Category: Opinion

TV Diversity – Yay or Nay? Part 3

Here it is: Part Three of Suzanne Chan’s four-part analysis of diversity, or the lack of it, on our television screens. Dig in:

Image found at http://www.freepress.net
Image found at http://www.freepress.net

THE GOOD WIFE
by Suzanne Chan

This is part three of a four-part series about television shows that I recently fell in love with for their premise, overall writing, and visual style. Two are to be celebrated for their diversity. Two could do better.

Part 1 was about the diverse world portrayed in The 100. Part 2 was about The Flash, a show that displays great racial diversity, yet terribly sexist attitudes to female characters. read article

Larry Brody Reads “Shoot Like Tarantino”

by Larry Brody

tarantinobookThe Good and the Bad:

As a loyal member of the Writers Guild of America, West, I’ve never let myself get too attached to Quentin Tarantino because for all his brilliance as a writer and director (and I really do think he’s brilliant) he’s also a great danger to all the professional TV and film writers out doing their thing these days.

He’s a danger because he refuses to join the Guild. And, you know, if enough brilliant writers never join or secede from the WGA it’s going to hurt all TV and film writers where we live: In the departments of health care benefits and that very scary “P” word – pensions. It’s a studio contribution problem. If studios hire more and more non-members of the Guild to do their things, employer funds that are the basis of our benefits will dwindle, and you knmow where they can lead. read article

John Ostrander Examines the Power of Pop

by John Ostrander

Uncle-Toms-CabinI had reason a week ago to watch Ken Burns’ classic documentary The Civil War – part of the research for Kros: Hallowed Ground, now fully funded at Kickstarter, thank you very much.

Briefly, the series mentioned Uncle Tom’s Cabin, the famed novel written by abolitionist Harriet Beecher Stowe and published in 1852. It was the most popular novel of its day and is credited as a cause of the Civil War. Lincoln supposedly told Ms. Stowe on meeting her after the war started, “’So this is the little lady who started this great war.’” The story is apocryphal, according to most historians.

Pop culture has the ability to change the society of which it is a part. Mind you, that’s not always its intent or even aim. Sometimes a comic book is just a comic book. And maybe it doesn’t change things as overtly and dramatically as Uncle Tom’s Cabin. I do think, however, that pop culture has considerable power. read article

Writing for Humans – An Epiphany

by Hank Isaac

My daughter just had me listen to a portion of Oryx and Crake by Margaret Attwood on audio books.  While I liked the part she wanted me to hear, I suddenly realized why I can’t listen to webinars, why I always had problems in school lectures, and why audio books are hard for me to listen to.

When the reader (Campbell Scott) read dialogue, everything was cool.  But when he read descriptions, exposition, and thoughts, everything ground to a halt with me.

Why?

The reading of dialogue generally takes place more or less in real time.  But everything else – by necessity – takes far longer.  If something we’re supposed to see is described, the description of it takes far longer than it would actually take for us to see it. read article

The Real Life of a TV Writer

Writing and living, living and writing – can they truly co-exist? Here’s how THE MIDDLEMAN and LOST writer-producer Javier Grillo-Marxuach approaches the dilemma:

Javier-Grillo-Marxuachby Mark Rozeman

Take a moment to think of some of your favorite shows. Chances are Javier Grillo-Marxuach has helped to pen quite a few of them.

A 20-year veteran of the industry, Grillo-Marxuach began his career as a writer on the NBC sci-fi program seaQuest DSV. Over the years, his resume has grown to include Boomtown, Charmed, The 100, Medium, Helix and, most notably, the first two seasons of Lost. It was Grillo-Marxuach’s experience on this latter series that inspired a widely distributed blog post, which documents the years he spent writing and developing what would become one of the biggest game-changers in the history of the medium. Besides Lost, Grillo-Marxuach is perhaps best known among TV aficionados for his short-lived ABC Family series The Middleman, a program that, despite low-ratings and a premature cancelation, grew to become a beloved cult hit. read article