FIRM Discussions May 14, 1999 - June 24, 1999
re: VHS Babysitters
Tony
10:24 pm Saturday May 15, 1999That was a great response!! I agree wholeheartedly. But let me tell you something James, that letter was not politically correct and that is not the way to get a job in Hollywood!!! :)
I agree with you and Guy Fix. I think you both are pretty much on the same page.
And just let me throw my two cents in there and say that it is definitely about time that we started caring more about our kids, how they are raised and how the are influenced by ALL media.
Tony
re: Film Distributor Schemes
Tony
10:29 pm Saturday May 15, 1999That's bad news John. Just goes to show that the mainstream film industry needs some serious reform. How can anybody do business in this industry without anxiety about the major players ripping them off? I guess it's impossible in the current paradigm.
Tony
Being Politically (In)Correct
James Jaeger
12:21 pm Sunday May 16, 1999That was a great response!! I agree wholeheartedly. But let me tell you something James, that letter was not politically correct and that is not the way to get a job in Hollywood!!! :)
TonyYou know something Tony, 10 years ago I might have been concerned about being politically correct or getting a job in Hollywood, but when one confronts the brevity of life, (given past lives are NOT true or one does NOT get their brain (mind file) uploaded to a computer, etc.), I am only concerned about what I feel is true and correct and stating that. And of course I am often wrong and I try to correct that as fast as possible when new data becomes available or apparent.
Also, I have had all the jobs I want in Hollywood over the past 22 years and I have seen this industry from the highest to the lowest levels in pretty much detail. Fortunately or unfortunately, Hollywood does not impress me that much anymore - so I am not concerned whether I need to propitiate to it or not or whether I am currently "politically correct" - the term being a complete oxymoron in the first place, as the only thing that is "correct" in politics is the thing that works - and if representing yourself as "politically correct" is the current thing that works to gain political power, then that is what a lot of fools try to do. But as soon as being "politically correct" becomes un-politically correct, (or politically incorrect) people will then seek to be un-politically correct (such as Bill Maher's show, POLITICALLY INCORRECT) so as to in effect BE politically correct. And so you have the basics of the Hollywood mentality right here in this microcosm and the absurdity of it should be evident to anyone who does not watch TV or read news papers.
James Jaeger
Media Violence
Gerry
5:19 pm Monday May 17, 1999I had a very interesting discussion with my cousin yesterday about media violence and its effects on children. Nobody can deny that violence in movies, TV, music videos, and video games can have a negative impact on kids, and even adults for that matter.
This debate about violence in media and its possible responsibility for violence in the culture has been going on since I can remember. My position is that although I do not believe in censorship, I do believe that overwhelmingly violent material is being produced, seen and glorified more and more in media. And that I see as a very negative trend.
I also think it needs to be pointed out that the overwhelming majority of kids do not develop into gun toting murders as a direct result of what they see in media. You only have like 1% or less that will go into a high school and blow everybody away. Then they try to trump up what kind of video games they were playing and movies they were watching without putting the focus on where it should be: the fact that these kids had messed up mentalities with or without the movies and video games.
Everybody wants to blame somebody. But hardly anybody wants to say the obvious: that the typical American family is screwed up!!! Our values and priorities are all wrong!!! I will blame the parents for those kids turning out like that before I blame any movie or video game.
I agree, the first "line of defense" should be better parenting and this includes allowing kids to only watch movies they are ready to watch. The movie industry is just being a "movie industry" - doing what it does as a commercial entity.
I remember my brothers and I used to watch Saturday kung fu movies when we were young. Right after we would get butter knives and sticks, go outside and play fight, acting like we were in a kung fu movie. It never crossed our minds to actually stab or kill anybody, because we were raised not to do that. We were just imagining, having fun and playing. That is what most kids do, and I see it is a normal healthy part of childhood. From "cowboys and indians", "cops and robbers" and even before those, kids, especially boys, have participated in game playing which involves good vs evil, and pretend combat or physical conflict in some way, shape or form. It's just imagination and fun. But when some 1 out of a million kid shoots somebody, now movies and media are to blame. I don't like that! It's a copout!!
I'm just doing some venting of my own about this subject. I wrote you before about sample movies on the website which Matrixx listed as examples of the types of movies it wants to be involved in. Many of them can be considered violent and/or gun/weapon heavy. I saw this as a contradiction when I read an unflattering comment by one of your site contributors about scripts containing guns and the writers who write them. James Jaeger wrote me back and said that list was put up before Matrixx decided on its production policy and asked me which of the movies did I think were inappropriate. I didn't write back because I didn't think ANY of the movies I spoke of were inappropriate. They were very fun and entertaining movies and I liked them.
In a nutshell what I would like to see is this:
1. Parents, not media, taking the heaviest responsibility for how their kids turn out.
2. A better balance in media so that violence is not so glorified and prevalent as it is today. We should be able to do some great entertaining without depending on massive violence all the time.
