| Media I Adore |
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| Kathleen Hanna of Bikini Kill AKA Julie Ruin |
| Now for the rant, You knew it was coming... The widespread proliferation of Television and the Internet in the twentieth century drastically changed the way we experience our world. The greatest possibility it has to offer us is the infinite amounts of information, culture and artistry that we now can access at the touch of a finger in our own living rooms. However, mainstream media seems to have overlooked this ideal. Instead it seems it used to barage us with empty entertainment, consumerism, advertisements, and blatant propaganda. Popular music has become a science, the scientists-men in suits with statistics and target audience studies to see what sells best with the least confrontation. Advertisers threaten to pull their investments unless controversial stories and scenes taken out or unless hard-hitting investigative journalists does make-overs on their homely interviewees before photographing them. Editors see a need for using airbrush techniques to make size 0 models more attractive. The news is only news if it's sensational enough, and if it's not and there's nothing else, journalists and anchormen find ways to make it sensational. Mainstream television and movies are given million dollar budgets if they have a big name involved and are sure to include a love story. And so called Reality tv is actually scripted behind the scenes, winners, friendships and enemies only allowed (or provoked) after careful deliberation by the producers. Some would ask why it matters if people enjoy these things, "they DO sell after all." But I'm not being overdramatic. The state of the media today hurts us all. We are given the same cliched dribble time and time again, simply because it's what sells. Meanwhile, artists who have something to say (besides a love story) are often kept from rising because they are too controversial. Those who do make it big WITH something to say are soon ostracized by the media, right wingers and politicians; forgotten about; or die before their time. And we are only left with the same safe love stories, the same viewpoints, and the same cliches; never given the chance to see for ourselves the other sides of the fence. |
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| FILM |
| Wild in the Streets Fight Club Gothika Foxfire Lagaan But I'm A Cheerleader The Explosive Generation Barbarella Roman Holiday Kundun Little Buddha Young Frankenstein Three to Tango Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb |
| MUSIC |
| American History X The Fiendish Plot of Dr. Fu Manchu The Adventures of Baron Von Munchausen FreeWay 2 Surf Ninjas The Goonies Willow Arsenic and Old Lace SpaceBalls Dead Poets Society American Beauty Bowling for Columbine The Gods Must Be Crazy Donnie Darko |
| Pennywise The Plasmatics The Vibrators The Vandals Reagan Youth The Misfits Calibretto 13 Atom and His Package Edenpark One Perfect Crime Reel Big Fish Rage Against The Machine Bad Religion Sublime Bob Marley The Cure Anti-Flag Crass Flux of Pink Indians Millencolin Beastie Boys |
| Sleater-Kinney Hang On the Box Bikini Kill Julie Ruin 1905 Del Cielo Bellafea Rasputina Bratmobile Switchblade Kittens Dance Hall Crashers Sarah McLachlan Tori Amos Shonen Knife The Butchies X-ray Spex Kittie Etta James Bif Naked Carmen McRae Yungchen Lhamo Choying Drolma Liz Phair Ani DiFranco |