Where I read a palpable sense of despair in the season five promo poster for Mad Men as the image prominently featured a wretched expanse of white space into which a black and white man was hurtling, others saw it as an opportunity to stretch their creative muscles.
Throughout internet and on subway posters, the Mad Men image is being altered in clever, sometimes downright odd ways.
The Gothamist and the web site Laughing Squid have run photos of Mad Men subway posters that have been tagged in ways that reflected a variety of interpretations of the image:
How do you interpret the basic, unvarnished image? Negatively, positively or intentionally designed to spark existential conversations like this one?
Then she challenged Jimmy Fallon to a multi-"sport" competition where she emerged the "victor" as Bo, the first canine, looked on.
Say what you will about Michelle Obama, but she's on the money when she says that she's willing to make a fool of herself in order to promote the notion that Americans, specifically children, should put down their iPods and smart phones, get off their butts and start moving.
Her Let's Move initiative is noble and she's willing to go to bat for it. Literally. In the process of promoting a universally respected ideal -- that kids should exercise -- Obama is also attempting to smash the stodgy, stuffy, tea-and-crumpets stereotype of what an American first lady should be. And that is a very good thing.
No, I’d rather not discuss the outcome of the Super Bowl, thank you very much. Instead, this New Englander would much prefer to discuss the most surprising and evocative ad of the evening: Clint Eastwood’s pro-Detroit, pro-America ad.
While some are calling it a subtle pro-Obama/pro-auto bailout spot (Chrysler was a bailout recipient), I like to look at it as an apolitical inspirational, pro-America spot. As the airwaves and political discourse is currently swarming with disingenuous politicians who seem like snake oil salesmen who haven’t been able to offer voters a reason to embrace them, as opposed to arguing why voters shouldn't embrace the other guys, this is the kind of ad, the kind of sentiment that people are looking for. “We’re all scared . . . because this isn’t a game,” Dirty Harry said.
Yes, we know that Detroit, which was held up as an example, isn’t a shining city on a hill. It has serious, serious woes that can’t be overlooked or shunted aside simply because some of the car manufacturers are making cars again (some of ‘em thanks to big bucks from Uncle Sam). But the guts of this ad, the meat of it, is hope. It doesn’t talk down to us and tell us the economy’s robust and happy and that there’s a chicken in every pot. It doesn’t prescribe nonsense answers that, when parsed by experts will be proven to be meaningless or unable to execute in the real world. It offers American grit from one of the living symbols of it.
“That’s what we do, find our way through tough times,” Eastwood said in a way that’s more believable coming out of his mouth than the mouths of all the candidates for president including the current officeholder, who used to be able to talk the labels off of tin cans.
While I was on Twitter during the Super Bowl, my Twitter feed was overflowing with plaudits for this spot because it offered something we all want to believe in: An American resurrection. Yes, we do want to make Dirty Harry’s day.
You folks are planning on releasing a movie that blames Sarah Palin, after shredding her and making her look unstable, for John McCain’s loss to Barack Obama in 2008? That’s how it looks based on the latest trailer for your film Game Change.
I was certainly no fan of the book Game Change, which chronicles the 2008 presidential campaign, even though I’m something of a political junkie. My intense distaste for how the book depicted -- villainized, really -- nearly every woman in the book (Sarah Palin, Elizabeth Edwards, Cindy McCain, Hillary Clinton, Judith Giuliani, all but Michelle Obama), has been the focus of blog posts and columns since the book's release in 2010.
When the first, short glimpse of HBO’s take on the book was released in December, I was very wary. And now that I’ve seen a longer trailer – set to The Guess Who’s “American Woman” -- I’m ticked. It appears, if you go by the trailer, that the film will scapegoat Palin and make her look like a narcissistic nut job who torpedoed McCain. In other words, it’ll be a continuation of the kind of garbage that the book heaped upon its female subjects.
Take Palin’s politics and put them aside for a moment and try to imagine for a moment that you’re an ambitious, self-made governor of Alaska and you get the phone call asking you to be a presidential candidate’s running mate. You’re going to say yes. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity. Palin was fresh, hadn’t been on the national scene, she’d recently had a baby and was the first Republican woman nominated for the post, so she sparked intense intrigue.
