DVrepublic News

Melvin Van Pebbles "Behind the Screens"

Thu, 08 May 2008 13:56:19

]]> Transcript of legendary independent filmmaker Melvin Van Peebles (Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song) discussion lead by DVRepublic Founder Warrington Hudlin during the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival.

Confessionsofa Ex-Doofus-ItchyFooted Mutha, written and directed by Van Peebles. Confessionsofa chronicles the adventures of a man who, armed only with a can of contingency cash, swims his way to New York, joins the merchant marine, romances women of all ages (and an amorous gorilla), and dances for his life in the court of Zampoughi.

Before the screening of Confessionsofa, Tribeca programmer Aaron Dobbs welcomed Van Peebles to the stage. The always humorous and candid Van Peebles laid out some ground rules to the audience saying laugh a lot and white folks dont have to be scared or nothing.

Confessionsofa has been my favorite film I've seen so far at Tribeca. It's hard to put a finger on exactly how to describe this film. It's sort of an epic low-budget experimental comedy musical filled with Van Peebles's trademark charm and bravado, but with less of a political message than previous works.

At the conclusion of the film, festival volunteers collected ballots from the audience for the Cadillac Award. Dobbs then welcomed back Van Peebles to the stage along with Hudlin. This is the second time this year Ive been to a discussion that Hudlin moderated. The first was back in February at a Tribute to St. Clair Bourne at the Museum of the Moving Image, which Van Peebles also attended. Hudlins moderating style remained the same, that being of a more participatory nature by allowing members of the audience to jump in anytime.

Hudlin: Other black filmmakers stand on the shoulders of Van Peebles who literally founded black cinema. You paved the way, but how did you find your own way?

Van Peebles: Im known somewhat as a fighter. People ask me, how did you know you could beat this guy? I didnt know. A courageous person is never without arms.

Hudlin: You went ahead and did it your way. What is your creative process?

Van Peebles: In an old Mad Magazine, there was a section called Things youd like to see in the movies. I just make the things Id like to see. I dont try to be clever about it. I just try to say what I have in mind. If somethings funny to me, how can I put that funniness in cinema?

Hudlin: In both Sweetback and Confessionsofa, there seems to be this character off camera. What resonates with you in having this character?

Van Peebles: This makes me think of a funny situation. [Before Van Peebles continued to answer, he asks his cast & crew to stand.] Momma told me to praise the bridge you stood on. Paul, my second assistant editor, a young white man from Minnesota who doesnt have a lot of hood in him, called me the other day. I told him to add in a lot of um hmm into the film. I just put in what Im thinking. This movie was on a constraint with finances. I thought it would be easier to do the music first. Music is an integral part of the story. I find it interesting to let people see the trajectory and evolution of it. My choice is not me, but clarity for the subject.

Hudlin: A lot of your films titles allude to the anatomy. Is this a coincidence?

Van Peebles: The title explains the story. The memoirs of a wanderlustlets translate that to Confessionsofa Ex-Doofus-ItchyFooted Mutha. I like the iambic pentameter and the cadence of it. A question I often get is what is the message? There are a lot of subliminal messages. People will pick them up at different levels in their life.

Audience Question: Why does the opening title sequence give credit to the Diaspora?

Van Peebles: A zillion people helped me make this movie and theyre not all on camera. I wanted to do a shout out to those folks. I had a huge amount of assistance all over the world.

Audience Question: Where are we now in terms of black cinema?

Van Peebles: I am pretty much a loner and a maverick. What I wanted to do was no just open the door for black cinema, but for all independent cinema.

Audience Question: Was the sex scene with you and the character Rita uncomfortable?

Van Peebles: I liked it. When you shoot sex scenes, there are always problems like; I have to make sure the lighting is right. When I made Sweetback, I caught the clap, but thats beside the point.

Audience Question: How long did it take you to do this project?

Van Peebles: 75 years, duh!

Audience Question: How did you use technology to paint this film?

Van Peebles: The credits at the end say edited and painted by. Its like a painting to me. I started as a painter and sculptor. The texture, color and shading tell the story subliminally. All these tools are there. Why fight a battle with one hand? You have a zillion hands. People dont use them.

Audience Question: What were some of the challenges in making Confessionsofa versus Sweetback?

Van Peebles: This technically was much more ambitious than Sweetback. This time I didnt have to carry a gun. Everything was a challenge.

Audience Question: How did you go about casting? Has your process changed since Sweetback?

Van Peebles: No, sometimes you cast people for their experience and sometimes for plasticity. Sometimes you take a person who doesnt have acting experience, but they can play for the character.

Audience Question: Why did you premiere Confessionsofa at Tribeca?

