If this isn’t as articulate as I’d like, I blame it on both the exhaustion of raising two and a half year old twins and the ethical and emotional struggle I personally experience on this topic daily. Let’s just put my cards on the table. Two and a half years ago I would have spouted forth about how the quantity of age-appropriate(ish) media consumption shouldn’t really be a concern. Like many media scholars, I was a child of television. I did a solid version of binge watching in the context of a 1970s/1980s household without cable, and my feelings about kids and media consumption emerged from a childhood love of The Joker’s Wild, Match Game, and The Brady Bunch and in complete avoidance of actual research. Then I had kids. I now function, like many scholar/parents I’m sure, in an ambiguous space between a belief in the medium I love and a fear of melting the tiny brains of the actual humans for whom I’m responsible. Every morning I try to fight the good fight, when my son wakes up, immediately looks for an iPad, and proclaims “want watch ‘big TV’.” And the struggle continues.

The environment in which I’m raising my tiny 21^st century viewers brings the best and the worst that technological advancements have to offer. Along with providing a wealth of totally watchable age-appropriate content, new delivery systems and interfaces instill awful behavioral patterns that transcend mere viewing habits. Although this new media landscape allows haggard parents a tremendous sense of ease with content location and selection—constantly leading my partner and I to wonder how our ancestors or Laura Ingalls Wilder’s parents survived child-rearing sans television—we should also be concerned with what it’s teaching our kids about expectations and task completion.

Like many kids of the 21^st century, mine live in a house with cord-cutters. Their electronic media comes primarily in the form of DVDs, cartoons on Hulu and Netflix, or videos on YouTube viewed on an iPad. Unlike their foremothers (well, just the two), they never had to wait for their shows to air. Every time-slot belongs to them. There’s no waiting around for Sesame Street or The Electric Company. They’re never forced to begrudgingly watch Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood because it’s that or Donahue. Daniel Tiger, Rabbids Invasion, and Wild Kratts are never more than a click away. Their “now” and “just what I wanted” style of viewership encourages them to be tiny, impatient content bullies. My twins are exceedingly annoyed with advertisements when watching linear television. FBI warnings on DVDs have enraged them since infancy.  If they can’t watch the episode they want when they want it, they’re incredibly frustrated, and we’re now watching this demand for personalization translate into other activities. Why won’t Target replay “Happy” over their loudspeaker now? Why doesn’t everyone have our applesauce? How dare the radio not know what we want to hear at this second? Our reliance on the ease of contemporary media delivery has only aided them—even more than the previous generation’s DVD players and VCRs—in becoming part of a pushy generation of playlist demanders.

Aside from instilling kids with a high degree of impatience and need for immediate satisfaction and customization—and a belief that these expectations are reasonable—contemporary media has further enabled what was once one of the main evils of children’s entertainment. Far from the days of Congress and the FCC debating the scourge of the program-length commercial (damn you Strawberry Shortcake), YouTube has wrought a range of toy videos that function as nothing short of toddler crack. An entire genre of toy unboxing videos shares with kids the wonders of consumer products (and notably, my kids have an uncanny ability to find them). New York Times Magazine recently addressed this genre in “A Mother’s Journey Through the Unnerving Universe of ‘Unboxing’ Videos,” a piece that details user DisneyCollector’s 90million-plus hits—and potential millions in ad revenue—for a video of her opening plastic eggs to reveal small hidden toys inside. DisneyCollector’s contributions, as well as videos with porn-y underscoring showing manicured hands seductively peeling Play-Doh from plastic eggs and endless videos that show kids playing with toys or toy mash-ups, simultaneously (even if as collateral damage) advertise to the very young and reinforce—through their brevity, inanity, and rewindabilty—both compulsive viewing and a tenuous attention span. My household recently deleted YouTube from some and password protected all of our tablets, as the kids were disappearing and our son shouting, “you stay in there ma!” with the hopes that we would not discover them obsessively watching other “kids” play with toys.

I love the ease of 21^st century media and it’s a wonderland for kids. They can hold it in their hands and demand it play at their tiny command. For my two cents, we need to be thinking about how today’s media interactions—not just content—are helping to shape our kids’ interactions outside of the box. I’m not going to take away our TV or iPads—the iPad is, after all, the only way to keep them from puking in the car—but as a parent/scholar, I need to keep my eye on the potential residual behavioral impact of these new forms and increased levels of control. After all, it’s all happening on my watch.

