by Nedra Weinreich | Oct 30, 2006 | Blog, Entertainment
When I was a kid, I wanted to be the Bionic Woman. Jaime Sommers to me embodied everything a woman should be – smart, competent, strong, compassionate. I never missed a week, collected Bionic Woman trading cards and had an autographed picture of Lindsay Wagner on my wall.
While this show was not specifically a kids’ show, parents back then did not need to worry too much about prime time showing inappropriate content (the raciest thing I remember was Charlie’s Angels in bikinis or people kissing on the Love Boat). Today there’s not much on TV or in the movies I would let my kids watch — even those made for kids — because the characters are often modeling inappropriate behavior.
Watching television and the movies is one of the ways that children (and adults too) learn about their world and what the expectations are for their social behavior. This is why the content of entertainment programming is so important. Aside from issues of snarky, jaded children and hypersexualized preteens, children’s TV and movies have more fundamental problems in how they portray girls and boys, which I recently learned.
Last week I attended a meeting at which Crystal Allene Cook from the organization See Jane presented their research on how males and females are portrayed in children’s media. See Jane is a project founded by actress Geena Davis, who realized that girls were not seen on the screen as much as boys, and that boys and girls were shown in very different ways.
In a separate conversation, Crystal related the story of when Geena was working on the movie Stuart Little, one of the scenes was a perfect example of the discrepancy. In the scene in which Stuart is in a boat race on a pond, on one side were the boys, who were given the remote controls for the boats in the race. On the other side were the girls, who were cheering them on. Geena (or it could have been someone else – I don’t remember) noticed this and suggested that by giving some of the girls the remote controls as well and having some boys cheering, the scene would be much improved. It’s just a small change, but it subtly affects the message about who is expected to be active vs. passive.
I am not someone who jumps on the bandwagon about how us poor women have it so hard and that we haven’t gotten ahead because the Man is keeping us down. So I have to say that initially when I found out about this project, I almost dismissed it as more of the same whining. But when I heard the statistics and read the research, I was convinced that this is a serious problem. It’s critical that girls see themselves as more than big-eyed Disney princesses and that boys know that it’s accepted and expected that they will be nonviolent and socially engaged.
The study, conducted by USC’s Annenberg School for Communication, included the 101 top-grossing G-rated films released between 1990 and 2004 and analyzed 4,249 speaking characters appearing across all the films in the sample. Among the key findings released so far are:
- There are three male characters for every one female character.
- Only 28 percent of the speaking characters (both real and animated) are female.
- Fewer than one in five (17 percent) of the characters in crowd scenes are female.
- Male characters are only half as likely (34.6%) as females (66.3%) to be parents.
- Only 34.6% of male characters of color are parents, while 53.1% of white male characters are parents.
- 62% of male characters of color are shown as physically aggressive or violent while 37.6% of white males are portrayed that way.
Crystal is working from within the entertainment industry to try to raise awareness of this issue and offers what should be relatively easy solutions to this problem. So far she has been receiving positive interest. It seems that when most of the writers, producers and directors are male, they focus on what they know — boys — without even realizing this bias. For example, in the Animation Guild, which hosted a forum featuring See Jane’s recent research, only 10.8% of the writers are female, 8% of the producers, 14.9% of the directors, and so on down the job description line. Now that the issue has been raised, hopefully this will lead to more awareness and a conscious effort on the part of the writers and others to include female characters — rather than the one girl in the story who has to be all things to all people.
See Jane’s research is available in these pdf reports:
And another report will be coming soon on body image and hypersexuality.
We need Jaime Sommers! We need lots of her.
Technorati Tags: see jane, gender, girls, boys, television, movies, children, geena davis
by Nedra Weinreich | Oct 24, 2006 | Blog, Entertainment, Social Media
I love science fiction. Given a choice between any other type of book (especially touchy-feely chick lit) and a sci-fi book, I will choose the sci-fi almost every time.
