Queer Shows for the Straight Joes

Allison Luthy

Arts Journalism

3/2/08

Queer Shows for the Straight Joes

`“Whatever I don’t get, I just figure is gay,” Will’s Texan client, Harlan, comments when he sees Will and Grace make an inside joke on the hit sitcom, “Will and Grace.”

This is not a bad assumption to make on the sitcom featuring two gay men and their female counterparts. Premiering in 1998, “Will and Grace” marks a change in television history when NBC created a show about gay men that became a hit.

Shows like “Will and Grace” and 2003’s “Queer eye for the Straight Guy” brought a new awareness to the American public of the gay community. Television as never before represented people from different backgrounds.

This new diversity in television gave the gay community a voice, but came at the expense of perpetuating gay stereotypes. The majority of the characters on these shows are portrayed as shrill, high-maintenance men who spend their time hitting on every other man they meet and rearranging throw pillows.

In one episode of “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy,” Carson, the host, sniffs his sleeve, and squeals to the man whose wardrobe he is about to remake, “I’m starting to smell like butch. You’re clothes are rubbing off on me.”

Tom Seiler, board president of the Kalamazoo Gay Lesbian Resource Center said of the television characters, “I did not find them to be very probing representations of ‘real’ people; rather, I found them superficial, flighty, offensive in a mild sort of way. The show was very popular, though, and perhaps did much to persuade people to be rather more comfortable with the idea of gay people than they might otherwise have been.”

This technique of presenting homosexuality with a quip at their expense effectively brought the issue into American popular culture, but staying with the image of the silly gay man failed to do more than provide the basis for more serious work to follow.

In Ang Lee’s 2005 film, “Brokeback Mountain,” the homosexuality is carried out of New York and San Francisco and placed in rural Wyoming. The film contrasts traditional gay stereotypes, making the main characters gay cowboys, who are anything but feminine, riding bucking broncos at rodeos and speaking in grunts and terse single-word responses to one another.

Real issues of the gay community—ostracization and violence—are conveyed through the main characters’, Ennis Del Mar and Jack Twist’s, struggles to define their relationship in a homophobic society.

When Jack and Ennis return to Brokeback Mountain years after they met there, Jack gets frustrated with Ennis’ fear of being open about their relationship and yells, “Tell you what, we coulda had a good life together! Fuckin' real good life! Had us a place of our own. But you didn't want it, Ennis! So what we got now is Brokeback Mountain!”

The emotionally-charged film went on to win an Oscar for best picture that year, Ledger winning best actor.

Incredibly realistic in its portrayal of the cowboys, “Brokeback Mountain” excited so much controversy that even three years later, after Ledger’s death, religious extremists protested the heterosexual actor’s gay role outside the Screen Actor’s Guild Awards, carrying signs reading “Heath’s in Hell.” Ledger’s family opted for a private service after receiving threats of similar disruption to occur at his funeral.

The Church’s spokesperson, Shirley Phelps released a statement about Ledger, saying, “You cannot live in defiance of God. He got on that big screen with a big, fat message: God is a liar and it's OK to be gay.”

Television and movies may not be denouncing God as the WBC claims, but the message that it is OK to be gay has indeed permeated the mass media.

The Kalamazoo Gay Lesbian Resource Center’s president, Tom Seiler, commented on the public’s reaction to the television shows and movies produced so far about homosexuality, “Statistics seem to indicate that there seems to be a clear age gap between older folks who are less accepting of LGBT matters and younger folks who seem to take LGBT matters in stride as nothing special to remark on. Maybe the media, oriented as it is to a younger audience, reflects this gap. If so, then one would need to argue, I suppose, that some attention paid is better than none, and that the more attention paid the better.”

While the American public seems to be more accepting today of serious gay men in the media, Seiler does make a valid point. Without the groundwork laid by the earlier television shows featuring gay men, it would not have been possible to create a work as monumental as “Brokeback Mountain” and expect the audience to be receptive to its message.

Carson Kressley of “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy” may sport hot pink argyle sweaters on the show, so flamboyant even preppy high school girls wouldn’t dream of wearing them, but even with the generalizations of gay behavior, the show does expose the public to a successful gay man.

Television has been getting more serious recently about realistically portraying homosexuality in its programs. Perhaps someday soon there will be a sitcom featuring gay men who can be funny without being made a caricature of their sexual orientation.

