Film & Television

Bad “Journalism” Award

Samuel HooperLeave a comment

The people at Vice.com were unimpressed with the recent cover story at Esquire magazine, devoted to Hollywood star Megan Fox. Actually, “unimpressed” is putting it too charitably:

The cover story of this month’s Esquire is an interview with Megan Fox by Stephen Marche. And, though I haven’t read every single thing that has ever been written, I can say, with confidence, that it is the worst thing that anybody has ever written. Ever.

With our expectations calibrated to a suitably low bar, the Vice takedown zeroes in on some of the worst things about the Esquire puff piece:

MEGAN FOX BELIEVES THAT BEING FAMOUS IS WORSE THAN BEING BULLIED

“‘I don’t think people understand,” she says. ‘They all think we should shut the fuck up and stop complaining because you live in a big house or you drive a Bentley. So your life must be so great. What people don’t realise is that fame, whatever your worst experience in high school, when you were being bullied by those ten kids in high school, fame is that, but on a global scale, where you’re being bullied by millions of people constantly.'”

When I was at school, there was a kid who everyone picked on because they thought he was gay. One day, a bunch of older kids dragged him into the PE showers and forcibly inserted a broom handle into his ass. Pretty sure he’d trade lives with you, Meg.

And then this, on Fox’s approach to escaping fame:

MEGAN’S UNUSUAL APPROACH TO ESCAPING FAME

According to the article, “Megan Fox doesn’t particularly want to be famous anymore.” Obviously, appearing on the cover of Esquire in your underwear to promote a new movie that you’re starring in isn’t the best way to go about this. But what about some other methods she’s tried?

“She’s tried to escape from her fate as a sex symbol. She starred in Jennifer’s Body, a magnificent, delicious, criminally underrated parable about a bombshell who literally devours men.”

“In December, in Judd Apatow’s This Is 40, she plays a woman so gorgeous that the other characters cannot quite believe it.”

And neither of those things made it so she wasn’t famous anymore? Weird!

But the best part relates to particular pet peeve of mine, the overambitious / anatomically incorrect Photoshop attempt made for the cover picture. You may be familiar with the recent image in Vogue China, in which the model appeared to be missing a leg…y’know, just to tidy up the shot a bit:

I think there's something missing.
I think there’s something missing.

While Esquire magazine managed to (more or less) avoid losing any critical parts of Megan Fox’s anatomy in their Photoshop attempt, it nonetheless had many of the unearthly, not-quite-human characteristics that we are accustomed to seeing in glossy magazines:

No.
No.

As the Vice article drily notes:

How many people must have seen that cover before it went to print? And not one of them said, “Uh, guys, her left thigh is shaped like a teardrop, she has a wrist a third of the way up her arm and her vagina is, like, a foot wide.”

Quite. Good job, guys. Of course, the sheer level of half-assery on display here by Esquire will not have cost them anything in terms of reputation or profit. Nobody reads the drively words anyway, and I’m sure that the Editor’s mailbox has not been inundated with complaints about the photograph either.

On Saving Television

Samuel HooperLeave a comment

Following on from my earlier rant about ludicrous and archaic regional restrictions on downloadable and streaming media, The Telegraph has an interesting piece looking at the future viability of the television industry as a whole.

They focus on a recent speech given by Kevin Spacey where he discusses how the TV industry (particularly in the USA) must adapt and break away from the pilot -> probationary season model that squashes innovation and sees too many potentially good shows canceled before they have the opportunity to properly establish themselves. Key excerpts of the speech are here:

 

The Telegraph reports:

Giving the MacTaggart lecture at the Edinburgh International Television Festival, the American actor called on the industry to take advantage of massive interest in boxsets and cult dramas such as Breaking Bad to take more risks and have patience with shows that are not instant hits.

Mr Spacey said: “[In 1990] the film industry didn’t believe that television could ever become its biggest competitor. I do not think anyone today 15 years later – [in terms of character driven drama] can argue that television has not indeed taken over.

“The warp-speed of technological advancement – the internet, streaming, multi-platforming – happens to have coincided with the recognition of TV as an art form.

“So you have this incredible confluence of a medium coming into its own just as the technology for that medium is drastically shifting. Studios and networks who ignore either shift – whether the increasing sophistication of storytelling, or the constantly shifting sands of technological advancement – will be left behind.”

All very true. And as we have seen with the industry’s laggardly response in coming to terms with a globalised audience unwilling to accept phased release dates and geographically restricted online access, television does not appear primed to address these challenges.

Spacey continues, with reference to his recent remake of the British political thriller “House of Cards”, which was wildly popular and released as a downloadable “box set” on NetFlix rather than in serial form via one of the traditional broadcast networks:

“If someone can watch an entire season of a TV series in one day, doesn’t that show an incredible attention span? We must observe, adapt and try new things to discover appetites we didn’t know were there.”

This last point really hits the nail on the head. Just as consumers no longer have to flick through a meagre three or four grainy broadcast network channels to get their television fix, neither do they want to consume their favourite shows in one hour increments, dosed out at weekly intervals by the paternalistic TV networks. It is for this reason that TV series “bingeing” has become a phenomena, with many people (myself included) preferring to watch five or six episodes of a favourite show in one sitting, as I have done with Game of Thrones, House of Cards and many others.

The longer that the television industry remains obdurate and inconsiderate of this shift in consumer sentiment and behaviour, the more they will continue to lose out to other business models (such as the NetFlix downloadable series model) and video piracy.

It has never been easier to find episodes of your favourite television show for free, hosted on anonymous websites of dubious legality. The television industry would do well to remember this as they continue to erect more and more bureaucratic and legal obstacles between the consumer and the media that they want to consume.

The full transcript of Kevin Spacey’s lecture can be read here.