Then she was promptly and savagely eviscerated. Everyone from pundits and columnists to people on the street said she had no business campaigning when she had a baby and that she should be home with her kids. Some online writers peddled in sinister rumors suggesting that she was never pregnant and that she faked the pregnancy to cover for her teenage daughter's pregnancy, a daughter who, as it turned out, had accidentally gotten pregnant. And Palin was lampooned for agreeing to run while her unwed teenage daughter was pregnant. Like the chance to be the first female VP would come a-knocking again.
There was a vicious gender thing going on with Palin where people just seemed to seethe with a burning hate for her during her two months+ (felt like longer) as the number two on the Republican ticket, hate based more on her as a person than her beliefs. Attacking her on policies, on the issues, on ethics, all totally fair. Attacking her as a mother, as a wife, belittling her as a sex object and that was all out of line.
Yet this film – with scenes of Palin lying on the floor of her hotel room in a bathrobe with debate prep note cards lying all around her, mumbling about missing her baby and sleeping with her baby in front of people, smiling at her reflection in the mirror after donning a series of different outfits -- promises to skewer her all over again, mostly because of her gender.
Here are things that came out of the mouths of top McCain aides in this short clip about Palin:
I’m not sure how much she knows about foreign policy.”
“Oh my God, what have we done?”
“She’s on the verge of a complete nervous breakdown.”
“I can’t control her anymore.”
Why not just have someone suggest she be placed in a fainting chair and say she has the vapors? Come on people. Where’s the footage of McCain’s crazy, weird smiling that freaked people out? How about displays of his infamously profane streaks of anger and his sounding like the cranky old guy yelling at the kids his front lawn? Where’s the depiction of his moronic idea to “suspend” his campaign in light of the 2008 economic crisis in order to go to D.C. and save the day like a senatorial Superman? McCain owns the lion’s share of his loss as he faced Obama’s inspiring oration and ground-breaking candidacy. Yet the book and, it seems, the movie, wants to lay the blame on Palin’s lap or, at the very least, make her look like some daffy dame.
The last line of the clip features Palin whispering into a man's ear, “Ya have to win this thing. I so don’t want to go back to Alaska.” Cue the dramatic music. Yeah, blame the chick. It’s all her fault, just like all the women caricatured in Game Change were at fault too. This is just, what’s a good phrase here . . . ah, I know, pious baloney.
One of Politics' Crappiest Unpaid Gigs: Being the First Lady
Speaking of women in the media, my latest Pop Culture and Politics column is based on another political book, The Obamas by Jodi Kantor and how, after reading Kantor’s account of the Obamas’ experience in the national spotlight, I’ve come to the conclusion that being a first lady really sucks:
“If you are a woman who a) has ambition b) is educated c) has a profession that you like d) want to actively be engaged in public policy issues (and have the experience/expertise to do so) e) want to be free from non-stop harassment about everything from your clothing and parenting, to your vacations and relationship with your spouse, then living in the Oval Office as the first spouse would be a crappy job for you.
No way would I want to be standing in Michelle Obama's shoes, even if they happen to be pricey designer pumps and she has a household staff that cooks, cleans and carts her kids around. (I could use a staff, but I'm not willing to pay the price that she's had to pay for it.")
Two of my kids were sick this weekend so there was a lot of TV/movie watching, a lot of begging for Mom to wait on them and snuggle up next to them (while hopefully not coming down with whatever dread disease the kiddos had) and lot of complaints of the "I'm bored!" variety.
When I could take the whining no longer, I finally agreed to sit down with them yesterday afternoon and watch a movie, but only if I got to pick the movie. (They'd already watched The Zookeeper on On Demand while I read the Sunday newspapers and tried not to listen to Kevin James' kvetching.)
After scrolling through the list of On Demand films that were free -- The Spouse and I paid to watch Moneyball the other night (I recommend it) so I wasn't keen on paying for more movies -- I settled on Ferris Bueller's Day Off. It's tough to pick a film they'll all watch when the audience is comprised of two males, ages 10 and 13 who are fond of bathroom humor, and one female, 13, who likes smart gal comedies on Nickelodeon.
"This was made in 1986!" my 13-year-old son observed.
"What, is it in black and white?" asked the 10-year-old.
