Thursday, May 9

TELEVISION

Love Island And eBay: How The Reality Show Could Model A Radically Sustainable Future For Its Young Viewers
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TELEVISION

Love Island And eBay: How The Reality Show Could Model A Radically Sustainable Future For Its Young Viewers

A recently announced partnership between ITV reality show Love Island and secondhand e-commerce giant eBay sends a strong positive signal about prioritizing sustainability over fast fashion. After receiving a strong backlash against Love Island’s promotion of fast fashion brands such as I Saw It First and Missguided, the show’s executive producer, Mike Spencer, has announced it’ll be working with eBay in 2022 to clothe participants in its current series with “preloved” garments. Love Island boasts huge audience ratings among young people. Some 43% of Love Island viewers are under 30, and 16-34 year-olds made up one-third of viewers of the series premiere on June 6. So the show has the power to influence young people’s shopping habits, largely through the official Love Island app where vi...
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The Story Behind ‘Star Trek’ Actress Nichelle Nichols’ And The Iconic Interracial Kiss
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TELEVISION

The Story Behind ‘Star Trek’ Actress Nichelle Nichols’ And The Iconic Interracial Kiss

On a 1968 episode of “Star Trek,” Nichelle Nichols, playing Lt. Uhura, locked lips with William Shatner’s Capt. Kirk in what’s widely thought to be first kiss between a Black woman and white man on American television. The episode’s plot is bizarre: Aliens who worship the Greek philosopher Plato use telekinetic powers to force the Enterprise crew to sing, dance and kiss. At one point, the aliens compel Lt. Uhura and Capt. Kirk to embrace. Each character tries to resist, but eventually Kirk tilts Uhura back and the two kiss as the aliens lasciviously look on. The smooch is not a romantic one. But in 1968 to show a Black woman kissing a white man was a daring move. The episode aired just one year after the U.S. Supreme Court’s Loving v. Virginia decision struck down state laws against inte...
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What Makes The Show ‘Love Island’ So Successful?
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TELEVISION

What Makes The Show ‘Love Island’ So Successful?

Audiences can’t get enough of reality dating TV shows, including First Dates and Married at First Sight. But few programmes have been able to drum up the same level of excitement as Love Island, which returned this week after an 18-month break. You can listen to more articles from The Conversation, narrated by Noa, here. With viewing figures usually in the millions, Love Island, in particular, has become ubiquitous in British pop culture since its arrival in 2015. But beyond the apparent appeal of watching people go through the up and downs of finding love, what is the enduring attraction of this genre of reality TV? The gimmicks of shows like Love is Blind and the upcoming Netflix dating show Sexy Beasts, (in which participants wear animal prosthetics to mask their true appearanc...
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The Most Popular Late-Night TV Host – How Conservative Comic Greg Gutfeld Overtook Stephen Colbert In Ratings
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TELEVISION

The Most Popular Late-Night TV Host – How Conservative Comic Greg Gutfeld Overtook Stephen Colbert In Ratings

In August 2021, Fox News’ “Gutfeld!,” a late-night comedy-talk show hosted by right-wing pundit Greg Gutfeld, overtook “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” in overall ratings. Surprised? We weren’t. As media and comedy scholars, we’ve been tracking the recent ascension of right-wing comedy, which has flourished thanks to shifts in media industry economics and political ideologies. Gutfeld’s success might come as a shock because it punctures long-standing assumptions about what comedy is, who can produce it and who will enjoy it. These prejudices obscure an important truth: Right-wing comedy has become both a viable business strategy and a crucial element of conservative politics. Yes, “Gutfeld!” is on Fox News, the cable channel known for partisan, right-wing political perspectives an...
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Late-Night TV – What Can Reverse The Decline?
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TELEVISION

Late-Night TV – What Can Reverse The Decline?