Batman Critical Response

The article “Batman’s Burden: A Director Confronts Darkness and Death” brings an interesting approach to the movie that has not yet been released. It affords the reader a look into the making of the film without actually describing any of the movie’s plot. Halbfinger provides details about the director’s habits and how he goes about creating the movie with so much depth that the piece at first seems like a profile of Mr. Nolan. The article begins to feel a little fake when Halbfinger discusses Heath Ledger’s death. His mention of Heath Ledger sometimes seems to be an attempt to lend more credit to the movie. While Ledger could have been using the narcotics he overdosed on for any number of reasons, the article pushed the theory that he did so because of how complex his role was in “Batman” and how wonderful he was making it. He used a quote from a cinematographer saying, “It was like a séance, where the medium takes on another person and then is so completely drained.” Rather than lending importance to the movie, I thought that this approach to Ledger’s death detracted from the article as a whole and left it feeling fake in an otherwise strong piece of writing.

"Dead Man's Cell Phone" Review

Charles Isherwood’s review in Wednesday’s Times, “A Nagging Call to Tidy Up an Unfinished Life,” is very creatively written, using a cell phone as an underlying theme to tie his entire article together. I thought his lede was great, starting out by describing cell phones as the thing that you have to turn off before you go to the theatre, in his review of a play about a cell phone. Since this was a very new play that not very many people have heard of yet, Isherwood made the wise decision to start of his review with a plot summary and saved the majority of his commentary for the end of the article. I think that Isherwood generally liked the play, but he didn’t mention his “but” until about halfway through the article. He used a lot of really good imagery in his writing and described Mary Louise Parker’s clothes and the way she was standing on stage so well that it was easy to imagine exactly what the show was like. The reference to Dickens at the end of the article gave it a good sense of closure and tied the kicker back in to the theme of cell phones he used for the whole article.

Final Article Draft

Allison Luthy

Arts Journalism

3/2/08

Gay Stereotypes in the Media

`“Whatever I don’t get, I just figure is gay,” Will’s Texan client, Harlan, comments when he sees Will and Grace make an inside joke on the hit sitcom, “Will and Grace.”

This is not a bad assumption to make on the sitcom featuring two gay men and their straight female counterparts. Premiering in 1998, “Will and Grace” marks a change in television history when NBC was able to create a show in which the stars play gay men and have it become a hit.

Shows like “Will and Grace” and 2003’s “Queer eye for the Straight Guy” brought a new awareness to the American public of the gay community. Television as never before represented people from all walks of life.

This new diversity of television gave the gay community a voice, but came at the expense of perpetuating gay stereotypes. The majority of the characters on these shows are portrayed as shrill, high-maintenance men who spend their time hitting on every other man they meet and rearranging throw pillows.

In one episode of “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy,” one of the bystanders jokes to the man being made over, “If I were you, I’d tuck in that pocket before he does.”

This technique of presenting homosexuality with a quip at their expense effectively brought the issue into American popular culture, but failed to do more than provide the basis for more serious work to follow.

In 2005, Ang Lee’s film, “Brokeback Mountain,” the gay community is carried out of New York and San Francisco and placed in rural Wyoming. The film contrasts traditional gay stereotypes, making the main characters gay cowboys, who are anything but feminine, riding bucking broncos at rodeos and speaking in terse, single-word sentences.

Real issues of the gay community—ostracization and violence—are conveyed through the main characters’, Ennis Del Mar and Jack Twist’s, struggles to define their relationship in a homophobic society.

When Jack and Ennis return to Brokeback Mountain years after they met there, Jack gets frustrated with Ennis’ fear of being open about their relationship and yells, “Tell you what, we coulda had a good life together! Fuckin' real good life! Had us a place of our own. But you didn't want it, Ennis! So what we got now is Brokeback Mountain! Everything's built on that! That's all we got, boy, fuckin' all. So I hope you know that, even if you don't never know the rest!”

I am going to finish writing the body after I have my interview material.

Kicker: Perhaps someday soon there will be a sitcom featuring gay men who can be funny without being made a caricature of their sexual orientation.

Final Project Proposal

I am going to research gay and lesbian stereotypes in the media and how they are changing. I am going to try to conduct an interview with the head of an Oregon homosexuality awareness group this weekend. The television shows and movies I am planning on using to support my argument right now are “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy,” “Will and Grace,” and “Brokeback Mountain.” While I am writing my article, I am going to keep in mind the Index for an audience, so I can be clear about whom I am writing to. I want to write about this topic because I have been noticing over the last few years that gay people are being taken more seriously in the media, and I want to explore why that is. I plan on reviewing the movies and television shows I mentioned above to try to find ideas and quotes to bring up in my article and I will discuss them with people on campus.