Van Peebles: Tribeca is in New York and Im lazy. Tribeca is a great vessel. Jane Rosenthal and Robert De Niro funded Panther when no one else would.

Hudlin: Tribeca has a sense of mission of international diversity thats distinct from other festivals. Peter Scarlet (Artistic Director) really gets that were a world community. As Tribeca continues to grow and mature, it will be a premiere festival.

Audience Question: When will you make your next film?

Van Peebles: Thats dangerous. I open the door and all these ideas come out, so I slam the door shut. Im hoping to make my novel The True American as a film next. Im harnessed by the finances. Confessionsofa had no financers or distributors. I wanted this film to be made this way. When I sell it, then Ill do another one.

Audience Question: Have you developed a strategy to get past constraints?

Van Peebles: My strategy is not a single way. I started off writing. The great advantage of writing is its not that expensive. As a writer, I didnt know why people were so difficult with me when I pitched it to them. Learn your craft so you can do what you have to do and how to manipulate your media, then make it within the confines of your budget.

Hudlin: If you watch what he does, theres a DNA in his work. He takes people that are off camera and takes them on a journey. He lets black people win. Sweetback is a perfect example. He fights the power and prevails. Thats the lesson we as filmmakers have to take.

FILMPANELNOTETAKER.COM

Google Seeks Open-Access Pledge From Verizon

Tue, 06 May 2008 09:14:39

]]> Google has asked the U.S. Federal Communications Commission to obtain a pledge from Verizon Wireless that it will honor the open-access conditions on a band of 700MHz spectrum before selling the spectrum to the carrier.

Google, in a filing with the FCC Friday, raised concerns that Verizon Wireless wasn't committed to the open-access rules the FCC put on the nationwide C block of the 700MHz spectrum the agency sold in an auction ending in mid-March. The FCC's open-access rules required the winner of the C block to allow customers to connect wireless devices of their choosing and run any applications on the network using the C block.

Google's filing doesn't explicitly spell out what the company wants the FCC to do if Verizon doesn't pledge to follow the open-access rules, but it implies that the FCC shouldn't sell Verizon the spectrum in that case.

Before the auction started in late January, Verizon Wireless opposed the open-access rules, Google's lawyers wrote in the FCC filing.

A Verizon official in October talked about a two-tier system in the C block, where Verizon could continue to sell locked wireless devices in addition to allowing outside devices that accepted applications of the customer's choosing, Google's lawyers noted. Verizon, in a filing to the FCC, also said the commission could not force the C block winner to allow all applications on the network, the Google filing says.

In addition, Verizon filed a lawsuit in September an attempt to force the FCC to abandon the open-access rules, the Google filing notes. Although Verizon later dropped the lawsuit, mobile phone trade group CTIA, which counts Verizon among its members, has a pending lawsuit against the open-access rules.

"Verizon is not free to self-define the rule to exclude any and all Verizon devices," Google's lawyers wrote. "The commission must ensure that Verizon understands that this license obligation means what it says: any apps, any devices."

In November, Verizon Wireless announced an open network initiative for all of its current spectrum. The company plans to allow outside wireless devices to connect to its mobile network by the end of 2008.

Verizon and Google spokespeople were not immediately available for comment on the Google filing.

Google, along with several consumer groups, pushed for the open-access rules in the auction for the 700MHz band, which many wireless experts see as spectrum that's suited for long-range wireless broadband services. Google pledged to bid at least US$4.6 billion on the C block, but the company lost to Verizon's $4.7 billion bid.

Google asked the FCC to act quickly to get an open-access pledge from Verizon.

"Action now is especially necessary given the long lead time typically required for software applications developers and device manufacturers to design, develop, and deploy their products to the public, as well as the uncertainty Verizon has introduced publicly regarding its compliance with the open access obligations," Google's lawyers wrote.

NEW YORK TIMES

Melvin Van Pebbles shares his "Confession" at TFF

Mon, 05 May 2008 11:19:56

]]> Warrington Hudlin moderates talk with Van Pebbles at Tribeca Film Festival.

Melvin Van Peebles has a long history with the Tribeca Film Festival, which in recent years has screened the documentary How to Eat Your Watermelon in White Company (and Enjoy It) and son Mario's biopic Baadasssss! When no one would fund his film Panther, Jane Rosenthal and Robert De Niro stepped in. So it seems appropriate that his latest film, Confessionsofa Ex-Doofus-Itchyfooted Mutha, premiered at the Festival this year. Van Peebles finished it just in time. Besides, he cracked, "Tribeca's in New York, and I'm lazy."

