America Bids Farewell to "American Idol"

With season 14 of American Idol finally wrapped up, it is clear that the show is losing its touch. This year, as I discussed in my blogpost "From Contestant to Judge on American Idol" back in March, the show took on a completely new format in order to attract more viewers. Unfortunately, Idol's decision to switch to one hour-long episode per week didn't do the trick. The season 14 finale rallied only 7.74 million viewers, down 26% from the 10.53 million who watched the season 13 finale last year. Clearly, the show is failing to appeal to Americans these days. 

Host Ryan Seacrest and Judges Jennifer Lopez, Harry
Connick Jr., and Keith Urban, who will stay on American Idol
for its final season. 

A few days ago, it was announced that Season 15 of American Idol will serve as the show's final season. After creating many stars, including Kelly Clarkson, Carrie Underwood, Chris Daughtry, and Adam Lambert, it seems that Idol has run its course. The show that inspired Americans across the country to chase their dreams of becoming successful singers no longer achieves the same reaction after 14 years of the same old, same old. New shows, like NBC's The Voice, have caused Americans to rethink what they want out of a singing contest. When it comes to TV, Americans get very picky. They always search for the newest, freshest take on television. American Idol has simply run for too long to maintain its "fresh" vibe. Everything dies out after awhile, including television shows. It's American Idol's time. I just hope it goes out with a bang.

Where's the Middle Class?

As we have been discussing class during American Studies, I have become more aware of people trying to identify themselves with certain labels. When I came across this article in the New York Times, I thought it pertained to what we have studied in class. According to the article, the 2016 presidential candidates have been avoiding using the term "middle class" to describe most Americans. With the economy still unstable, even "middle class" seems unattainable to many people. The presidential candidates don't want to bring up that term since it no longer has the same positive connotation. Sarah Elwood, a professor at the University of Washington, claims, “The cultural consensus around what it means to be ‘middle class’ — and that has very much been part of the national identity in the United States — is beginning to shift.” Middle class is no longer something people want to strive for. 

Even in the middle of the pack, many people these days struggle to live well-off. The real middle class has become extremely small, with the majority of Americans being fitting into either the upper or lower class. Now, the American class system looks like an hourglass, with barely anyone left to live comfortably in the middle. According to Felicia Wong, the president and chief executive of the Roosevelt Institute,“If you’re technically in the 50th percentile in income distribution but you can’t afford to send your kids to college or take a vacation, are you middle class or not?” The "middle class" simply isn't a real middle class anymore. If we don't start taking care of the lower class and creating more of a real middle class, I don't think our economy will become stable. No one can obtain the American Dream without the middle class.

Closing the Gap

CEOs earn 350x time more than the average worker

In Inequality For All, the documentary we watched in class, Robert Reich discusses the immense pay gap existing between CEOs and their employees. He claims that a CEO's pay is about 350 times that of an average worker. This gap is ridiculous and unnecessary. It creates a greater disparity between the upper and lower classes, while greatly diminishing the middle class. Reich insists that a strong middle class is the key to a stable economy. If this wage gap continues to widen, the United States will struggle to maintain a strong economy.

Fortunately, I watched a story on the news recently about one CEO trying to reduce the gap between his earnings and the earnings of his employees.  The CEO of Gravity Payments, Dan Price, decided to cut his salary from $1 million to $70,000 so that all of his employees could make at least a $70,000 annual salary in the next three years. Price's decision to raise the salaries of many of his staffers while cutting his own earnings was an extremely bold but incredible move. Price claimed that he was initially prompted to increase the pay of his employees after reading a study relating income to happiness. Additional income up to $75,000 makes a significant improvement in a person's overall emotional well-being. I hope more CEOs follow Price's lead and start to consider the well-being of their employees, as well. The world would become a much happier and more economically-stable environment.

The End of Junior Theme, But Not of Film Violence

Junior Theme is finally coming to an end. After weeks of research, I've learned an incredible amount about the increasingly violent nature of movies. Unfortunately, it only looks like the violence in movies will worsen as years go by. We see violence all across television and other types of social media every day. Filmmakers feel the need to heighten the violence in their movies in order to match the amount of violence seen across television and the internet. With Youtube and 24 news coverage, graphic videos are always able to be found and watched. People are used to consuming tons of violence each and every day, so it is not surprising that filmmakers have been influenced to pump their films full of graphic images.