Oscar's Critical Review

I thought that Eric Wilson’s article on fashion, “The Red (Can’t Go Wrong) and the Black (Sober is so 2008),” was generally clever and well-written. There were a few moments that seemed awkward or like they shouldn’t have been included, though. In an article about Oscar fashion, the entire paragraph devoted to a reporter mistaking the name of Heidi Klum’s designer did not belong at all. The detail about Klum making “a sour face” and saying that her dress had been made by Galliano might have belonged in an article about Heidi Klum, but it had no place in an Oscar fashion review. Wilson also compared Tilda Swinton to Dobby the House Elf, presumably because her dress was shapeless like Dobby’s costume in Harry Potter, but he never explains this reference. I did agree with Wilson in most of the other things that he said—the actors who showed up to the Oscars this year did seem to be lacking in most of their usual daring. Even Cate Blanchett, who can usually be counted on to wear something strange, if not pretty, turned up in a normal-looking blue dress. This year’s Oscars could have been much more exciting if some of the star’s had worn more interesting clothes.

A Thousand Splendid Suns Review

Allison Luthy

Arts Journalism

2/25/08

Women’s Rights in Afghanistan Neglected

In his latest novel, “A Thousand Splendid Suns,” Khaled Hosseini tackles the difficult issues of life in wartime Afghanistan, with clarity and poignancy. Where his previous book, “The Kite Runner,” focuses mainly on male relationships, a complex web of women’s relationships with each other drives the plot of “A Thousand Splendid Suns.”

Born in Kabul, Afghanistan in 1965, Hosseini moved to the United States in 1980 after the Soviets invaded Afghanistan. He attended medical school in the United States and began writing his first novel, “The Kite Runner,” in 2001 after he had started practicing medicine.

“A Thousand Splendid Suns” is set in Hosseini’s birthplace, Kabul, during wartime Afghanistan. The main characters of the book, Mariam and Laila, are both women who are victims of the terrible circumstances they live in.

Forced to wear burqas in Afghanistan’s sweltering heat and beaten by the Taliban if they are caught outside by themselves, they become fast friends in order to endure the intolerance. The novel follows the progression of their relationship, protecting each other from their husband’s irrational hatred of them, who at one time forces Mariam to chew on a handful of pebbles until her teeth break because she undercooked his rice.

While writing “A Thousand Splendid Suns,” Hosseini picked the title from a Farsi poem about Kabul by Saeb-e-Tabrizi, a Persian poet. “One could not count the moons that shimmer on her roofs,/Or the thousand splendid suns that hide behind her walls.”

Hosseini uses the same themes of guilt and betrayal in “A Thousand Splendid Suns” that he used in “The Kite Runner,” but creates a deeper connection with the characters by showing the psychological effects of what they have witnessed.

The characters are much more realistic because the reader understands their background, elucidating the audience as to why they might do seemingly hateful things. This solidarity with the characters that lacks strength in his previous works becomes overwhelmingly apparent through his vivid descriptions. Hosseini relates scenes, such as the one of Mariam being forced to chew pebbles with painful directness creating the sensations of her teeth cracking. “Then he was gone, leaving Mariam to spit out pebbles, blood, and the fragments of two broken molars.”

Since the 2001 overthrow of the Taliban, Afghanistan has ratified a new constitution, and allows women to vote or participate in elections as candidates. There are still millions of Afghan refugees trying to get resettled or leave Afghanistan. The United Nations Refugee Agency and Hosseini as one of the UNHCR’s US envoys are continuing to give aid to these victims of the war.

Like the political situation of Afghanistan, Hosseini’s writing is only improving with time. Released in May of 2007, “A Thousand Splendid Suns” is still currently in the top five of the New York Times’ hardcover fiction bestseller list.

Unshakable Optimist of the House of Bhutto

Michiko Kakutani’s review, “Unshakable Optimist of the House of Bhutto,” in the Tuesday Times spent much more time discussing Benazir Bhutto’s life than her recent book, Reconciliation. Although this tactic did allow for a very solid background in the history of Pakistan, which would be discussed in the book itself, I still did not really understand what the book was about by the time I had finished the review. Aside from brief quotes, which implied that the book was written about Pakistani and world politics, the review did a very poor job of informing the readers what the premise of the book was or even whether it was good.

