Hollywood Images of Disability (CHF EDIT) from salome chasnoff on Vimeo.

Everyone interested in disability rights should watch this 18min short “Hollywood Images of Disability,” about Hollywood’s terrible treatment of disability, which is normally depicted as something so deformed, so unspeakably terrifying that disabled characters have to be cured (Heidi, Monkey Shines, Avatar, and zillions of movies) put away forever (Rain Man) or euthanized (Of Mice and Men, Million Dollar Baby and countless other examples). Note: this short comments on clips from many different movies with R and PG-13 ratings, many of which contain sensationalist depictions of people with disabilities, exaggerated vulnerability of disabled women–Uma Thurmond playing a naked blind woman being vulnerable and threatened, extreme violence and murders of people with disabilities, male and female, and will be disturbing for anyone with a conscience.

I saw Rain Man (1988) on the big screen when it came out (I was 6 years old and I didn’t understand much beyond the beautiful imagery). When I saw it again as a young teenager it impacted me a lot. I really remember it vividly.

Rain Man is the autistic brother that was just discovered by cool dude Charlie (Tom Cruise, who back in the 80s, we all worshiped as the coolest guy ever and wanted to emulate, along with Michael J. Fox & Matthew Broderick–in 1990 I once made mom’s hairdresser make my hair like Michael J. Fox’s). Charlie removes Rain Man/Raymond from the nursing home and they go on an amazing adventure that as a teen I could only dream of. Ray is loosed from his cage! While most men in the audience are undoubtedly identifying with Charlie, the cool as ice, young business shark of the ’80s (see Gordon Gekko) and his struggles and interests, I’m identifying with Ray, and strongly. For the first time, Ray can move around and develop out in the real world: he’s experiencing life with all its thrills, very real dangers, wonderful strangeness, opportunities, fulfillment and sexual excitement. He gets to fail at driving the old Buick convertible, win fat stacks of cash at a beautiful Las Vegas casino. He’s able to really live, warts and all, unlike the nursing home where there is nothing but soulless routine and the dictatorial control of the facility’s staff who don’t really know or care for Ray.

The scene that caught my attention the most was when Ray ends up alone in the casino elevator with a beautiful woman, Charlie’s girlfriend Susanna (Valeria Golino) who brakes the elevator and slow dances with him and kisses him. It is brief but an electrifyingly sexy moment. I’ll go into a great amount of detail so ya’ll can understand how a young disabled man saw these images. They used every camera and make-up trick to make the actress look like the perfect hot date of the 80s style. In this elevator Ray is confronted with a very powerful woman, empowered, living life; she dances with and kisses Ray maybe out of curiosity, maybe because it feels enormously powerful to initiate a man into the world of women. She is open to being inclusive. Possible T-Shirt: NOT A SLUT. INCLUSIVE. When you’re a young disabled man, you see her in the elevator and look at her like a vision of feminine power and inclusivity, a chance at entering the adult world. Not long into the scene, she restarts the elevator, looking a little sad and disappointed that Ray didn’t really kiss her back and touch her, and the moment was over. I was transfixed (nearly every male probably was–it immerses the audience in the ultimate fantasy of a woman actually wanting them).

This was the first time in my life that I had seen a woman interested in giving that kind of attention and affection to a disabled man. It was like a fairy tale come true, Ray doesn’t have to be locked up in the gilded cage at the nursing home, he had a real CHANCE at life, opportunities to see and do amazing things and feel and love. To me, the opportunities to succeed were as important and thrilling, if not moreso, than actually success. At the time, 1994, I was entering puberty and very focused on all these issues, while living in an environment with the myriad barriers so common to the disability experience, plus being guarding by nurses 24/7 had already cut me off from girls, from kids my age entirely in middle school. This movie made me think I could one day escape the cage and talk to women in elevators.

But the movie closed with Tom Cruise putting Ray back in the cage, portrayed as the right thing, the courageous and hard thing to put him back in the nursing home, the more “appropriate” setting. How well Ray did in the real world evidently didn’t matter; he had 1 autistic meltdown (ONE) and accidentally broke the precious coffee maker, and that was the end of that. Charlie is depicted as a hero for doing this and ending Ray’s opportunities for a life, forever. It’s all about Charlie’s journey, the familiar Quest o’ Redemption trope that is as old as literature itself, and in the United States typically involve a journey by car across the American continent. Ultimately, as the short film “Hollywood Images of Disability” illustrates quite well, disabled characters in Rain Man and other Hollywood movies aren’t people as much as Oscar bait for a “difficult” portrayal (for the Raymond role, Dustin Hoffman won the Oscar for Best Actor; “The diseased/addicted/mentally impaired always get the Oscar.” — Hollywood Rule Book, Vanity Fair) and disabled characters are mainly used as plot devices to facilitate the hero’s development. In Rain Man, Ray, his struggles, his interests, aren’t considered at all; the point of the story is that Charlie starts off as a soulless corporate raider, grows to love Raymond, and at the end has evolved into a sensitive, mature adult able to make the “right” “mature” choices in life and love, and, grotesquely, the “mature” choice is to have the lawyer transfer custody of Raymond permanently to the nursing home. I thought it was particularly cruel to show Ray the world only to yank it away. To be expected, in a society where we aren’t wanted and barely accommodated enough to survive, but still a harsh introduction to reality for young teenaged Nick.

Read about the all-too-common “Bury Your Disabled” trope in popular culture, and try to raise awareness that it, along with other disability tropes that are harmful (and/or just ABSURD), are actually really wrong and awful, and should go away….

