Tag Archives: north america

Culture War Correspondence: How We Would Do TV


EVAN:
 The idiot box, the boob tube, the . . . television receiver . . . TV’s a pretty important part of our culture, and even as I write this the flatscreen is on, showing the Rockets pretty soundly beating the Spurs-

There are also certain ways that things are done, which is apparent as anything else given the upcoming Super Bowl and the so-called “Ad Blitz”. What we’re here to do is explain how we’d do things, were we the ones running the show.

GORDON: Since you brought up commercials, that’s probably a good place to start.

How about declaring a law that the same commercial cannot be shown twice in the same hour? Continue reading

Jamie Oliver vs The Kids – Should we eat the whole chicken?

So this one time on Food Revolution Jamie Oliver tried to convince a group of kids that chicken nuggets were too disgusting to eat by showing them how nuggets are made from the skin, cartilage, internal organs and other worthless chicken leftovers. Unfortunately for him, the experiment backfired.

Continue reading

It’s Harder To Give Than To [insert any other verb]

Ugh, Dane Cook . . . 

So earlier this week Gordon showed me this video:


How much I actually enjoy Dane Cook [I typically do not]  aside, he really hits on something with this bit. People do get sad when they see these commercials, so they either change the channel as quickly as they can or they watch through the whole thing because “it’s the least they can do” before trying to bury the bad feelings in whatever regularly scheduled programming was taking a commercial break.

He makes the point that people don’t give because they’re being asked too nicely, which probably has some validity to it. I think two main points that people will give in their defence are: 1) I can’t afford it, and 2) it’s too much of a hassle, it’s too much effort. Continue reading

Let’s Talk About The Hijab

We make no pretension of being unbiased here at the CWR. We have our particular axes to grind and banners to wave. Evan, you’ll notice, often covers the place of Asians in culture- in no small part because Evan is a combo of a few Asian peoples himself, and more directly affected by that issue. I, alternatively, grew up in the Middle East, and after having spent pretty much the entirety of my life with Arabs and Muslims (not the same thing, shouldn’t have to explain that), I’m more sensitive to Middle Eastern issues- Islamophobia in particular.

I could spend all day railing on the treatment of the Middle East/Arabs/Occupied Palestine/Muslims/etc. The way Arabs/Muslims are singled out for scrutiny and criticism. Casting Indian actors to play Arabs, since Arabs don’t match their own stereotype. The lack of appreciation for the key role the Middle East played in preserving and advancing science and philosophy.

You get the idea.

So rather than trying to tackle a single issue that could be (should be, and has been) covered by an entire academic book, I’m going to hit up super-specific issue.

The hijab. Continue reading