Omniculture

The Real D-Wade

November 3, 2006
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The Real D-Wade

Miami Heat NBA superstar Dwyane Wade has a new slate of commercials appearing on television as the pro basketball season starts, and they’re an interesting phenomenon. Directed by Spike Lee, the commercials purport to show the "real" Dwyane Wade, the man behind the basketball player. Mostly, they are just shots of Wade sitting on a chair on a basketball court, talking directly to the camera. As the Sun-Sentinal reports: From behind the camera, Lee asks Wade questions about his life on and off the basketball court in what’s being described as something of a fireside chat. “My whole concept this year is going with the real me,” Wade said. “It’s about letting people get to know who Dwyane Wade is. So he’s asking me personal questions that maybe my fans won’t know about basketball, off the court.” The messages are simple and direct, largely about the value of hard work, dedication, and other good things. One stands out as unusual, however: Wade talks about how his relationship with God is at the center of his life and is his greatest motivation. It’s a very sincere and, for me, an appealing spot, and clearly it was important to Wade to have

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The Future of Christian Cinema

November 2, 2006
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In commenting on our discussion of Christian cinema (see posts immediately below), some visitors brought up a couple of interesting points. One is that any kind of Christian movie ought to be acceptable to both critics and audiences, and the other is that the economic realities of making Christian films today require a more encouraging stance than Barbara Nicolosi and I seem to have taken regarding Facing the Giants. Clearly both these observations are well-intentioned, but I think that adopting these recommendations would greatly harm any nascent Christian cinema, rather than helping it. Let’s examine them individually. First, the premise that any kind of Christian cinema ought to be good enough for Christians, with the implied corollary that any Christian film is at least better then what Hollywood puts out, ignores an imporatant reality: what is on the surface of a film does not always reflect what it all actually means. Many Hollywood films and TV programs, despite their often shabby surfaces, carry meanings that Christians should find quite appealing. If you have any doubts about this, click on the "Movies" and "Television" categories on this page and take a look at some analyses of Hollywood products showing how easily

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A Bad Sign for Christian Cinema

November 1, 2006
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Screenwriter and script analyst Barbara Nicolosi is extremely disappointed by the Christian-produced film Facing the Giants. I have not yet gotten around to seeing the film, but I suspect that Ms. Nicolosi is quite right. She points out that Facing the Giants is the cinematic equivalent of Contemporary Christian Music, bland nonsense meant to make Christians feel good and thereby bring in a steady stream of money from a highly defined market segment, what is known in the entertainment business as a cash cow. In addition, Nicolosi argues, Facing the Giants is animated by a devotion to what is known as the Prosperity Gospel, a decidedly perverse notion prevalent among some Evangelicals, which holds that God wants believers to be happy and prosperous in this world (which is surely true to some extent), and that he will give believers such earthly success to the degree that they believe in Him and accept his promises. That is an absurd, unbiblical doctrine that is derived from Puritanism but puts an optimistic, positive spin on it. It is an idea, as Nicolosi notes, that utterly denies numerous direct statements in Scripture, especially the words of Jesus Christ himself. In sum, the Prosperity Gospel

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Madonna’s Crucifixion Reported Cancelled

October 20, 2006
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Madonna’s Crucifixion Reported Cancelled

The American Family Association has announced that NBC TV has decided to delete the mock crucifixion scene that was to appear in a concert special starring rock singer Madonna. As reported on this site on September 20, NBC TV is pondering what to do about rock singer Madonna’s upcoming TV special on the network. A video of the middle-aged pop star’s latest  concert will be broadcast on the network in November. The problem: Madonna sings one song, "Live to Tell," while suspended on a cross, bound by silver cuffs and wearing a crown of thorns. Catholic and Orthodox church groups have protested the spectacle. Madonna defends it by saying that it is not "anti-Christian, sacrilegious or blasphemous." She says that in fact Jesus himself would be just like her if he were here today: "It is no different than a person wearing a cross or ‘taking up the cross’ as it says in the Bible. Rather, it is my plea to the audience to encourage mankind to help one another and to see the world as a unified whole. I believe in my heart that if Jesus were alive today he would be doing the same thing." At that time,

