The strange story arc

12:21 Feb 24, 2009 95

This week's Media7 has two themes. One is media coverage -- or the lack of it -- of the trade union movement, for which we'll be joined by Ken Douglas, Laila Harre and Graeme Hunt, and the other is chequebook journalism in the wake of the Alfie baby farrago and the strange, oddly perfect, story arc of terminally ill reality TV star Jade Goody.

If you'd like to join us around 5pm for the recording at The Classic in Queen Street tomorrow, hit "reply" and let me know.

Alternatively, you might want to offer opinions or suggest areas of discussion in the forums here.

And if that's too much ... what about those Oscars, then? The most feelgood ceremony in years?

95 responses to this post

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andrew llewellyn, 13:02 Feb 24, 2009

Bloody Oscars - on at 2.30 pm & not repeated. I really should pay more attention to the Listener TV pages.
Did Huge Ackman do OK?

Since Nov 2006 • 2075 posts Report
peter mclennan, 13:06 Feb 24, 2009

yeah, them Oscars - oh hang on - theyr'e NO LONGER ON FREE TO AIR TV! Sucky!

AK Central • Since Nov 2006 • 159 posts Report
peter mclennan, 13:07 Feb 24, 2009

say what? 230pm? stink

AK Central • Since Nov 2006 • 159 posts Report
Graeme Edgeler, 13:13 Feb 24, 2009

Did Hugh Jackman do OK?
"New Zealand" was one of his punchlines...

Wellington, New Zealand • Since Nov 2006 • 3215 posts Report
andrew llewellyn, 13:15 Feb 24, 2009

That's the only bit I've heard.... over & over again.

Since Nov 2006 • 2075 posts Report
Russell Brown, 13:17 Feb 24, 2009

Did Huge Ackman do OK?
He did. He sang, he danced, he was funny and charming. But bizarrely, some US TV critics came over all shocked and appalled because he said "human excrement".
The sound recordist guy from Slumdog gave a lovely, emotional speech in barely-up-to-the-job English, the guy from Man on a Wire did conjuring tricks on stage, Sean Penn totally rocked when he accepted the Oscar for Milk, and the stars dabbed their eyes when Heath Ledger was eulogised.
It was quite a different production, and I thought it really worked well.

Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 22850 posts Report
cindy baxter, 13:22 Feb 24, 2009

So. Poor old Jade. She's dragged herself through eight years of UK tabloid hell, hated and loved for her (incredibly) stupid remarks and racism (and every other thing she's done, all noted on a daily basis by the paparazzi).
I like the fact that she's now getting her own back by selling images of her wedding to get money for her kids' future. (Helped, of course, by celebrity PR man Max Clifford - doubtful she'd have thought of this on her own).
Milk it, I say. The UK tabloid press plays SO dirty with their big chequebooks, so why not take advantage of it? It's not as though she's trying to hide her strategy - and if the papers are stupid enough to fork out the cash, why not?

auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 102 posts Report
Russell Brown, 13:28 Feb 24, 2009

Milk it, I say. The UK tabloid press plays SO dirty with their big chequebooks, so why not take advantage of it? It's not as though she's trying to hide her strategy - and if the papers are stupid enough to fork out the cash, why not?
I think so.
The extraordinary thing is the extent to which tabloids and reality TV have been her life. Check out her Wikipedia article.
Hadley Freeman wrote this in the Guardian three weeks ago:
The desperate saga of this 27-year-old mother of two young children, with its bizarrely tidy narrative arc so at odds with the messiness of the actual life inside it, seems increasingly to resemble a cruel modern-day satire, so obvious in its moralising intentions that a Daily Mail sketch writer would have rejected it as too heavy-handed and simplistic.
I loved that phrase "bizarrely tidy narrative arc" so much I half-consciously nicked it for the headline of this post. And yet, it would be a hard-hearted snob who wasn't moved by what is happening.

Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 22850 posts Report
Sue, 13:39 Feb 24, 2009

apart from beyonce, that was an amazing show
is there something contractual about using her in every single show in some way or another?

Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 527 posts Report
Graeme Edgeler, 13:44 Feb 24, 2009

He did. He sang, he danced, he was funny and charming. But bizarrely, some US TV critics came over all shocked and appalled because he said "human excrement".
...
It was quite a different production, and I thought it really worked well.
From today's TVTattle coverage (clink through for their story links, though they'll be gone in a week):
Finally, an Oscars worth watching
This year's Academy Awards was a big improvement thanks to its new producers, not Hugh Jackman, according to Robert Bianco. "Credit new producers Bill Condon and Laurence Mark, who made last night's gorgeously designed ABC broadcast feel faster and more intimate without sacrificing Hollywood glamour," writes Bianco. "They didn't just reshape the theater, they reshaped the show — focusing on this year's movies, rather than trying to work around them, and explaining why the awards mattered. Unfortunately, the improvements often seem to come more in spite of host Hugh Jackman than because of him."
Ratings rise 6% from last year // Brangelina snub Ryan Seacrest -- again!
Best Oscars in years // Worst Oscars ever // One of the best-ever Oscarcasts?
Drop Queen Latifah and "Show us the damn dead people!"
5 intros for 5 nominees = snoozeworthy // Terrible! Perhaps Oscars can't be saved!
Jackman worse than Letterman? // Jackman gets a B+, but where was he all night?
Whole Oscarcast had more to do with TV than movies // New format a success

Wellington, New Zealand • Since Nov 2006 • 3215 posts Report
3410, 13:52 Feb 24, 2009

So we don't get the Oscars live (again). Ironically, the 6pm news included footage of actual Mumbai slum residents watching the broadcast live in their tiny hovel.
For anyone upset at missing it today, check daytime TV2 listings for this, or possibly even next, weekend. It'll likely be there.

Auckland • Since Jan 2007 • 2618 posts Report
Tim Michie, 14:02 Feb 24, 2009

And for all traditional media simplifying blogs as publishing parasites, the Oscars weren't streamed and I followed it on the liveblogs... The WashPost discussions had a bingo card going (political message thank you, wardrobe malfunction etc) and 'The New Zealand Joke' shoulda been a contender. I can think of three from recent years not including yesterdays.
My personal cheer was reserved for Kate Winslet. So overdue it should've included penalty interest.
Meanwhile, as trad. media gets in a huff over ordinary people chipping in on the media they elevate an ordinary person into the circus, clipping the ticket for every rise and fall. I'm glad Jade is able to use that to raise some money for her family and cervical cancer is getting discussed. But just as the tragedies of those in the media often are it's going to fall in the Entertainment section of Google News, isn't it... because that's why a lot of people will follow it.
Los Bros Hernandez early 'Mister X' had an incidental character turning off a program called 'Celebrity Autopsies' and that does seem where we're headed. Actually, X's drug prevented sleep, produced fits of rage, frequesnt changes of abode...

Auckward • Since Nov 2006 • 614 posts Report
Rich of Observationz, 14:05 Feb 24, 2009

NO LONGER ON FREE TO AIR TV!
So you now have to pay to watch an extended promotional film for the movie industry?
They're bloody clever, those media companies. I'm surprised they find it so hard to make money...

Back in Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 5550 posts Report
Isabel Hitchings, 14:05 Feb 24, 2009

apart from beyonce, that was an amazing show
is there something contractual about using her in every single show in some way or another?
You know what they used to say about the Fat Lady singing? Well now that we're all panicked about the "obesity epidemic" the rather more streamlined Ms Knowles has taken over the role.

Christchurch • Since Jul 2007 • 719 posts Report
Russell Brown, 14:08 Feb 24, 2009

Los Bros Hernandez early 'Mister X' had an incidental character turning off a program called 'Celebrity Autopsies' and that does seem where we're headed. Actually, X's drug prevented sleep, produced fits of rage, frequesnt changes of abode...
I think we should invoke Los Bros more often. Could they be PA's next Battlestar Galactica?

Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 22850 posts Report
cindy baxter, 14:09 Feb 24, 2009

The extraordinary thing is the extent to which tabloids and reality TV have been her life.
Every time I've been in the UK over the last few years (and before I left in 04), Jade has been featured in at least one magazine or tabloid newspaper, either for her escapades on Big Brother or purely because her celebrity status meant her every movement being followed.
I don't think she had much choice, poor love. And certainly not a strategy until Max came along.
I guess "bizarrely tidy narrative arc" is appropriate but if being "tidy" means dying of cervical cancer in the glare of the (now international) media spotlight, I think I would have gone for messy.

auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 102 posts Report
andrew llewellyn, 14:20 Feb 24, 2009

He did. He sang, he danced, he was funny and charming. But bizarrely, some US TV critics came over all shocked and appalled because he said "human excrement".
I don't think the US really "gets" Jackman, it seems to me that there's some distaste in some quarters that Wolverine has a background in musical theatre.
Then again, it doesn't seem to have hurt his career.