Nick

I understand why this movie tanked at the box office and recouped the independent production only 700k of 40 million invested, it needed a major script overhaul to edit out about 40 minutes of what feels like filler, tighten the story, cut the ultra-forced comedy, and lighten the heavy handed *Jews vs. Palestinians intractable racial struggle over arable land* plotline.
“Trying WAY too hard” is the main problem with Delgo. I believe that in order to recoup the colossal, hemorrhaging costs from this on again, off again, shelved and unshelved 9 year production, the usual suspects (out of touch marketing gurus who always design movies for the lobotomized demographic) overstuffed the script with as many hackneyed Disney formulas as possible. The result (which probably has the guys who came up with the original concepts for Delgo crying in their beer every night) is humor so forced that you want to cringe and shield your face in parts. Delgo’s screechy, unbearable sidekick (Chris Kattan) is this movie’s worst mistake; the fact that not only does he screech *every* forced line at the highest pitches Kattan’s “Mango” character (from SNL) could hit, but enduring him is utterly superfluous to the story, has (I’m certain) made innumerable viewers stop a half-hour in. Mango just can’t be shoehorned into a Disney-style comic relief sidekick–let this serve as a cautionary tale to Hollywood! It feels like the producers compromised their vision, in exchange for adding comic relief “buddies,” they kept their overstated sermon on ethnic strife; including BOTH made the movie much too long.
Eric Idle is great as the villianess’ inept lizard henchman. If this thing had more Idle and NO Mango MAYBE it could have been in reach of 4 stars.

I thought the animation was excellent, very creative, with brilliant use of shadows and highlights. Just because it doesn’t aim to copy Disney and Pixar’s emotive, heavily expressive style DOESN’T mean it sucks; just because the production dysfunctions delayed this 2001 animation’s release until the end of 2008 (so it was animation from CGI technology of another era) doesn’t mean it’s bad.
Delgo has amazing epic battle sequences (though big parts of them seem nearly identical to the arena battle scene with winged Geonosian warriors vs. force-wielding Jedi in Star Wars: Attack of the Clones; one even looks like Yoda).

I gave it 3 stars. One for the great casting apart from Kattan, one for the artwork, and one for the awesome, imaginative original elements you’ve never seen before: a steampunk flying buggy, a dramatic swordfight between two winged generals in mid air! Had Delgo been released in late summer instead of lost amid the shuffle of holiday blockbusters, and had its half hearted, under-resourced promotional campaign depicted it as the swashbuckling romantic epic it aims to be vs. the bad Direct-to-Video cheapquel the posters made it look like, I think Delgo could have easily turned a profit. I’ve seen much worse clear $100 million.

Nick

Here are some shows to avoid at all costs:

Chase – NBC, 10/9central Monday night

This show is about a Houston task force of U.S. Marshals who chase the most dangerous, most wanted fugitives in Texas. But unlike most crime dramas, where you’re rooting for the cops, with Chase, you’re rooting against the cops just as much as the criminals; the U.S. Marshals are every bit as unsympathetic and unsavory as the fugitives. In the pilot, they’re breaking doors off their hinges and intimidating the mom and fiancée of a suspect like freakin’ thugs.

"Annie Frost," played by Kelli Giddish

Maybe that’s an important commentary on what law enforcement has become in the 21st century, but it isn’t fun TV. The lead character, Annie Frost (played by Kelli Giddish from All My Children) lives up to the “frost” name, because she’s a frosty, cold shell of a woman with all the human warmth of an Arctic winter. I turned this show off after less than 15 minutes; it was that unappealing. Avoid this.

Hawaii Five-O – CBS, 10/9central Monday night

This is a remake of CBS’ original Hawaii Five-O series (1968-1980), trying to make it slick and hip for the new era. Problem is, it’s not that appealing because it’s layered in cheese. The episode last week was a good example; it centered on a kidnapping of a business leader who was about to expose security threats to Hawaii and nearby naval forces. Grace Park (formerly an awesome performer on Battlestar Galactica) is an actress of Korean extraction, unconvincingly portraying native Hawaiian rookie cop “Kono” on the Hawaii 5-0 team (no CBS, Korean people do not look like native Hawaiians! How dumb do you think we are?!)

Poor Grace Park

She (Kono) is guarding the kidnapped CEO’s young son, when suddenly she finds a note in a foreign language on the kitchen counter. The CEO’s white, normal-looking girlfriend is behind the kidnapping! It’s what we least expected! The white, model-looking girl sees Kono (Grace Park) uncovering the secret plot, and reveals she’s actually evil and has an incredibly fake Russian accent and she ambush attacks Kono in the kitchen! They start an epic martial arts battle! The girlfriend slams Grace Park’s face into the kitchen counter, and then they karate each other ferociously and crash fakely through fake bamboo and end up poolside. Then the girlfriend, who’s evidently secretly been an enemy commando, knocks Grace Park into the pool and Grace Park spins horizontally, dramatically like a figure skater in a tight twirl or a phony Matrix parody. Soon we end up inside the white terrorist/mobster lair (Dano mentions they’re Serbian cyber-terrorists? LOL) and Grace Park is tied to a chair along with the CEO dude and now his preteen son, too. The dude’s white model girlfriend is carrying some giant carbine or something, half her size, and pointing this weapon at the hostages and pacing menacingly and angrily spitting threats in her fake Slavic accent “you’re going to die! only matter of time.” The ridiculousity line has been crossed. I start openly laughing at the show. Laughable isn’t what CBS was going for at all, but they got it in spades. Grace Park is a great actress, capable of some awesome dramatic performances, and I’m sure she’ll look back on this Hawaii Five-0 part of her career with intense regret.  :-/

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THE EVƎNT – NBC, 9/8central Monday night

The TV review blogs HATE this show; they reject it as a blatant, heavy-handed rip off of 24 and Lost and are just savaging it.

