Rockin’ Beside the Christmas Tree

 

By Mike Gange

I went to four world-class rock concerts this Christmas – and I never left my tiny province in Eastern Canada.  Not that these artists were making their way to my corner of the world, but rather everywhere I went throughout the holidays – whether visiting family or friends – someone was playing a DVD of some fantastic musical act. Concerts by Paul McCartney, The Eagles, The Bee Gees and The Guess Who spilled across the big screen TVs and filled the surround-sound speakers. And thanks to this new technology, it was like we were there at the concerts. They were each amazing in their own way.

One of the amazing aspects of these “concerts-in-the-family-room” was how the baby boomers were sharing tid-bits of information with their teen-age children. On hearing one of the songs, one of the moms said “Oh, this song! This is the first song your dad and I danced to at the C-Y-O.” One of the dads said “This is a song that I remember hearing when I was in grade 5.” Somebody said, “ I remember this album, it was yellow and had the faces of the band members on it. It had four or five good songs.”  Somebody else threw in a comment about the original name of the band. Somebody else added a tid-bit about how the such-n-such a song came about. It was an incident of inter-generational sharing.

Each of the concerts had an ironic edge to it. The concert of The Eagles – the quintessential California band – was taped in Australia, while the Bee Gees – originally from Australia – were taped playing at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas. Paul McCartney, a Liverpool native who co-wrote the song lyrics “Flew in from Miami Beach, B-O-A-C” recorded his concert from Florida. And The Guess Who, originally from Winnipeg, Manitoba, playing an outdoor concert before a sold out audience in their home town were nearly blown off the stage in a violent lightning storm during the song “New Mother Nature.”

 

Each of the bands changed the musical landscape for an entire generation; perhaps none of the bands more than The Beatles. One of my friends, who played music for a living, gave Paul McCartney and The Beatles the highest compliment. “In my mind, there were The Beatles and then there was everybody else,” said the other Mike. Clearly, the former Beatles bass player’s concert was like watching the greatest in the world.   

While watching and listening to The Eagles, it was hard not to think of the old stories of The Eagles in their drug-addled days. Guitar-master Joe Walsh, for example, had a penchant for blowing out his nose, and then taking a chainsaw to the hotel furniture in his induced state of wild-abandon. Their video was carefully crafted to appeal to the now-middle class parents: mention was made of Walsh’s sobriety, and the band members appeared in expensive suits while delivering their jangling guitar riffs and skilful inter-play.

The Bee Gees, captured live from the Mecca of middle class vacations, sang their mid-sixties love songs, and then swung into the songs that launched the disco era. As the Brothers Gibb were singing “Stayin’ Alive” the backdrop screen was filled with images of a young John Travolta carrying paint cans on an errand from his employment at the hardware store.  No mention was made, of course, that disco music in general nearly killed radio air play and devastated record sales, or that recorded music was forced to find resurgence in the form of music videos two years later.

There was something else about the video concerts of Paul McCartney, The Eagles and The Bee Gees. They were carefully crafted constructions of reality. No camera shot was unplanned. No audio technicians were caught in the picture, bringing out a newly-tuned guitar as needed. There was little banter with the audience by the band members. And the boys in the band never seemed to sweat.

Not so for The Guess Who, however. A lightning storm forced the band off-stage but they return an hour later to the thrill of the home town audience, who looked like drowned rats in the downpour. And throughout the concert, the band members are caught in their glorious foibles: bass player Bill Wallace and rhythm guitar player Donnie McDougall seem to forget where they are for a moment, turn their backs on the audience and get caught up in a prolonged musical exchange with drummer Garry Peterson; Burton Cummings’ over-the-top hand-gestures and theatrics are at times distracting and unnecessary; and Randy Bachman’s grey locks betray his status as senior citizen rather than guitar virtuoso. 

But those foibles also elevate the band to a bigger status, in my mind. The video has a special appeal because it shows the band ‘warts-and-all,’ sweat-drenched, and gloriously enjoying themselves playing together. This is no fancy-suited band; its jeans, T-shirts, and logoed baseball shirts for these guys. And every now and then, the camera catches an audience member – dripping wet and looking very “unvarnished” – slugging back on a can of beer.

And the electrical storm isn’t the only difficulty the band overcomes. During a prolonged guitar solo on “American Woman” Backman destroys his guitar strings while playing the guitar with a drum stick, gets a replacement guitar from the road crew and continues the solo on the new guitar. He isn’t out of commission for 8 beats, and finishes in a flourish, using the microphone stand as his slide on the new guitar.

There is a rawness to this video, for sure, but there is also such exuberance and professionalism on the part of The Guess Who – a band that hails from a mid-sized city in the middle of Canada, and playing before their own hometown fans – that this video has to be considered world class.   