"I watched this movie when I was in high school!" I scoffed, not rising to the ageist bait.
I loved the walk down memory lane -- the film holds up well -- while my offspring were mildly amused, mostly by the antics of the principal and Ferris tricking his parents.
So it was serendipitous to log onto the internet today and discover that Matthew Broderick has made an ad for Honda, to promote the 2012 CRV, that revisits his most famous movie role. In the new ad, which is slated to air during the Super Bowl, he is the fortysomething celebrity Matthew, not the teenaged fictional Ferris, and he wants to take the day off from acting, as opposed to skipping a mind numbing day of high school.
My kids seemed more entertained by the ad than they were by the whole film. But it is a funny ad.
What if Grey's Anatomy's lead character wasn't Meredith Grey, but instead, was Meredith . . . Webber?
What if Meredith and Alex were a couple? If Ellis and Richard got married? If Callie and Owen got married and had three kids, the children for which Owen has been pining? If Derek and Addison didn't divorce but instead stayed together and Addison was pregnant with Derek's baby?
This week's Grey's Anatomy takes a little spin down the road of "what if. . ." And this spin seems promising.
What if Richard had left Adele for Ellis and became the loving father Meredith has always craved, instead of one who was AWOL from her life, was an alcoholic and who was verbally abusive to Meredith? What if Ellis never got Alzheimer's and was a loving, supportive mother instead of one who always criticized her daughter and who cared more about surgeries than her kid? How would all of this have affected the dark and twisty Meredith Grey we've come to know and love for eight seasons? Would she have turned out to be a different person?
Every character has had his or her life story changed in some fashion -- some greatly, others not so much. Based on the 10-minute excerpt that ABC has released, this episode appears to be shaping up to be an It's a Wonderful Life kind of look at how everybody's life affects others tremendously, whether we realize it or not. But instead of George Bailey being shown by an angel-in-training what the world would've been like had he never been born, we get to see what Seattle Gracers would've been like had they made different choices and/or had their life's circumstances be altered.
I'm hopeful that the full episode will be as fun as the clip.
It was during an interview with CNN’s John King in which former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi dropped the tease that has electrified political junkies. When King -- who verbally tousled with former House Speaker/current GOP presidential contender Newt Gingrich during a recent debate -- asked Pelosi her thoughts about the possibility of Gingrich becoming commander in chief, Pelosi responded, “That will never happen . . . He’s not going to be president of the United States.”
King pressed her. How could she be so sure that he'll never become president? “There’s something I know,” she said. "The Republicans, if they choose to nominate him, that’s their prerogative. I don’t even think that’s going to happen.”
This, as you might expect, has led to wild speculation about whether Pelosi has some juicy, scandalous information that she plans to unload if Gingrich gets the nomination. On Twitter, people have turned it into a #WhatNancyKnows parlor game.
We already do know quite a bit about Gingrich, or we’ve heard stories . . . the infidelities, the alleged request for the open marriage, the hypocrisy over lecturing about family values, the ethics scandal, the Tiffany's line of credit, yet this tantalizing nugget from Pelosi is driving everybody crazy. It has even compelled Mitt Romney’s campaign to create a new ad to scare Republican voters into not voting for Gingrich lest Pelosi sabotage the GOP by detonating Gingrich's campaign in the general election with some new dirt.
Even though Pelosi has tried to tamp down all the excitement her statement caused -- saying that she was simply referring to what’s already in the public record, specifically the House Ethics report on Gingrich from the 1990s -- I’m not buying it. That’s not what it seemed like she was saying to John King, at all.
Making things more interesting is the fact that in December Pelosi reportedly told a reporter for the Talking Points Memo: “One of these days we’ll have a conversation about Newt Gingrich. I know a lot about him. I served on the investigative committee that investigated him, four of us locked in a room in an undisclosed location for a year. A thousand pages of his stuff.”
