Consonants and vowels all together, equally

I love how one of the first things we saw after the Superbowl itself was Sue Sylvester talking about how bored she was.

I decided that since I wasn't going to a Superbowl party this year I'd just get some dips and have an at-home shindig for me and the roommate; Ali showed up later. I think our conversation was far more interesting than most of what was happening on screen. The game was good--interceptions turned into touchdowns are always exciting, and the Steelers kept up the pressure right until the end--but man, Joe Buck is just terrible. (Also Terry Bradshaw needs to cut his goddamned hair and Fox needs to lose the football-player-as-transformer mascot.) The BEP's were as dull, pointless and obvious as I thought they would be, given that will.i.am has ground any original thought out of his brain (he makes more money that way so I can't really blame him). Slash was just sad, and Usher's two minutes of dancing was more interesting than anything else that happened during that mess of a halftime show.

The ads were, I dunno, mixed? I don't have the distance on it all that I usually do, because I'm temporarily back in the business, and while I understand why PepsiMax decided they had to out-annoy all the annoying Bud Light ads, I'm still annoyed that they did it. There was so little that was new this year, really. I hate it when I can almost read the brief as I watch the ad. The X-Factor promos were ridiculous and over-the-top, which is usual for Mr. Cowell; I just found them hilarious. Anyone have ads they really enjoyed?

My local PBS station counterprogrammed with Jane Austen, which I thought was a pretty good idea. Tonight I will have another dinner of dip, which might be unwise but hey, at least I'll be dipping some broccoli into that leftover queso!

Everyone and their brother has probably told you this by now, but the new profile of Roger Ebert in Esquire is a definite must-read, especially if, like me, you grew up watching Siskel and Ebert. (They were always the reason Letterman gave for having two guest chairs on his set even though he talked to one guest at a time.)

In the middle of the article they're talking about Gene Siskel, who died of a brain tumor in 1999—well, not talking, as Ebert lost his voice and his ability to eat to cancer, but discussing. Ebert goes to his blog to look up the embedded video of his on-air tribute to Gene the first show after his death and of course, Disney has taken the video down. Ebert has a pretty big fit over this, understandably, saying, "MY TRIBUTE." It's an amazing moment in the middle of the article.

I know in fandom we often play a bit loose with copyright, and that there's an understandable concern among those on my flist who are compensated for cultural work about rights violations cutting into their real paycheck, or making it more difficult for future creators to be offered payment for their work. Ebert's tribute to his friend Siskel was done on a television show for which he had a contract and was duly paid. Disney produced the show and they have the rights to it. End of story.

But we've all seen that rights holders, which more often than not are giant corporations that exist to make money, aren't particularly respectful, especially to the creators of the cultural products. It sucks that the breaking down of paying for content leads to producers getting the squeeze (though that always happens in any economic change, that the little guy feels it first) but I just can't imagine that the way that copyright exists right now is awesome if so many people don't have the rights to the things they have created themselves.

Well, as some of you have no doubt heard, NBC pulled Kings from Sunday night and will air the remaining eight eps on Saturday nights at 8pm starting April 18th. It will be replaced by another hour of Dateline.

I've talked here before about NBC's "strategy" for prime time and daytime, such as it is, and I have to say I was more surprised that Silverman and Zucker picked it up in the first place than that they're canceling it now. A 1.1 rating for A18-49 is dismal—that's a mediocre cable rating, and nothing that prime time network TV can support. Yes, it's the top download on iTunes—and I bet its Hulu stats are great, and I'm sure NBC took that into consideration. (That said, I'd be interested to see the live+7 numbers.) But the economics do not allow network television to continue to air a show with 3.6 million viewers.

We're not at narrowcasting yet folks—not by a long shot—and I'm not sure how this is really going to evolve, which is half the reason I left advertising. And eventually, when I have access to the numbers, I'll do the big "no, fandom is not enough of an audience" post. But yeah, 3.6 million viewers? Is pretty much nothing, for NBC.

Some of you probably heard the outcry that rose up in Dr. Who fandom regarding the possibility of a black actor being cast as, what, 11 right? There's a bingo card and everything.

Well, now EW.com has reported that preliminary word is that the casting for the live action movie based on the animated show Avatar: The Last Airbender (the movie is called The Last Airbender because of another project called Avatar) will be all white actors. This despite the fact that the characters in the show are Asian or Inuit, and much of their cultural surroundings, though set in a fantasy universe, are from various Asian and Inuit cultures. I can't put into words how disappointing this is, but luckily a few others already have, such as the Angry Asian Man. Someone on deadbrowalking has already called for a bingo card; the free space will probably be "It's just a cartoon." As soon as that's made, I'll link to it.

A letter-writing campaign has been started, and I'm going to send one. So there's a little act of defiance for you.

And this is going to sound obnoxious to you, I know, but this is a place where I really, really just cannot understand the way that some genre fans, including some people I know personally, set their priorities. Having a bunch of characters shooting guns in space, or performing magic-tinged marshall arts, or anything that happens in some kind of alternate universe requiring world-building, is so important that they'll put up with the worst kinds of overt racism and sexism and heterosexism in the canon in order to get it. I know, boo-hoo, I'm harshing your squee but you see, my squee has already been harshed. I don't want to have to watch films where the only thing that female charactes do is represent home. I don't want to follow television shows where the blacks are aliens and the aliens are black, or where a person of color couldn't possibly time travel. I don't want the writers of a televsion show or a book to think they deserve a pat on the back for proclaiming that a character that is now dead in canon was gay all along but that fact just kinda never got mentioned. This is going to continue to be okay until you, genre fan on my friend list, decide that it isn't. I can't do much about it; I'm a colored girl so the white boys usually behind these decisions aren't interested in what I have to say. They expect me to be unhappy and are already ignoring me. And I'm not a real genre fan, either. But if I had a nickel for the number of times I've heard "yeah, that canon has issues, but the boys are cute and I don't want to think about it!" I'd be a wealthy lady. Well, change doesn't happen until and unless you demand it, and back it up with your dollars. It's a capitalist society, so the only power you really have is the power of your consumption or lack thereof.