  

Marketing Trend Adds up to Even More Ads

 

 

Review by Mike Gange

Madison &Vine: Why the Entertainment and Advertising Industries Must Converge to Survive

by Scott Donaton

McGraw Hill Press, $22.95, 202 pages

Hold on to your hat! We are at the beginning of a marketing trend that will add up to way more ads than ever before. Consumers are going to be ambushed by advertisements embedded in the content of entertainment, in ways no one would have dreamed possible only a decade ago. For example, well known Hollywood directors are making 10 minute action-oriented movies, and the star is the German-made automobile BMW. Comedian Jerry Seinfeld is returning to television with his offbeat social views which he shares with an animated Superman in what is really an elongated ad for American Express.

Further examples from television demonstrate how the trend is growing: on ABC TV’s “Who Wants to be a Millionaire,” contestants are given three lifelines, one of which is a telephone call sponsored by AT&T; and on NBC TV’s “The Restaurant” blatantly embedded product placements for Mitsubishi cars, Coors beer and American Express credit cards take away from the already weak story line. Pop singer Sting’s music video “Desert Rose” featured as many camera shots of a sleek Jaguar car as it did of Sting. Although car maker Jaguar did not pay for that particular product placement, Sting’s music company, Ark 21, encouraged the use of the video as a promotional tool for car sales in show rooms and on television because it helped propel Sting’s album to become a top seller.

In Madison & Vine, writer Scott Donaton says the once clear line between commerce and creativity is becoming increasingly blurred. We are in the midst of a marketing revolution that is changing the way business and artistic organizations reach out to consumers. As the editor of AdvertisingAge, Donaton has witnessed and written about this trend for the past few years. The title of his book suggests the overlapping cultures of the business world, represented by New York City’s Madison Avenue, home to many of the largest and most powerful ad agencies, and the entertainment field, dominated by Hollywood’s Vine Street, where many movie, television and recording studio executives have their offices.

Donaton points out that in many cases this trend is a result of changing technologies that are forcing business models to evolve. Televison was once seen as the “massiest of the mass media.” Advertisers bought access to a specific type of audience by purchasing ads during a network TV show that guaranteed to deliver millions of similar viewers. Thanks to the increasing numbers of specialty cable TV channels, broadcasting has really become narrow casting, aimed at a very precise segment of the audience.

Donaton shows through out the book that he is not only a keen observer of the trends happening in the ad world, but he is an analytical thinker, making connections about how these ads relate to our changing entertainment culture and then explaining clearly why it is happening.

He says technological innovations, such as TiVo, those personal digital recorders (PDR’s) that work like a VCR on steroids, are a double edged sword for advertisers. On the one side, a PDR lets the audience skip over unwanted commercials and return to the program. On the other, a PDR helps the audience find out more information about the products they are really interested in, by providing speedy Internet searches listing reviews, prices and availability.

In the music business, digital technology and home computers have allowed consumers to download single songs, often at no cost at all, rather than purchasing CD’s. This piracy, combined with escalating costs, has forced recording executives to find innovative ways to ensure their return on investment. Just like McDonald’s, then, even groups such as The Rolling Stones have become a marketing brand, seeking out concert tour sponsorships.

Scott Donaton touches on all the major entertainment media – magazines, movies, television and music – in Madison & Vine, and the result is a thoroughly engrossing book. Donaton is such a smooth writer that this book could be read at one sitting; still, his use of astounding facts and figures make this a volume to be read repeatedly. The interviews with the key players in the entertainment field illustrate Donaton’s argument that not only is this convergence of business and art going to continue, but what we have seen so far is only the tip of the iceberg.

Hang on to your hats, for sure. And maybe your wallets, too.

Mike Gange teaches media studies and journalism courses at Fredericton High.

High Flyin’ Advertisin’

 

Review by Mike Gange

A Big Life In Advertising
Mary Wells Lawrence
Knopf, $37.95, 307 pages.

 

Mary Wells Lawrence may not be a household name, but what she has done in the advertising world has touched the collective consciousness of most North Americans. Mrs. Wells is the creative force behind many well known advertising campaigns, like “At Ford, Quality is Job One,” “Nobody beats Midas. Nobody,” and the much copied “I love NY” replacing the word love with the stylized red heart.

Although married twice, Mary Wells Lawrence (nee Berg) went by the name of her first husband throughout her professional life. As founder of the New York based advertising firm Wells Rich Greene, Mary Wells was directly involved in many ad campaigns and promotions influencing consumer spending and behaviour for more than three decades. Her inspiration led to Braniff Airways gaining widespread marketplace recognition for its colourfully painted airplane exteriors at a time when most airlines were either silver or painted white. Her input successfully helped the campaign team keep the electorate focused on the accomplishments of N.Y. Governor Nelson Rockefeller as he was seeking re-election rather than on his messy and well publicized divorce. Her groundbreaking print advertisement put American Motors’ Javelin side by side with Ford’s Mustang and led to more sales of Javelins than American Motors ever predicted. From her ad agency Wells Rich Greene came memorable ad campaigns like “Flick Your Bic” for Bic Lighters and “America’s Favorite Cigarette Break” where an extra long Benson & Hedges cigarette was demolished by elevator doors.