In late April, after James Corden announced he would step down from “The Late Late Show” next spring, there was immediate speculation about his replacement. Others, however, have had a different response to recent changes to the late-night TV lineup: Who cares? Ratings are down, they point out. The shows can’t get over their Trump obsession. They represent a bygone era of television. But in my view, late-night can still matter. Contrary to what some might say, late-night is not “dead,” and it can come back. But if it doesn’t want to fall by the cultural wayside as baseball has, it needs to do what the national pastime hasn’t: adapt and evolve. Asking the target demographic For nine years, I wrote for two late-night shows: “Late Night” and “The Tonight Show,” both hosted by Jimmy Fallon....
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These 5 Shows Bring Everyone Together Both Liberals And Conservatives With Wildly Different TV-Viewing Habits
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TELEVISION

These 5 Shows Bring Everyone Together Both Liberals And Conservatives With Wildly Different TV-Viewing Habits

There’s been a lot of concern about how conservatives and liberals consume their news from sources that merely confirm their preexisting beliefs. The result, supposedly, has been a disintegration of a shared reality and a fracturing of the nation’s political life. But does this trend extend to the shows we choose to watch on TV to relax and unwind? Since 2007, the Norman Lear Center at the University of Southern California has been tracking how Americans’ favorite TV shows are connected to their attitudes on a host of hot-button political issues. In each of these studies – including our most recent one – we found that people with different political beliefs seem to be drawn to different types of TV entertainment. But in the most recent study, there was also a distinct overlap: certain ...
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How Bob Saget’s Danny Tanner Was So Different From Other Sitcom Dads
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TELEVISION

How Bob Saget’s Danny Tanner Was So Different From Other Sitcom Dads

Bob Saget, who died on Jan. 9, 2022, is probably best remembered for his role as Danny Tanner on the popular sitcom “Full House,” which aired from 1987 to 1995. I think fans of the show have such fond memories of this character because Danny exemplified what it meant to “be there” as a parent. A single dad whose wife had passed away, he was eager to lend an ear to daughters D.J., Stephanie and Michelle, offering them support and reassurance through the twists and turns of childhood and adolescence. Why heap so much praise on a sitcom dad? It’s easy to disregard TV as mere mindless entertainment. But entertainment media can both reflect and reshape culture – including how fathers interact with their children. They can influence how viewers think about fathers, regardless of the accuracy o...
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Black Women In Television And Film – Grace In The Face Of Discrimination
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TELEVISION

Black Women In Television And Film – Grace In The Face Of Discrimination

When I was fourteen, I traveled to North Carolina with my mother to her home town in Greensboro and experienced a kind of racism that gave me a serious wake up call about discrimination. I was angry, confused and hurt that we could have been arrested just for shopping like normal people and the experience affects me still today. This was in 1968, the same year that Martin Luther King Jr, was murdered, and I felt strong in my Blackness due to the achievements of the Civil Rights movement taking place up to and during this time. In this Five and Dime discount store, as I browsed and touched things I was followed by a white clerk and warned by my mother to not put the hat I was looking at on my head. Defiant, fourteen and coming from Ohio where white people were a little more subtle about...
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‘Real Housewives’ Opens Up A Debate On Wealth, Control And Intimate Partner Abuse
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CELEBRITY NEWS, Journalism, TELEVISION

‘Real Housewives’ Opens Up A Debate On Wealth, Control And Intimate Partner Abuse

Erika Girardi's divorce sparks questions from fans — and speaks to larger issues of financial control in marriage. Jennifer Gerson Originally published by The 19th In December 2020, class-action lawyer Tom Girardi was sued by a class of his former defendants from the 2018 Lion Air flight crash in Indonesia. Tom Girardi, they said, defrauded them and funneled cash from settlements to his personal accounts. Some of that cash, the lawsuits say, went to his wife, Erika Girardi, one of the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills and a chart-topping dance pop performer who went on to write a New York Times-bestselling memoir and star on Broadway in the long-running musical “Chicago.” (Both Girardis will be referred to by their first names in this article for clarity.) When the Bravo sho...
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The Handling Of Anti-Trans Chapelle Special At Netflix Has Caused Employees And Their Allies Walk Out
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CELEBRITY NEWS, TELEVISION

The Handling Of Anti-Trans Chapelle Special At Netflix Has Caused Employees And Their Allies Walk Out

Workers walked off the job at 10:30 a.m. and were joined by LGBTQ+ protesters and allies in front of the building. Kate Sosin Originally published by The 19th This is a developing story. On Wednesday, the head of queer editorial at Netflix reported to work in person for the first time, just to walk out. Gabrielle Korn, who heads up Netflix’s LGBTQ+ hub “Most,” is among a string of employees who vowed to walk out of the company Wednesday morning after Netflix stood by its decision to platform the anti-transgender comedy special “The Closer ” by Dave Chapelle for two weeks. The company has since started to backtrack support for the special Korn is among those who Monday tweeted plans to leave the office amid growing discontent over the company’s defense of Chapelle and retaliation aga...
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