3. Highly enforced restrictions when it comes to kids seeing rated R and above movies. In a way, this is under parental responsibility. But theater owners need to really start exercising some responsibility too by turning away kids under a certain age even if they are accompanied by an adult. What the hell does being accompanied by an adult have to do with little kids being badly affected by any horror and crazy violence they would see on the screen. There needs to be a huge sign in the movie lobby: "Any kid under the age of ??? will not be admitted with or without an adult." I would like to see that.
Gerry
Mind-Boggling Revenues
James Jaeger
5:54 pm Tuesday May 18, 1999Hollywood is finally beginning to wake up about video-on-demand over the Internet. . . and while such awakening is going on. . . here at FIRM we have not only been presenting the negative facts about your industry and it's current rip-off distribution paradigm - but we have been working to put into effect a better distribution paradigm for filmmakers at HOMEVIDEO.NET and PAY-PER-VIEW.COM, both domains of Matrixx Internet Distribution*, a division of Matrixx Entertainment. The former we have been doing since 15 March 1998 and the later we have been doing since 15 February 1996 at MID.
An interesting article on the front page of today's LA Times says thus:
Even the most skeptical movie executives have come to believe that a fundamental economic restructuring of the business is within sight. They say the next big flow of cash to pull the movie business out of its doldrums will come from the Internet through direct distribution of movies.
"Everybody in the business is talking about it," said John Miller, managing director of Chase Securities and perhaps the most powerful banker in the movie business. "We're on the threshold, and the potential revenues are mind-boggling."
Hey, I told you so. . . :-)
James Jaeger
*the first company in the world set up specifically to distribute movies over the Internet (See announcement in Main Line Times of August 1, 1996).
re: Columbine High School Shooting
anonymous
10:19 pm Sunday May 23, 1999I knew I would be making this exact post sooner or later. As you must be aware, we now have the worst dramatization of violence FROM the movies INTO the high school ever manifest. What can be said? James Jaeger
There was violence long before movies. Why did the Crusades happen? Was that because of the media too?
People are naturlly violent. Or is violence a recent invention, like movies, too?
Seems silly to try to blame hollywood for two gun toting angry kids. but if you need to prove yoer point, i guess youll find any and every example to fit your philosophy.
re: Columbine High School Shooting
James Jaeger
0:23 am Monday May 24, 1999There was violence long before movies. Why did the Crusades happen? Was that because of the media too?
The media is over-saturated with violence-oriented themes/images which are creating an environment of unprecedented hostility in this, a time when we are SUPPOSED to be MUCH more peaceful and civilized than during the Crusades. If you are unable to see this, then you are either unaware of what's happening around you or you're a Hollywood apologist.
People are naturlly violent.
No. That's a completely false statement. People are naturally peace-loving. People only resort to hostile activities when an unknown third party (such as international bankers) actively promotes the conflict. If you think "people are naturally violent" you have simply been taking too many psychology courses. Psychologists and psychiatrists (the only ones who might be naturally violent), know very little about human nature or how to deal with it -- other than suppressing it with "prescription" drugs.
Or is violence a recent invention, like movies, too?
The kind we are seeing today IS a "recent invention."
Seems silly to try to blame hollywood for two gun toting angry kids. but if you need to prove yoer point, i guess youll find any and every example to fit your philosophy.
If you had read my posts you would not have made this statement. As I said before, most of this problem rests on the parents, in part for using VHS tapes as their babysitters. Obviously, Hollywood is not necessarily to blame for these "gun toting angry kids" but the long-term environment Hollywood has created IS to blame. Also, when the media exploits violent events endlessly, (making people's very lives but a "news STORY" or an MOW), it creates a platform for such insanity to persist.
James Jaeger
Does Hollywood Discriminate? Hollywood Discrimination
John Cones
11:26 am Monday May 24, 1999If Hollywood did not discriminate, we would see African-American, Latino, Native American, Arab-American, and Muslim top level studio executives. We would also see more women, Christians, White Americans from the South, Italian-Americans, Irish-Americans and Mormons in such positions. Wake up America! The motion picture is a powerful communications medium. Its messages tend to reflect the interests of those who have the power to determine which movies are going to be produced and released. If we do not insist on diversity at the top in Hollywood, we will never have the ability to insure diversity on the screen.
John
Hollywood Exploits Gays/Lesbians
James Jaeger
1:59 am Friday May 28, 1999After thinking about this a little more, I have come to the conclusion that the Hollywood media machine, led by the MPAA studio/distributors (and their lap-dog Network TV stations), is exploiting the gay/lesbian communities just like it exploits anything and everything else - without responsibility or regard for its effects.
Whether you feel homosexuality is okay or not is irrelevant to Hollywood - the fact that YOU are fighting over your right to assert what you believe is proper, what you feel is true, is what Hollywood is exploiting. They are exploiting you. They are exploiting your feelings. They are exploiting your religious belief, your philosophic view, your analytical reasoning. They are also exploiting the gay/lesbian communities - much the same way a circus exploits freaks in a side show.
