Shifting baselines is about the failure to notice change. Here, sort of sadly, is a prime example of it, from my buddy Jason Ensler who is a director with NBC (he directed episodes of "My Name is Earl," and "Chuck" this season as well as co-creating the under-appreciated "Andy Barker, P.I."). It's a Christmas promo for CBS in 1966 which I even remember (yeeks).
Anyhow, look at the promo. It's so slow and sweet that today it would loose a half billion viewers before it's over -- everyone switching to the new reality show, "Who Can Dance with the Fattest Slob." And did you notice this year the news gleefully reported that stores were staying open round the clock up to Christmas Day to maximize sales? The newscasters talked about what fun it is to shop around the clock. But...let's be honest, it's kind of throwing out the last bits of reverence for Christmas. And a distant cry from 1966.
Technology
Comments
if they played this today, it would be a 7 seconds long, he'd chop down the tree, and remind you that this is what happens to you when you don't watch KID NATION. and it would be 3x as loud.
Posted by: Frank | December 26, 2007 10:36 AM
Frank - Why so cynical? I'll tell you why, because what you say is true. I hate to be one of those "the world is going to pieces" types, but every so often you get one of these wake up calls that really makes you realize the old expression "the more things change, the more they stay the same," just isn't true. Things have changed. There's no denying it. Is it necessarily a bad thing that movies have mostly turned into loud, dumb pointless amusement rides? Who knows. Maybe its a wonderful thing. But there's no denying things have changed.
Posted by: Randy Olson | December 26, 2007 10:52 AM
Since my memory has been ruined by quick-cut TV editing, and the blog search feature seems broken at the moment, that's enough of an excuse to mention Neil Postman's little book, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business, regardless whether it's been mentioned before.
(http://www.powells.com/biblio/17-9780143036531-0 )
As I recall Postman offered some intriguing insight into the mechanism of this cultural shift.
Posted by: etbnc | December 26, 2007 11:13 AM
Check out #10 on Randy Olson's book list in the left sidebar! I guess I'll have to pick this one up...
Posted by: Jennifer L. Jacquet | December 26, 2007 11:19 AM
The decline of Christmas as a family day has been really noticeable to those of us who don't celebrate it. It used to be that Christmas was a quiet and deserted day, leaving the ski slopes & movie theaters to Jews and Asians. Now everything is crowded - Christians don't seem to celebrating at home with their families much at all. I find it very odd - it's nothing but OMG CHRISTMAS CHRISTMAS!!! in every possible public place for two months and then people don't even celebrate it?
And thanks for posting that promo, Dr. Olson - it warmed even my cold black December-hating heart.
Posted by: Miriam Goldstein | December 26, 2007 11:20 AM
Once again, I am reminded that the culture wars in this country incorrectly pit conservative against liberal. It is always BUSINESS that will eat away at whatever tradition holds to be of value, so long as there is a dollar to be made.
After all it wasn't Barney Frank selling beers with the Coors twins.
Posted by: gex | December 26, 2007 12:35 PM
Oh, no! It was the first assault in the War on Christmas(TM).
How dare they say "Season's Greetings".
:-)
Posted by: Ahcuah | December 26, 2007 9:32 PM
you know what they mean when they say, "the more things change, the more they stay the same?" they mean that the earth still spins around the sun, that everyday on planet earth, since it's been overtaken by the humanity, has been wrought with the balancing act of the jubilation of birth, the grief of death, the celebration of rites of passage, the tragedy of destruction and dating tall blondes, good and evil, cats and dogs living together yada yada. but the key phrase is "the more things change," and it seems to me that our baseline is shifting ever more rapidly with each revolution around the sun. it was only 7 years ago, that network television was primarily blanketed with high quality narrative programming that reflected our deepest hopes, fears, and sense of humor/proportion. and now you can't throw a dead cat without hitting a reality show. the emperor has no clothes and neither do you randy olson. i saw your flock of dodos disaster masquerading as an award winning documentary. you buried the lead, you screwed the pooch, you left out the nail in the coffin to the intelligent design philosphy and you did it so that you could TEACH THE CONTROVERSY. you're no better than the Kansas City School Board, circa '03, which you slyly claim to debunk with a wink and a smile.
Posted by: Frank | December 26, 2007 10:27 PM
Uh ... gee, Frank, looks like I was right when I pegged you for a cynic. But maybe old fart is a better classification. As I said above, its possible that filling the world with reality tv could actually be a good thing -- time will tell (you sound like you're already certain it is a bad thing), all I'm saying is its important to be aware of the changes. And regarding "the coffin" -- I have some bad news for you on that front -- there never was a coffin or any nails to hammer into it.
This is the fallacy that so many scientists buy into -- that there exists some almighty argument that will cause the anti-science folks to sit up and say, "wow, I never saw it that way." Dodos wasn't ever intended to nail any coffins, or present an argument against intelligent design (though I did REVIEW the argument against it). It was focused on the more serious problem, which is that in the future if you don't know how to communicate your science effectively, someone else will do it for you. And they'll do it their way.
Posted by: Randy Olson | December 26, 2007 11:32 PM
but you had the argument to present against intelligent design. it's called evolution. you never talk about inheritable differences, you never talk about genetic drift, you conveniently leave out the combination of Darwin's theory with Mendelian inheritance, which forms the central organizing principle of modern biology and provides a unifying explanation for the diversity of life on earth. and the crime in leaving this out, is not the lack of the information itself, it's that you weaken your final point, which is that the science is NOT being communicated effectively. why didn't YOU communicate it effectively? wouldn't your point have been better served if you really made the scientists look like the feckless fucks they really are? they have the means to utterly dismantle the logic of intelligent design, and yet the truth goes unattended while they aimlessly and arrogantly diddle about. you know the truth. the truth is that the science is right. but you left it out as a manipulation to build tension between the two sides, when even you admit that wasn't the central conflict of the film.
Posted by: Frank | December 27, 2007 12:27 AM
Dodos took a different approach to the conflict over the teaching of evolution vs. intelligent design. It presented a representative group of spokespersons from either side, then let the broad audience make up their mind which group makes more sense. Film is not an effective informational medium. It is not a good place to "lay out the two sides of the debate" (if there even were two sides). You can do that, but you're primarily connecting with the small slice of the audience who are more intellectual and less visual. Film is much better when dealing with more human and less analytical elements. So the main purpose of Dodos is to present THE PEOPLE who make up the two sides of the issue and let the viewer decide, at the level of gut instinct, whether the attack on evolution is valid.
When you look at the film this way, what you see are a lot of I.D. people hemming and hawing, casting their eyes about, telling tall tales, and using vocabulary (like talking about "the Darwinists") that reveals their limited knowledge and understanding of the field of evolutionary biology. And though, as you point out, the film didn't present "the case for evolution," none of the 20 or so major published reviews mistook the film for anything other than a resounding endorsement of current evolutionary biology teaching.
And most important of all, the movie ends with people laughing, smiling, and wanting to know more, rather than fleeing for the exits with a vow to never watch another film on evolution.
Posted by: Randy Olson | December 27, 2007 12:51 AM