Lately I’ve been thinking about how two sci-fi books I’ve read presaged the existence of blogging and its culture. The first, and one of my favorite books of all time, is Ender’s Game
by Orson Scott Card, written in 1985. Quick synopsis: Genius children are bred and enter military training at a young age to save the Earth from another invasion by the Buggers, an alien civilization that has been fought off twice but threatens to return. Ender Wiggin is the best and brightest student at the Battle School, and believed to be the last hope for humanity.
Ender’s older siblings, Peter and Valentine, are also hyperintelligent but were not deemed suitable as military commanders. They take it upon themselves to foment political change and eventually unite the world’s governments under Peter’s rule.
How do they bring about this change? Basically, by blogging on the “nets,” though in 1985 when this book was written, blog was still just a typo for blob. Here’s how they started:
Her main identity on the nets was Demosthenes — Peter chose the name. He called himself Locke. They were obvious pseudonyms, but that was part of the plan. “With any luck, they’ll start trying to guess who we are.”
“If we get famous enough, the government can always get access and find out who we really are.”
“When that happens, we’ll be too entrenched to suffer much loss. People might be shocked that Demosthenes and Locke are two kids, but they’ll already be used to listening to us.”
They began composing debates for their characters. Valentine would prepare an opening statement, and Peter would invent a throwaway name to answer her. His answer would be intelligent and the debate would be lively, lots of clever invective and good political rhetoric…Then they would enter the debate into the network, separated by a reasonable amount of time, as if they were actually making them up on the spot. Sometimes a few other netters would interpose comments, but Peter and Val would usually ignore them or change their own comments only slightly to accommodate what had been said.
Peter took careful note of all their most memorable phrases and then did searches from time to time to find those phrases cropping up in other places. Not all of them did, but most of them were repeated here and there, and some of them even showed up in the major debates on the prestige nets. “We’re being read,” Peter said. “The ideas are seeping out.”
“The phrases, anyway.”
“That’s just the measure. Look, we’re having some influence. Nobody quotes us by name, yet, but they’re discussing the points we raise. We’re helping set the agenda.”
Sound familiar? I remember when I first read this book about 10 years ago, I thought it seemed pretty unrealistic that someone could just start anonymously writing and posting their thoughts on the internet, and that people would pay so much attention to it when there are so many other posts by so many other people getting in the way. Card turned out to be prescient.
More recently (perhaps a couple of years ago), I read Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom by Cory Doctorow (who is now more than a little familiar with blogging). The plot is not so important for my point, but the story basically revolves around people in the 22nd century who live at Walt Disney World, which is no longer owned by Disney and is more of an open source project. In a post-scarcity economy, where people are immortal and have everything they need, the currency is not dollars, but something called Whuffie. Whuffie is essentially the respect and esteem that other people hold you in; you get more Whuffie when you do good things for other people and contribute to society postively, and you lose Whuffie when you treat others poorly or screw up in some way. Using digital implants in their eyes, people can track how much Whuffie they and other people have accumulated.
This was a good fight, one we could have a thousand times without resolving. I’d get him to concede that Whuffie recaptured the true essence of money; in the old days, if you were broke but respected, you wouldn’t starve; contrariwise if you were rich and hated, no sum could buy you security and peace. By measuring the thing that money really represented — your personal capital with your friends and neighbors — you more accurately gauged your success.
This book came out in 2003, so blogs were already in existence, but I don’t think that blogs were mentioned anywhere in the book. So how does this concept relate to blogging?
Most bloggers do not get paid for their posts. Why do we do it? To establish ourselves as industry thought leaders, to gain influence for our ideas, to get noticed. Yes, with the ultimate hope that it will lead to paying gigs or positions of power, but in the short term we get paid with Whuffie. When one blogger links to another, that is a form of Whuffie. As our Technorati or Alexa rank rises, that’s blog Whuffie. A blogger is only as good as her peers and audience think she is, and if she does not continue to perform, the Whuffie will eventually sink. I guess for most bloggers who don’t have ads on their blogs, it comes down to ego boosts, because we can’t actually buy anything with the blog Whuffie, but at some point for the best bloggers, the prestige translates into monetary compensation.
