What better way to bow out of Fox and onto your own TV station than with a montage?
July 2, 2011
Goodbye, Glenn Beck
June 21, 2011
Fox News Viewers
Jon Stewart was on Chris Wallace’s show (watch the full interview here) and went back and forth with Chris for almost 25 minutes. It was sad to see them both essentially arguing against imagined, stereotypical images of one another. Chris couldn’t grasp that Jon’s main job is truly is one of a comedian and not a mastermind behind the liberal intelligentsia. Jon made the claim that Fox News viewers are the least informed of all media outlets. It turns out that Fox News viewers actually are quite informed.
In the end, Chris and Jon’s interview resembled the two interviews Jon had with Bill O’Reilly.
June 6, 2011
Oprah, the Evangelist
Mark Oppenheimmer analyzes the religious approach by her show and compares her to antebellum evangelist Charles Grandison Finney:
Ms. Winfrey has religious antecedents besides the black church. Kathryn Lofton argues in her new book, “Oprah: The Gospel of an Icon,” that to understand Ms. Winfrey it helps to know Charles Grandison Finney, the great antebellum evangelist.
In his 1830 revival campaign in Rochester, Mr. Finney formalized the “anxious bench,” a pew or altar where sinners congregated while members of the crowd prayed for them to repent or become Christians. A whole plotline revolved around the bench, and worshipers eagerly anticipated its ritual. Who would sit there? Would they be saved? “At every point,” Dr. Lofton writes, “the preacher prodded, focused, named and decried.”
Dr. Lofton argues that in an atmosphere suffused with Ms. Winfrey’s beliefs in miracles, angels and pervasive spirituality, audience members got to see guests participate in “the familiar ritual turn of daily confession and rejuvenation.” Whether the day’s show featured the organization expert decluttering somebody’s home or “confessions of a once-upon-a-time Haitian child slave,” the redemptive plot arc, the payoff of deliverance, was the same.
And like the best hellfire preachers, Ms. Winfrey could be merciless in exacting those confessions. “Guests are forced to admit their worst transgressions,” Dr. Lofton writes, “to say precisely how they felt when they pulled the trigger, for example, or, in Governor McGreevey’s case” — that is James E. McGreevey of New Jersey, who resigned after cheating on his wife and coming out as gay — “to describe the sordid locations of his clandestine sexual encounters.”
Oppenheimmer doesn’t like Oprah’s use of “seeing your suffering as a desirable experience” for change. Oprah did rise from being raped at age 8 (or 9) to where she is today. But many know (Oprah included) that you do not have to have such terrible experiences to reach the stars.
June 4, 2011
Fox News Roasts Sesame Street
Sean Hannity continues to lament. I love how his “American” panel takes Sesame Street, a handful of pocket cases across the country, Nazi tactics, and thus paint a picture to their viewers depicting what a ”liberals” is all about. And by all, I mean every one of them. That’s wide brush bigotry.
June 1, 2011
Long Read and Slideshow of the Day
May 23, 2011
P90X Nation
P90X is really catching on with ESPN personalities. I knew Jim Rome was down with the X routine. Now some more are in the mix and bringing it!
May 14, 2011
“Is T.V. Too Gay?”
A discussion with Bryan Fischer (of course) since the recent Glee episode that featured two same-sex teen couples. Money quote:
As much as you all (Bryan Fischer (American Family Association and other right wing groups) want to bring 1954 back, you can’t.
May 13, 2011
Michael Scott: The Meaningful Character
CPC provides a nice run down on the many sides of Michael Scott as he bows out from his show The Office:
No longer is he a figure of anger and frustration, a target for our workplace cynicism. Instead, his pathetic earnestness has brought out the best in the office. The workers have learned to be forgiving, patient, and thoughtful. They participate in each other’s lives, and help each other grow. They see the good in each other and forgive the bad. And against all odds, they have formed a loving community, one whose benefits far outweigh moments of awkwardness and inappropriate behavior. They have learned to make their lives meaningful through relationships.
(thanks, BF!)
April 8, 2011
Glenn Beck’s New Direction
Glenn Beck’s deteriorating relationship with Fox News, his desire to seek new business opportunities, or some other reason has lead for him to step down effective December 2011 from his daily TV show. Fox supposedly did not offer him a new contract. I see this as a big deal, but time will tell how this unfolds for Beck post-Fox. Outside the Beltway offers a good overall coverage of this news.
It will be telling if Glenn Beck transitions over to a radio personality similar to Rush Limbaugh, finds a hot opportunity elsewhere, or dissolves into obscurity.
March 20, 2011
Awkward Commercial of the Day
Talk about an extremely awkward Quilted Northern commercial. MJ and I can’t help but laugh when we see it on TV.