Sadly, people have also become desensitized to violence due to the constant exposure to violence through television and the internet. Yet, moviemakers still want to have an effect on their viewers. In the eyes of filmmakers, the only way to create a shock for the audience is to increase the amounts of violence in films with even more guns, explosions, blood, and death. As technology advances and people find more ways to access real-life violent images and video clips, this desensitization will only worsen. Therefore, at this rate, films will only increase in their amounts of violence. Somehow, the world is going to have get used to nonstop violence in all forms of media. Yet, it seems like we are pretty close to that point already.

More Technology = More Violence

As I have continued to research violence in movies for Junior Theme, I have discovered that movies have drastically increased their usage of special effects over time. New special effects technology has allowed filmmakers to further experiment with violence. This new technology has caused an increase in the graphic portrayal of violence in film.

Back before 1968, the Production Code Association prohibited any graphic violence from appearing across the big screen. Yet, once the Production Code was eliminated in 1968 and replaced by the MPAA ratings that are still in effect today, filmmakers chose to experiment with more technology as a means of portraying violence. They started out using squibs, which more realistically depicted bloodshed. Squibs became widely used throughout films for years.

World War Z special effects

However, after the introduction of computer-generated imagery (CGI) to film, movies have become even more graphically violent. It is very rare for someone these days to watch a movie without viewing some type of gore, battle, or other violent scene. Filmmakers have heightened the amount of depicted violence in their films using CGI, including movies such as Lord of the Rings, Independence Day, Harry Potter, and World War Z. As technology improves each year, it worries me that the violence in films is going to be unavoidable. When filmmakers move beyond CGI into some new technology, the increase in violence is almost unimaginable.

Bye Bye Film Censorship

While I was searching for information about how movie violence has increased over time for my Junior Theme, I found a very interesting article that explored how the Catholic Church largely influenced film censorship throughout the early to mid-20th century. The Production Code Administration (PCA), chaired by a Catholic named William Hays, monitored Hollywood films of all genres, limiting the amounts of violence, sex, and "indecency" appearing on the big screen.

Monster and little girl in Frankenstein (1931)

The PCA greatly censored James Whale's Frankenstein (1931), which was viewed as "immoral" to many Catholics. Originally, the film included a scene in which the monster noticed a young girl tossing flowers onto a pond. He joined in, watching the flowers float atop the water. The monster then suddenly threw the little girl into the pond, hoping to see her float along the surface like all the beautiful flowers. When the girl drowned, the monster ran away into the forest, mortified. The PCA became very upset that this scene was revealing innocence in the monster. It ordered that much of the scene be removed. The edited version of Frankenstein only showed the monster reaching for the young girl before the scene cut to the girl's father carrying her body through the village, her stockings around her ankles. This scene depicted no ounce of innocence in the monster; rather, it caused the viewer to believe that the monster intentionally drowned the young girl. This censored version of Frankenstein remained in circulation for 40 years.

I can't believe it took 40 years for the original version of Frankenstein to be released. The PCA managed to limit not only the violent drowning of the young girl from the screen, but also the innocent intentions of the monster. Without the scene depicting the monster's mortification after accidentally drowning the girl, the PCA was able to convince the audience that the monster was evil without any backstory. Today, the PCA and the Catholic Church no longer censor films. The MPAA rating system, consisting of G, PG, PG-13, R, and NC-17 ratings replaced the PCA back in 1968. I wonder if the fact that America has become a less religious place factored into the elimination of film censorship. Nevertheless, without the PCA in effect, more violence is definitely appearing on the big screen than ever before. The downfall of the PCA certainly seemed to contribute to the increase in movie violence over time.

Topic Turmoil

Starting Junior Theme research was very difficult for me this week. I struggled greatly to find a topic that I really cared about. At first, I hoped to focus on a topic revolving around mental illness. However, after speaking with many people throughout the class, mental illness seemed to be a common topic. It was clearly a very interesting issue to many, but I wanted to choose a topic that most people were not researching.

I've always loved music so I started to consider making that my topic. I've always wondered why music has been so captivating, so enjoyable, so universally loved. Researching its psychological effects became the my goal. Yet, as I began searching for my answer to why music has such a profound effect on listeners, I realized that I wasn't focusing on an American issue. Music's psychological impacts on people interested me greatly, but if I researched that topic, I wouldn't be following the assignment.

Therefore, I decided to pick a new topic once again. I brainstormed many ideas with my parents, trying to come up with issues that truly interested me. The first thing that came to my mind was movies. I've enjoyed watching movies for all my life. Except, I've always tried to avoid ultra-violent films. Unlike me, many people seek violent films in the theaters. Over time, extreme violence has become more difficult to avoid when choosing a movie to watch. I began wondering why this violence has increased in movies. Then, I realized I had my question to research. In the end, it all came down to thinking about my interests, while not forgetting to focus on an issue surrounding that topic.