"I stand on his shoulders," said filmmaker Warrington Hudlin, president of the Black Filmmakers Foundation and moderator of the Behind the Screens event at the DGA Thursday night. "We in Melvin's living room," he said, setting the ground rules and encouraging audience members to jump in at any time. For the next 45 minutes the director of Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song

Channel Changer: Three Years Ago, Reggie Hudlin Came To Save a Troubled BET. But Has He?

Mon, 05 May 2008 06:37:03

]]> To understand the irony, skip back four years: Reginald Hudlin, Hollywood director and comic book nerd, is ensconced with his close friend, firebrand cartoonist Aaron McGruder, gleefully penning a graphic novel, "Birth of a Nation."

The book features as its villain the network mogul "John Roberts" -- a black billionaire with a complete willingness to sell African Americans down the river to make a buck. Not coincidentally, "John Roberts" looks a lot like billionaire Bob Johnson, the founder of Black Entertainment Television.

Skip forward to the present: Now Hudlin's dividing his time between Los Angeles and New York as BET's president of entertainment, the man in charge of the images tumbling from the cable network's airwaves. His critics blame him for serving up a steady diet of the same old same old: poisonous, stereotypical images of blacks, specifically rap videos featuring scantily clad vixens and blinged-out gangstas.

On the Internet, Hudlin is the target of a savage cartoon sendup, portrayed as the morally challenged programming head for "Black Evil Television" -- a parody created by none other than McGruder, his former friend. And in Washington, protesters camped for months outside the home of Hudlin's boss -- network CEO Debra Lee -- each and every weekend, chanting "Enough is enough."

"Right now, Reginald Hudlin and Debra Lee preside over a media empire that perpetuates every negative stereotype about black men and black women that we fought against," says the Rev. Delman Coates, the Prince George's County pastor behind the campaign against BET. "And they have to be held accountable.

"The reality is, if Reginald Hudlin were white, more black leaders and more black organizations would be raising an outcry. But for some reason we give black people a pass for participating in our own exploitation."

Last month, Coates, in conjunction with the Parents Television Council and onetime BET video programmer Paul Porter of Industry Ears, released a study analyzing adult content on two BET video shows, "106 & Park" and "Rap City," along with MTV's "Sucker Free" -- prime-time programs that they charge are marketed to and viewed by children. Among the conclusions: In March, on the shows cited, there was one instance of adult content -- references to drugs, sex or violence -- every 38 seconds.

The next step in the "Enough Is Enough" campaign: pressuring BET advertisers to pull their sponsorship.

All of which says: It's a tough time to be Reggie Hudlin, the supposed savior of BET.

Mention that to Hudlin, and he bristles. To his mind, BET's critics are haters who can't appreciate the hard work he's put into the network. The rap videos, he says, are but a small portion of the programming that the network offers. "To me, when you look at the portfolio [of shows], the intent is very clear," he says over lunch in Manhattan, looking aggrieved. "So why are you criticizing me?"

As Hudlin sees it, he's fighting the good fight, trying to change the public image of African Americans, one show at a time, with family-oriented programming such as the newly announced gospel video countdown, "106 & Gospel"; "Black Panther," an animated series based on a comic book he writes; and "Brutha," a reality show about a group of singing siblings trying to make it in the industry.

"This is a place where you can effect a world of difference, literally a world," says Hudlin, who with his brother Warrington made the popular movies "House Party" and "Boomerang" in the early '90s. "You can just sit around and be a complainer. Or you can roll up your sleeves and get to work."

Those sleeves would be cashmere, attached to turtlenecks color-coded to match his horn-rims: brown one day, black the next. Hudlin's on the short side, broad in the chest. Gray streaks his hair and goatee, but he retains the air of the baby-faced hipster he once was.

Talk to him about work, and in particular BET, and he's defensive and uptight, taking umbrage at the questions asked, intensely focused on spin. "You're bumming me out with your questions," he tells a reporter. It's as if he takes the criticisms personally. But get Hudlin talking about anything else -- the "Black Panther" series that he writes for Marvel Comics, getting married in Jamaica, the wonder of his little girl's traffic-stopping 'fro -- and he loosens up considerably. His sense of humor floats to the surface.

At 46, Hudlin is of the same generation that shaped Barack Obama, riding the cusp between Boomers and Gen X'ers, post civil rights movement and "post-racial." He comfortably straddles the line between Harvard (where he earned his bachelor's degree) and the 'hood (East St. Louis, Ill., where he grew up), a hip-hop head weaned on P-Funk and Prince, sci-fi and Marvel Comics.

Now he's riding the cusp between the old BET and the one he envisions for the future. Today, Hudlin and his network are at a critical juncture.

