True Drama

By Sam Watermeier

Last week, I wrote about the intimate power of television, specifically how a talk show host can make you feel like he is sitting right next to you in your living room.

While "The Tonight Show" exhibited intimate power with its static shot of retiring host Jay Leno bidding farewell to his audience of 22 years, HBO's new series, "True Detective" has demonstrated another major power of television — its ability to make you feel like you are on a roller-coaster ride in your living room.

The crime drama did that quite literally last Sunday night with a six-minute, unbroken tracking shot following detective Rust Cohle (Matthew McConaughey) amid a robbery gone awry. Acting undercover as a member of the Iron Crusaders biker gang, Cohle participates in the robbery in order to gain access to a meth cooker who may be involved in the murder he's investigating.



Tensions rise and bullets fly as the gang raids the stash house and Cohle runs all over the housing project with its leader as a hostage. This unbroken scene is an exhilarating fly-on-the-wall moment that pulsates with you-are-there immediacy. As the show's director, Cary Joji Fukunaga said, this kind of unbroken shot is “the most first-person experience you can get in a film.”

The shot is a visual embodiment of the show — a sustained surge into a world of crime.

Just as Jay Leno's farewell speech was poignant regardless of whether you watch "The Tonight Show," this sequence in "True Detective" works as a stand-alone adrenaline rush. Of course, it is all the more powerful when you are immersed in the show's history and world. 

Whether sitting you in front of a talk show host as he bids farewell to his audience or thrusting you into a crime world, television is immersive. You may watch it in your living room, but it takes you to another world.

Photos and Fairy Tales

 

By Wendy Faunce

Wendy is a junior at Ball State, studying creative writing and telecommunications: video production. Here on The Public Screen, she aims to inform readers about recent and impacting projects of filmmakers, photographers, and other visual artists.

Portrait photographer Annie Leibovitz has had an astounding career that began when she was a very young woman. In 1970, after graduating from the San Francisco Art Institute, Leibovitz was hired as a staff photographer with Rolling Stone. At the tender age of 23, she was promoted to head photographer. Over the next 10 years, she photographed countless musicians including John Lennon and the members of the Rolling Stones. Vanity Fair then hired Leibovitz. She photographed countless celebrities, musicians, and artists for the magazine. As with Rolling Stone, her photos became icons of artistic freedom and unrestrained boldness. In 1996, she was appointed official photographer of the Olympics in Atlanta.

People from around the globe recognize and admire Leibovitz’s distinct style. Her photos are well known for their bold base colors and “awkward” positioning of subjects. For example, one of her most famous photographs is a cover of Rolling Stone in which a completely naked John Lennon wrapped himself around Yoko, who was almost smiling for the photo. For Vanity Fair, she submerged Whoopi Goldberg in a bathtub filled with milk. Her arms and legs raised high in the air and comical expression stretching her face into a mocking smile.

Some of Leibovitz’s most recent work has circulated around Facebook, Twitter, and other social media sites for several months. She has put together a collection of “realistic” portraits of Disney characters. For this “Disney Dream” series, Leibovitz uses A-list celebrities such as Jennifer Lopez, Will Ferrell, and Jeff Bridges to impersonate Disney cartoon characters’ against the backdrop of scenes similar to those in their movies. The photos are yet another staple in Annie Leibovitz’s already stunning career. “We’ve brought a classic to life!” she says.

A Heartfelt Goodnight

By Sam Watermeier

Thursday evening, Jay Leno bid his final good night to the crew and audience of the talk show he has hosted for 22 years. 

Of course, this was not the first time Leno has said goodbye to "The Tonight Show." In 2009, he moved to prime-time, passing the "Tonight Show" torch to Conan O'Brien, but then reclaiming the show, which NBC offered him after O'Brien's low ratings and time slot conflicts. (Watch Leno's explanation below.)

Thursday night, Leno's explanation behind reclaiming "The Tonight Show" dispelled the popular notion that he acted out of mere show biz selfishness.

"People say to me, 'Hey, why didn't you go to ABC or FOX?'"

"I didn't know anybody over there," Leno said, then describing his NBC crew as family.

It was a humble, selfless speech from a man often accused of being otherwise.

There is more to a show than what meets the eye, Leno illuminated, pointing to: the 64 children of his NBC crew that were born during his time on the air; the fact that his parents and brother died during his first years on the show and the NBC crew became his family, etc.

By getting personal and letting tears strip away his clown makeup, so to speak, Leno revealed the intimate power of television. He turned the auditorium into a living room, and when he said, "I want to thank you, the audience," I felt like he was talking directly to me.