And just like violence and tragedy, it seems Hollywood will exploit anything it can without regard or responsibility. . . and you can bet your bottom dollar that the very second no one cares about gay rights (or what you think), Hollywood writers and studio executives will drop this subject from story-lines without hesitation. But as long as people keep coming out of the closet and bullets keep tearing through flesh, Gay/Lesbian stories -- that some consider freakish and others consider a valid way of life -- will continue to churn the emotions of ticket buyers and Hollywood will keep pumping the sewage and sequels. Doesn't matter about what or how, or who gets broken, used, chewed up or spit out, shot, creamed or raped in the process - so long as the small circle of executives who run the business can maintain their swimming-pool-Rodeo-drive life-style and their TV spot-political connections with Washington.
James Jaeger
re: Hollywood Discrimination
James Jaeger
3:25 am Friday May 28, 1999. . . and this is why most of the movies that come out of Hollywood have the same predictable style and feel to them. . . the same lighting, camera moves, grain structure, the same over-paid, over-used stars, endless gun/murder themes. . . and even the same guy narrating almost all the trailers.
Just about the only movies that have any real surprises, unique visions or true originality, originate outside the studio system as negative-pick ups (movies produced by some outside group and just "picked up" by the major studios for distribution), or from other countries.
Look at the movies the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences often validates to continually remind everyone that making movies is first and fore-most about ART and second and last-most about COMMERCE.
Movies are an ART-form, not a COMMERCE-form -- they're an ART-form, an important art form - not something to be abused by the "vision" or "wallets" of a small circle of people or bastardized by endless sequels, remakes and formulas to extort more money from the next generation of PG-13 moviegoers. And yes - it is okay for movies to HAVE messages. MESSAGE FILMS ARE WHERE IT CAN BE AT - because then at least you know there was someone home when it was made. There was some passion involved. There's some POV. This is one reason I love Oliver Stone. He's a point of view whether you like him or not. He was in NAM and you got the MESSAGE. And even though Steven Spielberg was NOT in WWII, you got his MESSAGE too in SHINDLER'S LIST - and this turned out to be one of his best pictures because it's his POV, his personal film without regard to whether it would be commercial or not and that's one reason it's in black and white. . .to hell with people who won't go to a movie unless it's in color. It's not just another COMMERCE-form puked out by the corporate world.
I'm tired of "balanced news" and balanced movies, homogenized, politically-safe movies made or green lighted by the same committee of 21. Why do you think many of the best filmmakers have left Hollywood or have started their own studios. Look at DREAMWORKS, Spielberg/Katzenberg/Geffin, look at Lucas in Marin County with ILM, look at Robert Redford in Utah with Sundance, Look at Coppola in SF with Zoetrope.
I want to see some madman's vision saying 'Zebras are BLACK and WHITE with vertical stripes.' Then I want to see the movies made by the madman on the other hill saying 'no they're WHITE and BLACK with horizontal stripes because they're walking up a slope.' Then I can decide which tale best describes the Life.
James Jaeger
30-Year Study on Media Violence
James Jaeger
2:58 am Wednesday June 2, 1999Did you note that President Clinton came out today and announced the proceeds of a 30-year study on violence in the media?
As a result, he has asked the entertainment industry to please be more responsible about what it produces.
Is this not what we have been asking at the FIRM site for over a year now?
James Jaeger
Analog Synchronicity
James Jaeger
4:34 am Wednesday June 2, 1999"Two copies of almost any analog system, if allowed to interact in almost any way, have a very interesting property: they synchronize. This used to be seen in the simultaneous ticking of mechanical clocks on the wall of a clock shop." - Neil Gershenfeld, co-director of research consortium at the MIT Media Lab, Ph.D. Cornell University, author of When Things Start To Think.
What does this have to do with the movie business or discrimination?
Well, a human being (including its brain), is an analog system. The movie business (including its control group), is made up entirely of analog systems. The moviegoing audience (including their brains), are made up entirely of identical analog systems (because the DNA from human to human, race to race, differs by less than .01%).
Since the movie industry (an analog system), is the most powerful one-way communications channel yet devised, it interacts in almost EVERY WAY, with the moviegoing public (again, an analog system), hence there is a very interesting property at work here: they synchronize.
In other words, left long enough, the public will march to the beat (or tick, if you prefer) of the movies. Therefore, those who control the movie business, will eventually synchronize the public with their attitudes, political slant, religious and philosophical views, and vice versa - however the public's effect on the movie business will be MUCH less because most of the communication is one-way: from movie-makers--->movies-viewers.
This is why it is important for there to be diversity in Hollywood. If there is not, you will see the rest of the world conforming to the life-styles and mentalities of those who control the movie business AS WELL AS, to a lesser degree, the life-styles and mentalities of ALL the people who work in the movie business. The percentage of people who work in the movie business, compared to the World's population, is very tiny, and the percentage that control the business is even smaller.
"Two copies of almost any analog system, if allowed to interact in almost any way, have a very interesting property: they synchronize."
James Jaeger
Capitalism
James Jaeger
5:28 pm Monday June 7, 1999The only thing the Jews in Hollywood can be accused of is being effective Capitalists.
And who says capitalism is a good thing!
If you ask me, capitalism is scoring some low points, as did communism and as does socialism. I feel all three of these systems are obsolete in today's civilization and need to be replaced. Besides I do not see the word "capitalism" in the Constitution, nor do I see the word "stockholders", as Michael Moore points out in his movie, THE BIG ONE.