A Big Life In Advertising

is a remarkable tale. Mary Wells was an only child, born into a family environment more stifling than creative. Her uncommunicative father would withdraw from humans, preferring to work in his basement or garden. Her mother never felt satisfied in terms of personal development. Still, in the 1950’s, Mary Berg, who became Mrs. Wells following a short-lived marriage, found work as an advertising copywriter in a department store in her home area of Youngstown, Ohio. Barely in her twenties, she married and moved with her husband to New York, rising quickly through progressively larger and more upscale stores as an ad writer, eventually becoming copy chief of the prestigious Macy’s Department Store. In the 1960’s headhunters lured Mrs. Wells to ad agency McCann Erickson, where she continued to sharpen her creative writing skills. A couple of other career moves followed, each better than the one before. It was during that time that she created the Braniff Airways colour campaign and handled the Alka-Seltzer promotion.

 

 

Interestingly, it was Mrs. Wells who got Miles Pharmaceuticals to update the ads which once featured the animated cartoon figure “Speedy” selling the stomach tablets. Mrs. Wells writes that she was working with a research doctor named Dorothy Carter “who demonstrated to us that in order for aspirin to break through the pain barrier it often required two aspirins, not one, to do the job. As aspirin is one of the ingredients that make Alka-Seltzer effective, we asked her if two Alka-Seltzers would work better than one. Yes, two would work better than one. But the directions on the packages said to take only one. And all the old Speedy commercials demonstrated only one fizzing in water…We changed the directions and began to show two Alka-Seltzers dropping into a glass of water in every commercial. Plop, plop, fizz, fizz. Miles began selling twice as much Alka-Seltzer,” Mrs. Wells writes.

By 1966, Mary Wells had had enough tutelage to feel confident about opening her own ad agency, called Wells Rich Greene. Founder, president and later CEO of the first publicly traded company to be headed by a woman, Mrs. Wells became a role model for women in business at a time when every other ad agency was run by men. Mrs. Wells was not only a strong-willed leader, but she was also driven by highly developed ethics. By 1972, her agency had billings worth $150 billion. At one point during that time she did the unthinkable, handing in her company’s resignation to a huge TWA account worth more than $30 million annually. Wells Rich Greene was about to buy out a Texas based agency that already represented Continental Airlines, and Mrs. Wells felt the potential conflict of interest was not in the best interests of her clients or her new staff.

Mary Wells Lawrence shows us how attitude makes all the difference in one’s altitude. Some of the best parts of her story tell how she and her staff won over huge accounts with ingenuity and chutzpah, while other agencies jealously predicted (and hoped) she would only fail. Also absolutely fascinating are descriptions of the process of creating an ad campaign. But at times, Mrs. Wells’ writing style is disappointing. She is too breathlessly wordy, too much like a practiced copywriter, purposely using bad grammar and no punctuation in run-on sentences, to achieve a calculated emotional response.

 

Mary Wells Lawrence has certainly had an impact on our popular culture, through the ad campaigns she created for print and television. A Big Life In Advertising lets us get to know her a little better.

 

Mike Gange teaches media studies and journalism at Fredericton High.

 

 

 

 

Certainly Not Out to Lunch

 

Review by Mike Gange

The Fall of Advertising & the Rise of PR
Al Ries and Laura Ries
Harper Business Books, $37.95, 295 pages

In spite of the thousands of books I have read, and the many book reviews I’ve written, I can only think of a few authors of non-fiction work with whom I would like to pass a whole evening, sitting down and having dinner and a long conversation. Jean Kilbourne, who wrote Deadly Persuasion, would be one, Farai Chideya, author of The Color of Our Future, would be another and Al Ries, who, along with his daughter Laura, wrote The Fall of Advertising & the Rise of PR, would be a third.

Ms. Kilbourne, I think, would be inflammatory. Ms. Chideya, I hope, would be inspirational. And Mr. Ries, I think, would be invigorating.

If you are going to be a bear, you might as well be a grizzly. So, if you are going to teach about marketing, advertising and branding, you might as well get a marketing expert who is not shy about getting in your face. Still, to be trustworthy, he or she would have to be someone who is going to turn the advertising world on its ear, if need be. Al Ries seems to be that kind of a guy. Ries is one of the world’s best known marketing strategists. Along with his daughter Laura, he is the author of several books, including The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding.

As the authors of The Fall of Advertising & the Rise of PR, they aren’t afraid to name names and take numbers of those companies who have tripped up along the road to brand building. Almost gleefully, they point out stories like these: Volvo has reversed years of successfully marketing itself as a safe, family car only to have that all come undone by bringing out a convertible, sports car; the name Cadillac is almost synonymous with large, heavy cars, so, what might General Motors have been thinking to come out with a small, lightweight car. GM goofed again with the introduction of its electric car, which was brainlessly called “Impact.” The only thing missing is the model name, FE or RE which could be either “Front End” or “Rear End.”