Kakutani’s writing was engaging, beginning with a description of the violent deaths of Bhutto’s family members. His powerful word choice and selection of quotes made Bhutto’s death seem much more poignant. I liked Kakutani’s writing style, even though I never really understood what he was trying to get across through his piece. The article was very interesting, but it read much more as a review of Bhutto than of her book.

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Review

Allison Luthy-Kaplan

Arts Journalism

2/17/08

Who’s Afraid of a Facial Expression?

The Whole Art Theatre’s latest production, “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?,” fails miserably in its attempt to bring emotional range to the stage, with a four-person cast containing three deplorable actors.

The play’s writing is by far its best element. Edward Albee wrote his play in the same style as a Virginia Woolf novel, if the characters were older and raging alcoholics. The dialogue is delivered in the matter-of-fact, realistic way that characterizes Woolf’s writing, “You’re going to regret this.”

“Probably, I regret everything.”

The two main characters in “Virginia Woolf” are an unhappily married couple, with an embittered history professor as the husband, George, and a sadistic wife, Martha, who mocks him for his lack of ambition. “I hope that was an empty bottle, George. You wouldn’t want to waste good liquor on your salary.”

Most of the play’s humor and plot bases itself in the premise of putting two dysfunctional couples in a room together and seeing who survives the night. The only thing missing from this vicious, incisive setting of verbal attacks is a referee to tell when one of the characters will not be able to stand up again.

The only decent actor in the cast, Richard Philpot, embodies George with a bland cynicism that could start its own British sitcom. The character of George is reminiscent of any undervalued husband who wanders about the house like an abused dog, unable to stand up for himself. Mr. Philpot is hilarious and poignant in the role, muttering such sarcastic phrases as “blood under the bridge” to himself, passive aggressively asserting his authority in the house against his wife.

Martie Philpot tries to play Martha with such excessive drama that she only succeeds in shouting at George with a face void of any expression. Mrs. Philpot often seems more pitiable than her character, for she seems to have been let down by the director, who should have informed her that yelling all her lines does not make her a better actor.

Randy Wolfe, the director, made the additional critical mistake of allowing the play to be performed in a theatre-in-the-round, a convention, which only Mr. Philpot can negotiate. The stage blocking is done so clumsily that the other three actors spend most of their time with their backs to a quarter of the audience. Mr. Philpot constantly moves about the stage, pouring drinks and putting on music, enabling all of the audience to see his face the majority of the time, but he was alone in doing this.

Richard Philpot should go and start his own one-man show where his extraordinary acting talents cannot be let down by another dismal ensemble such as that in “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”. The only thing people should be afraid of is not Virginia Woolf, but three hours in a claustrophobic space with some of the worst acting in Kalamazoo.

Writers' Strike Ends

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/13/business/media/13vote.html?_r=1&ref=movies&oref=slogin

I think it is very good that the writers’ strike is finally over. At the end of 100 days of being on strike, I thought that it was a very good decision on the writers’ parts to vote to end the strike. I am very curious to see what the concessions were that the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers made to the writers. All that it stated in the article was that they had proposed a three-year contract and the writers’ guilds had approved it. The author of the article could have made it much more effective by actually informing the reader of whether the writers’ original terms had been met. I was surprised to read that the walkout of only 100 days had cost the writers a collective $285 million in lost wages. It is because of this and the halt on production of television shows that I am so happy to see that the two sides have finally come to an agreement. The writing in this article was decent overall, but the end quote could have been much more interesting and effective.

In Treatment Review

IN TREATMENT REVIEW/ Allison Luthy

HBO SERIES TAKES A NEW LOOK AT THERAPY

By Allison Luthy

“In Treatment,” HBO’s new series about therapy, reuses the old, tired format many other shows follow, but in a way that makes the material seem fresh and interesting. It is essentially the new “Grey’s Anatomy” focused on psychology, with a smaller cast.

Each episode has the same premise—a character goes to Paul, the psychoanalyst, for therapy, or he goes to a friend and gets therapy. In this setup, it is very much like every other medical television show. Someone shows up at the office with a problem and the main character has to figure out what the problem is and fix it before the end credits start to roll.

