The Future Was Wide Open

As I gear up for my second and final year of film school, I am already fearful of not being able to find a job. In the meantime, I'm trying to stay up on this industry that's changing as quickly as the technology that makes it all possible. 

I just came across a darling six-part short film series that was created by an ad agency to market laptops for Intel and Toshiba. (My anti-consumer stance and desire to get paid to tell visual stories are having a stand off.) 



"The Beauty Inside" featured the company's laptops but it was more than an ad. It starred actors Topher Grace, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, and Matthew Gray Gubler, and had a social media component with auditions held on Facebook. The episodes vary in length, from 4:45 to 9:38 minutes. 

Last month the series won a Daytime Emmy for "Outstanding New Approach to Original Daytime Program or Series," the first to beat out a televised program. It also garnered three Grand Prix Awards at 2013 Cannes Lions, a prestigious festival that celebrates creative works in the field of advertising and communications.  

This week "House of Cards" was nominated for 14 Emmy Awards, which the Washington Post reported as "a watershed moment for video content," in terms of how awards have been handled in the past. The article mentions that in 1999, it was a big deal when "HBO's "The Sopranos" became the first series not carried on broadcast television to be nominated for best drama." 

But with the ever-consolidating media, I take this as a good sign. New companies, new opportunities for innovation and outlets for creativity. 

 

Hail to Another Chief

France got a new president today, but even between my hyperconsumption of news & avid Francophile-ness, I only mildly paid attention to the French election. 


Most Americans I've spoken to are completely unconcerned and unaware. I've noticed that political disinterest starts at home, and the further away a place or culture the less passion it generates. 


Yet I aspire to be a woman & (working) journalist who's seasoned in politics, locally and otherwise. At this point though I feel like the newbie in Primary Colors waiting to get burned.  

Matthew Fraser

Still, the idea that international politics would benefit all Americans is in my head. So I reached out to a Facebook friend, Professor Matthew Fraser, a former journalist who teaches in the global communications department at the American University of Paris. (Not to be confused with my future alma mater AU in DC). Edited for brevity & the American attention span. 

Tampa Do-Gooder: Please explain the significance of foreign politics to Americans (who may or may not pay attention to politics in their own country)? 

Matthew Fraser: Following the Second World War, the United States was unquestionably the main global power, facing a rival only in the Soviet Union. Since the 1940s, the world has been an “American” one. The pervasive influence of American culture — from Mickey Mouse to McDonald’s — is a sign of American dominance. Americans are the Romans of the modern world.

Oscar on the banks of the Seine, from Fraser's blog This Much I Know

TDG: To me it seems that it's not so much that Americans don't care, but that they are overwhelmed or intimidated by learning about (including traveling to) other countries. I'd like your input on that thought, as a professor who's lived in multiple countries.

MF: One of the drawbacks to being “Romans” is that Americans are primarily focused on their own concerns and interests, their global dominance has paradoxically engendered an indifference to the world beyond America — at least to the nuances of other countries and cultures. America tends to regard the world in terms of its interests. This causes resentment in other countries, and often leads to the regrettable stereotype that Americans are ignorant and uncultured about the world. 

It’s the curse of all dominant nations. The French even today are relatively indifferent to the world beyond France. The French, like Americans, are notorious for their poor foreign linguistic skills. This doubtless can be explained by the fact that France, like the United States, was once a great empire and dominant culture.  

TDG: Does the media (both American and foreign press) have a role in educating Americans on global politics?

MF: The American media are largely regarded as being oriented towards “American” stories, and when they turn their attention to the international sphere they tend to see things through an “American” prism. This can irritate people in other countries. CNN was for a long  time accused of this Americanization of global news. That has changed to some degree. 

Americans are also consumers of American movies, TV shows, newspapers and magazines. The percentage of foreign news and cultural products consumed by Americans is tiny, especially compared with other countries. Again, this is comes with global dominance. It’s very different for American expats living in other countries, of course, but Americans in the  United States don’t generally have a large appetite for foreign sources of information and distraction, with the possible exception of elites in New York, Chicago and San Francisco. 

