short takes

[cellio]

Prior to receiving an invitation to one I had not heard the word "webinar", but I instantly understood what it meant. That's a good sign in new vocabulary. (Contrast with, for example, "blog".) Not that I'm eager to start talking about webinars (let alone holding them), but still.

This week's episode of 24 included a PSA saying, essentially, "not all muslims are terrorists". Well duh. If the show were one of those fake documentaries I could see something like that, but doesn't everyone understand that 24 is fiction? And anyway, it looks like that's going to become very, very obvious next week, unless the previews are very misleading.

Someone posted "flushing 101" posters in the restrooms at work. I first saw the poster in a stall where the previous occupant had not flushed. I hope that wasn't the person who posted the sign.

Comments

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

The PSAs are part of the agreement settled on between the American Muslim Committee and Fox. The AMC complained because the series is showing what appears to be an integrated Muslim family who turn out to be terrorists.

As for people being smart enough to tell the difference between fact and fiction, well, a lot of Americans do take their impressions from the overall culture.

[cellio]

Fox should have told them to stuff it, IMO -- and I would say the exact same thing if they were depicting Jewish terrorists. If you spoon-feed people and assume they don't have any brains, then in a generation you'll make it so. And an ad on TV should have no more credibility than the program it's attached to.

I'm Italian, but people don't assume I'm connected to the Mafia even with popular depictions like The Godfather out there. Should the Italian-American lobby be able to interfere with shows about the Mafia just in case someone is stupid enough to say "hey, he's named 'Luigi' -- sounds like Mafia to me!"?

Yes, in the wake of 9/11 there were some incidents of stupid people attacking innocent people. But y'know what? There weren't a lot and there was a large outcry about it. And that was based on real events, not fiction. There will always be some stupid people and some violent people, and some stupid violent people, but they're not the ones who are going to listen to the PSAs anyway. Meanwhile, the PSA just insults the intelligence of everyone else, and giving in to this kind of pressure helps prevent good stories from getting written and aired in the future.

Consider the intimidation factor. If your publisher tells you "we can't publish this story that depicts $GROUP in a bad light because of your one character, unless we publish a disclaimer in the front that may cause some of your readers to punt", are you going to go along with that or are you going to change your story? And then the next time you just won't write a Muslim terrorist or a young black murderer or whatever at all, because you know it'll bring down flack, and in the end you'll be reduced to writing stories about French-grandma terrorists. Is that good for anyone?

It's yet another part of the general abdication of responsibility for education. Many parents expect schools to do what's their responsibility, and many adults expect someone to just tell them what's true instead of doing some thinking and some work themselves. It's very sad, and it gives enormous power to those doing the telling. Do we really want to condone that?

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

Um, I was just giving you information, since your post seemed to imply that you didn't know why they were running the PSAs. It's part of a legal settlement.

[cellio]

I'm sorry. I wasn't trying to lash out at you; I just took the information as a starting point for what turned into a rant. I do appreciate the information!

(Self, repeat after me: no ranting before the first dose of caffeine settles in...)