The Laramie Project: Using Media to Teach Tolerance 10 Years Later

Nov. 13, 2009 It’s fitting that The Laramie Project premiers locally tonight in San Mateo on Friday the 13th, as the theater production resurrects a haunting melancholy on the ‘unlucky’ and fateful day young Matthew Shepard was kidnapped, severely beaten and left to die suffering for six days tied to a fence on the outskirts of Laramie, Wyoming. Reason for the hate crime? He … [Read more...]

Gossip Girl November Sweeps Schtick Predictably Trashy

Nov. 10, 2009 No, I didn’t watch the heavily promoted Gossip Girl ‘threesome’ shock schlock last night that sent the Parents Television Council rightfully into a tizzy, but frankly I didn’t need to, as the whole ‘provocative’ ploy is summed in two words, “sweeps week.” The vapid values trotted out in the ‘skankwear’ with stilettos crowd is pretty par for the course on the … [Read more...]

Disney XD: A Case Study on Packaging Boyhood

Nov. 3, 2009 In diving into media messages targeting boys for my weekly Tuesday Packaging Boyhood posts, my mind snap went to ‘gaming’ pronto. Is this a stereotype? Or did I just do a Malcolm Gladwell style "Blink” in rapid cognition? I flipped to the Packaging Boyhood chapter on “What Boys Do” since we know marketers are tapping a boy’s desire to be ‘powerful’ and admired … [Read more...]

Flash Animation & Viral KidVid? Give Pause

Nov. 3, 2009 Here's a marketing campaign kids LOVE (me too!) No secret I’m a huge Fido fan…Flash animation? Not so much. It often freezes my Firefox and fouls up the works more often than not on a business site but here in this 'oldie but goodie' ('06-'07ish?) this viral video making the rounds again proves to be pure gold. Give that ad agency a biscuit for its viral … [Read more...]

“Bring Your Baby to Life With Your Wii Remote?”

Nov. 2, 2009 Not sure which part of this creeps me out more, the fact that 21st century baby dolls have a Wiimote crammed up the wazoo to ‘bring the baby to life’ as a Wii system accessory, the passive pink gender cues for girls and total absence of boys as video parenting poppas, or the product picture being a dead-ringer look alike of my own offspring at that age. Ewww all … [Read more...]