For one thing, one of the pivotal premises of capitalism is the "law" of supply and demand which is A) no law at all and B) a sick and demented way to operate a planet's resources, including human resources.
The way this "law" is brainwashed into Econ 101 students' heads is this: "In an economy of limited supply the demand for a widget will increase therefore you can charge more for each widget." And then you watch the nice fish-looking guy on late night TV explain how these two lines on an S-D graph slide around and make everything mathematically correct (exactly like "politically correct").
Another way to look at this "law" is this: In an effectively infinite universe of energy, matter and intelligence, capitalists (or their slave workers) artificially limit the supply of products they hammer out so that they can eke more dollars out of a given consumer without having to increase their costs of production or marketing." And this is all "natural" because the "law" of Supply and Demand says so (or rather, it can be can be effectively used to justify, not only this, but almost all of capitalistic philosophy). The law of Supply and Demand is actually the Law of Demanding the Supply (of money).
Secondly, Capitalism is based upon the opposite of Christian ethic: "It is better to give than to receive."
Capitalism's version of this ethic is: "It is better to receive than to give." Thus, the basic philosophy of Capitalism is: It is not only better to receive than to give, it is NECESSARY to receive MORE than one gives." But the way Econ 101 phrases this is: "Income must be greater than expenses" so if a company, under Capitalistic thought, does not receive more than it gives, or take in more income than it expenses, it will "go out of business." And all this is made to be "okay." Normal. This is what your normal college Econ 101 guy (and future used-car salesman, rather "previously-owned" car salesman) walks around feeling is perfectly okay.
So the entire dogma of Capitalism is based upon the premise that it is not only better to receive than to give, but it is NECESSARY to receive more than one gives. So we live in a civilization of TAKERS.
Now if right about now you're saying "this guy's crazy," you will have demonstrated my point that you have been so thoroughly indoctrinated into this Capitalistic "belief system" that you cannot see any other point of view - in other words - you are only seeing the short term effect of your "faith" in capitalism - that it is necessary to receive more than you give.
Here's the problem with capitalism and your allegiance to it: Capitalism is based on the myth that resources are limited. This is a false statement. In fact, the resources available to Homo sapiens in the known universe are so vastly unlimited it is ridiculous. Resources may only appear to be limited for very short periods of time and in only certain places at a time.
Because this is true, Capitalists have completely brainwashed civilization into believing that the opposite is true. The reason they have done this so they can use the converse of the sick Law of Supply and Demand to eke more VALUE out of any given unit of PRODUCTION. In other words, they are selfish. Rather than look at the actual reality of existence and where they are, Capitalists only look at the equation: how can I take more than I give and thus create what is known as a "profit." Income minus expenses plus debt service = cash flow. This formula represents a description of the Capitalist's God.
Now realizing all of the above as true, the Capitalist has done something very tricky of late to make himself feel a little better about the fact that he MUST take more than he GIVES in order to survive under the current (belief) system in which he finds himself incarcerated. The capitalist now looks at things as "value added." Realizing that 1) minimizing production output to artificially increase demand (as all cartels do) and 2) making the product irreducibly cheap to cut expenses (as too many firms are now doing in our glut world), and lastly, 3) further polluting the environment with the screams of more advertising in order to ram more products down more consumer throats (to generate revenues), realizing 1,2,3.
The capitalist sees that if he continues to head in this direction, he is going to have an even worse PR (public relations) problem than he already has. Thus, the euphemism of "adding value" to the value chain has been dreamt up by the marketing divisions of our capitalism-addicted corporations.
This whole new way of brainwashing consumers and Econ 101 students into thinking attempts to obfuscate the actual paradigm of one MUST TAKE MORE THAN THEY GIVE TO STAY IN BUSINESS, the opposite of: IT IS BETTER TO GIVE THAN RECEIVE" The idea now is to add value. I take this hunk of mud out of the ground and heat it up to make it round and metallic. I have added value. Then I hand the round hunk to another business and they hand me some green pieces of paper and they polish it until it's shinny. They have "added value" so they hand it off to another firm (who gives them more green pieces of paper for the added value and they puts it in a box with a bow. Then they give the valuable box (with the round shinny piece of mud) and bow a name (a ball bearing) and give it to a capitalist parishioner (consumer) who gives them more green pieces of paper (for all this added value). By indoctrinating people into looking at the value added to something as a justification for what ever price is asked by an over-worked marketing division, today's capitalists are more able to obfuscate the fact that they are really trying to take more value from the universe than they are giving back out to the universe. This is why the matter in the universe is clumped into basically two groups with 1 percent of the population (the elite) owning 30 percent of the highly polished matter (ball bearings, a.k.a. "means of production" another capitalist term) and the rest holding the mud.
