Social Critic

The Social Critic

follow this blog subscribe by email

44 followers

332 daily readers

rank of 20

Spotlight Posts

Dancing Queens

Cougar Country

The Neverending Phenomenon of Social Networking

Training Us Not To Think

Remembering the Decade

Separate Strollers for Separated Twins

Separate Lives

Australia's Medical Achievements

Are you interesting?

From Homeless to Stock Market Trader?

In Support of Spectators

Cyber Sex and Infidelity

Who Shot McGurk?

Older People with Young Skills

Rescuing Adventurers

Society and the Schoolyard Bully

Making Us All Work Longer

Sign of a Stroke

MasterChef – not just about cooking

The Lost Interest in the First Lunar Landing

[ more ]

Why I Love the Oscars

March 9th 2010 03:00

Most “award” nights I would miss. The Oscars are not one of them. Even if the whole Hollywood thing probably has me cringing at the best of times, I somehow cannot bear to miss “The Oscars”.

Some people would say that it is really boring watching people clapping each other and getting awards for something that most of us are really out of touch with.

I beg to differ. When do you ever see so many of your favourite stars in the one place at the one time? When do you hear about all the achievements of someone you love but you may have missed a few of their really good roles?

Sure, The Oscars, as they have simply become, are a night full of back slapping and congratulation. Is that so bad? It is also an extravaganza that we only see once a year.

This year’s Academy Awards was the extravagance we expected and I thought really attempted to give all nominees a little five minutes of fame. Only one of them was going to be the winner in most categories and so it was a nice touch how the Academy had organised for someone to talk about each one of them at length. I did, however, miss the shorts that sometimes accompany these nominations – but hey, you can’t have everything.

Even with the Director nominations, the Academy chose to have people talking about the directors rather than show examples of their work, which has been common in previous years.

I miss the snippets of the performances and the parts of the films that have escalated them to the Academy Awards.

One of the diversions from the Awards that I tend to cringe at more than a little – and I know this has become common in recent years – are the really cutesy bits like Steve Martin getting in bed with Alec Baldwin??? Takes away from the glamour of the night I think.

All in all, I can never miss it. How can I get into discussions with people talking about the night if I haven’t even seen it, after all?

I love seeing them all, even in the knowledge that it has all been rehearsed and staged. It is even really lovely seeing all my favourite actors in the one room. I even get upset when my favourite doesn’t win. It is pure entertainment and it is the one awards ceremony I would never miss. Now I have to wait for another year.

Vote

Comments (3)

Add Comments

[ Link ]

Posted By: Janet Collins - Category: No Category

Email this Post to a Friend

Sex, Advertising and Pamela Anderson

March 1st 2010 05:00

Sex and advertising has made headlines again this week after the banning of a pretty explicit ad featuring Pamela Anderson by Crazy Domains. The ad which features Anderson and another sexy woman posing as senior executives was deemed too tasteless for Australian audiences even in the mature viewing times.

It is certainly not surprising. The ad for the internet domain name and web hosting company starts off with the two women addressing men in a boardroom. Not looking one bit the directors or executives they are supposed to be portraying and showing more than a little cleavage, the two of them turn into bikini clad images rubbing up against each other as one of the men they are addressing starts having fantasies about them.

While I have to agree with the ruling of the Advertising Standards Bureau, sexual images in advertising and popular culture have become more common and more risqué over time. No longer are images only suggestive either. Like the Crazy Domains ad, they are right in your face.

I may not be as sensitive as a lot of other people to explicit images of women in ads but I think there is a line that should not be crossed. I will admit that I am often offended by ads by beer companies for example that seem obsessed with the promotion of their products by big breasted women. There was a Cougar beer ad a few years back that I found a little bit much.

Gavin Collins, Managing Director of Crazy Domains, may have made a very good point when he tried to justify the ad by comparing it to Video Hits and the sexually explicit images that are readily available for kids who watch our pop stars parading on stage in sexual poses with next to nothing on but this can hardly justify his company’s ad.

The thing is we have all become a little blasé over scantily clad women or even overt sexual gestures on our screens, but there still needs to be limits to how far advertisers can go. According to Collins, 66 per cent of people they surveyed about the ad thought the ban should be lifted.

It is always difficult for me to understand how ads such as this one sell more products just as I can’t understand how big breasted women in a beer ad sell more beer. But I doubt anything will change too much. So rather than fight it maybe we should all just stop buying the products.

THE CONTROVERSIAL AD:

Source: The Sun Herald

Vote

Add Comments

[ Link ]

Posted By: Janet Collins - Category: No Category

Email this Post to a Friend

The Trauma of a New Mobile Phone

February 26th 2010 05:00

Why is the process of updating a mobile phone such an ordeal?

I recently updated my package which included a new touch phone. It all sounds great on the surface, but transferring to a new phone is so hard.