In the first part of this book, the authors point out how advertising people are rated close in popularity with snake oil salesmen. So, they suggest, why does our culture continue to believe advertising, applauding its creativity but ignoring the fact that so much advertising is ineffective clutter? And, they point out, if advertising people are more excited about the creative end of the ads than about the effectiveness of the content, advertising is not something to be trusted. The Ries’ go on to say that even the advertising executives don’t advertise; they show their successes by filling their offices and lobbies with such P-R as civic endorsements and awards won. 

Part of the charm of this book is the writing style. Irreverent and witty, the Ries’ smoothly build an argument that points out the foibles of too much aggressive marketing and the need for gentler, more subtle P-R. And P-R, to be handled correctly, takes time to develop. Coke, the Ries’ point out, sold only $50 worth of syrup in its first year, and it took 42 years before Coca Cola sold more in bottles than it did as a fountain drink. Part of the value of this book to teachers, media and pop culture scholars, and to business people even considering any kind of ad campaign, is the use of real life, well documented case studies, showing what works and what does not work in advertising.

The Fall of Advertising & the Rise of PR is something that “bears” picking up and reading again and again. So, come to think of it, maybe one dinner with Al Ries would not be enough.

Mike Gange teaches media studies and journalism at Fredericton High.

It’s a Jungle Out There!

Review by Mike Gange

Brand Warfare: 10 Reasons for Building the Killer Brand

by David F. D’Alessandro

McGraw-Hill, 24.95, 185 pages

In the early 1980’s Orville Redenbacher took a commodity nobody thought twice about and made it a viable brand. He convinced consumers his popcorn was worth more than his competitor’s and this it had a distinct personality. Redenbacher understood the power of the brand to trump all rhyme and reason in the marketplace.

David F. D’Alessandro has learned real lessons in business from both simple folk like Redenbacher and from complex situations requiring diplomacy and tact. In Brand Warfare: 10 Reasons for Building the Killer Brand, he shares some of the practical lessons he has gained along the path that led him to become CEO of John Hancock Financial Services. D’Alessandro is credited with the company’s dramatic revival that led to it being named by the N.Y. Times as one of the brands of the 20th century. When D’Alessandro relates how John Hancock went from 5,000 sales agents in 1991 to 66 000 agents in the year 2000, it is easy to understand why D’Alessandro is regarded as one of the business world’s most innovative marketers.

The rationale for this book, D’Alessandro says, is that brands are no longer restricted to the business world. Brand mania is sweeping the globe. The state of Vermont wants to protect its own brand, as does Tom Hanks and Coca Cola. But he says, nothing is as misunderstood as the question of how to use the brand. Some corporate giants, like Nike and Coke, have stumbled in their quest to keep their products in front of the consumers and the results have worked out poorly for the brand, the shareholders and the consumer.

Marketers use the nebulous term “brand” to mean ‘‘whatever’’ the consumer thinks about when he or she hears the company name or sees their image. This ‘‘whatever’’ includes labor practices, the company’’s environmental record, or well publicized customer complaints. In his 10 rules, D’Alessandro addresses some of the problems that occur as markets try to maintain their brand profile. He talks about the difficulty of establishing a great brand, the need to fight for advertising with a positive impact, how to get beyond a scandal and how ultimately the brand is the responsibility of the CEO AND everybody else in the company.

D’Alessandro’s writing style is both folksy and savvy, straight business talk punctuated with anecdotes about successful rebounds and untimely pratfalls. In 1982, he writes, the Tylenol brand was seriously hurt when seven deaths were linked to cyanide inserted into the Extra Strength Tylenol Capsules. Johnson & Johnson’’s rapid recall of the product before returning to the marketplace with tamper proof packaging cost the company $100 million, he says, but helped the brand become so trusted that it retains a dominant 25% of the analgesics market.

Some of the pratfalls D’Alessandro has observed are reported here and like this one, are worth repeating. While promoting Old Crow whiskey for National Distributors, (before joining the John Hancock company) D’Alessandro invited life style editors from many print media to a huge event, where the whiskey flowed freely and the gimmicks were the order of the day. D’Alessandro even arranged for an animal handler to bring along a very well trained crow that sat on shoulders. It was so well trained it would only relieve itself if the trainer blew a whistle.

He writes, “Prominent among the crowd was a writer for Penthouse magazine, who showed up in a white suit with a Penthouse pet on each arm. The guy was quite taken with himself; at one point he decided he should be the one with the crow….We watched him strut around for a moment with the bird on his shoulder. I said “You know, I don’t care if we get an article in Penthouse.” The trainer gave me a knowing smile, then blew his little whistle. It was a beautiful moment.”

Trying to write only ten rules for a killer brand is a bit of a gimmick too. Obviously there is a lot more to protecting your brand in today’s competitive marketplace than D’Alessandro can say in just ten rules.