How bad could what she knows really be? Seriously, look at what’s happened over the past few years, zany tales that seem as though they were ripped off from a bad, improbable TV drama. Politicians, high profile ones at that, have made some really stupid decisions:
A no nonsense, tough New York governor was shamed out of office when it was discovered he’d been messing around with a call girl. A South Carolina governor disappeared for days, said he was hiking the Appalachian Trail, then admitted he was in Argentina with his soul mate, a woman who was not his wife. A New York Congressman, who had a pregnant wife at home, sent nude photos of himself to strangers over Twitter. A California governor admitted that he cheated on his wife with the family’s housekeeper, fathered a child by her (a baby who was born a week apart from a child he had with his wife) and kept the mistress working at the home. A 2008 Democratic candidate for president fathered a child with a consultant to his campaign, tried to cover it up by having another campaign supporter say that he was the father, all the while, continuing to campaign for president while his wife was battling cancer for a second time. One of the 2012 GOP candidates for president dropped out of the race after multiple women claimed he’d sexually harassed them and another woman said she had an affair with the married businessman.
So, back to this campaign . . . what could Nancy Pelosi have been implying? Here are some outlandish guesses about what Pelosi knows the guy who walks around saying he thinks “grandiose” thoughts and, just this week, announced that he wants to colonize the moon (seriously). My guesses are as good as any of the other looney real life stories that have unfolded recently:
Mitt Romney isn’t the only Republican candidate who had a mishap with a vehicle and a family pet.
Newt just recently had his 9-9-9 tatoo removed.
Gingrich has a secret wall in his home office covered with photos of Snookie.
Anthony Weiner is the one who taught Newt how to “tweet.”
Newt’s preferred ringtone? Rod Stewart's “Da Ya Think I’m Sexy?”
Gingrich accidentally left behind an album full of Polaroids in the back of one of the desk drawers of the Speaker’s office. Suffice is to say, Newt knows what Victoria’s Secret is.
The real story about how John Kerry got those black eyes and a broken nose . . . it involved Newt and two words: Fight. Club.
What do you think Pelosi has on Gingrich, if anything? Or is this all a bluff? What do you make of Pelosi trying to play down what she was obviously trying to gin up when she spoke with John King?
Take one part political debate, one part farce and one part auto-tuned, viral YouTube video and what do you get? The really funny latest episode of Modern Family, “Little Bo Bleep.” I really needed to laugh out loud and this new episode delivered.
Remember a year ago during the ill-fated Valentine’s Day hook-up Phil and Claire tried to arrange at a nearby hotel? They were going to meet in a hotel room but Phil went into the wrong one, stripped down to his birthday suit and was discovered in a stranger’s hotel room and later was questioned by police. That incident came back to haunt Claire as the straight-laced mom of three saw her campaign for town council potentially derailed by the antics of naked Phil. And Claire was already worried about a new poll where voters said she was “unlikable,” hence her home debate prep with the Dunphy clan.
If you haven’t yet seen the episode, which also features a storyline about toddler Lily’s sudden affection for the F-word, do yourself a favor and watch. It’s available online for free.
Best line of the episode: "I am Phil Dunphy and I am not a pervert."
I’m the first to admit that I’m no fan of Newt Gingrich for a whole host of reasons, which will likely come as no surprise from someone who refers to herself as a “Massachusetts moderate” when Gingrich appears so fond of maligning moderate folks, especially those who hail from the Bay State.
And while I can understand that Republican primary voters are looking for a candidate who exudes strength, conviction and doesn’t seemed easily cowed by others – traits that Gingrich exuded in spades during last week’s CNN debate and in the Fox News debate before that – I can’t believe that voters sincerely believe that the former House speaker could actually lure any undecided/independent voters to his campaign. Even if he successfully won every single conservative vote in the general election, that wouldn’t be sufficient to reserve his spot behind the Oval Office desk. He’s going to need some independents and dissatisfied Democrats to come on board. And he's not the type of candidate who appeals to those folks.
That being said, the double-digit Gingrich win in South Carolina on Saturday was stunning. In the best case scenario, I could interpret the pro-Gingrich sentiment as a rebuke to the national media which Republicans and conservatives believe are out to build up a weak GOP candidate (Mitt Romney, like a moderate John McCain and Bob Dole before him) and then plan to demolish him in the fall in favor of Obama. Given the raucous verve with which the audiences in the Fox News and CNN debates applauded when Gingrich aggressively went after the news media – calling CNN’s John King “despicable” for asking him about allegations that he asked his second wife for an open marriage – that could be plausible.