Since Nov 2006 • 2075 posts Report
Graeme Edgeler, 14:31 Feb 24, 2009

This week's Media7 has two themes. One is media coverage -- or the lack of it -- of the trade union movement
I think I posted this in the comments one Friday roundup - the first 9 minutes or so of a 20-year-old edition of One News. The union article struck me at the time I saw it (on Youtube...) as being something we don't get much of anymore. It's a little over six minutes in (and it follows a story about how Federated Farmers had recommended industrial action - well stopping spending - so that that others hurt as they themselves are hurting).
Talk of a national strike, demands for a 17% pay rise, and 1000 delegates . Are there 1000 union delegates in total in Auckland nowadays? And when was the last time they all got together for a meeting over something like this.

Wellington, New Zealand • Since Nov 2006 • 3215 posts Report
pkiwi, 14:43 Feb 24, 2009

This week's Media7 has two themes. One is media coverage -- or the lack of it -- of the trade union movement.
What lack of it? It might have gone done since the election, but what struck me over the last 9 years under Labour was the increasing commentary by unions. It was like the heyday of Douglas and the bushy eyebrow guy.
"Economy is up; hemlines are down here is Andrew Little to talk about these important issues". Not bad coverage for a small club.

Since May 2008 • 7 posts Report
George Darroch, 15:42 Feb 24, 2009

Not bad coverage for a small club.
The NZ CTU represents around 300,000 members, so it's certainly representing some people, even if it can't claim to represent all. The unions are doing ok, as well as you'd expect given the circumstances (they didn't exactly all their wishes given in the last 9 years).
But as Graeme notes, they're well down on their heydays.

WLG • Since Nov 2006 • 2264 posts Report
Dave Waugh, 15:48 Feb 24, 2009

I think I posted this in the comments one Friday roundup - the first 9 minutes or so of a 20-year-old edition of One News.
Interesting old clip, thanks for that Graeme. :o)
Bill Ralston almost sounded youthful!!!!!

Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 98 posts Report
slarty, 15:59 Feb 24, 2009

I'm surprised they find it so hard to make money...
Would that be the sort of money deposited in an off-shore facility to pay for your cool lifestyle (aka cash)? Or the sort used to get subsidies (aka paper loss)?

Since Nov 2006 • 290 posts Report
Jan Farr, 16:08 Feb 24, 2009

I'd like to hear a good discussion about unions. Perhaps you could take pkiwi's post as a starting point. How did the hostility to unions that he reflects arise? Who's doing the employers' work? Is it the media? For organisations of people banding together constructively to help themselves and each other in ways that usually also help the community, unions generate an awful lot of hatred - and I think it's of the generational type - handed down through families and schools and assisted by the media's hunger for conflict. I'm a bit worried about your choice of participants. Laila - only recently involved in the movement and at a fairly lofty level - Ken - not involved for years and Grame Hunt!!! What light are you expecting him to shed on the topic? It sounds to me rather like a jolly good stoush in the making. But then that's the media's driving force I suppose - and the thing that always skews the picture. And Helen Kelly? Was she not available?

Carterton • Since Apr 2008 • 395 posts Report
stephen walker, 16:25 Feb 24, 2009

the strange, oddly perfect, story arc of terminally ill reality TV star
eh?
could you explain in more detail what you mean by "oddly perfect" in this particular context?

nagano • Since Nov 2006 • 646 posts Report
Russell Brown, 16:49 Feb 24, 2009

eh?
could you explain in more detail what you mean by "oddly perfect" in this particular context?
The story arc is one of the essential structures of dramatic fiction. If you were writing a drama about a character's journey, this one has almost perfect symmetry -- she was born into the public consciousness, she fell from grace and she is redeemed in her death, all under the harsh lights of reality TV and the tabloids.
But, as the original Guardian quote noted, the tidyness of the arc masks the messy life beneath.

Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 22850 posts Report