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Media
February 2, 2007
Coonass Controversy
As you may have heard by now, new Alabama football coach Nick Saban has gotten himself into a little bit of trouble after using the word "coonass" to refer to a man of Cajun heritage in an off-the-record but still-taped chat with Miami media (Deadspin). One of the reasons that the incident has aroused attention—even though the word appears to be on the lighter end of the slur spectrum— is because it (intentionally or not [Wikipedia]) combines the words "coon," which is a pretty derogatory term for black people, with "ass," which can also be a somewhat mean word. Confusion over the nature of the term has led to two separate government incidents in which a black person complained after misconstruing the nature of the insult.
Media
January 30, 2007
Saving Silverman's Joke
With Sarah Silverman's Comedy Central show debuting Thursday, the PC-puncturing comic is getting shout-outs all over, including in a Slate article refuting Christopher Hitchens by asserting that women can, indeed, be funny. Slate author Laura Kipnis also demonstrated that women can bungle punchlines as well as men.
Media
January 25, 2007
Between I-raq and a Hard Place
The next comedian to speak at the White House Correspondents' Association dinner in April has a hard act to follow. Last year, Stephen Colbert mocked the president to his face as many of the press in the audience sat stunned. (Whether Colbert "spoke truth to power" was the subject of a Gelf investigation.) This year's speaker is 69-year old impressionist Rich Little, who tells the New Yorker that his favorite young comedian is Robin Williams and that he won't even mention Iraq in his routine. But, he adds, he does have a biting laugh line about the war ready for other occasions: "George W. Bush here. I tell you, I'm between I-raq and a hard place."
Media
January 24, 2007
It's a Man's World
Twelve years ago, Cosmo Kramer and Frank Costanza debated the relative merits of the terms "bro" and "manssiere" for a new male chest-support garment. While neither word wins out in that Seinfeld episode, these days manssiere would crush its competition. That's because "man" has become the in prefix for the hip crowd.
Media
January 14, 2007
Come See the Film That Rocked the Box Office Despite Bad Reviews
In this week's edition of Blurb Racket—the Gelf feature in which we take a close look at those critic blurbs that are a fixture of ads for movies—see breakdowns of blurbs for Notes on a Scandal, Freedom Writers, Children of Men, and more. This week's Bogus Blurb of the Week comes in an ad for Night at the Museum:
Media
January 3, 2007
Biting Dogs
On the same day that the St. Paul Pioneer Press came out with a strong defense of the mainstream media, the San Antonio Express-News was forced to explain that the most recent plagiarism scandal to hit that same group came from a journalist copying from Wikipedia. It's what those in the business would call a classic "man bites dog" sort of story.
Sports
January 2, 2007
Old Balls, New Coke
The NBA's foray into synthetic basketballs is over. The old leather ball is back. "There will be some initial getting used to," Grant Hill told the Washington Post, "but in two months, it will be old news, just like New Coke is old news." Hill—perhaps showing that he has a future in sportswriting—is onto something. The New Coke analogy pervaded many types of articles about the switch:
Media
December 30, 2006
'An Entertaining—Yet Colossally Flawed—Freak Show'
In this week's edition of Blurb Racket—the Gelf feature in which we take a close look at those critic blurbs that are a fixture of ads for movies—see breakdowns of blurbs for The Good Shepherd, Night at the Museum, Rocky Balboa, and more. This week's Bogus Blurb of the Week comes in an ad for Eragon:
Science
December 29, 2006
Off-Key Primate Coverage? It's a Gibbon.
Gibbons, part of the so-called lesser apes, can rearrange the syllables in their mating duets to form alarm calls. If "bap-bap-be-bop" tells the world that they are in love, then "bap-be-bap-bop" says that they see something scary. (Actual gibbons sound less like scat singers and more like this.) This discovery is paper-worthy because it may mean that gibbons are the first non-human ape to use what are known as functionally-referential calls; vastly simplified, it suggests they possess a basic form of syntax. But if you look at the coverage of this discovery in the press, you'd be forgiven for thinking that the major finding was that gibbons sing when they are scared.
Media
December 18, 2006
Daniel Craig Publicist Denies Quote About Gay Scene, Nudity
"Daniel Craig wants a gay love scene in the next Bond movie," said a December 3 headline on Fark.com. "And he's willing to do full frontal nudity for it." In the wake of Casino Royale's worldwide box-office success, the headline, based on a paragraph-length blurb—with an ambiguous Craig quote—repeated on websites and in publications around the world, drew 619 comments and more than 41,000 clicks to the source article. But, according to Craig's publicist, the quote is "absolute rubbish." Robin Baum, of PMK/HBH Public Relations, added in an email to Gelf, "The below comments were never made by Daniel Craig."
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