Does anyone have any good sci-fi books to recommend?
Technorati Tags: blogging, science fiction, sci-fi, orson scott card, enders game, cory doctorow, whuffie
by Nedra Weinreich | Sep 26, 2006 | Blog, Entertainment
This summer I was on the selection committee for a youth screenwriting contest sponsored by an organization called Scenarios USA.
Scenarios USA teamed up with the RAP-IT-UP Campaign, a partnership of BET and The Kaiser Family Foundation, to launch the national “What’s the REAL DEAL on Growing Up in the Age of AIDS?” Story and Scriptwriting Contest for youth, ages 13-18. They asked youth to write a story or script about how HIV/AIDS has affected them, their friends, school and community.
Scenarios USA will work collaboratively with the winners and professional Hollywood directors in developing the stories into scripts. Scenarios will also work with the winners’ schools and communities to pick locations in which to shoot the films and to recruit local youth to intern on the film sets. Once the films are completed, the writers and directors will be the featured guests at the films’ premiere in the spring of 2007. The films will then be distributed to high schools and community groups nationwide, streamed online, and premiered on Showtime Networks. The 2006 winners will also have the opportunity to continue working with Scenarios USA as spokespeople and advocates on the issues that their stories address.
Scenarios USA’s short films from past contest winners have been selected to be the first featured videos in YouAre.TV‘s new initiative Content for a Cause. YouAreTV is similar to YouTube but seems to put a premium on independent filmmaking that is of higher quality than the random chaos found on YouTube. Unlike DoGooder.TV, which is a similar concept that I wrote about last week, this is not a nonprofit-only site, but they will be highlighting the work of a different nonprofit each month. This approach encourages nonprofits to create and submit the highest quality video, rather than whatever they happen to have in video format.
Ten short films from past Scenarios USA contest winners are posted on the YouAre.TV site. These mini-movies that are conceived and co-directed by youth are of high professional quality and seem like they would make a strong impact on their peers. The movie embedded above — Choices: the Good, the Bad, the Ugly — is a good example, with engaging characters, realistic situations and a plotline that shows the consequences of unprotected sex (teen parenthood, contracting herpes) without preaching.
On a side note, as I was looking at the YouAreTV site, I came across this video, which offers a humorous look at the effects of depression in young adulthood. Depression here is depicted as a surly slacker who is almost driven away by drill sergeant Motivation and corporate pep-talker Confidence. But in my opinion the mumbling pajama-clad Sloth steals the show. Some profanity, so perhaps not entirely safe for work, but it’s an interesting take on talking about an issue that is often ignored. There’s even a “The More You Know”-style piece at the end where the actors talk briefly about the issue. It’s not necessarily effective social marketing, but it’s not meant as such, and is an interesting example of how you could open the conversation.
UPDATE (9/26/06): The embedded video is working now, thanks to quick action by David at YouAreTV.
Technorati Tags: YouAreTV, YouTube, dogooder, nonprofit, aids, hiv, video, youth, scenarios
by Nedra Weinreich | Sep 21, 2006 | Blog, Entertainment
I have been meaning for a while to write about DoGooderTV after receiving an e-mail from someone affiliated with the project, and now that things have calmed down a bit I have a chance to catch up with the topics I had put off for lack of time. DoGooder.TV is a site that seems to be a combination of YouTube and MySpace for nonprofit organizations (still in alpha version according to the logo).
Registered nonprofits can upload up to 100MB of streaming video to their page for site visitors to view. When individuals see the videos and are moved to take action, the site provides ways to donate, volunteer, and create a community around those organizations.
Is it effective? Too soon to tell. Just like on YouTube, there are videos that are interesting and well-made, and there are videos that are of no interest to anyone except the director of the nonprofit that made it. Certainly, the video medium has the potential to evoke a strong emotional reaction when done well. But are the kinds of videos that nonprofits typically make compelling enough for an average person to seek them out?
