Put Into The Spotlight

As I was scrolling through my twitter feed the other day, I saw a tweet from a celebrity that I was following that really jumped out at me. She had tweeted about how awful it was for the paparazzi to take pictures of the children of celebrities. She had said that a site called RadarOnline had taken pictures of the kids of Phillip Seymour Hoffman (who recently died) on their way to his funeral. Many other celebrities then proceeded to respond to the tweet. I personally thought that this was just crazy. So, I dug a little deeper.

I was doing some research about it when I came across a bill that had been recently passed in the State of California that put much stricter consequences for paparazzi harassing and taking multiple pictures of children, mostly the children of celebrities. There were many celebrities that were a part of the Bill, including Jennifer Garner and Halle Berry (both movie stars). Halle Berry was quoted in saying that the paparazzi are "overly aggressive" and "cause so much trauma and emotional distress". Some of the stricter consequences violators could face because of this bill is up to a year in county jail and/or a fine of up to $10,000.

To me this is a completely fair law. I think it is totally wrong for photographers to go up to take pictures of children, children that wouldn't know who they were. Especially because of how aggressive photographers can be. America has always paid too much attention to celebrities - there are tons of magazines devoted to celebrities lives, and so many people decide to weigh in on every moment in their life. Myself included, almost everyone looks at photos of celebrities online, and I think we don't realize that these people have to deal with paparazzi harassing them to get the pictures we are looking at. I don't necessarily know the solution to this problem, but I do think that passing this bill could be a wake up call to the paparazzi that are harassing celebrities just for a picture.

Do People Still Watch TV on their TV?

         As I'm sure many people know, the Superbowl was last Sunday, February 2nd. I come from a big sports family, so I always watch the Superbowl with friends and family. This year was no different. I was talking to my dad before the game started, and he was talking to me about the advertisements and companies' thinking behind buying ads. He works for Pepsi, so he knows all about the ads they bought for Doritos and other stuff. He was telling me that companies pay up to $4 million just for a 30 second ad slot during the Superbowl. I thought that that was insane, I had no idea that it was that much money for only 30 seconds. So, I decided to do some digging.

The Superbowl has always been one of the most watched programs in television. In 2012, it raked in 111 million viewers. So, advertisers and companies clearly see this as one of the best opportunities to promote their products. According to this article, FOX was asking for the $3-4 million range for 30 second slots. To me, this is crazy. Just the fact that people are willing to spend this much money for a time period of 30 seconds is insane. Does it really do that much to boost a companies sales by a lot? How affective are Superbowl ads?
Well, the article says that the cost is so high because the amount of people that watch live TV has been decreasing in the past years. Ever since Netflix came out, as well as people have gained the ability to watch almost all TV online, people do not watch live TV as often. Therefore, people don't see the ads that companies are airing on TV. I think this is completely true. It is interesting to hear about the evolution of technology, especially TV. TV became super popular over the years, but I kind of feel like it hit its prime. Now, at least for me, a lot of times I wait for a show to be online the next day and watch it online because I don't have time to watch it when it airs, or for whatever other reason. I find myself watching less and less TV when it first airs, and always watch stuff online. Also it has become so much easier for people to upload or find TV illegally on the internet to watch, that you don't even need to own a TV.
Do you agree that people do not watch TV as much anymore, and if so do you think that it will stay this way?

American Awards - Voted by Foreigners

Usually movie and television awards (Emmys, Oscars, etc.) are talked about crazily in the days leading up to the day of. Who will win, what dress each actress will be wearing, things like that seem to consume people's minds. I want to focus on the first part of that, the winners/nominations, in this blog. As a lot of people know, the Golden Globes air tonight. The Golden Globes is an event where both television and film are honored together. I had always wondered how and who chooses the actors to nominate, and who decides the winners of award ceremonies such as the Golden Globes.