So here's the problem. Since our entire capitalist system is geared up to TAKING more than it GIVES, and taking as covertly as possible (look at how the Federal Reserve incessantly steals value from your dollar bills year after year and hides this fact by pointing your attention off in other directions and re-defining what they are doing as "inflation."), it is no wonder most people are unhappy working in a job they hate (which is usually remote from their dreams) doing as little as they can get away with while slopping together (adding "value") to some product they could care less about until the 5 o'clock bell rings for the weekend - TGIF. A monument to this sequence of facts has even been erected; it's called TGIF Fridays restaurants. It is so bad that humans even have to consume certain drugs to keep from going crazy and these drugs are actually served in liquid form at the monuments, and monuments like them all over the country and world.
This is the legacy of the capitalistic society we all love to live in today. One where the doctrine is: TAKE MORE THAN YOU GIVE, BECAUSE YOU MUST IN ORDER TO LIVE. Since everyone in business is involved in the same cesspool of thought, of capitalism, they have to interminably cannibalize each other in order for any of them to survive. This is why something like only 1 out of 10 business succeed. This is us, in essence, feeding on our young. This is capitalism.
And if capitalism is successful in eating enough of its young (for more capital and human resources) and can hide the fact that it is doing this and producing as few products as it can while at it (Law of Demanding the Supply) and then charge as much money as possible for each product (by adding "value" and them ramming them down our throats with marketing tactics) and somehow keep the employees drugged up enough (with the alcoholic liquids from TGIF Friday-like places) so they will pound that mud round and shinny -- then we get to a point where only one or two of these companies eventually exist and all the rest are merged (dead). At this point capitalism has run its calculus. In fact it has led right up to and become communism. Only difference is it made a piss-stop in socialism on the way.
So if we are accusing the people who run Hollywood of being effective capitalists, I don't know if we could call that a compliment but I don't think their motive is making money or capitalism anyway. All these folks are really guilty of doing is using the marketing aspect of the movie industry to ram stuff and ideas down everybody's throats - all this value-added stuff made, or opposed, by the nice white industries all over the place practicing exclusionary capitalism.
Read my book if you want to see how we could change things, not be slaves to capitalism and avoid computers taking over everything -- which they already have, it's just that the Humans don't realize this (but neither do the Computers - yet).
James Jaeger
re: 30-Year Study on Media Violence
Matt Huntington
10:52 am Tuesday June 8, 1999No one bothers to actually read the studies Clinton is using as ammunition and draw their own conclusions. Everyone takes the info Clinton, Congress and others spew as fact and then join in crowing about the negative effects of the media based on this second hand information which should more rightly be called propaganda. The government is not neccessarily controlling your thoughts but they are counting on giving shape to thoughts and controlling the national discourse on this subject via the public's intellectual laziness.
I would like more people to look up studies conducted by George Gerbner (University of Pennsylavania) and George Comstock (Syracuse University) about the effects (or non-effects) of violence on TV and film. You will be very surprised by the results and you will become aware of new aspects of this issue which have never been mentioned in the news media.
I feel scholarly results are a more balanced set of findings than any government report( which is ususally longitudinal, long term in scope and therefore has difficulty reflecting changes and trends in programming accurately. Not to mention that they are extremely wasteful by wasting tax dollars through inefficiency, incompetence and political infighting.)
It would be interesting to see a parallel study conducted with identical criteria and methods (one study by the Gov't and one by scholars) and see how the results differ.
The government also has a stake in the results more than scholars do. Many members in the gov't join a trendy discussion to get their faces on TV for reelection purposes, and also have close personal ties to members of the media and film industries, thereby creating a possible source of bias in either the conducting of the study or in the presentation of the results.
It's ironic that Clinton would condemn the media for glorifying violence while he simultaneously orders the military to bomb the hell out of foreign nations. At least the media is creating fictional violence.
Be smart in these discussions instead of merely apeing the views of whichever politician gets a sound bite on the 6 o'clock news.
re: 30-Year Study on Media Violence
James Jaeger
11:40 am Tuesday June 8, 1999Some very good points Matt. I too would like to see the studies you suggest.
James Jaeger
Minors and Violent Movies
James Jaeger
6:36 pm Wednesday June 9, 1999I am happy to see Congress taking some action regarding enforcing the MPAA ratings and hope this helps set a new temperment and responsibility level for the movie industry.
Part of the Film Industry is under reform!
James Jaeger
re: Regal Cinema's R- Rated Policy
James Jaeger
8:54 pm Friday June 11, 1999I don't know if my rantings and ravings, or us here ar FIRM, had anything to do with the fact that Clinton and Congress are now asking the MPAA studio/distributors to be more responsible and theaters to police under 18 year old kids from entering R-rated movies - but maybe we did!
I am not advocating censorship or MORE governmet involvement - just that filmmakers exercise judgement and take some responsibility for their effects...that they seek to produce original movies and stop relying on the same old violence-ridden, formula-ridden themes.
James Jaeger
Jews vs. Italians
zephro
4:07 pm Saturday June 12, 1999My comments? There were two power houses at Paramount in the old days that are not mentioned at the above names perhaps because of being Italian decent. Only so much reign is given to "gentiles" in the motion picture business. I'll tell you the truth...the real balls belong to the Italians!
Why "vs."?
James Jaeger
5:07 am Sunday June 13, 1999There were two power houses at Paramount in the old days
And who was this Zephro?