While D’Alessandro mentions other companies from time to time, he too frequently trumpets the successes of John Hancock until it become an annoying advertisement. Then again, why not, if its brand awareness that he is after.

Mike Gange teaches media studies and journalism courses at Fredericton High School.

Media Literacy Call to Arms

Editorial by Mike Gange

 

If you are reading this, it is likely because you are concerned about media literacy. This is not just another diatribe, but a call to arms. This is an urgent plea to change the status quo.

 Although schools recognize that our students see more hours of TV than they spend in school, media literacy has not become a national concern. Add in cell phones, video games, computers and movies and our kids are not teenagers anymore, they are “SCREEN-AGERS.” (This is not a term I coined, but I cannot seem to find the original use of the term. I would welcome some input on this.)

 I realize that schools are controlled on a state-by-state or a province-by-province basis, and the loosely formed friendships, partnerships and collaborations that exist between teachers, professors and media professionals do so in spite of the myriad of obstacles and lack of formal support these people get.

In my view, there is a serious disconnect between what is taught in universities and what is practiced in the classes where media studies is taught in schools. There are too few universities that teacher teachers how to teach media literacy skills, and too few teachers who are willing to explore ideas that “might blow the classroom to bits,” as Marshall McLuhan said.   Canadian media pioneer Chris Worsnop, who has since retired from teaching, maintained that we just throw things into the media classes, without any formal ideas of how to assess them. True enough: how do you measure citizenship for example? Or a change of values?  

In the late 1970’s, a little known Canadian recording group called The Perth County Conspiracy (Does Not Exist) sang “At the teacher’s college, they teach teachers how to dance.” True enough, we know how to tap dance, skirting around an issue, but we teachers often don’t know why or how the media education pedagogy works. This is why we need research and grounded investigation that relates to the classroom.

In his excellent new book, “Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations,” (2008 Penguin Press) Clay Shirky writes about the power of the Internet. Chapters 4 & 5 talk about personal collaboration and collective action. He writes how Wikipedia – which in the true sense of the word is not an encyclopaedia, but a repository of ideas and knowledge that is peer edited – has become a valuable tool of our society, albeit not one necessarily trusted in an academic citation.

Part of the power of the Wikipedia site is that anyone with knowledge of the situation can add to the content and through collaboration, the body of work can grow.

Here is my plea for the next year: Let’s all get on Wikipedia, adding our knowledge of the growing field and the key people we are aware of locally. In my little province in eastern Canada for example, there are 31 high schools, but only about 15 of them offer media studies courses. (In Toronto, Neil Anderson said, there are 31 high schools within the city.) What are teacher to do if they are looking for help? At least knowing someone is near-by and might have answers for our queries will increase the strength of our community.  Presently the media literacy pages or the media studies pages in Wikipedia are only about 3 pages in length.

I hope the organizers of conferences will put their conferences on the Wikipedia site, so that everyone who seeks will find it there. While I agree the media list serve is invaluable, and various organizations are doing their bit to get the word out, the time has come to have a common, collaborative and collective site that talks about both academic pursuits in media education and pedagogical contacts.

So WII-FM? (What’s In It For Me?) only the sharing of knowledge and a chance to meet more of the key people in this field. WII-FY? (What’s In It For You?) The chance to brag about people in your own area and their successes. The chance to start a network of like-minded researchers and teachers.  And for all of us? The chance to move media literacy beyond a back-burner concern in schools, and to increase the number of voices in our democracies.

Audience, space, display: a reflection from ‘Sacred Space’

 

 

By Mike Gange

 

There is a unique view of the playing surface from a sports press box. It’s not a view the average person gets to see, but it would be easily recognizable, and yet, still a sacred place. Let’s take the press box at a Carleton University Ravens Basketball game, for example.  

 

AUDIENCE

 

The gym is called the Raven’s Nest, a particularly unfriendly place for visiting teams, since Carleton University is ranked number one in university basketball by the sports writers across Canada, and has been the top since the beginning of this  year. Carleton U has won the national title five times in the past five years.

 

The audience at the Raven’s Nest includes students and fans from the community. Usually, the students sit on bleachers on one side of the gym, making a ruckus, and are whipped into even more unfriendly actions by the RED ZONE student leaders. The students are typically dressed in what students wear: jeans, sneakers, T-shirts, hoodies, etc. Some of the more ardent fans among the students may have their faces painted in Carleton U.’s colours, half red, half black, or have their favorite player’s number painted on their cheeks. Some of the student fans at the game will do almost anything to get on TV, especially if it is broadcast on Rogers Television which will occasionally flash on the audience at the game for the amusement of its television audience. They might peel off their shirts or make the usual #1 with their index finger to get on TV.  

 

On the other side of the gym, the typically more sedate audience includes alumni, basketball aficionados, and maybe a scout or two from some university that may soon fall prey to the Ravens. These audience members are typically dressed a bit more smartly, although still casually, and the real difference is in the age range – recent college grads sit next to people old enough to be their parents or their grandparents. Some high school kids are mixed in there too.

