Please Watch!!

Tomorrow, on the 5:30-6pm NBC nightly news, High Five Choir will be featured.  Brian William's "Making A Difference" segment will focus on what we do in the choir, and what message we try to spread to the world around us.  Please tune in!

Starbucks: Pulling a TV Tokenism

As of a couple of weeks ago, Starbucks changed their logo.  The company removed the writing from around the image of the mermaid.  To me, this seemed like an odd change for a company to make.  It seemed quite insignificant, so I decided to do a little research.  I came across an article by Elizabeth Fuller with some information on the switch.

Fuller wrote; "'Is it a strong enough icon?' asks Laura Oswald, director of Marketing Semiotics, a marketing research company in Chicago. 'Would you identify that mermaid as absolutely Starbucks the way you identify the golden arches as absolutely McDonald's?'"

This reminded me exactly of what we discussed about TV Tokenism.  We discussed how many TV shows will bring in a character of a different race, as a main role, once the show gets off its feet and is well-recieved.  Once the show has a solid fan base, it can afford to take risks.  Starbucks has done nearly the exact same thing.

Starbucks has been around since 1971, and since then, has made a name for themselves.  They are known worldwide.  Now that they have built an empire, they can afford to take a risk, like changing their logo.

Before                                                                                        After

 

Stand By Me

My mom sent me this video of the song Stand By Me, that is a montage of street performers performing the song.  It seemed fitting for my "musical" blog (though there hasn't been a lot of music lately!).  It really emphasizes how music can tie people, as it shows people of all different backgrounds, ethnicities, abilities, etc. performing the same song.

Stand By Me (Video)

The lyrics show support and help of others in a time of need, as they say; "I won't be afraid just as long as you stand, stand by me".  Japan is now in a time of need after a devastating earthquake and tsunami, so let's "Stand By" them.  To help, visit The Red Cross, and find out different ways to support and help Japan.

I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For

We started the junior theme process yesterday, and I feel like I have already changed my topic ten times.  Every time I think I have my "why" question pinned down, something stands in my way, whether it's trying to explain it and finding that it makes no sense or whether it's not relevant to an issue today.  I started taking a look at the book Gang Leader For A Day by Sudhir Venkatesh and hopefully will get some good ideas from it.  So far (I'm on page 10, it's interesting and thought-provoking).

But, as of now, I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For (U2).

Post Secret: Violations of the First Amendment

As I was reading Post Secret, as I do every sunday morning, one of them stuck out to me.

Isn't the US supposed to be a melting pot of religions, races, ethnicities and ideas?  Why is it so hard to switch religions then?  Religion is often a topic that causes conflict because people, for what ever reason, don't seem to want to coexist peacefully.  Also, I think that since 9/11, people have been paranoid about religions like Hinduism and Islam, that stem from the east.

We tend to think of America as a "free country" that lets you practice whatever religion you choose.  It is even outlined in the first amendment as it says we have "free exercise of religion".   Yet today there is still religious oppression, as seen in this post secret.

Can an audience relate to a CIA agent or a skin color?

Today in class we discussed TV tokenism.  One point that was brought up was that not many network dramas include black main characters.  As we all thought this over, very few shows came to mind, one of which, The Chicago Code, just premiered a few weeks ago.  


I decided to do some research and see if I could find any more shows, when I came across this fascinating NPR called The Root: Is There A Place For Black Actors On TV?.  It highlights reasons why we don't see many black leads in television, many of which we discussed in class, as well as thoughts on if they will be a lead in the future.


The article, by Marcus Vanderberg, focuses on a network drama called Undercovers, which premiered, and ended, in 2010.  Undercovers was supposed to be a hit running on NBC, with a great actors and an interesting plot line following two CIA agents, but instead, it flopped.  But Vanderberg said; "When you throw in the fact that the show was in a bad time slot, featured subpar writing and two lead actors who were (gasp!) black, it's not surprising that NBC pulled the plug after less than two months."  Yes, some of the issues he noted were "time slots" and "writing", but he puts a sarcastic "Gasp!" when noting that the two leads of the show were black.  Vanderberg later states that television stations think airing a show with a black lead is a "gamble".

What's interesting it the fact that networks seemed to have "abandoned most of their black programming in order to appeal to a more mainstream audience".  Clearly, television, like society, often pushes aside minorities for the "mainstream audience".  But if we really wanted to relate to the audience, wouldn't being a CIA agent be more far off from the normal person, than a skin color?  To really relate to the people, shouldn't shows focus on normal people?  Why do we only see shows about top government officials, CIA agents, neurosurgeons and defense attorneys?  Shouldn't there be shows about teachers, salesmen, waiters or plumbers?