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Title: Make-Believe Media : The Politics of Entertainment by Michael Parenti ISBN: 0-312-05603-6 Publisher: Bedford/St. Martin's Pub. Date: 15 November, 1991 Format: Hardcover List Price(USD): $31.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 5 (5 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Alternative Entertainment
Comment: Parenti's critical review of the Rambo movies really made an impression on me. I used to like the Rambo movies, but now watch them mainly for laughs. Each subsequent Rambo release is, as Parenti describes it, worse than its predecessor. There was talk of reviving the Rambo character now that the U.S. is at war against terrorism. Let's hope it doesn't happen.
I'm not sure if working people are portrayed as negatively as Parenti has described it. If we only take Archie Bunker as an example, then yes, but filmmakers love to advance the theme of the powerless versus the powerful, because the opposite doesn't go well with audiences. Perhaps Parenti knows something I don't on this issue.
Parenti's favorable ratings of two films - JFK and Salvador - made me want to see them - over ten years after they had been released. I managed to see JFK, and it was great. I am still looking to see Salvador.
What I would like to see is an updated version of this book, since there has been more Hollywood propaganda released since the original version came out.
Rating: 5
Summary: Why Archie Bunker and not Eugene Debs
Comment: To hear newscasters avoid talk about class in America, you'd think the concept is as obsolete as the Soviet Union.Yet Michael Parenti continues to insist that class bias not only spreads out from the heart of society, but shapes it. Here he looks at TV's entertainment role in preserving social privilege. From popular stereotypes such as the Lone Ranger and his third-world flunky Tonto, to the invisible world of labor, to the well-meaning but misunderstood plutocrat, Parenti exposes capitalism's self-serving myths as portrayed on the little screen. Sure it's fun to kick around TV and a lot of people do it, but Parenti does it in a highly informative way that confronts our last remaining taboo - the role of wealth and power in American life.
Maybe the best chapter concerns profits and censorship. It's no news to point out that the networks and advertisers are in it for the money. But it is news to point out those instances when producers actually forego profits for the sake of respectability. Parenti details instances when industry has eaten losses rather than jeopardise the system of wealth and power it serves. For example, Procter & Gamble, TV's biggest advertiser, makes this allegiance clear by banning all content critical of Wall Street and the Pentagon from scripts it sponsors. In fact, most scripts - as Parenti shows - go through not 1, but 4 levels of censorship. No wonder, the public walks around in an ideological haze wondering why the world hates us -- and so much for the dollar sign's being more important than the system of which it is a part.
Another telling chapter concerns one of entertainment's most popular myths: "We only give 'em (the audience) what they want." Sounds good. But, as Parenti documents, despite this appeal to democratic ideals, the entertainment marketplace is anything but democratic. He sketches out control points or nerve centers that reduce real choice to pseudo choice, sort of like a multiple choice question whose options are narrowed to a desired range of outcome. All this is made sorrier by indications that American audiences respond to forbidden topics on those rare occasions when they seep through.
No book that debunks the FBI's screen role in the civil rights movement, or points out the class conditioning behind TV's version of Treasure Island, can afford to be overlooked. Whatever the book lacks in depth is more than made up for in focus. Despite his unperson status, Parenti remains a key figure among dissident academics banished to the book-selling fringes. Recommended to all those who understand TV viewing as anything but a passive pastime.
Rating: 5
Summary: a good analysis of admixture of propaganda and entertainment
Comment: Propaganda is basically found in every modern society, so it should come as no surprise to find it in a movie like "Red Dawn," which Parenti refers to. He brings up such interesting facts as that all the TV networks have a department devoted to censorship, such as CBS's euphemistically named "Standards and Practices Department"; that companies like Procter & Gamble often have inordinate veto power over broadcast content considered subversive; and that PBS, which is actually anything but a "public" organization, has been dubbed the "Petroleum Broadcast Service" due to the large influence of the oil companies that help fund it. He who pays the piper..., you might say. I highly recommend this book.
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Title: Inventing Reality : The Politics of News Media by Michael Parenti ISBN: 0312020139 Publisher: Bedford/St. Martin's Pub. Date: 15 November, 1992 List Price(USD): $31.95 |
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Title: The Sword and the Dollar: Imperialism Revolution and the Arms Race by Michael Parenti ISBN: 0312011679 Publisher: Palgrave-Macmillan Pub. Date: 01 November, 1988 List Price(USD): $21.30 |
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Title: Ways of Seeing by John Berger ISBN: 0140135154 Publisher: Penguin Books Pub. Date: 01 January, 1995 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: The Cultural Studies Reader by Simon During ISBN: 0415137543 Publisher: Routledge Pub. Date: 01 July, 1999 List Price(USD): $26.95 |
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Title: Democracy for the Few by Michael Parenti , Michael Parenti ISBN: 0312392508 Publisher: Wadsworth Publishing Pub. Date: 16 July, 2001 List Price(USD): $42.95 |
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