The Golden Globes are produced by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA), which is a nonprofit organization with "about 90 members". On the website, it tells you each of the members names and which country they are from. None of them are from the United States. I know it is the "Foreign Press", so that makes sense. But, the job of people in the association is to spread information about movies and television to the world through various mediums of publication. I thought it was interesting that a "foreign press" are the judges, for lack of a better word, for a United States event. All of the films being honored were made with American actors, and most likely American producers/directors. The Golden Globes is also being hosted by Americans. If there are people that are supposed to decide nominees and winners, why aren't there foreign films featured? Occasionally there might be, but for the most part it is a completely American show.

I think this alone shows how America is often seen as the "center" of the world. As a country, we often times think we are better than others. People often times think of themselves as "always right', and that they know the answer or solution to everything. Although this is not always the case, I think the fact that foreigners are the ones voting on who wins awards for American film and television, shows that America is often the country that everybody looks at as the best. The best movies, the best TV, etc.

Guaranteed To Make Your Day

The holiday season is always said to be the most wonderful time of the year. For me, that means Christmas time. Starting December, the holiday spirit takes over. I am super into it; decorating the tree, gingerbread houses, holiday movies (mostly Elf, probably the best Christmas movie of all time) and so much more.

I think sometimes the holiday season can bring out the selfish sides in people. It is kind of inevitable, because you always wonder, What am I going to get this year? Am I going to get what I asked for? Everyone has those thoughts. But, the holiday season is also about giving. That can be the best part of Christmas. Giving someone a gift they really wanted, and seeing the look on their face. Especially little kids.

I saw a commercial in one of my classes last week, and it made my day. It is probably the cutest story I have ever seen. It is not so much a commercial, but a great story that West Jet Airlines pulled off. In the video, they focus on one flight and all the passengers on it. When they check in their boarding passes in the machine, there is a video of Santa that asks every passenger what they want for Christmas. They answer with one thing they want, and get on their plane - not thinking much of it. However, while they are in the sky, the airline has people in the city they are flying into go and get every single thing that the passengers wanted. They get them before they land in that city, and wrap them all. Then, once the plane lands and the passengers go to baggage claim to get their luggage, they get the greatest surprise ever. Instead of their luggage coming out of the baggage claim, they each have the one thing they wanted for Christmas wrapped and sent out. The shocks on everyones faces made my day.

I think oftentimes people can get lost in the holiday season, in terms of what to buy, what they are going to get, and other things. It seems like everyone moves a hundred miles per hour during the month of December. But it can be very refreshing and fulfilling to take a minute and enjoy the holidays, and not get caught up in the stress of things. You can witness things like these, and it can lift the stress and help you remember what the holidays are really about.

Honoring Events The Right Way

This year, December 7th was the 72nd anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor. With it being such a big part of the history of the US, many people were mentioning it on social media. Many companies sent out tweets about the day as well. One of the companies that tweeted about Pearl Harbor was Campbell Soup's SpaghettiOs. The tweet they sent out ended up getting them into some trouble, and social media exploded. The tweet is to the right.

Many, many people expressed their anger on twitter, saying how offensive the tweet was. They thought it was absurd to use a mascot for the brand to represent an important moment in our nation's history, that is not to be joked about. The tweet was only live for about 10 hours, because the company took it down soon after they put it up. They then released an apology, saying, "We apologize for our recent tweet in remembrance of Pearl Harbor Day. We meant to pay respect, not to offend."

This is not the first time that a company has tweeted out something that has not been taken well by social media users. I did some more research, and found out that AT&T has also recently gotten into trouble for tweeting something about 9-11 that didn't seem respectful. They tweeted out a picture of one of their phones showing a picture of the lights shining where the World Trade Center would be. This tweet is to the left.

A lot of the reason tweets like these have gotten companies into trouble is the hidden promotions they have in them. It almost seems like, to me at least, that the goal of the images is to notice the logo of the company, or the product, and not actually remember our history. I think this shows that advertisements and promotions in America today have become overwhelming. Companies will go to any extreme to advertise their product. It seems like all they really care about is the money. It is like what we talked about in class today, about how TV shows are only made based whether or not advertisers think that people will watch, thus watching the commercials. I think that it was wrong for these companies to use these important dates in history as a scheme to promote their products, but I think it is what America has become - a money making machine, and it is inevitable.