 

The alumni are there to see their former school play against some other university. The scouts are there to see how certain defensive or offensive tactics will work out, and take that information back to their own university. Some of the high school kids are studying the game, looking to see what they might learn from what is the best non-professional basketball team in the country, and others are there because their parents take them to the games for diversion.

 

The student body is there primarily for diversion and amusement. Men’s games start about 8 pm, and are relatively inexpensive.  As many as 2500 fans can be there in person in the gymnasium.

 

There is another layer to the audience for the game. It is broadcast on the radio, which is carried on campus radio and the Internet. Thus, the radio broadcast can reach across the city, and the Internet broadcast can be heard around the world. Those who would make the effort to tune in are likely much more than casual fans of the games. Some of them are family members 1000 kilometers or more from the game, as are the parents of Elliott Thompson in Fredericton or his brother in Australia.

 

SPACE

 

The first example of space here defines the gymnasium. It is a full size basketball court, with room on both sides to house the members of the audience. It has significant room at the end of the court to house the RED Zone crew, a bunch of wild student crazies who bring several drums and noisemakers to the game.

 

From the press box, I am staring out at space; there is literally nothing at my eye level clear across the gymnasium. However, I can look down on the game in progress, seeing the players in action and those on the benches.  I am in one of six seating spaces with a front row view of the game in progress. Behind me are six more seating spaces.

 

Each of these big men playing the game occupy a lot of space, and in the heat of the game, they demand more space from their opponents. Sometimes they purposefully and strategically run into another opposition player, occasionally knocking the opposition to the floor. As a result, they get more space if the other player moves, and often they get a foul called on the opposition which gives them some space to take a free shot at the basket hoop. Even if the attacking player is called for charging, the opposition will likely be more careful guarding the attacking player next time; and the present ferocious attack will guarantee more advantageous space in the future.

  

If Carleton Ravens are successful in their attack and in causing a foul, and go to the line for a foul shot, the crowd with the drums and noisemakers gives them lots of space to make their shots. However, if the opposition is at the foul line, and especially if they are at the end zone where the Red Zone crazies are seated, they get no space to think about their shot. The crazies bang their drums, blow their horns, stomp and jeer in order to provide a distraction for the opponents. 

 

The ball takes up a certain space, and the hoop has just enough space inside the rim to allow the ball to penetrate into the hoop, and fall into the space below, through the net.

 

Outside the gym are thousands of parking spaces for students, staff and fans to use. Also outside the gym is a bus to take the opposition team back home. Every player has his own space on the bus, just a seat on the bus, and not necessarily a window.

 

Under the bleachers are the teams’ locker rooms. Each contains a shower space, (not intended for an audience) and a locker space for the players. The whole room is considered private space.

 

The game takes place in the course of a two hour space. 

 

DISPLAY

 

The fans come to the games to see what the Carleton Ravens will display.  On three occasions this year the Ravens have scored more than 100 points per game, and it is considered an awesome display of power and scoring prowess.

 

Sometimes the opposition displays a brave front, but the last thing they want to display is fear.

 

As for the RED Zone crew, they put on a display too. Their display is ostentatious, ferocious and unforgiving, as they jeer and mock the opposition.

 

Around the gym are nearly two dozen advertisements on display. They are printed on tent-like panels, displaying support from some media outlets such television and radio stations, local pizza places, etc.

 

Just in front of the centre court line is a table for scorers and house announcers. Several use computers to tabulate the stats of the game, and during the game the ongoing stats are displayed on their computer screens. Usually at the far left hand side of the tables sits a writer for the Ottawa Citizen. The story of the battle on the court will be displayed in about 600 words in the next day’s newspaper.

 

Sometimes the players will put on a display. Sometimes it is courage; sometimes it is a scoring display. Occasionally, one of the players will get fouled out of the game, usually for displaying too much aggression. When things don’t go right for the coach, he puts on a real display too.

 

At the end of the game, the fans display their affection for the players, milling around near the floor, shaking their hands, patting them on the back. And, in return the players are displaying huge smiles.

 

By the end of the game, these gigantic warriors stop being men in battle, and return to being boys in short pants, and display their feelings for their girlfriends.      The post-game transformation is an interesting display, too.

 

 

 

“The Answer, My Friend, is Blowin’ in the Wind”

 

By Mike Gange

I live in a fairly small city. Fredericton has about 50 000 citizens in it, and of course has no subways, no street cars, and no stores with escalators. My kids, E. and W., are now 15 and 13, and although we take part in lots of different activities, such as sports, movies, biking and camping, our quotidian experience would be far from the typical big city experience some of you know and live. On a typical day, I don’t put 5 kilometres on my car, for example.

