AFTER THE SHOW
Movies, TV, Culture and Society
Number 487, Feb. 23, 2010
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THE KVETCH RETURNS WITH
TWO MORE TV COMPLAINTS
'At the Movies' still has two male critics.
Why? Also, what's wrong with TV weathercasts.
By John Greenwald
I'm still in a complaining mood left over from last week. So today, it's sexism on "At the Movies" and over-hyped TV weathercasts.
Siskel and Roger Ebert ran a first class program. Their reviews were insightful, well thought out and articulate, though their disagreements could become intense. Sometimes I thought they actually hated each other.
After Siskel died, Ebert and the show's producers ran through 30 guest co-hosts until they selected Richard Roeper, a columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times. Ebert and Roeper were okay, though without the sparks of Ebert and Siskel. Ebert later said he couldn't pick a woman as co-host because he wouldn't be able to disagree with a woman as with a man. Someone must have used a heavy club to beat such sensitivities into him as a child.
Sadly, Ebert was struck with thyroid cancer in 2002. He stayed with the reamed "At the Movies" as best he could, despite many surgeries and the partial removal of his salivary glands. But in mid-2006, sections of his lower jaw were removed after doctors found cancer there. Today, Ebert can't talk, drink or eat, but he sees plenty of movies, goes to film festivals, and writes about them all for his paper, the Chicago Sun-Times, and his Web site. He also Twitters.
Ebert ended his relationship with Disney-ABC, which owns the show. However, he and Siskel's estate own the program's original "Thumbs Up, Thumbs Down" rating device. Roeper continued gamely through a series of co-hosts until he left the show in 2008. Disney-ABC re-cast it with Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune and A.O. Scott of the New York Times.
The show hasn't changed much since it began on Chicago Public Television in 1979. Two guys reviewing films. Gone is "Thumbs Up, Thumbs Down." The show's producers say they've "moved on," according to its Wikipedia entry. Instead, we have "See It," "Skip It" and "Rent It." The balcony set is gone, too, replaced by comfy chairs.
We still have two men opining about motion pictures.
A man and a woman would have been better. A woman would have brought a different perspective to the films and a wider dimension to the show. Men and women may be equal, but they're not the same. There are enough fine women film critics writing today to fill one of "At the Movies'" chairs. Maybe they're not reviewing for a newspaper, but they're appearing on an established Web site like Slate or Salon, or they're blogging under their own Internet shingle. They are out there.
Disney-ABC -- which is headed by a woman -- missed a major opportunity to make "At the Movies" a more appealing show, with the extra edge different sexes give. And a more relevant one.
BAD WEATHER: New Englanders can handle bad weather -- from summer heat waves to winter blizzards, and all that fast changing weather in between. But we can't handle wrong TV weather reports.
It doesn't matter if a major snowstorm is predicted but doesn't happen, or we're hit with a whopper when none is forecast. Schools may close and no snow appears, or when schools stay open only to be hit by a bad storm. Either way, it can become a major problem for parents and their children.
We freak out and get very, very angry. We blame school officials or TV weather forecasters or both for these foul-ups and our resulting inconveniences. Problem is we're not getting the real forecasts; instead, we're getting the hyped and exaggerated ones on local TV.
I follow my local weather on the Web, from my Yahoo! home page, which gets it from the Weather Channel. It delivers forecasts in a calm, "just the facts, ma'am" kind of way. No pretty young women or handsome men, thank you.
TV weather people may know their barometers and low-pressure ridges. Some may even have meteorology degrees. But I also believe they took writing, acting, speech or debate classes.
Listen to tone of voice they use to play up the urgency of their forecasts. Even when tomorrow morning's snowfall warrants only the word "messy," they deliver it with the emotional conviction of "dreadful," "horrible" or "get your mukluks out."
There's no reason to devote upwards of five minutes to a TV weathercast, especially with those expensive graphics. Who cares about some high-pressure area a thousand miles west, unless it means clearer skies and warmer temperatures in a week? I don't need a weather person or confusing charts to tell me that. The anchor or the sportscaster could read today's temps and tomorrow's forecast. However, keep the useful five-day grshic.
Why the over-hyped, over-dramatic, less-than-honest weathercast? Because that's what TV news does -- overplay the news to get ratings. And that's the subject of another column.
Copyright 2010 by John Greenwald. All rights reserved. Readers can e-mail John Greenwald at johnedit@comcast.net.
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