Before even getting into the phone, there is the phone package. There are so many options that the mere choice of a phone plan becomes so complex. Do I group everything together including my internet, landline and mobile accounts and then get even a further $20 off the internet but if I take that option I can’t have the deal that gives an enormous amount of local calls free per month on my landline. The options went on and on.

Then there were these network terms and every consultant I spoke to seemed to assume I knew what it all meant. This new one would take me on to the Next G network whereas I had been on the 3G network. Huh?

When the phone arrived things became even more of a challenge because unlike what I had done on previous occasions, I couldn’t use the old sim card because I was going on to a different network. That meant I had to copy all the information such as phone numbers into the new phone. The trouble is it didn’t work, so back to the old phone.

I know we get so used to our old gadgets that any change is sometimes an ordeal but I find every time I change my mobile phone it causes me more grief than I ever imagine it would. I think the last time I changed my new phone was in the box till I could get instruction from one of my nieces or nephews.

Surely things like this shouldn’t be so hard. When I tried to transfer over to the new phone and tried to ring it from my landline, everything just kept going to message bank. Why oh why couldn’t something like this be more simple and straight forward.

The most important thing – the phone component, could be made a lot simpler surely. I want to make sure that I can receive and make calls. That is the primary reason I have the phone in the first place. But no, trips to the shop to ask someone how to do something very basic are necessary.

I would never have thought a mobile phone could cause so much stress. It really shouldn’t. Updating a phone should be an effortless thing to do. It is not.

Why don’t these companies just make it so simple? I am sure they could if they tried.

Vote

Comments (2)

Add Comments

[ Link ]

Posted By: Janet Collins - Category: No Category

Email this Post to a Friend

Dancing Queens

February 7th 2010 05:55

Julia Lira

The Brazil Carnival this year is gearing up for a pretty shaky start, even before it has begun. In the lead up to the festival that starts on Friday, accusations of exploitation have dogged the event following the choice of a seven year old girl as the drum core queen for one of Rio’s best samba schools.
[ Click here to read more ]

Vote

Comments (2)

Add Comments

[ Link ]

Posted By: Janet Collins - Category: No Category

Email this Post to a Friend

Are Bloggers Depressive?

February 5th 2010 05:16

Some British scientists have come to the conclusion that internet surfers show more than the average signs of depression. They don’t know, however, whether this is because depressed people tend to go to the internet more than the average for comfort or that excessive internet surfing is actually the cause of the depresseion in the first place.
[ Click here to read more ]

Vote

Comments (12)

Add Comments

[ Link ]

Posted By: Janet Collins - Category: No Category

Email this Post to a Friend

The Wit and Wisdom of Sarah!

February 2nd 2010 23:30

Will Sarah Palin ever be able to live down her image? Not if a few publishers can help it.
[ Click here to read more ]

Vote

Comments (4)

Add Comments

[ Link ]

Posted By: Janet Collins - Category: No Category

Email this Post to a Friend

Cougar Country

February 2nd 2010 04:57

Who is it exactly that comes up with tags for women? The one that’s being doing the rounds for a while now is the Cougar. Mostly defined as women who hunt men for brief affairs but like to be in charge. The Cougar was characterized perfectly by Kim Cattrall’s character, Samantha, in Sex and the City but the whole definition of the Cougar seems to have changed since then.
[ Click here to read more ]

Vote

Add Comments

[ Link ]

Posted By: Janet Collins - Category: No Category

Email this Post to a Friend

Madonna Puts Her Money on Coconut Water

February 1st 2010 04:48

Coconut water, which has fast become the drink of the glamour set In New York and Los Angeles, is poised to become even bigger after the announcement that Madonna has invested $1.5m in one of the leading producers of the drink, Vita Coco.
[ Click here to read more ]

Vote

Comments (8)

Add Comments

[ Link ]

Posted By: Janet Collins - Category: No Category

Email this Post to a Friend

Up in the Air - A Discussion

January 28th 2010 04:54

Up in the Air is such a delight. It is a comedy but it is much more than that. Thanks to winning tickets on Jason King's Salty Popcorn site, I went off to see it the other day and what a great movie it was.
[ Click here to read more ]

Vote

Comments (2)

Add Comments

[ Link ]

Posted By: Janet Collins - Category: No Category

Email this Post to a Friend

Jessica Watson Almost Half Way Home

January 24th 2010 10:59

Sixteen year old adventurer, Jessica Watson, is nearly half way home. Aboard Ella's Pink Lady, Watson has covered 11,000 nautical miles of the 23,000 nautical miles that will compete her solo circumnavigation.
[ Click here to read more ]

Vote

Comments (4)

Add Comments

[ Link ]

Posted By: Janet Collins - Category: No Category

Email this Post to a Friend

March 2010

2 Posts

February 2010

6 Posts

January 2010

13 Posts