtime of a particular movie is 120 minutes and it will tell you that the movie is on a 9:00, but it won't tell you whether it's on from 9:00-11:00 or 9:00-12:00.  As we all know, such things do vary because of editing for television and commercial breaks.

- I think both systems could use a more robust category function.  Zap2it used to have a particularly good one, where one of the categories was Fitness.  So I used this to find exercise programs on TV (my preferred method of exercising).  But they later eliminated the category.  (When I switched to Rogers I started using my on-screen guide for this, but lately it's less useful because they're putting entirely too many things in the Fitness category, like reality shows about people giving birth and programs about alternative medicine, so I have to click on every unfamiliar title to see if it is in fact a fitness show.)

Currently I'm using Zap2it's calendar and basic search results primarily but TV Guide's more advanced search results and celebrity pages.  I'd probably switch back to using Zap2it exclusively if they reinstated the advanced search function and let us add movies, celebrities, and search results (i.e. anything with Star Trek in the title rather than having to add each Star Trek separately) to the calendar.  I'd probably switch to TV Guide exclusively if the watchlist was truly chronological, if they included non-English channels in search results, and if they included program end times in search results.

I'm glad that the two systems complement each other and mostly fill in each other's gaps, but it would be awesome if one of the sites (or both, or a third, completely new site) could add the features it's missing so it meets all the needs I've listed here.

Sunday, November 18, 2012

Potentially reluctant fathers in Call the Midwife

Warning: this post contains spoilers for Call the Midwife episodes 3 and 6

One criticism I've seen of Call the Midwife is that episode 3 is unrealistic.  In this episode, an older couple finds themselves unexpectedly pregnant, and the mother seems less than thrilled about this development.  Partway through the episode, she confides in the midwives that she's afraid that when the baby is born it will be black.  It seems she didn't love her husband, only married him for financial security for her (now grown) children from her previous marriage, and had had a single one-night stand with a black man.  So the baby is born, and it is black.  And the mother's husband thinks it's the most adorable baby that has ever lived, and is later seen proudly pushing his pram.

Critics say that the man's immediate acceptance of a baby that clearly isn't is isn't realistic, especially for that era.  But it really worked for me as an audience member because, for that very reason, it was a totally unexpected plot twist.  I was expecting her husband to abandon her or beat her or something, or, as a longshot, have a visceral negative reaction but ultimately forgive his wife.  His utter delight at having a baby to raise came as a complete surprise, and therefore I found it narratively satisfying.

However, this affected my reaction to episode 6. In episode 6, a patient informs the midwives that she has come to London from wherever she was before to be with the father of her baby.  She is confident that he will be thrilled that she's pregnant.  He isn't home (she says he's a sailor and is at sea) so she gains entry to his flat somehow only to discover that there's no sign of life and the electricity and water isn't turned on.  And then, of course, she goes into labour there.  (And gives birth to triplets.)  And is still deliriously happy with the situation.

I was expecting her babies' father to never come back, or to turn her out of his house, or to end up already having a wife and kids.  But instead, we see her in one of the final scenes walking down the street pushing her pram, with the babies' father walking beside her and proudly carrying one of the babies.  And this struck me as unrealistic and not narratively satisfying. 

An unexpected plot twist is enjoyable, but having every single potentially reluctant father end up being thrilled with the new arrival eliminates a lot of the potential dramatic tension.  Either they should have had an unhappy new father in between these two plots, or the triplets' father's willingness to be a father should have been established earlier.  (Even though the triplets' mother's story is an impetus in Chummy's decision to move forward with her love life, they could have resolved the father's issue by having him find the mother in labour and call the midwives, and then gotten dramatic tension from a sudden delivery of undiagnosed triplets.) Creating the same dramatic tension as in episode 3 and having it resolve the same way weakens the series as a whole.

Sunday, October 28, 2012

Call the Midwife

I blogged before about how, in Downton Abbey, the writers' decision make the nobles in this series kind and reasonable to their servants allows more interesting stories to be told.

I think the same is true for Call the Midwife, but rather than an idealized noblesse oblige, we have an idealized integration of newly-arrived outsiders.