If, however, that’s not the case, and the vote has nothing to do with Republican voters’ views on the mainstream media's leaning toward Democrats, that means that Gingrich is actually the preferred candidate. That's stunning given how wildly unpopular he is with Republican voters across the nation, according to a Talking Points Memo chart. As the Wall Street Journal's Peggy Noonan pointed out earlier this month, even those who've worked with Gingrich think he's a loose cannon.
A brand new national poll has found that Gingrich has 41 percent support of likely GOP voters, compared to Mitt Romney’s 32 percent in Florida, which has its primary on January 31, according to Rasmussen Reports. “Less than two weeks ago, Mitt Romney had a 22-point lead in Florida.”
As it stands right now, here’s how the delegate count for the Republican nomination breaks down (each primary/caucus has different rules and some are winner-take-all, others proportional):
-- Gingrich: 23
-- Romney: 18
-- Rick Santorum: 11
-- Ron Paul: 6
The winner needs to reach 1,143 delegates to lock up the GOP nomination.
Will tonight’s NBC debate, moderated by my favorite network anchor, Brian Williams, make any change in the trend of Gingrich over Romney? It’s unclear right now if Florida’s primary – open to registered Republicans only – will be winner-take-all or whether the delegates will be apportioned according to Congressional districts, according to ABC News.
As for the incumbent president who’s on the eve of his State of the Union address, things are looking pretty dismal (unless, of course, the Republicans select Gingrich as their nominee).
“President Obama opens his re-election bid facing significant obstacles among independent voters, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll, with the critical piece of the electorate that cemented his victory four years ago open to denying him a second term,” the Times reported.
“. . . [A] majority of independent voters have soured on his presidency, disapprove of how he has dealt with the economy and do not have a clear idea of what he hopes to accomplish if re-elected,” the paper said, adding that only 31 percent of independent voters have a “favorable opinion” of Obama.
See, it’s the moderates -- of whom those on the either end of the political spectrum aren't particularly fond -- who are the key, hence my incredulity at the state of the current GOP race.
Don Draper will return . . . and, apparently, fall into an empty abyss in the new season.
What does AMC’s stark, black and white promo image mean for the fifth season of Mad Men?
That Don Draper is starting with a clean slate, starting fresh with his child-bride? Will he learn from his mistake with Betty and reveal his "Dick Whitman" secret to his fiance?
Or is this image more sinister in its intent,that Don's falling away into nothingness?
Given that AMC/Lionsgate has tormented Mad Men fans with this extended delay – an entire 2011 with no fresh episodes – couldn’t they have offered us a promo poster with at least something more tangible that we could ponder . . . something other than vast white space?
The only other hint they've offered is via the web address for the countdown clock until the new season begins, entitled "Secrets are Back." They are such teases.
For those who need a Mad Men refresher and who haven’t yet gone to Netflix to watch streaming episodes of season four – including Don’s shocking marriage proposal to Megan and Joan’s stunning change of heart – AMC will be putting the fourth season episodes available On Demand starting next week and re-airing the fourth season on AMC at the ridiculous time of 6 a.m. (Seriously AMC? Six o’clock in the morning for the drama that put you on the map?)
What do you make of this season five image? What do you think we read anything into it?
Jon Huntsman’s three daughters -- who’ve made names for themselves due to their irreverent Tweets and snarky pro-Huntsman YouTube videos -- appeared on CNN to promote their father's GOP presidential campaign when Wolf Blitzer started asking them if they’re single as he read a handful of love-sick Tweets that had been directed toward the women.
As the headline, “They’re Hot Online: Huntsman girls tweeted marriage proposals“ appeared under the image of trio, Blitzer awkwardly said: “Obviously you’ve got a lot of fans out there. And all of ‘em want to know your status. So let’s start off Mary Anne and we’ll go down. Tell us your status right now. Are you available to a lot of young men who are looking out there and would like to get to know you a little better?” (One of the daughters by the way, Abby, has been married for a year.)
As Mediaite’s Jon Bershad observed: “We can’t fault Wolf Blitzer for asking [if they’re single]. Besides he was just asking them what his Twitter followers wanted to know. However, there was something in the way Blitzer asked the question which caused the ladies to recoil like their creepy uncle just said they were 'developing well.'”
I'd be curious as to whether, if Mitt Romney's grown sons were being interviewed, they'd be asked if they're single too.