Only so much reign is given to "gentiles" in the motion picture business.
Can you elaborate?
...the real balls belong to the Italians!
I don't know what you mean here. Could you please elaborate on this as well.
Thanks.
James Jaeger
George Gerbner on Movie Violence
James Jaeger
6:13 am Sunday June 13, 1999I would like more people to look up studies conducted by George Gerbner (University of Pennsylavania) and George Comstock (Syracuse University) about the effects (or non-effects) of violence on TV and film. You will be very surprised by the results and you will become aware of new aspects of this issue which have never been mentioned in the news media.
I did take the time to look up the Gerbner reports as you suggested Matt. Thanks.
If you don't have time to read all of them, the Atlantic Monthly has posted an interesting 26-page profile of George Gerbner entitled The Man Who Counts the Killings.
Here's an excerpt from the profile (which you can get at the above URL):
"Gerbner firmly believes, so potent is television's power to inform and control, so strong is its power to teach us who gets away with what against whom, that a democratic people that cedes control of television to a nonelected few will not remain a democratic people for long. The more one contemplates the pervasiveness of stereotypical patterns in television, the more one perceives the inaccurate picture of reality it cultivates in viewers --"
James Jaeger
Children, Media and Violence
James Jaeger
7:02 am Sunday June 13, 1999After reading the below, I say no more Mister Nice-Parent; I think it's time for a series of class action law suits against the major studio/distributors, the major name talents and the top brass executives who have been living high on the hog the past decades by exploiting violence in the international markets and domestically.
I'm sorry, but I see it as hypocritical to allow the Film Industry to get away with what it is doing to kids (in the face of so many studies explicating the negative effects of violence in the media) when we have taken action against the Tobacco Industry for doing its style of damage to Society.
Check out the material here and see if you do not finally agree:
http://interact.uoregon.edu/MediaLit/FA/MLmediaviolence.html
James Jaeger
re: Children, Media and Violence
antihype
3:01 pm Wednesday June 16, 1999What you are essentially promoting Mr.Jaeger is a gross form of censorship. You are of the same class of monkey's as the parental censorship board censoring anything they feel goes against the grain of their narrowminded right wing views trying to assimilate the rest of the world into their own value system. The more I read your idealistic rhetoric the more I begin to despise your whole attitude of what is right and wrong. I think you are losing grasp of reality. Alot of people thought Ulysses was capable of corrupting young minds and therefore was banned for years from the public schools by the catholic church. After many years of fighting censorship(henry miller larry flynt etc etc) you think that we could have a different mode of fighting for what we feel is right than trying to burn the books so to say, or the witch for that matter. I feel the best approach to combatting the infiltration of violence in the media is re-educating the mass of media junkies and presenting something that is more interesting to them than the sensational fodder that represents a major proportion of material. Academics like Gerbner, Mcluhan, Chomsky, Baudlliard, they hate the media in any shape or form, with or without violence. Are we really going to take everything they say to heart. How about just banning TV's? Do you think that would make this a peaceful world? If all violence was to be erradicated from newspapers, tv, movies, and people stuck to stories of love and nature(kind of a Rouseauian utopia) would the world be a better place to live in? You constantly attack violence in the media and talk about it's effects on the youth etc etc, but you never account for the reason it's embraced or produced vehemetly. I think you should start to focus on something other that censorship because that is one of the greatest evils present in the media. This is a inherently violent world that will not profit from any kind of censorship or propaganda, even with good intentions such as yours. I appreciate your breadth of passion on the view of violence but your ideals frankly frighten me.
DISNEY: A Microcosm of HOLLYWOOD
James Jaeger
11:41 am Friday June 18, 1999There is a new book out on DISNEY, called DISNEY - The Mouse Betrayed, written by a couple of parents in Florida (Rochelle & Peter Schweizer) who investigated DISNEY and discovered how it had changed since Michael Eisner, and his 60 executives (many from Paramount Pictures, where he was former Chief), took over as CEO of the Mouse Machine in 1984. Since then, these folks have, in essence, thrown Walt's Mission Statement in the trash and geared the company up to be nothing more than a money-making machine that over-charges kids for admission to the theme parks and pushes it's own political, and other, agenda with abandon.
What we have here, in the DISNEY debacle, is a microcosm of what has happened in the entire Hollywood movie industry. Replace the word DISNEY with the word HOLLYWOOD and you have some idea of the magnitude of the situation and this situation is what we are addressing, to a greater or lesser degree, in the Film Industry Reform Movement. America, wake up and smell the cheese!!!
James Jaeger
Censorship is Not the Answer
James Jaeger
7:14 pm Friday June 18, 1999I do not favor censorship.
I favor film executives and filmmakers becoming more aware of the effects they are creating with their movies and that they create more original effects, whether it always "makes economic sense" or not.
That some filmmakers, or executives, may WANT to create negative effects so as to "fight back at" or rationalize the suffering and negative effects they receive(d) from life is their right, but why drag innocent children through their psychosis?
James Jaeger
re: Children, Media and Violence
James Jaeger
8:13 pm Friday June 18, 1999What you are essentially promoting Mr.Jaeger is a gross form of censorship.