After nearly three decades in the business, BET is battling its image as a purveyor of stereotypes at the same time it's trying to position itself as a global player. Last month the network launched BET UK, its first real venture into international waters. (Next stop: South Africa in 2009.)

Now, after nearly three years on the job, Hudlin says he has started turning around the network, pushing it to the next level, from a surplus of music videos and syndicated reruns to scripted, original programming. At the same time, he and Lee point out that they've got a business to run, and that they'd be foolish to ignore the ones buttering their bread: that prized demographic of 18-to-34-year-olds. Young people, who, he says, "get it." BET's critics, he says, do not.

"What we do involves black youth culture, and black youth culture has always been vilified," Hudlin says. "That's the business we're in. I understand there's always going to be some level of vilification . . . and I'm not having it."

Hudlin is squeezed between making profits and making a difference. Observes a BET producer who declined to be identified for fear of losing his job: "You can criticize BET all you want, but it's about money. . . . You put all these high-minded, socially conscious programs on and your profits dip, you're right out of there."

BET, founded in Washington in 1980, emerged in the aftermath of the black-power '70s, riding a crest of hopes and expectations as the first black network. In the early days -- also the early days of rap -- the network was a family affair, with all ages tuning in. It was "Video Soul" with a genial Donnie Simpson and the wholesome Sherry Carter. It was nighttime newscasts with a sober-looking Ed Gordon. It was talk shows and Teen Summits and Mandela Freedom Fund Telethons. But along the way, things shifted. Newscasts shrank to sound bites. Hip-hop, or at least, commercial rap, morphed into something else, something harder and crasser. Videos took on a dominant role.

Being the first means being saddled with a certain amount of baggage. "BET is unique because it is the custodian of the airwaves for all black people," says Hudlin's brother Warrington. "It is a burden, a double standard. History places that on you. . . . BET hasn't done anything that VH1 and MTV haven't done. But people don't expect VH1 to be our channel."

Age-old dilemma. As Langston Hughes pointed out in 1926, "The Negro artist works against an undertow of sharp criticism and misunderstanding from his own group and unintentional bribes from the whites. 'Oh, be respectable, write about nice people, show how good we are,' say the Negroes. 'Be stereotyped, don't go too far, don't shatter our illusions about you, don't amuse us too seriously. We will pay you,' say the whites."
Former Friends

At a recent daily taping of "106 & Park," BET's video countdown show, a plethora of hip-hop players and wannabes float in and out of the studios on West 57th Street in Manhattan. A giant screen displays rapper Rick Ross's latest video, "The Boss." In it, two half-naked women crawl over Ross's massive, tattooed chest, interspersed with dreamy clips of diamond-encrusted rings and stacks and stacks of hundred-dollar bills.

Ross raps:

Who gives a [expletive] what a hater gotta say

I made a couple million dollars last year dealing [expletive]

The video fades out. In its place is a segment featuring black-and-white newsreel footage of Martin Luther King Jr., the Mall and a narrator intoning, "I am the March on Washington."

But it's the gangsta-rap videos that had BET critics such as Coates, of Mount Ennon Baptist Church in Clinton, camped outside Lee's Northwest home from last August to mid-April on weekends, chanting, "BET, SUCH A DISGRACE! BET, UPLIFT THE RACE!" (A New York-based sister church similarly is still protesting each weekend outside the Manhattan home of Philippe Dauman, CEO of BET's parent company, Viacom. Dauman declined to be interviewed for this article.)

People protesting on his boss's front lawn is just one of Hudlin's problems. Ratings have dropped significantly, according to Derek Baine, senior analyst for SNL Kagan: Average household daily viewership dropped from 353,000 in 2006 to 316,000 in 2007. (But a popular show like Keyshia Cole's does much better.) The network reaches nearly 90 million households.

Then there's Paul Porter, a former BET video programming director who left the network in 2002, who charges that payola was, and is, a regular part of transactions at the network. On any given Friday, he says, he would receive a FedEx box stuffed with as much as $15,000 in cash. (Porter now heads Industry Ears, an advocacy group that participated in the "Enough Is Enough" BET survey.)

Hudlin vehemently denies any knowledge of, or involvement in, alleged payola at BET. As for Coates's protest, he says, "it's such misplaced aggression that doesn't deal with the root of the problem. They're attacking someone [Lee] who cares a great deal about all the things that they care about."

He'd rather talk about his successes: "We have expanded the breadth and depth of programming on the network in a very short time. We're far from done. But I think the work we've done so far on the network should be celebrated."