Although I can appreciate the cleverness of a well executed, tough political ad as well as the next cynical voter, I really don’t like it when the atmosphere get toxic, when campaigns try to trick voters by obfuscating the facts and intentionally mislead people, or just outright name call. I hate that. It’s beneath them and the office which they seek to hold, especially if they’re vying for the post of commander-in-chief.
However political pundits, along with a large body of research, tell us that it’s those negative ads that help win elections. The charges in those ads remain with you, like an insidious ear worm. The positive ads, the ones that are all motherhood and apple pie with a crisp flag snapping in the wind in the background while the candidate looks regal in front of it, conventional wisdom says that they make little difference when we are deciding for whom to vote.
Even though folks will say that they don't like negative ads, a University of Georgia advertising professor wrote on CNN's web site that they're used for one big reason: "The answer is simple: They work. And they work very well." She added that, "There is some evidence that negative messages may be more likely than positive ones to passively register [with viewers.]"
So, on the day before the New Hampshire primary, I surfed the internet and culled two different kinds of ads from the remaining GOP presidential candidates' web sites to compare and contrast the positive ads with the negative ones.
The Good
In this pro-Mitt Romney ad, with inspirational music and images, Ann Romney takes to forefront to try to soften the straight-laced businessman. (Romney did himself no favors today in the softening department by using the phrase "I like being able to fire people," which will, I predict, appear in a political ad very soon.)
Former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman’s campaign neatly packaged up Huntsman’s rebuttal during the final debate this weekend to Romney’s assertion that by serving as the U.S. ambassador to China under President Obama, Huntsman wasn’t putting his party first.
Here, Huntsman says that his election would be the answer to the nation’s “trust deficit.”
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich explains his belief that government doesn’t create real jobs.
Texas Congressman Ron Paul takes a rather loud approach with this “Big Dog” ad which seems more like it’s promoting a pro wrestling match rather than a presidential candidate.
Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum’s family-centric “Pop-Up” ad describes him in a very general way without attacking anyone else.
This “Morning in America” type of ad from Texas Governor Rick Perry shows a much better side of him than he has exhibited in the debates.
Found this YouTube video via Slate’s Brow Beat culture blog.
It features a really tense scene from the excellent film Margin Call – it’s on DVD/On Demand and is well worth the time – but it has removed all the dialogue except for a few mutterings of "Uhhh." You do, however, hear the tapping of pens, people drumming their fingers on the large conference table, the sound effect of an e-mail arriving on a laptop, stomachs growling and Jeremy Irons’ boss man impatiently flipping the edges of a report.
It’s amazing what a difference it can make to watch people not speak to one another. Still just as tense. And a little funny too, unlike the original scene in which there wasn't a drop of humor.
Winning the presidential nomination of one’s chosen political party is certainly no easy feat. It takes a whole host of things – money, smarts, charisma, organization and sheer dumb luck – to emerge from the primary process as a Republican or Democratic nominee for president.
One of the toughest feats that successful nominees have to master is being an exceedingly limber political gymnast. They have to win over their party’s stalwarts – which comprise roughly a third of the electorate – that they’re the best person to represent them as the party’s standard bearer. Then, in short order, the nominees must transform and twist themselves into a candidate who will appeal to the voters in the political middle – also about a third of the electorate – because you can’t win the U.S. presidency by only garnering the support of those who share your party affiliation.
This is why it’s puzzling to me to see Newt Gingrich calling GOP frontrunner Mitt Romney a “Massachusetts moderate” as though a “moderate” is akin to a socialist hell-bent on transforming America into something more resembling France. After taking out a full-page ad in a New Hampshire newspaper attacking Romney as a “timid Massachusetts moderate,” Gingrich has made the rounds on TV and during voter meet-and-greets warning Republicans that Romney’s really a moderate type of guy, because, you know, them moderates, they’ve been known to take the reins of the nation and sink it like the Titanic. All the political and financial challenges facing America have occurred because of the scourge of“moderates,” right?
Gingrich, who seemed stunned that he came in fourth behind Romney, Rick Santorum and Ron Paul in Iowa, has said that if “Massachusetts moderate” Romney were selected as the GOP nominee, he thinks Romney would “be pretty good at managing the decay” and wouldn’t change the political climate.