Now television, struggling in the era of multiple platform viewing and increased time-shifting, is turning to the clay feet of the musical for a wallop of financial and “special event” adrenaline. After 18 million Americans (hate) watched NBC’s live airing of The Sound of Music, it took less than five months for both NBC and Fox to announce their upcoming live musical projects, Peter Pan and Grease respectively. Of course this practice of airing live musicals has precedent. The New York-based 1950s live television era was bejeweled with live musical events. NBC’s 1955 airing of Peter Pan with Mary Martin garnered 64 million viewers. (Take that Carrie Underwood!) For the first time, television was bringing Middle America (and everyone else) the elusive sights and sounds of Broadway.

Today, the networks are struggling to find some way—other than awards shows—to draw a 21^st century, distracted, i-device obsessed audience to their living rooms. The ratings success of The Sound of Music seems to have been just the encouragement needed to reproduce the tele-theatrical disaster that was Underwood’s performance. The selection of Grease by Fox seems to ignore a string of warning signs.

(1) As was the case with The Sound of Music, Grease is an iconic text. Just as most Americans can only imagine Julie Andrews descending the Alps, John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John are Grease to most. As many of the press announcements note, Grease is the highest grossing movie musical of all time. Casting is going to be a bear. (2) The Broadway version—even the latest incarnation that hybridized the Broadway and film versions—is not the 1978 Paramount film. The energy is different. The songs are different. This means something when one is trying to capitalize on an audience’s existing emotional attachment to a property. It is nearly impossible to deliver on such a promise when millions are saddled with memories of specific choreography, inflections, phrasing, etc. Overcoming this is no easy feat. (3) Television viewers have already chimed in on Grease and they did not emit a rousing “we go together.” NBC’s 2006 reality show Grease: You’re the One That I Want served as a televised audition for the 2007 Broadway revival’s Danny and Sandy and ranked 75^th in annual Nielsens, garnering about a quarter the number of American Idol’s “hopelessly devoted” viewers. Fox’s Glee also took a shot at the musical with its own “Glease,” one of the lowest rated episodes of its drooping fourth season. (And let’s not even get started on Smash.)

As a devoted fan and scholar of the musical, I always try to root for the genre’s triumph over the jaded sensibilities of contemporary audiences, producers, and ticket buyers. (Although the lasting wounds from viewing 7^th Heaven’s musical episode may never heal.) That said, I often find myself disappointed by the nasty effects a network’s or producer’s hope for commercial appeal has on the musical product itself. Although Paramount TV President Amy Powell sounds like a latter day Sylvester “Pat” Weaver (NBC 1950’s head of programming/chairman of the board and cheerleader for the “spectacular”) as she states, “Fox’s passion for engaging audiences with bold storytelling and live musical formats make it a perfect home for this special broadcast,” perhaps NBC’s current chairman Bob Greenblatt was a bit more honest and on point in his response to the Sound of Music, “We own it so we can repeat it every year for the next 10 years…Even if it does just a small fraction of what it did, it’s free to repeat it.” Who knows, maybe this new trend will catch fire and save the networks and produce a whole new generation of musical fans, or just maybe we’ll all get a real treat and Stockard Channing—high on Good Wife street cred—will reprise her role of Rizzo, only slightly more age inappropriate now than in 1978.

I was very pleased when contacted to write a post in honor of the passing of Phyllis Diller. In grade school, I stumbled upon the 1962 Phyllis Diller album, Phyllis Diller Laughs. Although I already knew Diller from her Scooby Doo episode and Gong Show appearances, my burgeoning “unruly woman” (props to Kathleen Rowe) found her recorded irreverence, visual chaos, and uncontrolled laughter intoxicating. In the early eighties, an age of sexualized teenage gross-out romcoms, a pixie-ish post-SNL Gilda Radner, and the fleeting hopes for an Equal Right Amendment, Diller’s comedy provided me an unhinged and complicated vision of American femininity. She both reflected the cultural primacy of marriage, motherhood, and feminine appearance a growing Midwestern girl was absorbing by osmosis, and rejected the notion that women—and perhaps I—must just sit back and accept it. At age 10 I was hooked and integrating Diller bits into grade school puppet shows. At 15 I saw her live in a St. Louis area club, was rendered speechless when I wheedled my way backstage to meet her, and (as a birthday gift) procured a most awesome airbrushed Phyllis Diller t-shirt. By 20 I had most of her albums, books, etc., including a recording of her singing The Rolling Stones’ “Satisfaction.” Now, at 40, I revisit my love for Diller and realize that for many, Phyllis had become synonymous with Kelly Kessler (based on the Facebook condolences I received from folks met over the past 30 years). I can think of much worse folks and things to which I could be linked.