The discerning nerd audience at Comic-Con

The backlash is probably because it was hyped heavily to the discerning nerd audience at Comic-Con in July, and then the pilot seemed like one long trailer for a pilot and the epic “event” the plot revolves around doesn’t actually occur in the pilot, so it failed to meet those high Comic-Con expectations (note to NBC: don’t write cheques your ass can’t cash). The reason people cared about the elaborate mysteries in Lost was they cared about the characters and their backstories and what will happen to them; THE EVƎNT pays little attention to characters but expects us to care about the half-dozen complicated, interconnected unanswered mysteries they’ve presented? FAIL! Listen up NBC, people don’t watch undeveloped characters they don’t care about, especially when you gotta break your brain on mysteries; that is the reason THE EVƎNT got crushed in its time slot, coming in third behind ABC and CBS. Third-place won’t pay THE EVƎNT’s big stunt and special effects budget and fat salaries for Blair Underwood and Laura Innes, so I expect NBC to pull the plug fairly soon.

"THIS ENDS NOW"

$#!T My Dad Says – CBS, 8:30/7:30central Thursday night

I was rooting for a show from the internets to do well, a lot of us were. But this show is just terrible. The canned laughter, the laugh track, sounds so incredibly fake, and it’s really unbearable to hear it over and over and over and over. The jokes are very forced, and fall flat. Nothing funny here. Avoid.

Outlaw – NBC, 10/9central Friday night

Not only is this show awful, the worst premiering show of 2010, it’s the worst premiering show I’ve witnessed in YEARS. Sweet Lord, this show is atrociously, hilariously awful. Plan 9 from Outer Space bad. It’s the first drama ever produced by Conaco Productions, Conan O’Brien’s production company, and it often verges on comedy, albeit unintentional. Most everything in the pilot is preposterous and impossible; it just can’t happen in real life. Jimmy Smits plays Cyrus Garza, “the most conservative justice on the Supreme Court,” and son of fictional Latino civil rights activist Francisco Garza who worked alongside César Chávez. After Francisco and Cyrus’ car crashes, and only Cyrus survives the accident (implausible plot device #1) Cyrus randomly sleeps with a random (beautiful model) ACLU protester and suddenly does a 180 on his bedrock political beliefs and lifelong legal philosophy and he resigns from the Supreme Court to become a liberal activist lawyer, defending the downtrodden and dispossessed–pro-bono–against “the system” that he spent his career bolstering (outrageously absurd plot device #2). He gives a nonsensical speech about how he’s resigning because the role of the Supreme Court is upholding the law and defending “the system,” and he wants to challenge the law for people “the system” doesn’t work for and blah blah blah blah blah, while sitting in open session on the bench with the other justices (really implausible). Then he becomes the defense attorney for Greg Beals, the death row inmate his own Supreme Court opinion gave another chance to (very implausible). Then he is somehow able to use the majority opinion he himself wrote, Beals v. Pennsylvania, as precedent to introduce new evidence to exonerate his client…Beals. The legal impossibilities just stack higher and higher until it becomes a kid’s cartoon of the judicial process.

Left, Cyrus Garza (Jimmy Smits), center, Al Druzinsky (David Ramsey) and Mereta Stockman (Ellen Woglom) at right

The women characters are just as “profiles in preposterous,” even bordering on offensive with the female cliches. Cyrus is a chauvinist pig who womanizes blatantly. First, a random liberal protester who angrily protests and denounces him for being neutral (“I’m Switzerland!”) about the Beals case, and, of course he ends up in bed with her.
Second, his legal aide from the Supreme Court, Mereta (pictured above) overhears Cyrus’ bookie telling him he has to have all his hundreds of thousands of dollars in gambling debt paid in full within three months, and because in this show women are dim-witted, she thinks that this means Cyrus has three months to live. Later, she interrupts Cyrus talking to the death row guy’s girlfriend and the rest of the 4-person legal team by the courthouse stairway and, in front of everybody, desperately throws herself at him! She’s all “Now that I know the truth you’ve only got three months left, we can focus on what really matters. I LOVE YOU, CYRUS!” It’s a failed caricature of a woman, a failed attempt to twang romantic heartstrings, and reinforces negative stereotypes of women and negative stereotypes of people with terminal illness.
Third, Cyrus’ private investigator “Lucinda Pearl,” a caricature of a sexy, bisexual leather cyberpunk chick in knee-high boots who’s always doing something extremely brazen sexually like taking her top off to distract guards so she can swipe info, and teasing Cyrus’ chief clerk with single entandres and popping her gum.
Come on man, can you get more blatantly ratings-whoring than this, with such exaggerated, fake, cartoonish, borderline degrading characters? It’s like the pilot’s creators don’t have a wife or daughter or any woman they respect in their lives. What’s it say about American culture today that this one-dimensional, shock-jock type caricaturing is how we view women?

The most realistic character in the show was Mereta’s (apparent) Corgi mix. Whatta good dog!