This isn’t to say that I’m endorsing Romney, mind you, it’s just that this new trend of attacking people by hurling the word “moderate” at them as though it’s Kryptonite is abundantly silly. Writing for The Christian Science Monitor, Amanda Paulson pointed out that Romney is also guilty of using “moderate” as a “dirty word” suggesting that Gingrich is moderate because he’d cooperated with Nancy Pelosi on environmental issues and has made *shudder* compromises.
U.S. Senator Scott Brown, another Republican from Massachusetts where Republicans are about as abundant as four-leaf clovers, gets flak for his moderate tendencies and because he is willing to work with the people who he thinks have the best ideas, regardless of their party affiliation. He’s not following the party leadership and walking in lock-step with his GOP brethren, which is a wise thing given that the Bay State is very blue. If Brown voted straight party line, he’d be shown the door.
Even Rick Santorum, who was only eight votes behind Romney in Iowa and is well known for his social conservatism, was assailed by the son of fellow Republican presidential candidate, the pro-pot Ron Paul, as being a “moderate.” Rand Paul, a senator from Kentucky, told an Iowan talk show host that Santorum is “a big government moderate and I think conservatives need to be wary before thinking Santorum can be their champion.” Seriously?
The editor-in-chief of the web site The Moderate Voice has had enough of this idiotic, short-sighted nonsense. “Warning to the GOP: The way rhetoric is being used in the Republican primary campaign, there may come a point where moderates may simply decide they cannot vote for a Republican candidate,” Joe Gandelman wrote on The Moderate Voice. “No, this isn’t just a personal reaction. You can bank on this being a problem if trending continues.”
Alluding to the fact that whoever eventually gets the GOP presidential nomination will have to appeal to independent and moderate voters in the general election in order to win, Gandelman questioned this new anti-moderate trend: “Why would moderates vote for a political party that has increasingly used the word ‘moderate’ as a filthy political word? We’ve now seen a parade of candidates use it. And the phrase ‘going moderate’ has now become a major attack phrase by conservative talkers, some columnists and politicians.”
It has become a December ritual for several years now, watching the send-off that the guys who created the online digital media company JibJab, which makes funny online videos and e-cards, give to the year in news.
This year's installment has its moments but several of their previous efforts seemed more inspired. Take a look at a handful of other year-end wrap-ups here. I thought the 2007 installment had much more enthusiasm and 2008's reflected the buoyancy and grimness of the year.
Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab!
Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab!
When I finished reading the best selling book Game Change, which chronicled the behind-the-scenes exploits of the 2008 presidential campaign, I was pretty steamed. Now I’m a political junkie and love books about campaigns. I read Richard Ben Cramer’s behemoth What It Takes (1,072 pages) about the 1988 presidential campaign . . . twice. Thought it was brilliant. Some folks have likened Game Change, by veteran journalists Mark Halperin and John Heilemann, to Cramer’s book. So why did Game Change irk me? It demonized the women who were depicted as toxic, irrational villains.
In the Pop Culture and Politics column that I wrote in 2010 after reading Game Change, I lamented, “The men – [John] Edwards, Barack Obama, John McCain, Bill Clinton, Joe Biden and Rudy Giuliani – were portrayed as feisty, profane, inspiring, cocky, narcissistic, messianic, shallow, phony and occasionally ill-tempered, although when their anger was discussed it seemed to be of a variety that didn’t warrant a bunch of florid, patronizing adjectives, as if such behavior is the norm while the women’s behavior is the aberration.”
“When it came to the two female candidates – Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin – and the female spouses of the candidates (with the exception of Michelle Obama), they were frequently described with negative, female-centric put-downs and held to starkly different standards,” I added.
Hillary Clinton was described as “bitter,” “befuddled” and had “a staggering lack of calm or command.” After Obama clinched the nomination, Clinton was painted as “somber, prideful, aggrieved, confused – and still high on the notion that she was leading an army, Napoleon in a navy pantsuit and gumball-sized fake pearls.”
Sarah Palin was compared to Eliza Doolittle and The Wizard of Oz’s Dorothy. She was described as having a “hissy fit” and a “conniption,” and being a “big-time control freak.” She was called “mentally unstable,” having been in a “catatonic stupor” during debate prep, in addition to being “a hick on a high wire.”