Isn't our society "censoring" the tobacco companies? I am advocating treating the movie industry with no less justice than society sees fit to treat the tobacco companies (and I say this from the POV of an ex-smoker).
You are of the same class of monkey's...
Thank you but I have not called YOU any names, so please don't call me names.
...as the parental censorship board censoring anything they feel goes against the grain of their narrow-minded right wing views trying to assimilate the rest of the world into their own value system.
I'm sorry but I'm neither "right wing" or "left wing." The whole idea of political science's "wings" is totally preposterous and meaningless. Are you a student in some university?
The more I read your idealistic rhetoric the more I begin to despise your whole attitude of what is right and wrong.
Thanks for calling me idealistic. I wish more people were idealistic. Maybe we would have a better world. And I don't see things as just "right" and "wrong." We live in an analog universe. Remember the electromagnetic spectrum DOES exist, Dude.
I think you are losing grasp of reality.
Thanks for the compliment.
A lot of people thought Ulysses was capable of corrupting young minds and therefore was banned for years from the public schools by the catholic church.
I am not advocating banning anything - just that people PAY for the way they earn their livings - especially if same is deleterious to children who are too uninitiated in the grownups' ways of life to say "NO."
After many years of fighting censorship(henry miller larry flynt etc etc) you think that we could have a different mode of fighting for what we feel is right than trying to burn the books so to say, or the witch for that matter.
You sure have censorship on the brain. Get off it. Are YOU covertly for censorship?
I feel the best approach to combatting the infiltration of violence in the media is re-educating the mass of media junkies and presenting something that is more interesting to them than the sensational fodder that represents a major proportion of material.
I agree with you on this.
Academics like Gerbner, Mcluhan, Chomsky, Baudlliard, they hate the media in any shape or form, with or without violence. Are we really going to take everything they say to heart.
I do not know what they hate or like.
How about just banning TV's? Do you think that would make this a peaceful world?
Yes, the world would probably be more peaceful if we did NOT have most of the shows we have on network TV. When I was living and working in Hollywood, I didn't watch TV for 10 years -- and I survived. No, I do not think we should "just ban TV's." Network TV has a lot of good to it in unifying us as a nation. To me it's a shame this fantastic instrument of communication is used with such crassness. I bet many of the incredible engineers that developed it in the 50's are just devastated at how it is being abused today.
If all violence was to be erradicated from newspapers, tv, movies, and people stuck to stories of love and nature(kind of a Rouseauian utopia) would the world be a better place to live in?
"All" is a strong qualifier, but yes, in general the world WOULD be a better place to live in. (The Greeks had it right: their tragedies never showed the violent act, only the messengers told the of the deed.) But the thing that REALLY disappoints me when I see a movie or TV show with basically the SAME gun-oriented plot for the Nth time is the fact that there is so much MORE in Life (and in the universe) to make movies about. I read books on cosmology and a wide variety of more down-to-earth subjects constantly and I am always amazed at what ELSE there is to know and experience: not just bullets penetrating flesh. For filmmakers to jump through hoops for the commercial interests is something I know they detest, I know they would love to address the other subjects but they are trapped and at the mercy of the system if they want to practice their craft (or not be excluded or blacklisted). I say they need to take a stand while the other artists (and executives) that feel it is okay to exploit violence need to be sued a little by the public (especially since 90% of the public agrees and after 3,500 studies have been done on this subject over the past 30 years).
You constantly attack violence in the media and talk about it's effects on the youth etc etc, but you never account for the reason it's embraced or produced vehemetly.
It IS a systemic problem. As Gerbner observes, the high price of production forces the marketing of movies to the foreign territories and, in order to sell across cultural boundaries, violence and sex are the easy and cheap subjects that make this more possible (i.e., laziness run rampant). Since the advertisers and moviegoers in the US don't want to foot the entire bill for production, movies must get made and marketed with the "saleable" elements of violence and T&A (a term actually coined by movie distributors). I see the SOURCE of this problem being two places: 1) the unions, and their catch-22 relationship with their signatory production Cos/studios, create a restraint of trade which strengthens the studio oligopoly thus forcing production costs up and 2) the "creative accounting" of the studio/distributors inhibits money from flowing into the industry from the private capital markets. The lion's share of the tax liabilities the studios would face if they were to actually pay out too much pussy cat participation, forces them to play these creative accounting games.
I think you should start to focus on something other that censorship because that is one of the greatest evils present in the media.
You have censorship on the brain.
This is a inherently violent world…
This WAS a violent world and arguably, most of us are not monkeys any longer. And now that most people are aware of the fact that the banks that do business with governments (making multi-billion dollar loans to them so they can purchase military hardware and personnel and pay endless debt service) are the cause of war and, hence, what you perceive as an "inherently violent world" - there is no need to agree that this is the way things have to continue to be. Homo sapiens may be on the verge of a post human era of unimaginable abundance and peace, a time where the past paradigms of economics simply DO NOT APPLY - just as the Internet is forcing modern brick and mortar corporations to re-think their business paradigms. For you to 'fix reality in a formulated phrase' as inherently violent, as T.S. Elliot might say, is not wise.