As evidence, Hudlin points back to a 2005 telethon to raise money for Katrina victims; a two-part town hall special, "Hip Hop vs. America," aired in the wake of the Don Imus brouhaha; a reality TV show featuring R&B starlet Keyshia Cole and her dysfunctional family; a documentary series produced by writer Nelson George, "American Gangster"; an "American Idol"-style gospel show, "Sunday Best"; and "BET Honors," an awards show for prominent African Americans.

Between 2003-2007, BET has doubled its programming budget. Last year, Hudlin and his crew announced plans to release an impressive lineup of original programming -- 16 shows, including an animated series about the Carthaginian general Hannibal to be produced by Vin Diesel. In April they announced programming for the 2008-09 season that includes a courtroom reality show and a dating show. It'll also boost its news programming with two shows: "The Truth With Jeff Johnson," a news talk show, and "Unreported," an investigative series.

But several shows announced last year have yet to air or have died quick deaths. "Judge Mooney," a sendup of courtroom shows featuring veteran comic Paul Mooney, was canceled days before its scheduled October debut. The ambitious "Wifey," a drama starring Queen Latifah as a widowed music industry executive, remains unscheduled. The pilot was directed by Hudlin, an unusual move for a network head.

To be sure, television programming is an exercise in experimentation. As Lee put it, "Some things fall by the wayside," while Hudlin insists that most of the network's pilots do make it on-air.

BET's shows that have aired are a mixed bag.

"Take the Cake," a live interactive daily game show starring Tocarra of "America's Next Top Model," only lasted a season. "Hell Date," a mash-up of dating shows that features a dwarf in a Devil suit, doesn't exactly advance the cause for quality programming. "We Got to Do Better" has come and gone, as has "Socially Offensive Behavior," a kind of "Candid Camera" for the 21st century, starring comic D.L. Hughley. "Read a Book," a satirical animated short by Washington rapper Bomani, came under fire by critics who said the video perpetrated negative stereotypes, and inspired the "Enough Is Enough" campaign.

A firestorm of controversy started last fall when BET debuted "We Got to Do Better," based on a Web site, "Hot Ghetto Mess," which casts a jaundiced eye at tacky African Americans, taking the "America's Funniest Home Videos" approach.

Critics like Gina McCauley, an Austin attorney, charged that the show catered to offensive stereotypes. She launched an online protest with her blog, "What About Our Daughters," and some Internet advertisers pulled their support for the show.

Observes Hudlin's mentor, the television pioneer Steve Bochco: "He's had to completely change the culture there, which is always a complicated chore. He has to grapple with a very, very anemic budget. When you look at what he's been able to do and the context of those challenges, you have to say he's doing a wonderful job. He needs more time to accomplish what he's set out to do. You don't turn those ships on a dime, big heavy corporate cargo vessels."

Hudlin has hurt feelings along the way. Mooney says his show was abruptly pulled without explanation and Hudlin never returned his calls. "I thought he was a king," Mooney says. "I had no idea he was a slave." (Both Hudlin and Lee maintain that the show was killed because it didn't test well with focus groups.)

His feet are to the flame. A few years back, Hudlin joined forces with comic strip artist McGruder to produce the cartoon version of McGruder's "Boondocks" on the Cartoon Network. The show takes frequent potshots at BET.

Today Hudlin and McGruder, once close friends, no longer speak. And Hudlin himself became the target of two "Boondocks" episodes. (The episodes, which the Cartoon Network decided not to release, are now making the rounds in the Afrosphere.) Hudlin is cast as the bow-tie-wearing "Weggie Rudlin," who declares, "My Harvard education tells us that our goal is to take all the [expletive] reality TV shows that MTV made five years ago and make them black!"

And yes, Hudlin still has an executive-producer credit on the show. And no, he's not going to talk about what happened, or how he feels about being skewered by his onetime friend/protege. Nor will McGruder comment.

The comedian Orlando Jones, director and producer of the upcoming BET animated sketch show "BUFU," says Hudlin "did everything right. He went to Harvard. Now he's been charged to change the stereotypes for people who think BET is the chitlin circuit network. He's like, 'I've never done anything in my life that's stereotypical, and now I'm that guy?' "
In the 'Ghet-to'

Hudlin grew up in East St. Louis, Ill., a city with a rich artistic past: Lillian Gish, Josephine Baker, Miles Davis, dance pioneer Katherine Dunham and bluesman Albert King all called it home. But by the time Hudlin came of age in the late '70s, East St. Louis, once dubbed an "All America City," was rapidly unraveling, the victim of riots, factory closings and virulent street gangs. A city that he affectionately sends up in "Birth of a Nation," where he and McGruder imagined what would happen if East St. Louis seceded from the union. (Hint: chaos.)

Hudlin's description of East St. Louis? "Ghet-to."