The plotline is very simplistic and lackluster, but like a simple black dress, it allows its jewelry—the writing and the performances—to seem brighter in comparison. Although the audience knows what to expect in every episode—there will be a person with an obvious problem, which turns out not to be the real root of the problem—the ending always comes as a surprise.

Gabriel Byrne stars in this show as Paul, the psychoanalyst giving therapy sessions. He brings depth and emotion to this seemingly bland therapist. The role, which could have been boring with the wrong actor, is given energy through Byrne’s quietly intent way of talking to his patients. He seems at times like a teacher who already knows the answer to a problem and is trying to help his patients reach it on their own. Byrne’s previous work includes “Vanity Fair” and “The Usual Suspects.”

“In Treatment” offers viewers the unique opportunity to get inside a therapist’s mind. In one episode, Paul comments, “If patients could see what I really think about them, if they could see inside my head—they’d run for the hills." By viewing this show, people can finally breach the gap between themselves and the person calmly taking notes across the room.

The character of Laura helps achieve this effect by confessing her love for her therapist, Paul, putting him under considerable emotional duress. Melissa George who plays Laura with a subtlety befitting someone who is unsure if her love will be requited. Her prior roles include “30 Days of Night” and a recurring role on the television hit, “Alias.”

The premise of “In Treatment” is based off of the Israeli television show, “Be Tipul,” which garnered much approval when it was released in 2005. The plotline of “In Treatment” does seem to drag at times, but the rest of the show more than makes up for it. Hopefully, “In Treatment’s” cast and writers will get the recognition they deserve come next Emmy season.

Oscar Wilde Response

Oscar Wilde’s article, “The Critic as Artist,” makes some very good points showing that the critique of something can be just as much a work of art as the object itself. He points out that a review can still be very creative and well-written even if it is about a lack-luster piece of art. Through most of his article, he seems to be much harder on the regular artists than on the critics. At times, he even seems to dislike the artists. “Anybody can write a three-volumed novel. It merely requires a complete ignorance of both life and literature.” I agree with Wilde in his arguments that critiques can be a form of art in themselves, but I think that he gets carried away in regarding them as better than other art forms. Reviews do sometimes surpass their subjects, but without art there is nothing for a review to be written about. I usually think that actually experiencing something would be more powerful than reading someone else’s opinion of that experience. Overall, Oscar Wilde made sense in why he believed critiques to be art, but I thought that his ideas seemed extreme in many places.

Pauline Kael Critical Review

Allison Luthy

Arts Journalism

2/3/08

Pauline Kael Critical Review

As one of the first film reviewers, Pauline Kael influenced the world of film critiquing legendarily, although her impact on film itself was limited. Kael writes in a manner that at some times seems self-congratulatory and at others seems purely brilliant. Her writing style was unconventional and she even said in Francis Davis’ book, Afterglow, “I was often accused of writing about everything but the movie.” In a review of the movie “Hiroshima Mon Amour,” Kael wrote two paragraphs that actually mentioned the movie, and in the rest of the article merely critiqued the people that went to see it. In this way, she makes wonderful points about the people that go to movies not to enjoy them, but to prove to the world how cultured they are. Her reviews are entertaining (if you are not the one at their mercy), but in many ways she proves herself to be one of the people that she mocks. Kael makes a point of going to “lowbrow” movies and claims to love them more than arts films, but this is really just another way of being snobbish herself. She seems to consider herself above the average moviegoer because she is so adept at seeing through the artistic film fad that they cannot. At the end of the film when everyone else in the art house applauds the movie, Kael is only applauding herself for her miraculous ability not to be taken in by the movie and its audience.

Despite her narcissism, Kael does hold a very important place in film criticism history. She made very atypical choices in the movies that she thought were good or bad. Arguably one of the toughest critics around, Kael even returned to work at The New Yorker after her coworkers published a piece criticizing all of her previous articles. Through all this opposition, Kael continued urging her editor to allow her to review such unconventional material as the pornographic film, “Deep Throat.” She believed that it is important to stay true to what the public is watching, and porn has always been a popular medium. This practice of using film reviews to inform the public of the movies available that they would actually want to see has revolutionized the concept of what criticism should be. Even the New York Times runs reviews of such movies as “Rambo” alongside criticism of the New York City Ballet. Without Pauline Kael’s influence, this might never have happened. This kind of power to change the course of literary history is very mind-altering and much of Kael’s work began to sound conceited. In spite of this, her writing style has always been creative and refreshing and future generations of film critics will continue to look up to her. While it is doubtful that Pauline Kael had as great an influence on film criticism as she would like to believe, she has undoubtedly altered the public perception of what it should be.