And I'm going to put my money where my mouth is, too. I love romances and there used to be a bunch of little indy gay romantic comedies. Where did they go? I'm going to hunt them down and support them. And I'm also going to try to drag more of my white friends to movies with black leads and primarily black casts, like Talk to Me. So there you go, my goal for 2009: to support the sort of media that's doing a thing I feel is important with my money, and not support the media that isn't. That is my ultimate right as a consumer, after all.

I'm not advocating what you do with your money, only that you take a look at your own priorities, and then spend and consume accordingly, and most importantly, knowingly. Isn't this the twenty-first century? Let's all stop being passive media consumers.

You know how every year, folks complain that there are nothing but reruns in March and April, or curse the networks for putting a favorite show on hiatus and replacing it with some new thing, and every year I explain how sweeps work? Well, this year is going to be totally different!

First, February sweeps have been pushed back to March because of the switch from analog to digital signals in 2009. Since sweeps are for the local affiliates, and they're the ones who will be most affected by the switch of the over-the-air signal (if you have a cable box you have no worries) Nielsen is giving them an extra month to get their shit together before measuring their ratings.

Now word comes that May sweeps have been pushed up a week to avoid an early Memorial Day holiday, leaving only 3 weeks in April between the two sweeps months. Given that most shows will have aired 8-10 of their 22-24 episodes through the November sweeps, I predict that many might take all of December, January and February off, and come back in March to finish their seasons straight through from March to May sweeps; after all, that's only 11 weeks. The networks can then program an entire season of either a midseason replacement show, or a reality show, in those 12 weeks over the winter.

Of course, if SAG strikes, then anything could happen. Two seasons in a row with strikes, that's bound to do great things for US television!

Sometimes I despair for the media industry. They're so desperate; they've put a lot of eggs in the wrong basket and wall street keeps pounding them for having such an up and down industry. But entertainment isn't widgets; no one really knows what is going to work. In the meantime, they'll just sue us all for using their products, which will piss us off and make us want to steal even more. It's a time of very high uncertainty, and I think they all know that when it sorts out almost none of them will be there anymore. It would be nice to think that what will be decimated is the larger corporate structures and leave us with something more streamlined that puts more money in the pockets of talent, but I'm not prepared to be that optimistic. Just another reason to be glad I've moved from the trenches to the sidelines.

The Project Runway reunion show was killer, but I don't have much to say about it other than that it revived that vague Tim/Emmett thing that was in the back of my mind. And as ely709 texted, Santino is the devil. They're stretching the finale over two weeks; poll next week after we know that last twist.

Meanwhile, because I was only vaguely interested in the ladies' free skate, I caught up on American Idol on the TIVO. ( Cut for lenghth, spoilers, people not caring. )

Well, maybe one AI poll now, very non-spoilery. I feel I should have an American Idol icon, I think, if I'm going to be posting about it; Sifl and Olly are great but they don't scream American Idol. I don't want to use a current contestant because I want to be able to use it no matter who ultimately wins; I don't like any of the other previous winners enough to icon them; icons of Paula or Randy just don't appeal to me.
[Poll #679260]

There's a meme going 'round about websites you visit daily and you know, for me nothing has ever been able to replace the pure joy that was suck.com. I read that thing every day through my early media career in the 90s, when everything was go-go-go and so much fun and I was not yet 30. My own personal Memoirs of the Clinton Administration.

Most days it was cultural criticism, but on Wednesdays it was a bit of sarcasm called "Filler" and mostly written by Polly Ester (on whom C____ had a crush) and illustrated by Terri Colon (who also did a single cover for C____'s then-band). There was a cartoon, there were other numerous silly things.

Then there were the mind maps. You know, where one matrix is "easy<--->difficult" and the other is "good<--->bad" and then various things get filled into the appropriate quadrants. The best of all of these, by far, which was hanging on the wall of my office until I left media was How meaningful is the fun you're having? which gave me my life ambition, "falling in love with a ravishing genius who finds my mediocrity intensely appealing."

Friends, I give you this. RIP suck.com. RIP my twenties. RIP my media career. RIP the dot-com bubble, my friends and their continual pitches for VC funding, and all the swag that went with it. RIP the heady rush of the new, of making the rules up as we went along, of figuring out how to work someplace where you could do what you loved, make a lot of money, wear jeans every day and bring your dog into the office. RIP Clinton Administration.

And angiej says that the Xers didn't have it good. Bah, I say. BAH!

Christmas weekend thanks for Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday.

I could write a reply to all the bitching about TV news but I've done it so many times before I feel like a broken record. They say it's a sign of insanity to keep doing the same thing and expect a different outcome, so I'm going to step back from the brink. All of you who think that TV news is going to bring you objective coverage that appropriately weights time spent to the relative importance of the story might want to think about that as well.

Meanwhile, I'm watching some daytime trash television before I hop into the shower and then go shopping. Ah, Springer. Though what I really love are the ads for ambulance chasers and ITT Technical Institute.