What was it about Diller that entranced me? Although 55 years earlier, she too was born into a traditional Midwestern existence. Born in Lima, Ohio (perhaps the original “Lima Loser” for Glee fans) in 1917, by 22 she had achieved her “destiny” and married her first husband, Sherwood Diller. Her destiny would change. In the early to mid 1950s, she honed her stand-up act in the clubs of San Francisco and St. Louis. She was truly the mother of stand-up comediennes, a group largely nonexistent prior to Diller’s club tenure. (I’ve always said that Diller, Lily Tomlin, and Joan Rivers are the pyramid of female comedic power.) Although preceded by female comedic entertainers and quasi-stand-ups like Belle Barth, Martha Raye, and Moms Mabley, Diller entrenched herself in the male realm of the night club.

In the era of Lenny Bruce’s obscenity trials and two years prior to the release of Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique, Diller’s first album (the one I found in 1980)—and overall act—reconfigured the terms “funny” and “women.” Phyllis Diller Laughs flaunted her poor housekeeping skills, disdain for her amalgam of a husband “Fang,” and her less-than-good looks. If the audience was going to laugh at her figure, she was going to call the shots. With fright wigs, colorful and gaudy clothing, and a freakishly long cigarette holder, she joked about her concave breasts and lack of sex appeal. She would continue performing a version of her act into the new millennium, featured in the documentary Good Night, We Love You (2004).

Why does any of this matter? Diller’s fingerprints are all over the last half century of female performers: Joan Rivers (Diller’s kindred spirit in plastic surgery), Bette Midler, Roseanne, Brett Butler, Rita Rudner, Diane Ford, Sandra Bernhard, Sarah Silverman, Kathy Griffin, and the list goes on. Diller’s comedy, while surely self-deprecating, questioned the equation of funny women with hyper-sexuality and/or air-headedness (e.g. the amazing Gracie Allen, Goldie Hawn, etc.). Her act, while still reliant on a recognition of social gendered norms, was smart, sassy, and rebellious. While many comediennes’ acts turned bluer than Diller’s, one cannot deny her trailblazing power. Her successful leap into the male world of stand-up paved the way for a never-ending crop of funny women, unfettered (okay, less fettered) by the stigma of comedic masculinization or dimwittedness.

Since her passing, I have been repeatedly struck by two bits from my first Diller album. In it she stated two desires: (1) She wanted to be a sweet little old lady, “with a cane full of gin” and (2) She really wanted to live to be 100. She felt at that point she could look people straight in the eye and say “I’m pooped.” Well, at 95 she just fell shy of the latter desire; however, a half century of comedy surely provided her the right to officially be pooped. Wherever she is, I hope her cane full of gin is self-replenishing. In closing, thanks for helping to form this once aspiring comic, now gender scholar, and forever hopeless fan. May her piercing and wild laugh further lighten the great beyond.

As a lifelong musical fan and once theatre artist, I continually tune into the Tonys and find myself crestfallen by the broadcast’s dismissal of my ilk and need to embrace the otherly occupied masses. True to form, this year’s Tony Awards laid bare its undying need to appear youthful, popular, and hip, all the while marginalizing the spirit of American theatre and those who participate in it. The broadcast looked less like a celebration of New York theatre and more like the Oscars, Emmys, and Grammys rolled into one. The—given, totally engaging—opening number aptly set the metaphorical and literal stage as a performance by the Book of Mormon cast showcased film, television, and music stars (e.g. Ricky Martin, Judith Light, Matthew Broderick, and James Earl Jones) and culminated in the introduction of three-time host and How I Met Your Mother star Neil Patrick Harris. (Given, Harris has at least graced the Broadway stage—ex. Assassins [2004] and Cabaret [2003].) The star-studded parade continued throughout the evening, with tangential Broadway figures—and everyday mainstream musicians and Hollywood actors/producers—such as Josh Groban, Sheryl Crow, James Marsden, and Tyler Perry presenting. Meanwhile, folks whose careers largely revolve around the stage fell to the wayside. It’s a night full of stars, ones imported from other stages. (Notably, ten-time Tony winner and producer Emanuel Azenberg’s Lifetime Achievement Award is somewhere on the cutting room floor while Hugh Jackman’s “special” Tony was front and center.)