My wife and I took the kids to Toronto for the first time about five or six years ago. It was amazing to see the big city through their eyes, which were as wide as saucers as they encountered each new experience. They drank in the city life, they wondered about the streetscapes, and they loved the hustle and noise of Toronto. They stopped, watched and listened to the street musician playing an old Bob Dylan song on his guitar. And they were saddened by the homeless people begging for coins on the street corners.

On the subway, they looked into the tunnels, felt the huge gust of wind that preceded the subway trains, insisted on putting their own fares into the coin boxes, commented on the omnipresent advertising, and looked over the people passing in every direction as part of the changing panorama. In the Eaton’s Centre, they wanted to ride the escalators right to the top and then go right back down again. Shopping was certainly important, especially at stores not available in our small city, but I think they were more taken with the escalators that went up three full stories, almost as high as the flying geese. On the street car, W. insisted on sitting right up near the driver. He  asked all kinds of questions, and we struck up an easy conversation with the driver, who we quickly learned was from Cape Breton. W. wanted to know how the driver could steer the streetcar with just a bar, and of course the answer was it did not need to be steered since it was on fixed tracks. W’s next question was logical: then why did the streetcar have turn signals?

As if by magic, the other 20 or so passengers on the street car moved forward so they could hear better, as they too wanted to know the answers to the questions this kid was asking. Pretty soon we were all talking and asking questions, learning stuff about the city and the street cars we have ridden thoughtlessly for a long time.

This innocent experience and the magic of discovery came back to me today, as I was reading Vanessa Schwartz’s “Spectacular Realities.” What fun it must have been to a member of the strolling classes, wandering the city of Paris in the early 1900’s, looking at everything with fresh eyes, and seeing the city unfold before you as if for your very personal pleasure. With everything being new, fresh, constantly changing, there would not be a jaded moment in the course of the day. What an amazing world where even the unnamed dead bodies in the morgue became part of the amazing spectacle, viewed by thousands pushing their way to the display.  

How have we ever gone so wrong that we have lost that childlike innocence and freshness, that joy of discovering something new around every corner? What do you suppose has changed? Is it the city or the people?  

The kid on the street corner seemed to understand. He sang, “The answer, my friend, . . . .”

 

   

Cut and Clarity: A Rare Gem on The Tube

 Review by Mike Gange

 

The Sitcom Reader: America Viewed and Skewed

Edited By Mary M. Dalton & Laura R. Linder

State University of New York Press, $27.95, 337 pages

 

I was walking through one of my favorite playgrounds the other day, and found a sparkling gem.  

 

My playgrounds are not your typical kid’s playground; rather, mine are bookstores or libraries, real or on-line. With apologies to Will Rogers, you might say I’ve never found a bookstore I couldn’t like. In fact, most of the major publishing houses are plugged into my list of favorite Internet sites, so I can prowl through them at least once a week. The precious stone I found on this outing was The Sitcom Reader: America Viewed and Skewed. Upon closer examination, I became increasingly impressed with its cut, clarity,  colour and carat. I knew I had stumbled on a rare find.  

 

The Sitcom Reader is a collection of 21 essays about U.S. television sitcoms, and is edited by Wake Forest University Professor of Communications Mary Dalton and Marist College Media Arts professor Laura Linder.  The essays are divided into seven sections, and are parceled into topical areas such as “Conventions of the Genre,” “Gender Represented,” “Race and Ethnicity” “Situating Sexual Orientation” and “Implications of Ideology.” In fact, the way these essays have been “cut” into sections is both simple and admirable. Like brilliant diamonds, each of the essays sparkles on its own, but becomes truly dazzling when positioned alongside other fine works. For example, editor Mary Dalton’s own work “Our Miss Brooks: Situating Gender in Teacher Sitcoms” is nicely complemented by Judy Kutulas’ “Liberated Women and New Sensitive Men: Reconstructing Gender in the 1970’s Workplace Comedies.” 

 

Clarity

 

You have to admire the clarity of the work, too. Hardly a word is wasted, and, as a writer, I found myself saying, ‘I wish I had written that.’  With work by media studies or cultural writers and scholars such as Dave Marc, Michael Trueth, David Pierson and Lori Landay, this collection of essays serves to illuminate an aspect of the ever-popular television genre, presenting several facets educators and cultural critics may have overlooked. Landay’s essay on the evolution of “I Love Lucy,” for example, so clearly sets out why the 1950’s CBS sitcom became an archetype for the emerging television genre that it will likely become a staple in media studies or cultural studies classrooms everywhere. Even those who have carefully researched “I Love Lucy” will find the essay sheds light on how Desi-Lu Productions stage-managed the construction of reality that blended the real life news of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, and the fictional life of the Ricardo family on “I Love Lucy.” And, yes, even 50 years ago there were carefully inserted product placement mentions that benefited Lucille Ball, such as the maternity clothing worn on the program by Lucy Ricardo (and available at a store near you.)

 

Color

 

The imperfections in this gem would have to be color. Only three of the essays deal with sitcoms featuring black actors, and this volume contains no sustained discussion of racial diversity in television. In fact, The Sitcom Reader makes more mention of the increasing visibility of gays than blacks.