TDG: What do people living in France think of their new president? Is it a comparable pendulum swing like Barack Obama after 2 terms of George Bush?

MF: The French are romantic about leftist political victories because they evoke France’s historical rupture with the French Revolution in 1789. Since then there have been two Frances: conservative Catholic France, and revolutionary Jacobine France. It’s much more acceptable in France to claim allegiance to the the Jacobine tradition because of the historic importance of the French Revolution and the Jacobine system of republican government France has had for most of the past two centuries. 

French Catholic France was discredited during the Second World War after the Vichy episode and Nazi collaboration. This explains why far-right parties like the Front National are considered to be a threat in France, while far-left parties, even Communist, are considered to be a legitimate part of the French political system. [Outgoing French president] Nicolas Sarkozy’s party is between the two, largely Gaullist but also representing the “bourgeoisie” in France, in other words a coalition of conservative nationalists and economic elites. In America, Sarkozy would be a Republican.  

In that sense, one cannot compare [new president] Hollande with Obama. In France, Obama would not be a particularly “left” politician. He would be at the center, even a little to the right of center. Francois Hollande enjoyed the support of the Communists and far-left movement. Those kinds of political parties would not even have a voice in American politics. 

France and America, historically, are great friends and allies because they were the two great nations born of the Enlightenment philosophy of the 18th century based on universal values about individual rights and democratic institutions. They are also two great nations born of violent revolutions. At the same time,  this linkage has also made France and America great rivals, because both nations have aspired to grandeur. France was a powerful nation for centuries, and French the language of international diplomacy, until the 19th century. Since then, the British and Americans have dominated the world. This has not always sat well with the French, hence the familiar resentment in France towards all things “Anglo-Saxons”. These sentiments have deep historical roots. France and America are “freres ennemis” -- brother enemies. It’s an amicable rivalry, but a rivalry nonetheless.  

Knowing Who Your Friends Are

A few weeks ago at Skipper's while chatting up a friend, I glanced a passing stranger and whispered, "Ooh, that's one of my Facebook friends!"

My friend, a non-Facebooker, asked: "How do you know him?"

"I have no idea. But his face is so familiar to me from his photos."

I am one of those people who has no idea who hundreds of my Facebook friends are. As a media person, it was bound to happen, but some days I don't feel great about it. For the most part, as lovely and like-minded as my FBF's might be (having found each other through groups like WMNF, Veterans for Peace, and Jim Hightower), they are not friends I can call up on a Tuesday morning when I'm stuck sick in bed, bored out of my mind and in need of chatting.

And though it's been said that social networking and the internet are making us less sociable, I continue to believe these tools have the opposite effect.

For example, at work the other day, my relatively new co-worker and friend (and FB friend) Emily excitedly told me we have a couple of FBF's in common, including Mirko Soko, whom she knows of through her boyfriend James. She quickly relayed the story of how James met Mirko online when he bought his extra Wilco ticket. They ended up going to see the show together.

FB keeps us in touch: my former AmeriCorps team members Rosalinda and Amber earlier this year

In Mirko's (truncated) words:

Then we found each other here on FB and somewhat kept in touch. Then one night late I saw an update from him that he was gonna pick up a set of sofas (later found out he got them through freecycle) anyways he needed some help and I was available so I helped him out so that's pretty much the story. He seems like a good guy. It's funny 'cos I realize that I'm perhaps friendlier online that I'm in person sometimes ;)

"How do you know him?" Emily asked me.

"Uh, I don't know. I don't think I've ever met him before."

I sent Mirko a message on FB to confirm that we indeed have not ever met. He agreed, though noted perhaps we've seen each other in passing at the radio station or at a show. He seems like someone I should be friends with.

Me and Ronny with our traveling troubadour FB friend Ramsay Midwood