Just as fake as the characters were the sets. The pilot opens with ridiculous paper mache bricks on the “prison.” Later, Lucinda goes to a crime scene with a skeleton that looks so fake it had to come from Rite Aid halloween clearance. Jeez, NBC! Fund your pilots, otherwise Conan’s company is gonna keep the C team on sets.

Don’t take this show seriously; you’ll end up offended. If you’re going to watch this drek, put on your LOLLERSKATES and get in your ROFLCOPTER because this clunker is layered in (unintentional) hilarity; you will ROFL, indeed.

Other good reviews of Outlaw:

USA Today: NBC’s outlandish ‘Outlaw’ richly deserves death penalty (“That’s not a prime-time show, it’s a Saturday Night Live sketch.” “Preposterous to a painful degree”)

Washington Post: Jimmy Smits’s new NBC courtroom drama, ‘Outlaw,’ should be dismissed (“ludicrously dumb” “my eyes rolled so hard that my contact lenses popped out” “Smits is a fully glazed, overcooked ham”)

Collider TV Review: NBC’s OUTLAW (“painstakingly exaggerated” “veritable treasure trove of cliches” “searing pain that runs through my leg (and the rest of my body) when I think of all the resources wasted on a show like this”)

Discerning readers will note that the network responsible for the most shows on my “avoid at all costs” list is NBC. This network seems hopelessly mired in creative, programing and financial FAIL. Time for some serious soul-searching at 30 Rock, dudes, and at Comcast HQ too….

For my list of newly premiering shows actually worth watching, read my previous post, What New Fall TV Shows To Watch (2010) Spoiler: nearly none of them are from NBC.

If you have other shows or other things you want me to review, put it in the comments!

Nick

Detroit 187 – ABC, 10/9central Tuesday night

This new cop show about a unit of homicide detectives in Detroit is really intelligent and immersive. Unlike most hour-long dramas, it really immerses you in an environment, in characters, with the city (Detroit) as a character in every episode. I felt like I was really there by the river in inner-city Detroit. Yeah, the scripts lean on archetypes (the pretty girl detective, the newbie

Detective Louis Fitch from ABC's "Detroit 187"

the old black veteran on the verge of retirement, and of course the lead, the eccentric, Asperger’s-like detective Louis Fitch with an uncanny, near-mentalist knack for clues and hunches, played by Michael Imperioli) but archetypes can be helpful shortcuts to get the audience involved QUICKLY. The production team just has to make sure the writing stays fresh and engaging and insightful and that their archetypal characters don’t get stale and predictable. Lazy writing could kill the show. The writing being too intelligent could also kill the show. Now, it’s worth your time.

The Whole Truth – ABC, 10/9central Wednesday night

This is a smart legal drama with an awesome cast (the lead stars are Rob Morrow and Maura Tierney) and great, engaging, rapid-fire dialogue back and forth. The premise is that it tries to give you “the whole story” by telling the same ambiguous story and events from multiple viewpoints (the prosecutor–Tierney, and the defense–Morrow) and then ends with the big reveal of what really happened.
I liked the pilot; I was pulled in by the New York scenery and the plot involving a diabetic veteran in a wheelchair gone overboard on the Staten Island ferry (and some heavy-headed disability stereotyping they explored). If the writing stays good and keeps improving, the show has a chance to really build a big audience in the way that The Practice did for ABC, or the writing could go flat and the characters could go stale and the network will go for a midseason replacement; it’ll take pretty good ratings to pay the stars’ salaries, and good ratings aren’t guaranteed by any means. I sort of see this show as “on the bubble,” worth watching now but that could easily change.

Raising Hope – FOX, 9/8central Tuesday night

Like the last series Greg Garcia made, My Name Is Earl, this is a comedy that really breaks the half-hour sitcom mold. No annoying laugh track, and, instead of the cliche house set, it seems to be filmed on location in real life, single-camera style in a rickety wooden home with the broken front screen door and parents (Martha Plimpton–great to see her again!–and Garret Dillahunt) who scrape by with fringe service jobs (as a maid and a pool cleaner). The stay at home mom (like Marge Simpson) is no longer realistic in today’s economic world.

Anyhow, the show’s core premise is about Jimmy, the teenage son, raising the daughter (“Hope”) he got accidentally, and that could get boring if they don’t keep the writing really sharp or stop inserting new crazy characters. But, for now, it’s probably the best, freshest new comedy on TV. Worth your time.

Outsourced – NBC, 9:30/8:30central Thursday night

I like its really different premise; a guy moves to India to manage a catalog call center that just got outsourced to Mumbai. Fresh and engaging for now, and hopefully doesn’t become a stale, browner-skinned parody of The Office. Worth watching.

"Asha" on NBC's "Outsourced," played by Rebecca Hazlewood

Boardwalk Empire – HBO, 9/8central Sunday night

I really liked this show, a period piece set in Atlantic City at the dawn of Prohibition, and apparently based on the non-fiction book Boardwalk Empire: The Birth, High Times, and Corruption of Atlantic City. The elaborate sets re-creating the Atlantic City boardwalk and all the ’20s storefronts, the meticulously re-created clothing, they’re just amazing; this alone makes it worth watching. This is such a pivotal time in American history, with Prohibition, gangsters smuggling hooch from Canada, suffragettes/temperance activists, jazz, stock market boom, the roaring twenties economy, rampant individualism and materialism, rampant sex and feminine liberation and the flappers radically challenging social mores, but this era has very seldom been explored on film (with notable exceptions, like the film adaption of The Great Gatsby).