Journalist Edward R. Murrow was right; television can illuminate and inspire. When Leno connected with his audience on a personal, emotional level Thursday night, he further proved Murrow's point that television is not merely wires and lights in a box. 

Exceptional in the Eye of a Radical Feminist

By Samantha Smith

Samantha is a junior at Ball State University. Here on The Public Screen, she writes about gender issues in the media.

“If women can do anything, why are we still content with them doing nothing?” Even though there is no true definion to feminism, radical feminist, Amy Glass gives it a definition that is nothing less than opinionated. In her recent blog entry, "I Look Down on Young Women with Husbands and Kids and I’m Not Sorry," Glass makes it a point to say that stay-at-home mothers are not equal in accomplishments to women who work for a living. What's even more radical is her statement that being a mother is not a serious accomplishment or responsibility, that when compared to "landing a dream job or backpacking through Asia," it is equivalent to "doing nothing."  

What Glass doesn’t realize is that she’s describing only one type of mother and is taking that mother’s example and attaching that stigma to other mothers. We’ve all seen this before on Facebook — the young mother who does nothing but post pictures and statuses of and about her little one all day, every day. And sometimes instead of the posts coming off as “Look at my child, he or she is adorable”, it comes off as “Look what I made!” This is the type of mother that Glass describes, the mother whose life revolves around her child and nothing else. Glass completely ignores the fact that not all mothers are like this and that being a mother is real work, especially if she has other priorities on top of it.

Glass goes on to say that the only accomplishments women celebrate are giving birth and getting married; and she describes these things as average. While these are very common things that women do, it doesn’t mean they’re insignificant. When a woman has a baby shower, she’s getting ready to welcome a new person into the world — that’s a big deal. And when a woman has a wedding party, she’s celebrating the fact that she’s getting ready to sign a legal document binding her to one person for the rest of her life — that’s a big deal, too. Glass says that she would like to see more celebrating when it comes to women getting a promotion at work or accomplishing a dream they've had since they were little, but women celebrate these things too. We just don’t make it as formal. If a woman gets a promotion at work, we may not have a party because of it but rather we go out and have drinks with friends or we treat ourselves to the spa for the day. It’s not a very traditional way to express excitement, but it’s essentially the same thing.

Towards the end of her article, Glass claims that young mothers with families "will never have the time, energy, freedom or mobility to be exceptional." Is this true? Maybe, but it all depends on a woman’s definition of exceptional. A woman could define exceptional as having a family and raising their child right, and if that’s the case, she already is exceptional.

Vlog 2: Checking In

To some degree, this second vlog builds upon the issues explored in our first, "Millennial" —  isolation, media consumption, the notion of moderation in a culture of excess, etc. 

Take a look, and let us know what you think! 

Checking In from Media Matters: The Public Screen on Vimeo.

The Old Switcheroo Made New

By Wendy Faunce

Hana Pesut, a photographer born and raised in Vancouver, BC, began her portrait series titled “Switcheroo” nearly two years ago. Since then, she has taken hundreds of pictures around the globe and published a photo book describing the process.

To participate in “Switcheroo,” couples are required to take two pictures. The first is a simple couple photo. The second is a photo in which the man and woman exchange clothes and mimic each other’s previous stance. The result is more often than not a woman power-stancing in a suit and a man balancing in heals and a dress.

“I think the project shows how far we've come in regards to what is acceptable for men and women to wear,” says Pesut. “[N]ow it seems that almost anything goes.” However, she does not want to assign a specific meaning or gender issue to the series. “I still enjoy just hearing everyone's own interpretations rather than putting an idea out there of what I think it should be.”

That is the beauty of this portrait series. It may be interpreted as a project criticizing gender politics, stereotypes, and the changing boundaries of social norms within society. It also may be enjoyed as a simple and quirky way for couples to reach a further understanding of each other. What is your interpretation?

Private Closets, Public Catharsis

By Sam Watermeier 
 
Media, or any effective rhetoric, links the particular to the universal. 

LGBT activist Ash Beckham did exactly that this week during a TED talk about coming out of the closet.

"At some point in our lives, we all live in closets," she said. "No matter what your walls are made of, a closet is no place for a person to live."

Beckham talked about coming out of the closet in a way I've never heard before. Her speech evokes a startling revelation — the fact that we are all living in closets of some kind.

"Who can tell me that revealing you just declared bankruptcy is harder than telling someone you just cheated on them? Who can tell me that his coming out story is harder than telling your five-year-old you're getting a divorce? Hard is not relative. Hard is hard."

 

Through this discussion of repression and closets, Beckham took what is usually seen as a uniquely gay experience and made it a universal one. 

Her speech inspired me to examine what I repress and to start being honest about my own demons. 

How did the speech inspire you?