Okay, sure, the night shone with musical number after musical number. Who doesn’t want to see a torturous snippet of the new and ill-conceived Ghost: The Musical or riveting (really) numbers from revivals of Jesus Christ Superstar or Porgy and Bess? Such moments have defined the Tonys, as America gains an annual glimpse into the Broadway stage and shows that might be coming to local touring houses near you. To maximize time for the stars and shows to shine, however, the producers creatively edited the show to reinforce the notion that actors and directors make magic on stages with spontaneously appearing choreography, costumes, settings, etc. (Admittedly, the Oscar producers do the same thing to some degree.) While acting awards provide an opportunity for the latest crossover star to flaunt his or her new theatrical cache, the less showy nominees find their awards presented during commercial breaks. Seconds of the winners’ speeches appear in clips during the transitions back to the show from commercial. Editing reduces Best Choreography, Best Book for a Musical, all of the design awards, and others to asides so that Amanda Seyfried and Hugh Jackman can remind the audience of the upcoming—and likely appalling— Les Misérables film adaptation.

After all of this pandering, the Tonys did what many think they do best: produced a ratings disaster. Despite the star-studded list of presenters and an almost complete erasure of the greater Broadway community, the show brought in its most dismal ratings of all time. With viewership down significantly from last year, the show garnered a whopping 1.0 rating in the 18-49 demographic and 6 million viewers—33 million fewer than either the Oscars or Grammys. (This was its worst showing in twenty years.) So, fine job Tony producers. They seemed to suffer from the same ailment as many who adapt the musical from stage to screen. In shooting for the masses, they forgot that the masses often don’t care about musicals—or theatre for that matter—and the compromised tripe that emerges—I’m talking to you bungled adaptations of Evita and (mark my words) Les Mis—hurts the souls of those who truly care. Perhaps the whole thing could be solved by just weaving the “important” Tony winners into the Grammys, Emmys, or Oscars.

For the past three seasons, Army Wives has projected its white, privileged image—with an abundance of white chicks and officers and a dearth of minorities and enlisted men.  It has also done a fine job of minimizing the apparent threat to or discomfort of the troops/families who have been manning the two American wars for nearly a decade.  Deployments run short.  Telephone conversations are extremely easy to come by.  Special Ops soldiers are on and off of the base (and seemingly home more often than long-haul truckers).  Money might be a little tight, but no big deal.  Child care is never an issue.  Officers’ wives and enlisted men’s wives just rally around each other, become best buds, and help each other out in all circumstances (protocol be damned).   For the most part, images of trauma—emotional or physical—have been done away with quickly (PTSD = a one or two week problem, tortured prisoners aren’t really in that bad of shape, injuries are minor and really just mean that soldiers get to come home sooner, so no worries).  Anything really unfortunate on the show will likely happen to someone who is not a regular and might very likely be an ethnic minority.  For the first three seasons, main characters (constantly deployed) have been spared any extreme trauma.  Its flag waving, soap opera, Little Mary Sunshine quality makes it a fascinating fictionalization of today’s international conflicts and a polar opposite to Stephen Bochco’s short-lived, violent, politically ambivalent Over There.