I’ve always thought this era deserved thorough exploration, for the good of American culture and understanding and etc., and man does this fit the bill; it immerses you in 1920 Atlantic City so well that you can almost smell the ocean on the boardwalk, the lush fabrics on the women and the $3 drinks. The head writer and producer is Terence Winter, one of the main Sopranos writers, and with its similar focus on gangsters, corruption, and seedy Jersey environments, the show is perfect for him, right up his alley. And it’s already equaling The Sopranos in terms of huge ratings cash cow, so, for HBO, it’s likely their “Next Sopranos.” But I think it’s also culturally significant. True, it explores a seedier side of the ’20s (it’s “anything goes” Atlantic City, any time period there is gonna be seedy) with lots of flappers flapping around as tourists, or waitresses in men suits, or showgirls in theaters as burlesque dancers, or mermaids with pasties, or geishas in a nude revue, or even flappers in straight up bordellos, but on the other hand it also subtly (but powerfully) explores Prohibition and gangsterism. When a scene takes us inside a temperance society meeting, we see the older suffragettes who advocate Prohibition, and hear the arguments about DEMON RUM (the leader recites a poem that ends “liquor, thy name’s delirium!”) But later in the pilot episode, we also see their arguments about alcoholism destroying families are well-founded; there are severe cases of deadbeat husbands who take the money needed to feed the children to buy booze, and severely batter wives who resist. Many suffragettes thus saw this social ill as a key women’s rights issue that any civilized country would respond to. But we also see how the mafia immediately perverts Prohibition to make huge profits; they start charging $3 for a glass of liquor, up from 15¢, and keep Atlantic City as drunk as ever. The pilot also (subtly) explores the issue of returning WWI veterans, Doughboys, who saw brutal combat in Europe, killing people repeatedly, and then feel murder is the only profession for them and join the violent alcohol smuggling business. I should blog more about the ’20s!

inside a temperance society meeting

My Generation – ABC, 8/7central Thursday night (prior to Grey’s Anatomy)

I loved this show; probably my favorite of the newly debuting Fall series. I’m captivated because it really is my generation, the class of 2000, and follows a group of nine friends that graduated in 2000, and traces what they said their goals are and what happened when the dreams collided with reality. They’re 28 now (same as me) and the series is slowly unraveling what happened to them since 2000, uncovering secrets and their effect on the present. It’s shot in documentary style; for the first 30mins, I thought it really was a documentary! I didn’t recognize any of the actors, so that didn’t break the illusion; only when I realized that we can hear the characters’ phone conversations and other things beyond the reach of a real documentary film crew, did I figure it out.

True, the show uses archetypes, and some people don’t like that, but it uses the archetypes really explicitly, with what archetype they are printed on the screen even! There’s Anders “The Rich Kid,” Brenda “The Brain,” Kenneth “The Nerd,” Steven “The Over-Achiever,” etc. And the core of the show is really playing off the labels that they had in high school and exploring how those work once reality hits. Steven “The Over-Achiever” is an example; it turned out that his overachieving was mostly due to abusive pressuring from his dad, who ended up jailed as one of the corporate criminals from Enron. Once his dad’s assets were frozen by the courts, Steven couldn’t pay tuition at Yale anymore, and dropped out. Instead of adapting, Steven pretty much dropped out of society, becoming a loser beach bum surfing in Hawaii, bartending to earn a living and having meaningless, anonymous sex with tourists; he really hit rock bottom.

Dawn Barbuso "The Punk," and Falcon "The Rock Star"

I’ve really gotten wrapped up in the 9 characters, I’m captivated, on the edge of my seat to find out what happens to them next. Maybe that’s because I long to connect with my real class of 2000 peers. What will happen/what’s happening to my HS Class of 2000/college class of 2004, the heart of the Millennial Generation? Did most of us find love and success? will we save the country like they always said? This show is all about exploring these issues; it’s the premise that really grabs me.
I really hope they don’t cancel it, but all the signs of axing are present….it’s not fast paced or action packed, it’s in-depth and intelligent and character development…could be doomed. UPDATE …and, I was right; ABC has already canceled My Generation.  ugh.

You’ll notice that ABC has the lion’s share of “worth watching” new pilots. This has little to do with ABC being awesome (it isn’t really) and a lot to do with all the other networks SUCKING. They really stunk up the place.

For more about this, see my next post: What New Fall TV Shows To Avoid (2010)

If you have other shows or other things you want me to review, put it in the comments!

Nick

You can listen to the radio discussion here.


Sept. 23 “The Largest Minority” on WBAI radio, featuring a reading of my blog essay “Why It’s Time For Survival Politics For People with Disabilities” and a roundtable discussion with cohosts T.K. Small & Lawrence Carter-Long, and guest Josie Byzek, New Mobility magazine

Listen to the discussion. I don’t agree that the shift in social services spending is a temporary problem that will be “all better” after the political pendulum swings back away from the Tea Party agenda.

I’m arguing that society, technology, the economy, and politics are drastically shifting, and Medicare and Medicaid will soon change BIG TIME, so disability community leaders need to get in front of this and negotiate hard for the services we want to preserve most, because a lot of them ARE going away, and we have to get out of denial and start coping and adapting NOW!

More on the important argument I’m making here: The Cost of Denial For People with Disabilities

Nick

I talked about this in my last blog post; I don’t support and never post such crass material, but I think if I’m going to discuss these emails, in order to be fair I have to give you a chance to see them and judge for yourself. Again, WARNING WARNING WARNING: contains hardcore pornographic images (including one with bestiality), vile racism and the N-word. Not for those under 18, not for the faint hearted or weak stomached, and definitely NSFW (Not Safe For Work).