 

Carat

 

The Sitcom Reader is weighty not just in its contents, as was mentioned earlier, but also its selection of writers and the sources they quote. A brief biography is included for each of the 21 authors, and although not household names in the world of media education, they are nonetheless powerful writers providing thoughtful analysis of this constantly evolving genre of television. Clearly, media education or media literacy courses are being offered in many far-flung locations, and the circle is growing. The bibliographic citations from each of the 21 essays have been edited into one major bibliography that runs 18 pages: further weighty evidence that watching “the tube” can be taken seriously as a field of study.

 

Just as television sitcoms have a mass appeal, so will The Sitcom Reader find an appreciative audience. As for me, having found this one, I am keeping my eyes open for other such radiant gems – especially if they shine up soap operas or sports broadcasting.

 

Mike Gange teaches media studies and journalism at Fredericton High. 

Martha, We Hardly Knew Ya

by Mike Gange

Martha INC.
Christopher Byron
Wiley, $39.95, 404 pages

Martha Stewart is one of the most famous women in the media, getting more daily attention, and mention, than Queen Elizabeth. Her hour long, syndicated TV show is carried in nearly every North American market. Her initial public offering (IPO) on Wall Street made her a billionaire. Her life style and entertaining books top best seller lists and her magazines are enormously popular. Yet Martha is not happy, satisfied or easy to get along with.

Christopher Byron has captured the dish on Martha Stewart in Martha INC. He says she is more a construction of reality than the epitome of entertaining she conveys herself to be. Byron lives in Westport, Connecticut, as does Martha, and has come to know her quite well. Although Byron writes about her admiringly, he also points out her flaws and her sinister side. Like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Martha can be nice or really nasty. And controlling. Very, very controlling, as she showed when she went to the publisher of this book trying to get it pulled. Later, she offered to pay Byron for his work as a writer if she could edit it.

Martha was born Martha Koystra, in 1941, to a working class family in New Jersey, where her mother was a stay at home mom and her dad was a bad tempered, hard drinking, high school gym coach and later, a salesman. A head turning blonde in her high school years, Martha escaped poverty by working as a fashion model. While working her way through university, she met and married a young law student named Andy Stewart and went to work as a stock broker at a second rate firm on Wall Street. She quit selling stocks as a recession hit in 1973; most of the friends she had once sold stocks to were going through financial difficulties.

Byron admiringly points out how everything Martha touches turns to gold. She has learned her lessons from every situation she was in, always coming out on top and managing to promote Martha in the process. Even her deal with K-mart, where she was supposed to help save the down-market retailer ended up with her gaining in-store promotional space and network ads for her videos, books, kitchen ware and linens, while K-mart eventually filed for bankruptcy. Her monthly magazine, Martha Stewart Living, enjoys a circulation of more than two million. Her daily one hour TV show, syndicated by King World Productions, reaches 50 % of the women in North America. Her weekly appearance on CBS’ morning show comes with a guaranteed 30-second ad for Martha and her branded products.

But Byron also points out, in spite of being a billionaire, Martha is a cheap, cantankerous workaholic. For example, on a cooking segment of her TV show, she complained about the cost of using three bottles of wine in the recipe. While soft spoken and charming in front of the camera, Byron reports Martha is just as likely to shout foul mouthed obscenities at her staff and crew if the segments go awry. Martha sleeps about four hours a day, works 20, and expects the rest of her office staff and crew to keep up with her. She fights with her Connecticut neighbors over property lines and encroaching trees, over fences and noisy children. She demands her privacy but thinks nothing of having dozens of huge delivery trucks arrive at her door to supply her catering and entertaining needs. Friends who have gone into business with Martha have found themselves supplying the labour or the capital, only to have Martha grab the profits and the credit.

Byron both admires Martha for what she has done, and dislikes her for what she has become. A determined reporter, Byron has found many things Martha did not want him to know and instructed others to avoid telling him in the hopes of keeping the details obscure. His persistence helped him gather telling quotes from friends, neighbors, school mates, business associates and Martha’s ex-husband. As a result, Martha INC is both fascinating and fabulous.

Consistently through out the book, Byron shows how Martha works at re-writing her personal history, whether in her magazine columns or her books on entertaining. Although she had a traumatic childhood, in her regular columns she portrays it as idyllic and heart-warming. Her father may have worked as a sales rep for a pharmaceutical company, but Martha stretches the truth in calling him a pharmacist. She and her husband lived in a tiny two room apartment when they were first married, but Martha lets on she elegantly entertained eighteen for her first Christmas.

Martha has no real friends, employees who don’t respect her and has gone to court to fight her neighbours. Ironically, the one thing she writes and broadcasts about, domestic bliss, is something that is not now, nor has it ever been, part of Martha’s life.

Mike Gange teaches Media Studies and Journalism at Fredericton High.