You can’t expect to just load your video onto YouTube and see the
number of views take off. To get viewers and generate buzz, the video
needs to be unusual in some way — whether it’s a humorous angle, a new
way of looking at an old issue, something that hits close to home,
something unexpected… The standard 5-minute organizational promo
video is not going to do it. If DGTV is just more of the same old approach, it will be DOA. If, however, the nonprofits post content that is fresh and exciting, it has a much better chance of breaking out.
Another question is whether it’s a good thing or a bad thing for nonprofits to segregate themselves away from where the action is. If a nonprofit already has video(s) created, or has decided to create something new specifically to distribute via social media, should they choose to upload it to DoGooderTV or to YouTube? The answer is yes. Right now the audience is at YouTube but perhaps eventually DGTV will be known as the place to go if you want more information on a particular nonprofit or a specific health/social issue.
I think the best direction that DoGooderTV could take would be to become a showcase for PSAs and television ads created on various health and social issues. Posting ads on YouTube has been a strategic decision by many brands/agencies to reach more viewers than they could reach on television, but not all agencies are as forward-looking. According to FutureLab’s blog, when marketing blogger Coolz0r posted an anti-drunk driving spot on YouTube and referred to it in his blog, the Irish agency LyleBalie served him with a DCMA take-down notice for the ad and YouTube suspended his account. Perhaps DoGooder.TV would be considered to be a more appropriate venue for that sort of ad (though for those who are stuck in Command and Control marketing, any use beyond the actual medium for which the ad was created may be too threatening).
On a side note, one not so minor annoyance when I go on the DoGooderTV website is that their featured video automatically starts playing with the sound on, which I find very annoying. They should either have the video wait to start until someone clicks it or start the video with the sound off and let people increase the volume if they want to hear it. A pet peeve of mine is when websites load and play sound files without my permission. Of course I would never do this, but what if I were web surfing while talking on the phone or on a conference call? It’s a good way to guarantee someone will never come back to your site.
I’ll be keeping an eye on DGTV. It will be interesting to see how it develops.
Technorati Tags: dogoodertv, dogooder, youtube, myspace, nonprofit
by Nedra Weinreich | Aug 20, 2006 | Blog, Entertainment, Technology
Since I last wrote about YouthNoise in June, the social activism networking site for teens has continued to innovate new ways to appeal to youth. The Wall Street Journal (online subscribers’ access only) on Saturday describes a new partnership between YouthNoise and Virgin Mobile USA to send a text novella in 160-character installments to cellphone users who sign up.
The story is aimed at raising awareness of teenage homelessness, and was written by copywriters rather than a published author. Here’s how they describe it:
Ghost Town is the first interactive text novella from Virgin Mobile and YouthNoise. It’s the gripping story of a teenage football player named Ghost who is hiding a dark secret—he’s homeless. This secret will shock his classmates as he tries to manage the ins and outs of high school, an uncertain future, and just trying to stay alive.
The characters from the story each have a profile and blog on youthnoise.com, interacting with readers and each other in the comments. They also each have a MySpace page.
In the past week about 10,000 people have read the beginning of this text-message fiction. It’s not free, though, costing anywhere from $.025-.05 per message (depending on the messaging plan they have); those who sign up will receive two text messages a day for five weeks.
This is a novel way of getting the message out (yes, pun intended), and I expect that we will be seeing more of this type of text messaging and/or interactive fiction directed at teens through the media they use most.
And while we’re on the subject of social activism via mobile phones, I just read at Strategic Public Relations about a line of mobile phone personalization products called Just Cause from Airborne Entertainment. These products include “socially-relevant, environmentally-concerned and politically attuned ringtones, ringbacks and wallpapers.”
Sample “Protestones” include “Hell no, we won’t go!” and “Viva La Revolution!” while “Stop and Thinktones” include “Every 3.6 seconds someone dies of hunger” and “Nearly one in four people live on less than $1 per day.” Ringbacks include factual information about subjects as diverse as the depletion of the planet’s rainforests and cruelty to animals, while wallpapers include graphic illustrations accompanied by statements such as “Pollution Stinks,” “Change Your Habits, Not the Climate” and “Dissent is NOT Un-American.”