Also, I think if I’m going to criticize these emails as I did in my last blog post, in order to be fair I have to post the Paladino camp’s explanations in their own defense.

When one recipient complained about the “Obama inauguration” email, calling Paladino a racist, Paladino responded by apologizing “if that is offensive.” He added: “I’m not a racist and have never related Obama’s color to my political distaste for him….I’m not sensitive to ethnic humor.”

Other emails from Paladino are here. All the emails were either originally sent, or forwarded, by Paladino, WNYmedia confirms. The emails went to a long list of Paladino associates, in local and state government, politics, and business.

In a statement to TPMmuckraker, Caputo, the campaign manager, said:
“Carl Paladino has forwarded close friends hundreds of email messages he received. Many of these emails he received were off color, some were politically incorrect, few represented his own opinion, and almost none of them were worth remembering.
“We’re not surprised the political establishment feels threatened by Carl’s drive the take Albany back for taxpayers. Our campaign won’t be wading through the details of what is just another liberal Democrat blog smear. It figures that members of the Party who brought us record taxes, record spending and record debt would want to change the topic from reform to having sex with horses and S&M parlors.”

The S&M parlor is a reference to one of Paladino’s rivals for the GOP nomination, Steve Levy, who, it was reported today, once lived with an ex-con who had pleaded guilty in a mortgage fraud scheme involving an S&M club.

Excepted from Tea Party NY Gov Candidate’s E-Mails Exposed: Racism, Porn, Bestiality | TPMMuckraker

So, Paladino’s campaign manager, Michael Caputo, brushed off concerns over the emails as “just another liberal Democrat blog smear.” Ok…

Carl Paladino himself explained it this way:

“My humor is irrelevant to my temperament. If you go and Google me, you’re going to see what Carl Paladino is about. And sure, I’m not perfect. And sure, I’m not human,” he said, before correcting himself. “I’m human, forgive me – hahaha. I’m human. I’ve had my careless moments. I didn’t think twice about sending to my firends a bunch of obscene emails.

“But, I apologized. I apologized to the people that were offended. People that I meat since that thing first became public, they’re interested in the high crimes and misdemeanors of Albany, They could give a hell about Carl Paladino and his emails.”

Excepted from The Bumpy, Impolite and Offensive Campaign of Carl Paladino – WNYC

Carl Paladino, looking slightly mafia-ish

Here is another way he explained the forwarded emails, when grilled by Anderson Cooper.

What is it with older people (often holding older–’50s–political views and prejudices) and email? especially email forwards. The statistics show a divergence in behavior between age groups here (only 11% of young people still send email daily, our communication is mostly through texting, twittering, and social networking) whereas older people’s email use has stayed relatively steady. I’ve never really understood the appeal of forwarding on chain mail, comments and jokes to everyone in your address book, but LOTS of people of Paladino’s age and mindset do this, including some of my own relatives (and I think everyone has at least one friend or relative forwarding them junk). I find it sad that forwarding other people’s words often replaces communication from the heart, real words of love or insight or encouragement (which you get more of on social networking sites; maybe that’s why they’ve grown so fast?)

Anyhow, even Republicans are lining up against Paladino. “He is dangerous, at the least, he is mean spirited and he tries to divide people,” New York’s last GOP Senator, Alphonse D’Amato, told WCBS 880′s Peter Haskell. Along with former New York City Mayor Ed Koch and former State Comptroller Carl McCall, D’Amato also signed his name to an open letter declaring Paladino unfit for office:

The victory of Carl Paladino in the Republican Primary was a disappointing day for all New Yorkers. This state has a long history of electing highly qualified, forward-looking statewide candidates — both Democrats and Republicans. Yesterday, however, anger overcame reason and enabled a fringe element to choose the Republican nominee. The end result was the selection of Mr. Paladino, a divisive figure simply not fit to lead this great state.

Excerpted from Alphonse D’Amato on Carl Paladino: ‘Dangerous’, ‘Mean-Spirited’ And Unfit For Office

I’m sympathetic to the argument that citizens have much more important things to worry about than obscene emails, I really am, but this has caught my attention because of Paladino positioning himself as the “conservative principles and traditional values” candidate, opposing abortion in all cases, opposing gay rights in all cases, essentially, judging other people morally. And even after his hypocrisy has been exposed (his spreading images of “Miss France 2009″ porn and the infamous horse sex, and his multiple extramarital affairs and child by a mistress) he is still carrying the banner of “egomaniacal belief in one’s own rightness and purity” (which David Brooks listed as one of the Tea Party’s “worst excesses”).

I understand the overwhelming urge to throw Andrew Cuomo (another inside player, leading a status quo, frequently corrupt Democratic establishment) under the bus and vote for the “outsider” promising to “clean up Albany,” but…really Christians, you’re going to elect this adulterer who forwards around hardcore pornography? Downstaters, will you really vote in a Buffalo businessman (fun fact: the demonym is Buffalonian) who’s said he “hates” Manhattan and Brooklyn because of “the traffic” and will surely skew everything toward upstate interests? It’s clear that Paladino doesn’t understand Downstate issues, which is just inconceivable for a governor of a state whose population lives 68.42% Downstate! People with disabilities, will you vote for a candidate who promises to cut Medicaid by 30%, something that could put you in a nursing home, or out on the street, or worse.