I have found these narrative patterns somewhat disconcerting (though predictable).  What I find most interesting about Lifetime’s development of the show both on and offline is their use of non-diegetic cast appearances at military spaces (e.g., online PR spots with cast members at VA hospitals, deployment ceremonies, Red Cross events, etc.), integration of country music stars into storylines (e.g. Wynonna, Shelby Lynne, Jack Ingram), giveaway hookups with NASCAR, Avon, and Big Lots, and online spaces developed specifically to bring together real-life army wives.  The show/network seems to illustrate nicely the opportunities available to today’s television bigwigs as they try to hawk their wares.  While the show seems to strongly avoid any gleam of the reality of wartime, the folks at Lifetime are doing a fine job using today’s online opportunities to make an appearance of class diversity and a concern for military families and their realities.  I find this to be one more fascinating example of the ways in which media convergence encourages multiple divergent readings and a widened sense of marketability.  That said, I admit this season—which ends next weekend, I believe—has offered a little more excitement, with divorce (although so far, little concern for money woes and the army wife being booted off of the post) and a traumatic brain injury for one of the main characters (of course the woman).  Next week almost everyone will be shipping off to Afghanistan for a year.  I’ll be waiting excitedly to see how the 2011 army wives deal with their spouses’ absences (and might start a pool regarding how long it takes the husbands to really come home.  Perhaps they are counting on Obama decreasing troop levels to shake up deployments and bring the men back into the main narrative.).

Wow.  I’m just really a bit flabbergasted.  I feel like the “powers that Glee” (PTG) are really trying to combat complaints of minimal plot development.  After last week’s most excellent narrative-filled musical numbers, my hopes were high that they could maintain momentum this week.  It looked like they might be able to pull it off, but then it became Glee meets Friday Night Lights. Say it ain’t so!  Anyway, to me it seems as if they’re amid a generic struggle.  The musical—old school, at least—is not known for its riveting narrative development, but instead lets the music do its talking.  Last week worked just that way.  “Run, Joey, Run” and “Total Eclipse of the Heart” projected the show’s burgeoning love triangle through what it does best—dazzling video-esque numbers.  So, kudos PTG.

This week they almost scored with the same tactic.  They came ever so close to doing what musicals do well.  It looked as if the episode was really embracing the traditions of the genre.  “Jessie’s Girl” provided a fabulous mix of show-number and personal development soliloquy.  (And, come on, it’s “Jessie’s Girl.”  It made my day at least 5% better by its mere inclusion.)  The episode did an amazing job of using the duet (until they ruined it).  Secondary players took center and deftly blended musical integration and glee club performances.  Mercedes and Santana’s duet of “The Boy is Mine” melded a fierce narrative moment with classroom performance and then allowed the action to ultimately transcend the bounds of the song as the girls continued their catfight.  (It was a little bit Dreamgirls.)  Mercedes spontaneously joining Puck in “The Lady is a Tramp” was a touch of integrated perfection.  Kurt’s bookended solos—“Pink Houses” and “Rose’s (Kurt’s) Turn”—provided painfully poignant moments for a guy who has surely had some narrative high points, but doesn’t generally develop very far within the narrative.  I particularly liked the latter number (no offense, Mr. Mellencamp) and the lurky way his father appeared.  It felt very old school, when someone’s true feelings come through in the solo and a love interest happens upon the scene.  The following moments between father and son were heartbreaking, heartwarming, and all around fabulous.   (Equaling that extremely touching moment was Kurt asking Brittany, “what do boys’ lips taste like?”)

Then it happened.  TPG tried to kill the episode.  While they had been using musical integration beautifully to project inner turmoil and relational conflict to a level perhaps heretofore unaccomplished on the show, they went one step too far. They betrayed the old school version of the genre and went very special episode.  They tried to make the narrative go too far, too heartfelt, and well, just too weird.  Everyone knows what I mean. The plotline with the paralyzed ex-football player was just uncomfortable and exploitative, and by trying to fit him into the Glee format TPG created a giant, awkward, and offensive intrusion on an otherwise touching episode.  I’ll simply leave some questions here.  Why did we need that plotline?  Really, tonsillitis = total paralysis?  Was it supposed to be Rachel’s version of Sue’s sister?  Why did the poor guy have to be naked in the 2^nd scene?  Why is he the only guy not to have an overproduced voice (so he’s not only trapped in his damaged body, but he’s also trapped in his ill-sounding and unenhanced voice)? Why does Rachel not sound, act, or move like Rachel in that scene?  Did Lea just know how bad it was?  Why do they leave a nice group number (that almost allows you to forget how uncomfortable you just were) to return to the narrative-killing scene and the worst vocal stylings since early episodes of American Idol?  If they want us to pretend that the over-production is “real,” perhaps they shouldn’t point out that it isn’t.  Use your head, PTG!