Still, his is hardly your standard by-the-bootstraps story. Hudlin's mother was an educator. His father, who died in 1998, was an insurance agent who served as president of the Chamber of Commerce, ran the local community college -- and turned down an invitation to run for mayor.

"My family was very educated; we have people with PhDs," says Hudlin over lunch at an upscale midtown Manhattan brasserie. He pauses, and then adds this caveat, as if to establish his 'hood bona fides: "But we collected grease on a stove. Both my parents were real products of the Depression: Real, real hard work, never throw something away that you can use again."

From an early age, he knew that he wanted to be a filmmaker. As a kid, he spent hours drawing comic books and hanging out at the community arts center that Dunham created in the heart of the ghetto, studying martial arts while his mom took dance classes. Films entranced him: Bob Fosse's "All That Jazz," Charles Burnett's "Killer of Sheep." But it was Ken Russell's rock opera movie "Tommy" that clinched it for him: the surreal rush of music and imagery.

With visions of directing a funk opera starring George Clinton and Parliament-Funkadelic, he headed off to Harvard, where he majored in visual and environmental studies, a multidisciplinary honors program that combined film, photography, graphic arts and architecture. After college, he joined up with his older brother Warrington, a Yale grad who was working as an independent filmmaker.

"I was doing work that was important, but not commercial," says Warrington, co-founder of the Black Filmmaker Foundation. "He said, 'What you're doing is good, but it's about time to make some money.' He always had a much stronger commercial instinct."

But Hollywood is notoriously fickle. After his film successes, Hudlin turned to TV, directing shows including Bochco's "City of Angels," "Bernie Mac" and his good buddy Chris Rock's "Everybody Hates Chris." Rock says he was a little surprised when Hudlin took the BET gig.

"He's got good taste," Rock says. "There's the Reggie who thinks like a director, and the Reggie who thinks like an exec. On the one hand, he's got real artistic taste. And then on the other hand, he's got real pop taste, 'This'll sell, this'll work.' "
'Ching-Ching'

Cold, hard commerce is in the house.

From up on high in the Hammerstein Ballroom, in a box reserved for corporate muckety-mucks, Hudlin sits, head bobbing to the beat, taking in the cross-pollination of hip-hop and fashion, of industry and art. There are dudes lining up along the front row, doing the retro rap thing, all flattops and neon, looking just like Kid 'n Play did when Hudlin directed them in "House Party." Hudlin spots them and laughs.

Here, at the taping of BET's "Rip the Runway," booty-shaking is in short, and tasteful, supply. Instead, cash is the theme du jour. Pharrell, backed up by N.E.R.D., is rapping about "hundred-dollar bills" while models sporting ruffled Zac Posen evening gowns prowl the catwalk, affecting a studied indifference.

Then there's Missy Elliott, plugging her new single, chanting, "Ching-ching, getting paid over here," as models sporting duds from her fashion line bounce around the runway. From there, Flo Rida takes to the stage, name-checking Nelly's line of Apple Bottom jeans while models strut and preen, sporting, um, Apple Bottom jeans.

Over the course of the night, Snoop Dogg and Nelly, accompanied by their entourages, make their way up to the box, to pay their respects to Hudlin and Lee. To kiss the ring.

At the end of the day, it's all about doing business.

Teresa Wiltz
Washington Post

Advertising causes concern in virtual Barbie world

Fri, 02 May 2008 07:27:42

]]> BarbieGirls.com, the website associated with Mattels Barbie dolls the worlds most popular toy is introducing a paid subscription section offering users access to an improved version of its virtual playground.

The site, launched just a year ago, allows users to create and dress their own online avatars, earning and using virtual B Bucks money. With more than 11m girls registered, BarbieGirls is about to turn into a new revenue source for Mattel. Chuck Scothon, head of Mattels girl brands, says the site is attracting girls in the eight-to-15 age group who may be outgrowing Barbie herself.

The online world ... and the content that girls engage with [is] very much a new toy, he says. This online content is a great way to play fashion and beauty and hair play, but doing it in a fun and relevant way for an older girl.

The Barbie brands online makeover is one of the many signs of a developing boom in online worlds and social networking sites aimed at children as young as five, which spread to the toy industry three years ago.

In 2005 Ganz, a Canadian company that makes soft toys and greetings cards, took the industry by storm with the launch of Webkinz, fluffy animal toys with codes to link to online versions. Webkinz users operate in a luridly coloured childrens version of Linden Labs much-discussed Second Life adult world, making virtual purchases of accessories with Kinz Cash, engaging in controlled chat with other participants and playing online games.

