Assignment 1-3 Article Analysis

Heartland TV: Prime Time Television and the Struggle for U.S. Identity.

The so called “Heartland” of America is said to be a very rural part of America that holds the core values of the country and is the corpus of normalcy according to most. This concept of an area of America that is incorruptible and holds the values that this country was founded on is used by many people including politicians, marketing campaigns, and the media. Some even believe that you are not a “true American” unless you live in this area.
This article analyzes the view that many in the public have towards the heartland. Despite being a major urban country, people think that the majority of citizens live in the rural heartland and that all measures of normalcy should be compared to the values of those that live in the supposed heartland. The article shows how the Midwest as the heartland was conceived thorough the start of radio and network broadcasting. It also shows how these values were reinforced by television shows during the 50’s and 60’s like Jubilee, U.S.A. and The Lawrence Welk Show. You also see the urban Midwest represented later in the 70’s with TV shows like The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and The Bob Newhart Show, These shows did not talk about the war in Vietnam, conflicts of morality, or left wing political ideas. These shows suggested that the Midwest heartland was a “straight American” part of society. This article also speaks of the move into controversial subjects of TV during the 90’s in shows like Roseanne and Ellen when they started to discuss subject like lesbianism.
The article is obviously written by someone with left leaning views, it is very critical of how politicians, especially ones on the right depict the heartland of America.
This article also depicts American as people who blindly think of the Midwest is the “Holy Grail” of American normalcy, morality, and values. You see this depiction on TV constantly; I have especially noticed this in situation comedies and with political pundits. I personally don’t understand why people think this way, many people in the Midwest have primarily right wing views, but not everyone. The media simply depicts the heartland as all farmland and people who lean to the right on political issues which is simply not true. If anything, people who farm have been taking up other vocations as the years change.

Refernces:
Sherry, Douglas. (2008). Heartland TV: Prime Time Television and the Struggle for U.S. Identity. Pennsylvania College of Technology, 391-392. Retrieved from Ohio Link database.

Weekly Analysis #5

Two weeks ago I wrote about the TV show “Futurama” coming back with new episodes without its original voice cast. The negotiations between the cast and the executives at Fox had gone bad because of the actors demanding more money than Fox was willing to spend on the show. Well, it seems that the show coming back without its original cast might not be the case.
Five members of the original cast of Futurama have agreed to return as their characters that they play on the show. Katey Sagal, Maurice LaMarche, Tress MacNeille, Billy West, and John DiMaggio have agreed to reprise their roles for less than they demanded in the negotiations but more than Fox had originally planned to pay them.
Matt Groening, the producer of the show and the creator of Futurama and The Simpsons, issued a statement recently and gave his blessing that the original cast had chosen to return to their roles. Fox nor any the cast members have said anything publicly about the issue or the show.
Many people believe that this was just a ploy by Fox to get more hype for the show with the public, similar to a stunt they pulled several years ago with the cast of their other hit animated show The Simpsons. I personally do agree with the majority on this issue, but I just happy to see an old favorite TV show of mine returning.

Weekly Analysis #4

If you are a Star Wars fan, you have seen the original and the prequel trilogy that was started in 1999. If you are a Star Wars fan, you also know which one is better. The original films received great reviews in their day and still do today; the new versions on the other hand do not, especially Episode 1: The Phantom Menace. Most fans of the series blame this movie for ruining the series.
The subject of why the movie is bad in almost everyone’s opinion has been beat to death in the last decade, so I will not go into that now. Many have been blamed, ranging from George Lucas to the character of Jar Jar Binks to the kid who played Anakin Skywalker. It seems that Jake Lloyd who played Anakin Skywalker was especially affected by this criticism throughout his childhood since he was 10 years old when he played the character.
According an interview, retrieved July 26, 2009, from http://movies.yahoo.com/feature/buzz_log_anakin.html, Jake Lloyd had a terrible time in high school and college dealing with criticism of his performance by his peers. He described his as people who found the biggest thing that stuck out about him and never letting it go. He also has said that he can not watch the movie now and not feel awkward, even though it has been years since he has seen the movie.
I can only imagine the problems he had to face in school dealing with Episode 1, especially since most people I know regarded the movie as one of the worst ever made. Jake does say that he has put it all behind him and that he is eager to go back to film school and get back to work.

