[UA] America by Prime Time (was Greetings)

[Timothy Ferguson]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: ua-admin at lists.uchicago.edu [mailto:ua-admin at lists.uchicago.edu]On
>

> On Thu, 17 May 2001 00:38:28 , ua at lists.uchicago.edu wrote:
>
>   Of course not. But not every American TV show that we see is "Friends"
>   (although I'd rather have Friends than Survivor 2, which I've
> mercifully
>   missed). We get Buffy too.  ;)
>
> It's worth noting, that over 90% of television and a good percentage of
> movies is written, cast, and directed by people in Southern California,
> additionally, most of that is filmed there too.  As a result,
> movies and TV
> really tend to make America seem more homogenized than it is.

The US also dominates our news services though...

>   Certainly not. I'm very aware that there are social issues that go back
>   hundreds of years, and that things like the death penalty are
> racist for
>   reasons that I have only been informed of in a basic manner.
>   But I am presented with this basic level of information frequently,
> whether
>   it be through the news, through print reporting, through films
> like Higher
>   Learning (which I mostly like and remember for its music), and through
>   references in some roleplaying games (not many; they seem
> strangely anglo
> to
>   me).

I've yet to see a convicing potrayal of Australia other than Terror
Australis, in roleplaying.

> I can't imagine what it would be like to be able to drive to more than one
> country (something you can't do in australia) but you can do in Poland or
> Italy.  But I also can't imagine having as much space in a nation as there
> is in Australia.

Have you seen the Dune movie?

>  Just by the numbers (population vs. land mass)
> it must be
> amazing, but I know that there are cities.

80% or more of all Australians have always resided in cities - following
European settlement.  It makes it even emptier.

  I just don't know how big.  I
> assume there are skyscrapers, but I don't know how many.  I've
> never seen an
> Australian skyline (though I hope to if I can get on an
> international tour).

We run the Olympics and no-one knows what Sydney looks like...

> But I don't know if you can really imagine how packed New York City is.

We see it regularly on the news...

>  There are cities where their libraries may not
> carry books around here and schools that won't teach them, but
> the idea of a
> book being illegal to own, read, or distribute totally weirds me
> out.

As a librarian in communication with your librarians, you too have banned
books - you just don't get told about them the way we do...look for Banned
Book week posters in a library near you!

>   I'm thinking that the fairly permissive and tolerant attitudes that
>   urbanised Australians have towards sexuality might be extended
> to *some*
>   occult behaviour. Maybe it's because I'm listening to the B52s while
> reading
>   my email (again):

The Sydney Mardi Gras has got to be getting someone some sort of
charge...and our Feng Shui capital with the projecting antenna is
deliberately designed to have occult significance.  WBG , the architect and
his wife, were big on Chinese earth magic.


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