Webkinz.com has been joined by Hasbros LittlestPetShop.com, Build-a-Bear Workshops Buildabearville.com and, this year, by Disneys Clickables toys, which will be linked to its planned Pixiehollow.com virtual world.

At the same time, US media companies are expanding their range of virtual worlds linked to their childrens television shows and online properties. MTVs Nickelodeon announced plans last month to enhance its Nicktropolis site, built around its TV characters, and to create the World of Neopia for NeoPets.com, one of the most successful social and gaming sites targeting children aged eight to 17.

Disney, whose sites attracted more than 27m users in March, has created a management group to focus on virtual worlds and online communities. Last year it bought the Club Penguin social networking and virtual world site (slogan: Waddle around and meet new friends!) for $350m.

Virtual Worlds Management, which tracks the industry, estimates that there are more than 100 youth-focused virtual worlds either live or in development, with 59 of them aimed at children under seven. As the industry rushes ahead, child advocate groups are questioning whether parents and other authorities have fully grasped the explosion in online play for the very young.

Companies are targeting ever younger children and there is a bigger push to get even preschoolers online and engaged in social networking sites and virtual worlds, says Susan Linn, of the Boston-based Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood. While virtual worlds can be a creative endeavour for teenagers, there are real problems about their impact on younger children.

In the US and elsewhere, public discussion of virtual worlds has been dominated by potential threats to children from sexual predators and from violent images in online games. The media and toy companies have responded with an emphasis on site safety, with limits on what messages a users avatar can send.

But Sara Grimes, a communications professor at Simon Fraser University in Canada, says there has been very little attention paid to the commercialisation and marketing elements of digital play, including the collection of data that can be used for advertising linked to online behaviour. It is easy to get distracted from these issues ... The sites also play on that by promoting themselves as safe havens and tapping into parental concerns, she says.

Last December the CCFC launched a letter-writing campaign against Ganz after its Webkinz site previously free of advertisements started carrying ads for DreamWorks Bee Movie and Foxs Alvin and the Chipmunks. The advertising included offering childrens avatars virtual clothing such as bee suits and the hoodies worn by Alvin and his chipmunk friends.

Ganz now says it recognises that some parents are against advertising, particularly those with very young children, and will very soon be adding the ability for parents to turn off ads from our promotional partners although not ads for its own products. It also says it will not allow the virtual products sold on its site to be branded by advertisers a reference to the kind of immersive advertising techniques represented by the bee and chipmunk clothing.

Immersive techniques bump up against voluntary industry guidelines that require online advertising on childrens sites to be clearly marked as such, although the industrys monitoring body says it has seen no cases in which its online guidelines have been breached.

Time Warners Cartoon Network childrens sites now launch with a general warning that the site has pages and content that may include advertising. Mattels Mr Scothon says BarbieGirl.com carries no third-party advertising. But the site has promoted its own products, with girls able to visit an online cinema where they are rewarded with B Bucks for watching Barbie DVD film trailers.

As for similarly immersive third-party advertising, Mr Scothon says that in the event we were ever to consider something like that because the space is rapidly changing we will make sure that any decisions we make are both validated and confirmed by both the parents and the children.

The BarbieGirls site is currently expanding a just for parents section focused largely on online safety perhaps the most comprehensive effort by a company to make parents aware of the issues and give them more engagement in the content of the sites.

But Ms Linn argues that there is a need for a broader discussion about the merits of virtual worlds, particularly for younger children, who are entering a world that is almost completely predetermined.

She says: The whole goal [on] most of these sites is to earn money in order to buy things for your avatar. I think we shouldnt underestimate the degree to which children really absorb values from the toys we give them and the stories we tell them".

The Financial Times

New York Times to Rev. Wright: Be Quiet!

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 18:48:57

]]> A surrogate for the Obama campaign announced today that in light of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's decision to defend himself in the public square,

it's clear that "Mr. Wright doesnt hate America, he loves the sound of his own voice."

The move was an obvious attempt by the Obama campaign to distance the candidate from the outspoken pastor, described by an Obama spokesman as a sort of retread of "Sanford and Son": a "compelling but slightly wacky uncle who unsettles strangers but really just craves attention."

Oh, wait -- that wasn't an Obama spokesperson, it was Alessandra Stanley of The New York Times, filing what will surely mark a low point of her journalistic career, a borderline racist assault on Rev. Wright for talking back to the press.

http://www.therevealer.org/archives/today_003007.php

Latinos in Congress demand action against Lou Dobbs

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 18:22:05

]]> The anti-immigration views of CNN host Lou Dobbs have made him a darling in the ratings but a nemesis among US Latinos, whose frustration has risen to the Washington corridors of power.