Portrayals of Prejudice In Media

I spent my long weekend catching up on some TV shows I hadn't been able to watch during the week. One of those was New Girl on Fox. I personally love New Girl; I think it is really funny. But, I was watching one episode from a couple of weeks ago, when the cast, at some point ends up at a police station. One of the characters, Coach wants to go in to confront a police officer about something. But one of the other main characters, Winston, who is African American, doesn't want to. He says to Coach, "Hey, did you hear the joke about the two white guys and two black guys walking into a police station? The white guys walked out."

We had been talking about prejudice against prisoners in class last week, and this just happened to catch my attention because of its relevance to the issue. In class, one of the questions we had asked was, Who do police profile? According to the NAACP, of the 2.3 million prisoners, nearly 1 million are African American. They also say that there are 5 times as many whites using drugs as African Americans, but African Americans are put in jail for drug offenses at 10 times the rate of whites. Why is this?

I did some research on this subject, and came across an article in which they talk about criminal injustice. They quote Michelle Alexander, from her book The New Jim Crow: the Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. She says, "The drug war has been waged almost exclusively in poor communities of color, even though...people of color are no more likely to use or sell illegal drugs than whites". According to studies done, white students use cocaine or heroine at 7 times the rate of black students, and use crack 8 times the rate of black students. I personally believe a big part of the reason African Americans are targeted so much more than whites is the media. So many TV shows portray their criminals/villains/bad guys as African Americans or Hispanics. There are many shows on primetime this year in which the villain is acted by a Hispanic or African American. What the media does is put a face to the bad guy/villain, and if that face is so often one of color, that is what we will start to believe is true in real life. Because these portrayals have been around for such a long time, it has become almost engrained in your mind. Therefore, maybe not purposefully, we start to imagine most criminals as African Americans. This has kind of sent our prison system into a downward spiral, because they are faced with the major issue of racial prejudice.

Do Wishes Really Come True?

I wrote my blog last week about Batkid, the kid diagnosed with leukemia that had his one wish granted. After writing it, I was still very interested in the topic of Make-A-Wish foundation. In past years, my gymnastics team would always go to a gymnastics meet in Gurnee that was called the "Make-A-Wish Meet". Every year, there was a representative from the Foundation that spoke to the crowd and the teams right before competition. They would tell stories of kids, and the teams competing would always raise money to give to the Foundation at that meet.

I decided to do a little bit more research after my last blog. Especially after reading the Batkid story, which is a great story, I started to wonder, What about all the other kids? What about the kids that are sick that don't get a wish granted? What about the kids that don't know about Make-A-Wish article that San Francisco spent $105,000 to grant his wish. While this is great for this one child, I think they could have maybe picked something a little bit smaller, and used split up that amount of money to affect more than one kid. It seemed unnecessary to me, to spend all that money on one kid and one wish.
foundation? I'm sure there are hundreds, if not thousands of kids who don't get their wish granted. I read in an

I then went onto the Make-A-Wish website, and discovered how they determine which kids get wishes. First, they have to get a referral from a doctor for a kid who is between 2.5-18 years old. The child also has to have a life-threatening disease, in order to get a wish. The child then gets to pick a wish, and hopefully the grants that Make-A-Wish have make it happen.

It is crazy how specific the process is. It's almost like there is a checklist, and each kid has to go through and check off each requirement in order to be able to apply. I had no idea that the process was like this. I never thought about the process, and basically thought that this stuff just happened, out of nowhere. But, now knowing what I do, I wonder about all the other sick kids that don't get wishes granted or don't know about the wish system. Do they get their hopes up for something, and it doesn't happen? If so, do they see these other stories in the news and get jealous or sad that they don't get to experience that? As great as Make-A-Wish is, I think you can still find faults with it.