Over and above its basic messages, Airborne will work in conjunction with socially-responsible groups across the continent to create cause-specific products. In addition, the company will select one group to which it will donate 10% of all Just Cause net proceeds each month.
Kids love to be able to personalize their phones, and this presents an opportunity for nonprofits to be able to give their teen supporters a way to express their affinity for the cause. YouthNoise knows this too, and they just had a contest to design a phone charm that embodies the site’s philosophy. If you are working with youth, how can you make their mobile phone — one of their main methods of communication — into a way of getting your message out?
Technorati Tags: phones, youthnoise, homelessness, virgin, social activism, marketing
by Nedra Weinreich | Aug 10, 2006 | Blog, Entertainment
Am I the only person who thinks that the premise and marketing of Showtime’s series Weeds is incredibly inappropriate? Doing some research on the show online, I found nearly all positive glowing reviews. I have to admit that I have not actually seen the show, since I don’t get cable and rarely watch TV — there’s just not enough hours in the day.
But since Weeds first came out last year, the premise has really irked me. It’s about a suburban mom who becomes a pot dealer to make ends meet after her husband passes away without leaving any life insurance. Yeah, that’s a character we want people to identify with. The preview for the coming season (accessed from the link above) shows the main character Nancy driving through town with everyone smiling at her as she leaves rainbows and flowers in her wake. Who wouldn’t want to be her?
Today I saw that the Golden Globe-winning and Emmy-nominated show, which is starting its second season next week, has a new marketing campaign (via Adrants). The campaign includes the ad pictured above in Rolling Stone magazine, which has an embedded marijuana-scented strip, with the copy “Catch the buzz!” next to it. They will also have ice cream trucks called “Weeds Munchie Mobiles” that will pass out Weeds merchandise and brownies at concerts and other events, and street vendors handing out coffee in Weeds cups.
The only grown-up I could find saying anything negative about the campaign is Tom Riley, the director of public affairs for the US Office of National Drug Control Policy:
In addition to reciting statistics about marijuana use (“There are more teens in treatment for marijuana than for alcohol dependence—is that funny?”), Riley chided the Rolling Stone promotion as all too retro. “Unless they’re going for the over-50 demographic, it sounds like their marketing department might be a little out of touch,” Riley said. “Maybe some baby boomers still find this kind of thing edgy, but young people don’t.”
While I don’t think the marketing department being out of touch would have been my main point, at least someone has spoken out about this.
Why is it okay for Showtime to make a show glamorizing pot smoking and drug dealing, when they would probably never portray smoking tobacco or the tobacco industry as a positive thing? The problem with this type of show — no matter how critically acclaimed it is — is that by creating sympathetic characters who are engaging in these unhealthy and illegal behaviors, they normalize the behaviors and make them seem like something everybody else is doing. Television plays a huge role in how people construct their perceptions of reality and appropriate behavior.
Even if the Showtime execs and others involved in the program can justify it by saying that it’s only on late at night after the kids are asleep, the ubiquitous ads for the program laud a drug dealer as “her highness” and use the tagline “putting the herb into the suburbs.” It could just as well be promoting the use and sale of marijuana as promoting the show.
After this posting and my previous one about Jack in the Box’s stoner commercial (which has incredibly been the most-viewed post since I started the blog), maybe I seem like a square old fuddy-duddy. I’m okay with that. Maybe the Showtime execs don’t mind if their kids smoke pot and deal drugs, but I do.
Technorati Tags: weeds, marijuana, pot, showtime
Nedra helps nonprofits and public agencies create positive change on health and social issues through social marketing and transmedia storytelling strategies at Weinreich Communications since founding the company in 1995. She helps organizations make a difference for the populations they serve by strategically designing programs that draw on state-of-the-art behavior change techniques, digital media approaches and the power of stories. 