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The Demise of Oldies on FM Radio—and a Look at the Future

October 19, 2006
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The Demise of Oldies on FM Radio—and a Look at the Future

    In a comment on my Chuck Berry post (immediately below) "Diskojoe" observes, "too bad you can’t hear his songs anymore on the radio, even the oldies stations don’t play much prior to 1964." For those who don’t pay a fee to the XM or Sirius satellite systems, that is true. On commercial radio, the oldies stations are vulnerable to extinction because no big, corporate firm seems to use this format and be willing to offer it to audiences as an alternative to the very few formats they currently use. The corporations instead choose to fight rabidly over the audience segments that like the very few programming formats that have proven to have the largest following. For example: The city where I live had an "oldies" FM station that was highly popular and played Chuck Berry songs and other 1950s material along with all the other great pre-1970s rock. A few months ago, however, the station was sold to a corporate owner which immediately turned it into a very boring contemporary station. No one has stepped up yet to fill the gap with a new oldies station. There is a strong audience market for such stations, as the previous

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What Happens in Vegas . . .

October 13, 2006
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What Happens in Vegas . . .

Regarding the well-known Las Vegas promotional ads claiming that "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas," the allusion to them in last night’s episode of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (see the item immediately below) vividly reminded me of how revolting I’ve always found that ad campaign to be. Yes, revolting. The claim, of course, is that running wild in a strange town has no consequences. The subtext is that prostitution is legal in Nevada. Hence, for married folk the implication is that you can be sure your spouse will not know about your indiscretions when you return from your business trip out there (because you run no risk of getting arrested for solicitation), so please book your meetings and conventions in Vegas. For single people, the point is that there will be lots of people out looking for a good time with no commitments: the young men will have the fallback option of using the legalized prostitution, and the young women know that the legal prostitution means that there will be plenty of young men there. Of course, contracting a venereal disease would seem to be a very possible negative consequence of what often happens in Vegas, but perhaps they

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Fannysmackin’ Our Vegas Mentality

October 12, 2006
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Fannysmackin’ Our Vegas Mentality

The closing words of tonight’s episode of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation express a truly great insight into contemporary American society. After solving the case, the investigators ponder the question of who is ultimately responsible for the depredations of a group of teenage thrill-killers in Las Vegas, whether it is the parents or simply the kids themselves. Someone mentions the "moral compass" the young people should have been provided. Team leader Gil Grissom enters the room and provides a wiser perspective: The truth is, a moral compass can only point you in the right direction. It can’t make you go there. Our culture preaches that you shouldn’t be ashamed of anything you do anymore. And unfortunately, this city is built on the principle that there’s no such thing as guilt: "Do whatever you want. We won’t tell." So, without a conscience, there’s nothing to stop you from killing someone. And evidently, you don’t even have to feel bad about it. That’s a powerful statement, and entirely true. It’s even more powerful on screen than on the page. The episode is called Fannysmackin’ and is well worth seeing for this excellent brief speech.

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“Bravo” for the Omniculture

October 3, 2006
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“Bravo” for the Omniculture

One of the biggest trends of the past couple of decades has been the increasing commercialization of what used to be thought of as a counterculture. The 1950s and ’60s movement to question all existing values quickly entered the mainstream, and in the 1980s it basically became the mainstream, insofar as there is such a thing in our fractured Omniculture. The values pursued are originality, passion, assertiveness, authenticity, and the like. In the Omniculture, a place without a central set of widely shared values, enormous corporate conglomerates pursue particular audience slices by means of "edgy," aggressively weird programming. Pay-cable series such as Six Feet Under and Weeds, for example, are programs that really make very little sense as entertainment or popular art, although there are interesting thoughts to be found in them, but they are able to find an audience because a certain thrill is given to viewers as participating in something truly "challenging" that sets them apart from their boring neighbors who watch football and shop at Wal-Mart.   This is vividly true of the cable network Bravo, which started out as basically an opera and ballet channel and in the past few years has evolved into an outlet