Weekly Analysis #3

I enjoyed the TV show Futurama when it was first aired on the FOX network at the beginning of this decade. It was created by the same people that created the The Simpsons 20 years ago, it was also animated in the same style as the Simpsons. It was canceled after just a few seasons despite being a huge critical success and having many viewers.
It was announced just a few weeks ago that the show was going to be brought back onto the air by Comedy Central. Similar to the show Family Guy which was brought back to life because of DVD sales and online downloads of the show, Comedy Central has had a huge amount of viewers watching reruns of the show on their network and decided to order 26 new episodes.
When the Futurama characters come back for new episodes, they may sound different. That is because producing studio 20th TV is proceeding with auditioning new actors for the roles after failing to reach an agreement with the original voice cast: John DiMaggio, Maurice LaMarche, Billy West, Tress MacNeille and Katey Sagal. When, under similar circumstances, Family Guy was resurrected with a pickup of new episodes by Adult Swim in 2005, the show's entire voice cast came back for what is described as approximately the same salaries they were paid when Family Guy aired on Fox from 1999-2002.
The cast of Futurama, which ran on Fox from 1999-2002, are said to have been offered modest pay increases but have insisted for bumps of several times what they used to make. However, on Family Guy, creator Seth MacFarlane voices the key characters, while the entire cast of Futurama, like that of The Simpsons, consists of outside actors. Matt Groening, who co-created Futurama with David X. Cohen, knows a thing or two about voice casts standoffs. The Simpsons creator had gone through a series of bruising renegotiation with the actors on the long-running Fox series. Just like the current scuttle on Futurama, in 1998 20th TV hired casting directors to recast the actors on The Simpsons. A deal was ultimately reached. In 2004 and 2008, the series' seasons were cut short after the Simpsons voice cast boycotted table reads as part of the tense salary negotiations. Despite the salary disputes, Simpsons reached the 20-season mark with its original voice cast intact. With "Futurama," there also is a possibility that the two sides would come to an agreement. In the meanwhile, it's going to be rough for the casting directors assigned to find replacement actors who have already started to receive threats from fans of the show.

Icon Analysis

Mario is the plumber with the red hat video game character that popped up in the 80’s in the Donkey Kong video game. He has been in countless games since for the Nintendo video game machines and has even had his own cartoon, movie, and comic book. Just about anyone who grew up in the 80’s or 90’s will have fond memories of playing his games in their childhood. I did not know another kid who didn’t like playing Mario games on their Nintendo when I was a child, and my mother can confirm I spent a major amount of time piloting him to conquer the evil King Koopa.


Barack Obama has been called the “Celebrity President” by many. If you think about it, it is true. The election was over eight months ago, yet you still see him on magazine covers and on book shelves everywhere. The public seems to follow his every move, even when he swats a fly as we saw a few weeks ago. Many compare his popularity to that of John F. Kennedy when he was president. I am not going to get into politics, but he is the only president that seems real to me since I saw him in person once, rather than on TV or in a book.



The movie Star Wars has been big in American pop culture since it was released. It is one of the 10 highest grossing movies of all time and one of the most unmistakable. Even people that I know that have never seen it can recognize it when they see it on TV. It has reached so far that it influenced how movies were made all the way up to today. You also can see it parodied in all sorts of TV shows and movies. I personally loved the movie as a kid and still do enjoy it. Working at a comic book store in my teens, I heard many conversations and arguments about the movie and how it affected other movies.

Weekly Analysis #2

It's no secret this summer's list of blockbusters has been a lackluster collection of underachievers. But who's to blame for this debacle? I point a stern finger at the weak collection of villains. A good villain in a film should make the audience afraid of him or wanting him to die or be defeated at all costs. Some good example of villains from summer blockbusters would be: Darth Vader from Star Wars, Buffalo Bill from The Silence of the Lambs, and The Joker from The Dark Knight.
A prime example would be the villain Nero from the movie Star Trek, sure it was a hit, but it did under perform. He was loud, and maybe a tad intimidating - but his anger only made him volatile, not really frightening. His rage was easy to deter, and even easier to circumvent - once you brought a level headed hero into play (which, granted, took some time). He was all bark and not enough personal bite. Sure, he blew up Vulcan, but we didn't really see the destruction. It was just reckless and wild - once again, something that seems easy to deter with a cooler head.
Terminator Salvation was another example; the villains of the movie were the super computer Skynet and the terminators. These villains have been used for three films already, and they were intimidating to start with, but they have lost their bite. They did not make a logical decision throughout the movie and only had one terminator fight with the main character while he was in an entire factory of the machines.
Perhaps there will be a change in this trend before the summer is out. The prospects don’t look promising though. The previews of the movie District 9 seem to have humanity as the villain and the G. I. Joe movie’s villains appear to be something out of a toy commercial. (Granted it is based on toys) Hopefully things will change before the end of this summer!

Weekly Analysis 1

A year ago American culture seemed to enjoy dystopian stories when they watched TV or went to the movies or read a book. The movie The Dark Knight was a darker take on the Batman hero, which went on to be the 2^nd highest grossing movie of all time. The book The Road, about a father and son that travel a post nuclear holocaust America to the ocean was a big hit last year and the year before. Even on TV, dystopian shows were a hit, especially in the sci-fi genre with the new take on the show Battlestar Galactica.

That seems to have changed this year, at least when it comes to movies. The new installment in the Terminator movies was a box office dud according to many in America, but overseas it did very well. The movie adaptation of the graphic novel Watchmen was also a box office dud as well. X-Men Origins: Wolverine was a somwat dark movie that came out this year that also didn’t do quite as expected. The list goes on and on…

More cheerful movies have done much better this year. Pixar’s Up did quite well at the box office and expected to win many awards when award season comes around. The new Star Trek movie is very energetic and adventurous which many believe why it did a lot better than expected in theaters. The comedies The Hangover and The Proposal have both hit #1 on the charts this year which is another example of cheerful movies doing well.

For some reason, American popular culture has simply changed its mind this year and turned down the dystopian or dark films. This could be because of people’s attitudes because of the recent economic downturn or because of the political atmosphere caused by our new president. It seems that America doesn’t like depressing films anymore