Critical Defense of "Just When You Thought It Was Safe to Go Back in the Jungle"

I thought that the review of “Rambo” by A.O. Scott, which appeared in Friday's arts section, was very well-done. It was overall, a negative review of the dialogue and Sylvester Stallone, “His face looks like a misshapen chunk of granite, and his acting is only slightly more expressive”. The description of Julie Benz’ role in the movie also warned potential viewers of the sexism in the film. The reviewer obviously had seen the other Rambo films and gave the article some context by briefly describing them before he delved into a description of the newest one. I thought that his placement of his opinions on the movie after the plot summary was a very good choice. I might not have continued to read about the plot after seeing how bad he thought the movie was. The description of the movie was very witty and gave me a perfect image of what the movie was like. Scott did comment near the end that he didn’t think the Rambo films were as bad as everyone made them out to be, staying open-minded, but he made it clear that the only thing that would draw someone to this movie is the violence.

Once Film Review

ONCE FILM REVIEW/Luthy

JOHN CARNEY’S MUSICAL FEATURES DISMAL ACTING

By Allison Luthy

John Carney’s new film, “Once,” valiantly attempts, but fails, to redefine the genre of musical. Where a normal musical would have songs expanding on the dialogue, “Once” features a man who carries his guitar with him and starts singing songs unrelated to the plot.

While the music itself was not bad, its placement in the movie was. The entire movie seemed built around getting from one song to the next, with bits of plot and dialogue thrown in to serve as transitions. Anyone hoping for more from the writer than a fourteen-year-old’s choppy English paper will assuredly be disappointed.

Carney made the decision to cast musicians rather than actors in the film. This
choice did make the performances at times painful to watch, but gave “Once” the ability to let its one good feature stand out—its music. There is so much focus on the Oscar-nominated soundtrack that at times the movie feels more like a series of music videos than a story.

Set in Ireland, “Once” depicts the life of a street musician who works in his father’s vacuum shop and aspires to one day be a recording artist. Playing guitar on the street one day he meets a Czech immigrant who needs her vacuum fixed. After he agrees to fix it for her, he finds out that she can play piano and sing as well.

With her help, he forms a small band and records his music in a studio so he can take it to London and get a music contract. While they are working on the recording, the man unsurprisingly falls for the girl. Their romance is prevented, however, by his slow recovery from his past breakup and her marriage to the absent father of her child.

Glen Hansard tries to play the part of the sad man recovering from a breakup with his unfaithful girlfriend. He blunderingly only ends up resembling an abused dog at the humane society that everyone feels sorry for but no one wants to adopt and eventually gets put to sleep. Unfortunately, in the instance of this movie, euthanasia is not an option either for the actor or the audience members.

The movie as a whole is overdramatic in its attempts to be viewed as artistic. With scenes of the musicians standing on a cliff overhanging the North Sea discussing love, much of the footage could be reused in any independent arts film. The acting and writing through most of “Once” try to hard to be unique for an independent film, resulting in only
being generic in the extreme.

The redeeming qualities of “Once” are not nearly enough to make up for the poor acting and the pathetic writing. Those looking for good music should just buy the album and save themselves 85 minutes in an uncomfortable seat.

Response to Writers' Strike

I think that the production companies should give in to the demands of the writers’ strike. They are losing money from only being able to air old episodes of their TV shows and, although the movie companies are getting by right now from having scripts already written out before the strike, eventually when the writers do start writing again, there will be a shortage of scripts from the period when no one was writing. I find the incident of the America’s Next Top Model employees being fired for voting to join the writers’ union especially bad. I don’t think that it is unreasonable for the writers to want a cut of the money made from people watching television shows on the internet. As this strike is proving, there couldn’t be television without the writers. It would be ridiculous for the Oscars to be canceled because the producers don’t want to give up a small amount of their profits to the people that make the shows possible. This strike has been going on since November and the writers have not caved in yet, so the amount of money the producers would have to give to the writers will probably be about the same amount of money the are losing right now from not having any new episodes to show on TV. I think that the sooner the producers give in to the writers, the better.