…that will not profit from any kind of censorship or propaganda, even with good intentions such as yours. I appreciate your breadth of passion on the view of violence but your ideals frankly frighten me.
Oh come on, Anti. Understand my actual ideals and you won't be frightened at all.
James Jaeger
re: Children, Media and Violence
antihype
6:05 pm Sunday June 20, 1999Okay I'm sorry for refering to you as a monkey. I didn't mean it directly. But I am frustrated at your ideology insofar as it doesn't demonstrate that the audience is responsible for this as much as the producers. If people didn
Union Gatekeepers
James Jaeger
3:31 pm Monday June 21, 1999In response to antihype's post of 6:05 pm Sunday June 20, 1999 there is no problem, I know you didn't mean it - we're just dealing with a passionate subject here.
The last half of your post seems to be missing, but to respond to what I can:
I actually do feel that the audience is responsible for at least 50% of what gets produced because when one buys something, they DO cast a vote for its continued existence. As I have said in other writings, since it is difficult to tell whether art mirrors reality or reality mirrors art, I feel that it is reasonable to assume that it is a 50-50 situation, that art and reality reflect and cause each other with equal degrees of impact.
I DO feel it is prudent to recognize, however, that the average person in the film-going audience does NOT have anywhere near the communication power of the small circle of people who have their hands on the motion-picture-making machine and therefore these people (as well as the filmmakers and executives who work for them), should be responsible with this instrument and not use it just to exploit violence so they can more easily recoup their production costs.
Rather than screw up the Planet's cultures just to 'recoup their production costs,' they should look for ways to lower production costs - like throw out the existing union contracts and re-design them so EVERY aspiring writer, director, editor and craftsperson who wants to make movies for the studios can do so without the catch-22 and without games over the 30 - 90 day rules. This would create new competition and opportunity hence lower production costs and improve quality at the same time.
Let the unions do their job - which should be collective bargaining for talent - not playing gatekeeper for the studio/distributors and other signatories.
James Jaeger
Hollywood
Guy Fix
6:33 pm Tuesday June 22, 1999It is very clear that Hollywood is nefarious servent to the current market. Not only is it prescribing what the masses are yearning for, it is predicating what the masses will eventually yearn for. It gives the naieve and adolescent audience a fix promising them that it will only get better, and even though it is vapid(which I assume most people with average intelligence understand) it's momentum is sustained by keeping the monlithic wheel turning ad infinitum, ad nauseum.
It is probaly unfair to judge North Americans negatively by the fact that as Famous Players incrementally increases it's prices gradually but consistently they still keep paying. To a certain extent this could be attributed to the fact that much like a physically addictive drug people are becoming accustomed to going on a effortless thrill ride of persistent shock which is embodied by high levels of sex and violence . And, as people get more used to a particular shock level, they demand more, and subsequently hollywood gives it to them, but at a cost, and from my standpoint this cost is enormous.
Not only is it depressing to view the audiences of such crapola television shows such as Sally,Maury,Montel, and Jerry Springer(who despite the staging of what could be considered the very worst of worst post modern theatre is extremely popular) but imbues into the heart of rivals to this 20th century fiasco a futile vision. This problem is gigantic, and without the refusal of these very people to be insulted further I feel it will only get worse.
The truth of the matter is that it is a reciprocal dynamic that takes place and it will only be when the Hollywood mentality has reaped the world clean of their dignity and has ultimately done it's worst damage that the hindsight phenomena will set in and people will feel a great remorse for what has taken place. The world is not full of stupid people, perhaps selfserving, greedy, apathetic, but not stupid.
Finally, this brings to light the fact that if anything is going to change this mode of ill-production and slimy commerce it will have to be a collective agreement among the people who pay to pollute their minds, and who obviously failing to take responsibility that they as well as the obfuscating, greasy slime ball producers play a part in perpetuating the sensational and violent aspects of media culture. over and out.
How Hollywood Handles Dissent
James Jaeger
5:01 pm Wednesday June 23, 1999Click here to enjoy this classic piece of collective work by some of Hollywood's finest, most dedicated (but now silent and embarrassed) apologists.
Scarcity of Production Capital
James Jaeger
4:05 pm Friday June 24, 1999Every time I check out another indie site I become more depressed because I become more aware that yet another indie has his or her head in the sand.
What do all of them have in common? Short answer: need production capital.
What else do they all have in common? Short answer: nothing, as their creativity is endless.
The unfortunate thing is more independent producers need to confront the fact that most investors are not interested in investing in films because distributors (led by the major studio/distributors) have robbed their confidence that they will get re-paid, let alone make a profit.
Until the independent film world somehow confronts/handles this situation and then widely promotes the fact that it HAS been remedied, there will always be an undue shortage of capital available for independent productions; hence filmmakers will be more and more reliant on the (studio) distributors, who will have to "creatively account away" increasingly large sums from gross proceeds of distribution to supplement an ever-increasing scarcity of raw production funds willing to flow into the movie industry from the private capital markets.
James Jaeger
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