After their requests for a meeting with the chief executive of CNN's parent company were rebuffed, Latino members of Congress condemned the TV network for failing to recognise the "potentially dangerous" consequences of Dobbs's "divisive commentary".

Dobbs has become a sensation thanks to his populist outbursts against undocumented immigrants, whom he calls "aliens" and accuses of "invading" America to steal jobs.

The TV host also has targeted the Democratic presidential candidates, naming one segment "Hillary's hypocrisy" and describing Barack Obama's endorsement by Latino governor and former Democratic presidential candidate Bill Richardson as "pandering to ethnocentric special interests".

Joe Baca, the chairman of the congressional Hispanic caucus, told the Guardian that CNN's parent company should be held accountable for the content of programmes the network airs.

"Words matter and words have power. One-sided rhetoric can lead other programs to cite opinions as fact and adopt polarising word choices as the standard," Baca, whose caucus is influential within the Democratic party, said.

Baca and Latino senator Robert Menendez, a close ally of Hillary Clinton, said they were "deeply offended" by the lack of response from Time Warner, which owns CNN, to their criticism of Dobbs.

"It is additionally offensive that you [failed to respond] on a topic as important and sensitive as your company's treatment and portrayal of Latinos in this country," the two members of Congress wrote to Time Warner chief executive Jeff Bewkes last week.

Despite its political clout, the Hispanic caucus is unlikely to succeed in reining in the popular Dobbs. The president of CNN offered Baca and Menendez a meeting but noted that Time Warner "never interferes with the editorial decision-making of its news operations".

Earlier this month, Dobbs's televised criticism of Pope Benedict XVI for urging the US to adopt a compassionate immigration policy - which the host dubbed "bad manners" - sparked the ire of Catholic groups on both the left and right but brought no ramifications.

La Raza, a grassroots Latino group, also launched a campaign earlier this year called We Can Stop the Hate, attempting to curb anti-immigration TV hosts' misinformation and aggression.

However, the Hispanic caucus has a record of successfully pressing for greater deference to their concerns in the media. Filmmaker Ken Burns agreed to add recognition of Latino soldiers to his World War II documentary, The War, after meeting with Hispanic members of Congresslast year.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/apr/28/usa.television?gusrc=rss&feed=media

P&G solicits advice from consumers on pulling ads from MTV, BET

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 10:07:44

]]> One of the nation's largest advertisers, Procter & Gamble, is soliciting input from consumers whether it should continue advertising on MTV and BET.

The packaged-goods company is taking calls at an 800 number. Once dialed, callers are advised they have two choice regarding advertising on the two cable networks: press one if they want P&G to make changes in its advertising, or press two to indicate support for continued advertising on the networks. Input will be forwarded to the proper P&G executives, the recording indicates.

P&G is being criticized by Enough is Enough, an advocacy group partnering with the Parents Television Council, which released a report on April 10 asserting that shows on the network are "bombarding" youth with music videos larded with sex, violence and profanity. PTC singles out BET's Rap City and 106 & Park, and MTV's Sucker Free for its toughest criticism. The group, in its study, alleges these music video shows depict sex, violence or other profane images on average every 38 seconds.

Enough is Enough was formed last September to fight images on television that objectify women as sex objects, promote stereotypes of minorities as thugs and drug dealers and depict other negative images. The group has also criticized Procter & Gamble, labeling the corporation as hypocritical for promoting a marketing effort called "My Black is Beautiful," which affirms the inner and outer beauty of African American women while it advertises on the targeted music video shows.

Multichannel News

P&G solicits advice from consumers on pulling ads from MTV, BET

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 07:16:49

Spike Lee teams with Nokia on cell phone movie

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 02:20:07

]]> Filmmaker Spike Lee has linked up with Nokia to direct a movie made with cell phone footage from everyday people in what he calls the democratization of film.

The film by Nokia Productions will consist of three acts. An "assignment" for each act will be announced online and people will then have four weeks to produce their submission.

"You are seeing first hand the democratization of film," Lee said in a statement on Thursday. "Aspiring filmmakers no longer have to go to film school to make great work. With a simple mobile phone, almost anyone can now become a filmmaker."

Lee was nominated for an Academy Award for best original screenplay for "Do the Right Thing" in 1990 and for best documentary for "4 Little Girls" in 1998.

Nokia will choose 25 submissions, then people can vote online for their favorite for a top 10 from which Spike Lee will then choose the winning submission from each act.

Lee will direct the film through the Web site.

The final film with the three winning submissions and other contributed content will premiere later this year in Los Angeles.

The film's theme will evolve around the way music tells the story of humanity, and people can submit text, music, video or images at certain times between now and August 21 to http://www.nokiaproductions.com