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Liberty and Culture

October 2, 2006
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I’ve just returned from a conference on great Americans’ contributions to the nation’s ongoing discussion of liberty and order. What struck me most strongly was the fact that our opinions on liberty depend so greatly on our cultural treatment of the issue, and that the latter depends so thoroughly on leadership. To read the speeches and other writings of great leaders such as Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and the two presidents Roosevelt (as much as I disagree with the positions of these last two individuals), one is positively revolted by the puerility and ignorance of our modern politicians. Since Ronald Reagan there has not been a leader in either American political party whose thinking and writings could approach placing them in a class with these persons, or even as close as several  notches below. Certainly one could suggest a variety of reasons for this, but the greatest of these, I believe, is a simple deficiency of interest in and understanding of basic principles. Our modern politicians seem far too caught up in politics, as opposed to being interested in and willing to investigate in depth the principles behind human action and political activity. This has always been true to some degree,

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Offending Christians OK at NBC, Bothering Atheists Not an Option

September 23, 2006
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Offending Christians OK at NBC, Bothering Atheists Not an Option

Yesterday we noted that NBC is leaning toward including Madonna’s mock crucifixion scene when it airs her concert special in November. Catholic and Orthodox church organizations have protested the aging pop star’s inclusion of the scene in her concert shows, and they will undoubtedly view a decision by NBC to run it as an insult to Christians. As noted yesterday, NBC is probably going to run the scene, and there will probably be complaints from Christians. NBC will undoubtedly be willing to endure any controversy and in fact expect to benefit from it. Not so with atheists. NBC is airing the Christian program Veggie Tales, but it has censored out all refernces to Christ and Christianity. According to the AP report, Bob the Tomato and Larry the Cucumber always had a moral message in their long-running "VeggieTales" series, a collection of animated home videos for children that encourage moral behavior based on Christian principles. But now that the vegetable stars have hit network television, they cannot speak as freely as they once did, and that has got the Parents Television Council steamed. The conservative media-watchdog group issued a statement Wednesday blasting NBC, which airs "VeggieTales," for editing out some references

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Critics Go Political, Audiences Prefer Romance: Toronto Film Festival

September 17, 2006
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The prizes have been awarded at the Toronto Film Festival, and as might have been expected, the Fipresci Prize, voted by an international panel of film critics, went to the political "snuff" film Death of a President. (See story here.) The top award at the festival, however, went to Bella, a romantic drama by Mexican director Alejandro Monteverde. The People’s Choice Award is voted on by festival audiences, and is describe by Reuters as often indicative of future Academy Award nominations. Bella received little press attention during the festival, and its selection as best picture was described as a surprise. The film, produced in the United States, tells the story of "two people whose lives converge and turn upside down on a single day in New York," according to Reuters. It is director Monteverde’s first film.

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CBS Premieres New Show “Jericho” on Web Before Broadcast Debut

September 17, 2006
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CBS Premieres New Show “Jericho” on Web Before Broadcast Debut

In another manifestation of the trend of major media outlets using the internet to promote their programs, CBS has authorized yahoo.com to show the entire premiere episode of the new TV series Jericho, on demand on the web, commercial-free, for several days before it appears on broadcast television. The program premieres on Wednesday, September 20, and until then you can see it on the Web here. The page also includes clips and promotions for other CBS shows premiering this fall. The network’s decision to show an important program on the Web before its broadcast debut appears to me a rather significant event in the development of the internet as a broad-based medium. And in entertainment and aesthetic terms, the premierie episode of Jericho is well worth watching.

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"Culture is the expression of the guiding philosophy of the day."—Murray Rothbard
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