Cindy McCain, ridiculed as a cold “beauty queen,” was a bawling mess who was, at one point, described as having “flounced back to Phoenix.”
The now-deceased Elizabeth Edwards, who was suffering a relapse of breast cancer at around the same time she learned that her husband had been messing around with another woman, was “an abusive, intrusive, paranoid, condescending crazy woman. Who was “prone to irrational outbursts.”
So when I learned that HBO had bought the rights to the book and was planning on making a movie based on it (set to be released in March starring Julianne Moore as Palin, Ed Harris as John McCain), I wasn’t thrilled.
I’ll be happy if the filmmakers opt to provide a balanced look at all the players in the 2008 campaign, regardless of gender. But if they are very faithful to the book, I fear the results will be nothing more than demeaning, sexist schlock as seen through the eyes of men. Let’s hope I’m wrong. It's hard to tell what the film will be like based on the short teaser that HBO released this week.
Joanne Bamberger, aka Pundit Mom, clued me in to this provocative and eye-opening speech by Megan Kamerick, a former president of the Journalism & Women Symposium, about how women’s voices are disproportionately absent from news stories and features, despite the fact that women constitute over half of the population.
“Stories by female reporters are more likely to challenge stereotypes than those by male reporters,” Kamerick said.
“Women are more likely to be defined by their body parts,” she said, showing a cover image of WiredMagazine of a woman’s naked chest, noting that women rarely appear on the cover of Wired unless they're sexualized.
Homeland showrunners told New York Magazine’s Vulture that they originally anticipated that Sgt. Nick Brody would only appear in the first season.
“I think when Alex [Gansa, his co-showrunner] and I first conceived the series, it seemed obvious that we couldn’t take the show with Brody as a character beyond the first season. But then we realized how rich that mine was and how much more there was left to get out of it,” Howard Gordon, the other Homeland showrunner, told New York.
“Brody’s surviving the finale was very much in doubt,” Gansa said. “We really talked about it both ways. Ultimately we felt there was more to tell in the saga between Carrie and Brody, in that relationship.”
Now there are some who thought the finale was a cop-out and they didn’t like it in the least. I was surprised at the abruptness of its tonal shift when Brody attempted to blow himself up, only to have his explosive vest malfunction. He fixed it, was ready to try again, but hearing his daughter’s pleading voice on his cell phone (prompted to call him by Carrie Mathison) persuaded him to go another way and later rationalize to Abu Nazir that he could do more damage by working within the system rather than just killing the folks in that bunker.
I admit I was a bit let down when the credits rolled on this finale. Then I slept on it. Why was I let down, because Brody DIDN’T kill people? I didn’t want him to kill people. I didn’t want to see the glorification of a suicide bomber. When I woke up the next morning and thought about what the Homeland writers had done – turning a would-be lethal protest into something more subtle in the form of working within the system – I decided that the writers took the harder and more intriguing road. In the world of 24, things were always blowing up, even nuclear bombs. Sure, seeing a bomb go off is dramatic, but seeing people wrestle with their conscience, with right and wrong, with loyalties and with consequences is so much more interesting.
Later in the New York interview, Gansa, who noted that Brody’s suicide video is still missing, added:
“[Brody] flipped the switch, which satisfied our feeling that this is someone who would go through with what he decided to do, and then it opened up the possibility of redemption after the fact, when he fixes the vest and almost goes through with it for the second time. We all like Brody now, and we want him to be redeemed, and we kind of got to have it both ways.”
What’s Eating The Grinch?
In honor of the Christmas season, I’m going to direct you to an essay in McSweeney’s by Robb Fritz which dissected what was really bugging that mean old Grinch and discussed how the green being used his happy-go-lucky dog Max as his “put-upon canine slave, made to dress up as an unconvincing reindeer with one heavy faux-antler roped onto his head.”
“There’s no indication that the Grinch, unlike Scrooge, is a wealthy, malevolent, card carrying member of the 1%,” Fritz wrote. “He’s more just a finicky grump who hates it when his downstairs neighbors have late night parties, ostensibly because the noise keeps him up, but maybe just possibly because he hasn’t been invited.”