Seriously Values Voters, you’re gonna go to the polls in droves and vote for the bestiality guy??? Seriously?? And still quote Leviticus’ prohibition on homosexuality at us? What about Leviticus chapter 18, verse 23 “And thou shalt not lie with any beast to defile thyself therewith; neither shall any woman stand before a beast, to lie down thereto; it is perversion.” What about that one?

Nick

Jerry Lewis has taken a lot of heat for years over comments like “My kids cannot go into the workplace. There’s nothing they can do.” But I’m more concerned with WHY we can’t get into the workplace than with the negative comment itself. We stay at over double the general population’s unemployment rate not just because of “attitudinal barriers” (pity, seeing us as “less than,” and as charity cases, views the Telethon definitely perpetuates) but because we so often don’t have access to education, transportation, and the assistive technology that we need to succeed. Like wheelchairs.

The MDA sent out a letter to recipients last Fall, notifying us of major nationwide changes for fiscal year 2010: they will no longer help buy wheelchairs for “Jerry’s Kids.”

This scanned letter, passed to me by a concerned mom of kids with Duchenne’s, is not publicly available on the MDA web site, nor mentioned during the Telethon. I can only hope they don’t continue saying they provide wheelchairs on the Telethon.

The needs of those with MD are being met less and less by the MDA, and less and less by the state, cutting back brutally now thanks to the Great Recession. Now, future “Jerry’s Kids” will never again get a wheelchair with help from the MDA. Please look at these posts from the MDA forums about the changes, and MDA’s response.

I get no help whatsoever from the MDA, no matter how hard I have tried to work with them. The NYU MDA clinic essentially turned me away this year, the clinic director telling me “we don’t do metabolic disease” (nevermind that it was the Mobile, AL MDA clinic that diagnosed me with mitochondrial myopathy when I was a small child, and that their national goodwill ambassador Mattie Stepanek had it). Then, in a classy move, they referred me to a nonexistent “metabolic clinic” that when we called, said there is no such clinic. I’m totally open to discussion with MDA if they want to make this right, I would meet with an MDA representative if given the chance; but I’m not optimistic; their emphasis is simply NOT on those of us who’ve managed to survive into adulthood.

The charity model isn’t all bad; it can make a big difference in the lives of people with disabilities. Just look at the Islamic world, where people with disabilities often are getting more help (both physical and monetary) from their mosque than what we get from Medicaid! I got my first wheelchair from New Orleans MDA. But the MDA is really no longer a service charity, it’s research research research, cure cure cure, cures we’re told on the Telethon are only 5-10 years away but 20 years later are nowhere to be found.

A real charitable organization could make a huge difference in our lives, filling the enormous gaps we fall into every day, an understanding voice that could give hope for better quality of life after yet another Medicaid rejection of services. These diseases are no easy path. I REALLY NEED THE HELP! Just a shoulder to lean on and a little coordination would go a long way. But MDA is not that charitable organization, and it takes up so much “market space,” no competing nonprofit can gain the traction to provide this desperately needed assistance. That is my beef with the MDA, and I wish the discussion among disability rights circles was more in this direction.

Nick

See also, my blog about last year’s Telethon, focusing on dismantling misleading claims made on the Telethon.

Ever since seeing that, the word “eyedog” is a part of our household parlance.

Many activists attack the MDA for fundraising based on pity. It’s true that their 1950s attitudes about disability can be really grating; the Telethon is decidedly stuck in the past, both in how they see us and their entertainment–it’s always had the kind of acts you would expect to see on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson; this year’s guests included Tony Orlando, the new Menudo (sans Ricky Martin) and Charo. But what sticks in my craw isn’t that as much as the misleading nature of the Telethon.

That ridiculous caricature of Jerry Lewis, used as a Telethon logo for decades

Let’s look at some of the misleading claims from this year’s Telethon (from MDA.org):

Telethon claim: MDA provides flu shots to people with MD. “For only $30, you can provide a flu shot for Jerry’s Kids!”.
The truth: Just because national MDA authorizes local branches to cover flu shots, doesn’t mean all do. From what I’ve heard, one guy gets flu shots at an MDA clinic in California, but they aren’t available from Boston MDA. And I don’t know if the reborn Mobile, AL MDA does this, but I never saw the old Mobile MDA offer flu shots (prior to them getting shut down for fraud/embezzlement in 1993).

Telethon claim: MDA provides occupational therapy, physical therapy, and respiratory therapy consultations to people with MD.
The truth: I’m sure some clinics provide this, but I’ve never actually seen it or heard about people receiving this. And remember that if you don’t live near a clinic, you can’t access this, or any MDA services for that matter.

Telethon claim: Thanks to your generous donations all kids with MD can go to MDA summer camp, with no charge to the families!.
The truth: My mom was charged $500 per child. People aren’t barred from camp due to inability to pay, but many local branches directly contradict Telethon promises and bill parents.

Telethon claim: MDA provides wheelchairs for people with MD. On the Telethon, you see shiny new wheelchairs in a row, and all these happy people who got wheelchairs.
The truth: Even for young children they provide little of what is on the Telethon. They will pay up to $2000 toward the purchase of a wheelchair (only if Medicaid and/or private insurance won’t cover all of it) and these days $2k will cover about one tire on a powerchair. And even that small assistance is exceedingly difficult to get. So, needless to say, very few of us get wheelchairs from the MDA. In this annual report on the MDA web site, they brag about giving out the $2k equipment payment (for wheelchairs, crutches, braces, etc.) to 4,200 people in 2008. Think about that. Out of all the millions of MD patients in the U.S., only 4,200 got equipment help last year. There are probably 4000 people with muscular dystrophy in Alabama and Georgia alone who need chairs! The facts on the ground make MDA CEO Bob Ross’ claim that “millions depend on the MDA for their very survival” more than a bit dubious (Ross, who gets $500,000 a year salary from the MDA, “depends” on them way more than most MD patients!)

