Comments on: Branding tragedy

By: typohell

typohell — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 20:36:24 +0000

I realise this is an old post but it outlines to an extent something I also feel strongly about. It is not the integration of a tragic national event being incorporated into an entertainment program that bothers me. What bothers me is the American 'movie announcer' style of speaking that nearly all supposedly respectable American news reporters use to get the story across. It is sensationalist and vulgar; two things that news reports should aim never to be.

By: A Look at Art

A Look at Art — Tue, 20 Jun 2006 22:44:42 +0000

Humanitarian Design...

Ok...since seeing An Inconvenient Truth, I'll admit I've been REALLY trying to be more energy aware. So, I thought it might be a good idea to keep the ball rolling and occasionally post some resources and news advocating responsible energy...

By: RIRedinPA

RIRedinPA — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 18:56:45 +0000

I stopped four or five paragraphs in because this essay started taking a typical format of we are all controlled by the media, America is bad and Americans view themselves egotistically and arrogantly vis-a-vis the rest of the world.

While there is validity to those statements on some level, however, by painting with such a broad brush tends to make you, to some extent, exactly what you are claiming Americans to be.

To get to a specific point - the Entertainment Tonight coverage of the 9/11 attacks . I'm not a fan of pop culture, I don't watch reality TV shows and avoid most television or popular radio in general. However, given the magnitude of the event would you have preferred ET to have run stories on the latest Hollywood super couple's martial problems? Would that have been more tasteless than an entertainment show dedicating some time to a tragic event?

And if the lines of entertainment and news are blurred, they are blurred world wide, not just in the US. As an example there is the composer Karlheinz Stockhausen and his frequently cited statement that 9/11 was the 'greatest work of art of all time."

The lines between entertainment and news became blurred a long time ago, perhaps as far back as the birth of Nightline, which came on the air as a daily recap to the Iranian Hostage crisis back in 1979. The point is not whether it is or is not, it is, nor is it who initially blurred the lines and for what reason, the point now is whether you are going to accept it or not?

By: Yorkali

Yorkali — Tue, 30 May 2006 01:46:35 +0000

Just discovered this incredible post.

I fully agree on all points except I agree a bit with the comments about ET covering the the disaster. Now that I have that out of the way, you have very eloquently posted thoughts that have been rummaging in my cranium for many months now. We allow ourselves to be tranced into a permanent halucination.

As we hook our selves up to this entertainment/news/telenovela IV drip to escape our "barren" realities we commit a worse crime. Distancing our selves from hasher realities (Sudan,etc) that demand our attention, participation and support (loved your lense illustration by the way) . I also agree with you that us, the brand shappers, the servants of the 21st century "P.T. Barnums" have built a big part of the gun, but just like crack, heroine and esctasy...

....If there was no market, there would be no product.

I am not in any defending what is produced or sold, but as long as the wider public is there to dig thier collective graves with their eyelids, those extruded, mettalic spinning logos will not go away. Anyway, I'm done, gotta watch that whupping by Colbert again on Youtube.

York

By: makethelogobigger

makethelogobigger — Tue, 02 May 2006 01:02:50 +0000

ET running a feature that day was not out of line. You may be reading too much into their motives.I'll be the first to say I hate ET because shows like it are junk food for the mind, but that attack crossed all boundries in American Culture, not too mention geographic locations. To ignore coverage would be foolish on their part.

As for the movie? It is said that time heals all wounds, but it's too soon for this movie. There'll be time. Looking at WWII movies and this one though is apples and oranges in a way. Pretty much all the old movies are badly acted and filled with patriotic messages. But they don't compare in my opinion. War on civilians is different than the Duke slugging it out with enemy soldiers.

Ironically, even though Hollywood has elevated how real movies look, we all watched this live on TV when it happened. How can you top that in a moive? And say what you will about the intent of the new film, but there's enough taken from the flight transcripts.

By: tater

tater — Thu, 27 Apr 2006 22:14:44 +0000

What's your point, Eric? Newsreels ran at theaters before television was invented. Newspapers also have "entertainment" sections. I am able to seperate news from entertainment as most adults are. Also, movies are often made about current events. Historically, newspapers have put out Special Editions focused entirely on tragic national events (Extra! Extra! Read all about it!).This is nothing new, so I fail to grasp your concern. Is it that there are too many celeb gossip shows or that people don't necessarily choose to care about what you care about? Your rant reminds me of the angst-filled musings encountered in high school and college when confused youth blamed "culture" for imagined crimes against their arrogant belief of what society should be like.

By: jacco Bakker

jacco Bakker — Thu, 27 Apr 2006 17:05:38 +0000

To the writer,
Funny, yesterday i read a passage in http://www.ayn-rand.com/ayn-rand-fountainhead.asp
it was the dutch translation, so its can mention the pagenumber, its somewhere before the middle of this book.
... W'ell this passage is about the creation of an myth, about a play so bad that everybody agrees, but two of them see a possibilty for themselves as critic and people manipulator to create a myth. Anyway, if you're interested please read this book. It made my view of the world a bit better.

By: Adrian3

Adrian3 — Thu, 27 Apr 2006 03:53:54 +0000

The News is Entertainment...

Eric Karjaluoto of ideasonideas.com wrote an interesting essay about how in the American media there is no longer a distinction between entertainment and news. Eric says, “…to the American media, news and entertainment, or even larger yet, ...

By: Clayton

Clayton — Wed, 26 Apr 2006 15:29:51 +0000

Vancouver based punk band, D.O.A said it best "TALK - ACTION = 0".

By: Jared Christensen

Jared Christensen — Wed, 26 Apr 2006 14:51:26 +0000

"When Entertainment Tonight started airing coverage of the attack and aftermath, I was perplexed. What did this mean? Was the attack somehow entertaining? Why would they be talking about this?"

I propose that for ET to not have covered the events of the day would have been callous and alarming. Everyone was reporting on 9-11. Everyone. There was no other news. It was either report 9-11 or go off the air (which may or may not have been a better choice).

"I refuse to allow news to become entertainment, and I will just as much resist allowing the lives of Hollywood stars to overshadow real occurrences in the world. I will not be lining-up for the upcoming round of disaster movies, aiming to profit from the horrors faced by those people on September the eleventh. How about you?"

Have you ever seen a WW2 movie? I see no difference between seeing the upcoming 9-11 movie and those movies, other than the fact that you were alive during 9-11, so it smells more of a capitalist venture than it will to someone 30 years from now.