In the opening scene, when the newly-graduated Nurse Lee walks into the neighbourhood for the first time and sees the poverty, crowding, and fights breaking out on the street, I thought I knew what to expect.  I thought the locals would disrespect her for being middle-class and educated, and she'd be totally out of her depth.  When she arrived at the convent and told them she hadn't realized it was a convent she'd been sent to, I thought the nuns would look down their noses at her for being worldly and for perhaps having come from a less austere quality of life than they themselves maintain.  I figured she'd find her place eventually, but we'd be in for a season of awkward and humiliating moments before that happened.

So I was very pleased to see that the series only lightly touched on that arc.  The nuns were glad to have the secular nurses around because they needed all the helping hands they could get, and had no problem whatsoever with their secular colleagues being secular.  The expectant mothers were glad to have midwifery care, and the midwives were respected in the neighbourhood and by doctors and hospitals.  Everyone is professionally competent; sometimes newbies need to call a senior midwife, sometimes midwives have to call for backup for a complicated birth, and sometimes they need to call in a doctor, but no one loses face for doing this. Even when the posh and awkward Chummy shows up, she's still competent (and not just at midwifery - when she discovers that they don't make uniforms big enough for her, she shrugs and reaches for the sewing machine), only the meanest one of the nuns says anything judgemental, and she's integrated well enough by the end of the episode.

This all sounds very happily-ever-after, but, like Downton Abbey, removing the expected primary conflict allows the show to spend more time showing us its universe - everyday life in postwar working-class East End London and the practice of midwifery in that context.  Which is the whole reason why I'm watching in the first place.

I hope this is the start of a new trend, because in historical fiction (and science fiction and fantasy, for that matter) I particularly enjoy immersing myself in the universe of the story, and I often find that the primary conflict comes barging in and disrupting that universe before I've gotten to spend enough time there.  (Which may also be why I like Star Trek.)

Thursday, August 23, 2012

Theme song to The Bubblies

The theme song from The Bubblies is as follows:

Come back, come back,
Come back to Bubbly Town
Seems like such a long time
Since you were around
While you've been away
We've waited for the day
When you'd come back, come back,
Come back to Bubbly Town


I can't find the theme online in English, but here it is in French.

I'm blogging this because, even though it's already answered on the internet, I couldn't google up the name of the show when I didn't remember the key word in the title.

I googled things like "Come back come back come back to * town" and "come back come back come back" "town seems like such a long time", and nothing came up. I wasn't sure whether it's "since you were around" or "since you've been around" and "while you've been away" or "while you were away", but no permutation produced the results.

Finally, @amyrhoda and @bwinton helped me figure it out on Twitter, so thank you to them! And now I'm blogging it in the hope of making it more googleable.

Thursday, July 26, 2012

Things PBS Should Invent: let donors from outside the US watch online videos

I recently nodded off while watching a documentary on PBS (the US public broadcaster), so I went looking for it online so I could see the bit I missed. I was very pleased to find that the whole thing was available for watching on the PBS website, but then I was unpleasantly surprised to discover that PBS videos can't be watched outside the US.

This surprised me because my PBS station actively embraces its Canadian audience. It brands itself as WNED Buffalo-Toronto, has a combination of the Canadian and US flags in its logo, includes some Canadian landmarks in the photos of local landmarks on its station identifiers between shows, and actively solicits Canadian donors, even allowing them to donate in Canadian dollars. This does make sense, because there are 10 times as many people in Toronto as in Buffalo, not to mention all the people between Toronto and the US border (off the top of my head, I know that Mississauga, Brampton, and Hamilton all have more people than Buffalo). It's quite possible that its signals actually reach more Canadians that USians.

But imagine how irritating it would be to have donated to this PBS station only to find that you're not allowed to watch online!

Proposal: PBS should allow donors from outside the US to view its videos online. Perhaps smaller donors could view a limited number of videos, and larger donors could view more videos.

I know the geographical restrictions have something to do with international broadcasting rights. But it seems that if it were a gift or incentive for donation, that wouldn't really count as broadcasting as much. PBS sometimes gives away DVD sets as gifts for donations, and it seems that they'd be able to do this without regard for whether the DVD is commercially available in Canada. Giving away (limited, if necessary) access to online videos as a gift should be morally equivalent.