Jerry Lewis in front of the tote board at the 2007 Telethon

Right now we are in a situation where the public thinks the MDA is covering much more than they actually are, and that can sometimes even complicate efforts to get public sector assistance. When I was in Montgomery arguing against Medicaid’s 21-cutoff, a state senator said, “doesn’t the MDA cover that?” He was baffled and incredulous when told no.

The MDA could change its misleading ways by a) changing their policies and widely providing the goods and services advertised on the Telethon. OR b) stop misleading the audience that they are providing goods and services to us. Just come out and say, “we mainly do research, here are some research projects we are doing.” They could interview researchers and do a lot with the truth. I think it’d be cool to learn about MDA-funded scientific breakthroughs and what they mean. Show us illustrations of how dystrophin works, a diagram of a mitochondrion! Be honest and you’ll go far.

I wouldn’t mind the Telethon as much if they practiced what they preach or preached what they actually practiced. I want the MDA to reform, but I’m not holding my breath.

Nick

Related Bloggery:
Scott Sands Alive: Begging For Charity
Danny Kodmur’s story of the UCP Telethon, and how it improved

In Scrooge McDuck’s first **named** appearance in a cartoon (his first actual appearance was in Spirit of ’43) he teaches Huey, Dewey and Louie about the economy, from the origins of the types of the currency to taxes to inflation, budgeting and investing.

It’s good stuff. Great primer on finance for all ages.

Available in HD.

(I notice in 1967, Scrooge’s budgeting pie didn’t include health care… hmmmm.)

Nick

Donald Duck starred in at least eight of these government-sponsored shorts and his popularity boomed. The most bizarre film was Der Fuehrer’s Face, based around the popular Spike Jones parody song “Der Fuehrer’s Face,” which reached #3 on the charts. In this film, Donald Duck is a

Screenshot from Der Fuehrer's Face (1943)

Disclaimer: in the opening sequence, Japanese emperor Hirohito is playing a Sousaphone, and is depicted in an exaggeratedly ethnic and buffoonish way, typical of wartime cartoons, and today may be offensive.

Here is Der Fuehrer’s Face in high definition, which went on to win the Oscar for Best Animated Short and was later named #22 on the 50 Greatest Cartoons of All-Time list.

More videos of Donald Duck’s WWII shorts:

• Donald Gets Drafted – (May 1, 1942).
• The Vanishing Private – (September 25, 1942).
• Sky Trooper – (November 8, 1942).
• Der Fuehrer’s Face – (January 1, 1943).
• Fall Out Fall In – (April 23, 1943).
• The Old Army Game – (November 5, 1943).
• Home Defense – (November 26, 1943).
• Commando Duck (racism warning) – (June 2, 1944).

ter·ror·ism

n.  The unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence by a person or an organized group against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for ideological or political reasons.

“terrorism.” The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004. 24 Jun. 2009. <Dictionary.com http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/terrorism>.

On May 30, members of Minutemen American Defense (MAD), an extremist group with links to the neo-Nazi group Aryan Nations, the hate group FAIR and the broader Minuteman Project, broke into the Flores’ family home to rob them. Jason Eugene “Gunny” Bush, also wanted for the random murder of a Latino man in Wenatchee, Wash. 12 years ago, was the primary shooter, and, along with Albert Robert Gaxiola and MAD executive director Shawna Forde, they posed as law enforcement and busted into the Flores’ home.

Raul and Brisenia Flores

They shot and killed the father, Raul Flores, and his 9 year-old daughter Brisenia, shooting the little girl multiple times.  The mother returned fire, and wounded Bush in the leg after being wounded herself.  Police said the murders were premeditated as part of Shawna Forde’s plot to steal money and drugs from those she suspected of working with Mexican drug cartels, and use the proceeds to fund MAD. “They did not plan to leave any survivors. The plan was to kill everyone. To kill a 9-year-old because she might be a potential witness is one of the most despicable acts I’ve heard of,” Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik told the Arizona Daily Star.

But you wouldn’t know that there are racist militias targeting Hispanics in this country if you’re just watching typical news media. They didn’t cover it. I only found out about it by reading this post on Nezua’s The Unapologetic Mexican blog, and, later, the SPLC’s Hatewatch blog.

If only little Brisenia were a fly…

Because last week the media was abuzz about the death of a house fly at the president’s hand, and PETA’s objections to this “execution.”

Here’s a round up of the coverage of this, from our dying dinosaur news media, locked permanently in “silly season“:

Associated Content: PETA Obama Fly-Swatting Story Creates Buzz

Politico: PETA miffed at President Obama’s fly “execution”

Yep, this scrap of inanity was covered by the AP, MSNBC, CNN, The New York Times, Politico and more. It was so excessive and absurd, it became perfect fodder for Stewart and Colbert.

Where are our priorities? When racist vigilantes (reminiscent of the KKK) start killing children of the race they hate, I can’t find out from the MSM (MainStream Media)?? To get real news these days, you have to turn to the blogs that link to credible local papers that are actually providing coverage.

That means the MSM will soon go the way of that White House fly.

*squish*

Nick

Related Bloggery

From my friend Spinny: Why I hate PETA