Response to "Women Are Never Front-Runners"

The article “Women Are Never Front-Runners” by Gloria Steinem had quite a few good points and, generally, analyzed the issue fairly. I had never thought of the point that she raised of men feeling as though they are regressing to childhood when they experience strong women because women are still the predominant caregivers in families today. It is a very different theory from most about why sexism exists. While this could be a contributor, I am not sure if I believe that it is one of the key causes. Steinem also brought up the key issue of women in political office being accused of being over-emotional. Even going so far as to applaud Hillary Clinton for being willing to cry, she argued that women need to be less emotional than men to be taken seriously. The stereotype that women let emotions influence their decisions more than men may be a factor in Clinton’s chances of getting elected president. One point, which I was glad to see Steinem raise was that of people who are voting for her simply because she is a woman. Rather than getting elected for the sake of electing a woman, Steinem hopes that people will vote for Clinton because she is a good politician.

Critical Response to Review of "There Will Be Blood"

http://movies.nytimes.com/2007/12/26/movies/26bloo.html

Manohla Dargis’ review of “There Will Be Blood” was in general a well-written piece, but had some flaws. Dargis started out with a very strong lede, stating what the article was about in a clever, punchy manner. ‘“There Will Be Blood,” Thomas Anderson’s epic American nightmare, arrives belching fire and brimstone and damnation to Hell.’ The review held my interest for most of the article, but started to drag towards the end. Dargis comments about the director were rather boring and some were completely irrelevant to the film being reviewed. At one point she actually started commenting on other films that the director had made, abandoning what had been an interesting description of “There Will Be Blood”. After this, I lost most of my interest in the article for the last paragraphs. The descriptions of Daniel Day Lewis’ acting were very thorough and engrossing, revealing the many other influences that Lewis probably used in his performance. I think that a description of Lewis’ past work would have also have done a good job of expanding on his performance. The kicker accomplished its purpose, but could have been made stronger and more interesting for a better finish.

Sweeney Todd Review

SWEENEY TODD REVIEW/Luthy

THE CLOSEST SHAVE YOU’LL EVER GET

By Allison Luthy

Sweet is hardly an apt word for Tim Burton’s most recent film, “Sweeney Todd: the Demon Barber of Fleet Street”. Although this movie tells a story of love, it definitely earns its R-rating. A half hour into the film so much blood will be dripping down the screen that you won’t want be able to finish your soda.

“Sweeney Todd” tells the story of a barber who returns to London after nearly two decades to seek revenge for the destruction of his family. With Mrs. Lovett, a woman who owns a meat pie shop, he begins killing the clients that come in for a shave in his barber’s chair. They dispose of the bodies by butchering them and turning them into meat pies that become the hit of London.

The violence consumes Todd as he murders innocent people out of love and grief over his deceased wife. Mrs. Lovett participates in the murders out of love for Todd, out of hope that he will finish his revenge and live with her.

Johnny Depp stars as Sweeney Todd, the barber with a crazy streak to match the white in his hair. With sickly pale skin and dark shadows under his haunted eyes, Depp makes even the obsessed murderer seem deserving of pity. Depp, whose other films include “Pirates of the Caribbean”, “Finding Neverland”, and “Chocolat”, provides one of the strongest performances of his career, proving himself as a singer, and earning an Oscar nomination for best actor.

Helena Bonham Carter brilliantly offsets Depp’s character, playing Mrs. Lovett, the woman in love with Sweeney Todd. Oscar nominated for best actress in this role, Carter has also recently appeared in “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix” and Tim Burton’s film, “The Corpse Bride”, alongside Johnny Depp.

Oscar nominated for best director, Tim Burton directed “Sweeney Todd” very much like his other movies. At times the lighting and costumes looked so much like that used in “Beetlejuice” that it seemed that they had been taken directly from his old movie. This creepy effect only heightened the almost supernatural and hellish sense about the film. Burton’s other films include “Big Fish”, “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”, “Planet of the Apes”, and “Sleepy Hollow”.

This adaptation of the Broadway hit remained remarkable in its transition from stage to screen. If anything, the film still felt like a stage production with its simplistic sets leaving nothing to distract the audience from the performances onscreen.

Depp’s masterful portrayal of Todd remains bleak and seemingly unfeeling throughout the film, but the character gradually becomes more demonic as he nears his goal. By the end of the movie, Depp transforms a loving barber into a chillingly realistic sociopath who can barely remember the family that he loved and kills for.

Nominated for four Academy Awards, few films this year are as deserving of recognition as Tim Burton’s tragic, bloody, musical masterpiece.