Pacific Standard May-June 2013 Cover

The Sociology of Avatar, The X Files and The Simpsons

April 29, 2010 • By • 2 Comments
Homer Simpson Marches on Washington

After watching the premiere episode of House, I confidently predicted the Fox medical drama would be dead on arrival. I was certain the viewing public would not respond to a program based around such a cold, arrogant character. And the questions it posed — Is there a God? Does anyone ever tell the whole truth, even to himself? In the end, don't we always choose self-interest over altruism? — were not ones the American Idol crowd was especially interested in contemplating. I gave it six weeks, eight tops. House is now in its sixth season and remains among the 10 most-watched programs in ... Read More

More like this: Culture, May-June 2010, Media, Views Reviews and Interviews
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Oscar Winners Should Thank Their Economist

March 6, 2010 • By • Leave a Comment

As anyone who has channel surfed past Entertainment Tonight is aware, movie studios put massive energy into their Oscar campaigns each year. But does this effort to sway the voting members of the Motion Picture Academy of America pay off in terms of increased revenues? A series of studies over the past decade have reached conflicting conclusions. In a 2001 analysis titled “What’s an Oscar Worth?” a team of economists led by Randy Nelson and Michael Donihue of Colby College compared the box-office take of 131 nominated films with that of 131 less-heralded movies released in the same ... Read More

More like this: Business & Economics, March-April 2010, Research in Summary
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Death and the Academy Award Winner

March 5, 2010 • By • Leave a Comment

Do Oscar winners live longer than their peers? The answer is as murky as bad cinematography. As Dr. Donald Redelmeier noted in the Annals of Internal Medicine in 2001, social status is a “consistent, powerful and widespread determinant of death rates.” So, at least in theory, the status conferred by the golden statuette could contribute to a recipient’s longevity. Redelmeier and Sheldon Singh compared the mortality rates of the 762 actors and actresses who had received nominations up to that point, and compared them with another cast member of the same gender who was in the same film ... Read More

More like this: Culture, March-April 2010, Research in Summary
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The Art of Predicting Box-Office Gold

January 15, 2010 • By • 1 Comment

Accurate prediction is never easy. In Hollywood — like the ESPN-dominated sports world — pundits and analysts feed off the hype that precedes the latest blockbuster news. On Dec. 18, that frenzy reached a fever pitch as Fox's Avatar hit screens and both studio execs and otherwise indifferent moviegoers found themselves speculating whether the epic could ascend to Titanic-like heights in ticket sales. Seizing upon this casual interest in following movie returns, third-party box-office analysts were quick to post their (educated) predictions for the first weekend's results. These ... Read More

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40 Years of Muppetology 101

October 27, 2009 • By • 1 Comment

In the four decades since its premiere on Nov. 10, 1969, Sesame Street has been the subject of enough scholarly studies to give Big Bird a lifetime of nest-making material. Leafing through the literature is like letting the Cookie Monster loose in a Mrs. Fields franchise: You delve in excitedly before realizing there's more here than any single creature can digest. The nexus between Sesame Street and academic research predates the debut of the classic children's show. In 1967, Joan Ganz Cooney, a producer at New York City's "educational" (soon to be "public") television station, Channel 13, ... Read More

More like this: Culture & Society, Education, November-December 2009, Research in Summary
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Harry Potter and the Hallowed Halls

July 17, 2009 • By • Leave a Comment

Did you hear that noise? That was the sound of box office records being shattered for the midnight opening of the sixth installment of the juggernaut franchise that is Harry Potter. Harry Potter and Half-Blood Prince, the movie adaptation J.K. Rowling's book about a boy wizard, raked in a gasp-worthy $22.2 million on its first night. But the Potter series isn't just a pop-culture phenomenon. The academic world is under its spell, too, and now that the seventh book, 2007's Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows has been released in paperback, scholars have had some time to study it in its ... Read More

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Will Critique Work for Food

March 16, 2009 • By • 3 Comments

Since the first images of galloping horses were sketched on grotto walls, discerning individuals have been evaluating art and spreading the word about what's new and interesting. These cave-dwelling critics may have been opinionated ("His technique is positively Neanderthal") or simply informative ("Put down that club and check this out"), but either way, they served as a conduit between prehistoric Picassos and their dinosaur-era devotees. Over the past couple of centuries, that role has primarily been played by men and women writing for newspapers. But with those outlets going the way of the ... Read More

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TV Can Turn Public’s Dial

January 31, 2008 • By • Leave a Comment

With its “If it bleeds, it leads” mentality, local television news has often been accused of feeding its viewers a skewed portrait of a dangerous, frightening world. But a different form of programming has been linked even more closely to fear of lawlessness. When it comes to arousing anxiety, grim-faced anchors have nothing on Dennis Franz. “Studies have found very clearly that watching NYPD Blue is a much better predictor than news consumption of whether you judge crime to be an important issue,” said R. Lance Holbert, an associate professor in the School of Communications at ... Read More

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