It is to the American version’s credit that they do not pull back from the centrality of sex and drugs to the narrative in their pilot episode in a substantive way. It is, as James Poniewozik has noted, a good deal toned down from the original but it is nowhere near as neutered in this first episode then many had expected. For fans of the British show watching the MTV version of Skins on-line, some of the censorship might seem odd, even endearingly misplaced. The version of the series that streams on MTV’s website studiously bleeps out Stanley’s use of the word fuck even when said while he is sitting in a brothel buying a kilo of weed. This is a strange moment of censorship, that presumes that someone might be perfectly comfortable with the narrative context of the moment but that the use of the word fuck would somehow be beyond the pale. For media scholars, watching how the American version of Skins either adapts to or resists American norms of material appropriate for adolescents and how it treads the line of claiming to be as raw as the British version and insisting that it is an authentic representation of teen life while keeping from raising too much ire for advertisers might be its most interesting contribution.

Already this paradox is present in the earliest moments of the show. The episode begins, both on television and on-line, with the requisite warning that the text is rated TV-MA (17 and up) and is suitable for mature audiences only (it is worth noting as a point of comparison that Gossip Girl is rated TV-14). The parental guideline ratings represents the conundrum of the series. Placing Skins on MTV and the networks extensive touting of the involvement of a teen advisory board to assure authenticity clearly conveys that the series is intended for adolescents and not primarily adults reflecting on their own youth. On the other hand, the rating simultaneously implies its assumed unsuitability for this age group and functionally prevents many in this age group from accessing the show if their families employ one of the many technologies that can block material rated this way. Of course most of us went to R movies long before we were 17 and most teens will find a way to see Skins, many spurred on by precisely the MA rating advising against it. Nonetheless, the conflict embodied by the series rating and the series public relations represents the problem of the liminal state of late adolescence that the narrative content of the series seeks to address.

Reviews of the series often seem to substantively misunderstand how this liminal space that the series centers on functions. While I too have reservations about the quality of the American version of Skins, the british series depended so heavily on pacing and the particular magic of the dynamic of its group of actors that, despite hewing its pilot almost exactly to the original the MTV version, feels somehow lacking and out of tune. Many of the complaints about the series reveal a deep misunderstanding of not only the show but its audience. Mary McNamara of the LA Times almost unfathomably complains that the series “ is ridiculous” because “these kids have no homework or extracurricular activities,” while this statement is not strictly accurate it more importantly seems to miss the point entirely. Indeed, for teens exploring their sexuality and experimenting with narcotics, their homework is not a major plot point. Several complaints look absolutely primed to be part of the Skins ad campaign that has gloried in its bad press, quoting Perez Hilton and everyday viewers who had preemptively critiqued the shows. A Blast review claiming that “what is shocking is the lack of remorse or fear of consequences these teens have” will likely do more to attract teens to the show then the rather mediocre adaptation will on its own merits. Indeed, observing how teen viewers respond not only to the show, but to the moral critiques that it has received, rather then aesthetic critiques, may ultimately be the most interesting thing about Skins. One thing is likely when the Parents Television Council called Skins “the most dangerous show for children that we have ever seen,” they were probably popping Champagne corks in Viacom’s offices.

What I discovered was that after the many changes in technology, when it comes to some video games you truly can never recapture them as they originally existed. It is over 16 years since Myst’s original release, and it is having a revival. In the last three years, it has been re-released on the Nintendo DS, the PSP, and, most recently, the iPhone/iPad OS. Having difficulty locating a copy for my computer, I ended up playing the iPhone OS version on my iPad. I was surprised by how easily the game had been adapted to the iPad’s input methods. Myst had always been notorious for its visual beauty, and it was deeply pleasurable to find myself traveling its luscious landscape. The system of touching where I wanted to go, what I wanted open, etc. was surprisingly seamless and intuitive; but I couldn’t shake the feeling that by giving up the mouse and keyboard, I had somehow radically changed the experience of the game.

This experience only increased when, after exploring an underground chamber, I had to run off to a meeting. The game saved at the exact point that I had finished playing, and it was all too easy to pull the game out as I was waiting for my student to arrive and quickly finish off the puzzle I had been doing. In the early 90s when the game was released, it required reasonably powerful computing power and a game play experience was bound by these technological limitations to particular spaces and, generally, dedicated play time. By choosing a version of the game that I could easily pick up and put down at a moment’s notice anywhere at all, I had changed it drastically. Now, instead of being a dedicated journey, it had become a world to explore and puzzles to do in the dull moments that are part of everyone’s life.

Perhaps the change that had most drastically altered my experience of Myst was the rapid and extensive growth of the internet. After about an hour and a half of play, I found myself stuck. This is not an unusual experience in Myst. Friends who had finished the game, and most hadn’t, had told me about creating huge bulletin boards and walls full of maps and post-it notes in order to keep track of the information necessary to finish. Most had eventually just given up. I had a choice that wasn’t available to them, a choice that as I played became increasingly difficult to resist. As the internet has grown, it has been a repository for what Pierre Lévy has called collective intelligence. Some of this collective intelligence has gathered around games. The internet is replete with detailed walk-throughs, explaining how to beat a game step by step. While many consider this cheating, something Mia Consolvo has effectively explored, others consider it a productive use of shared knowledge that makes video games accessible to more players. That was the logic that I used when I took my first peek at a Myst walk-through, quickly gathered the information that I needed to get the code for the next step of the game (all in less than five minutes), and returned to playing.

My attempt to discover Myst as it was discovered by so many others almost a decade ago was an enjoyable and exciting one. I finally understood why its graphics were considered so newsworthy and was impressed that even today the aesthetics of its world held up. While it was inescapable that I experienced this in the context of the many games that built on it and the tremendous evolution in graphics that followed it, it is notable that over fifteen years later its visuals hold up well. I was fascinated by the game’s incorporation of live action video, something that has not been taken up by other games on a large scale, and found it very effective. While in the time I had, even with cheating, I was not able to find my way off the island (which reminds me of the next important thing that I missed), I did feel that I had begun to see what had made the game so powerful at the time and appealing enough to continue into the new millennium. But even more distinctly, I realized that I, and the many others who were playing for the first time on PSPs and iPhones, had not really had the Myst experience and that, when technology had changed so drastically , I probably never would.

Much of the popular press discourse on the film seems to have taken up the notion of a “real” Facebook origin story or the “real” Mark Zuckerberg as the yardstick with which to measure the film. The Wiklevoss twins have claimed on CNN that the film was accurate; Zuckerberg predictably claimed that it wasn’t. A Washington Post story argued that the film’s greatest liberties were not taken with Zuckerberg’s character, although such changes as making him a loner when he has been with the same girlfriend since 2003 were made, but with the realities of Facebook’s innovation which the article argues was not a work of sole genius but part of the more complex nexus of culture that is really behind any invention. Sorkin himself is at least partially culpable for this narrative of truth or fiction that has surrounded the film since he has stoked it in his own press appearances. On the Colbert Report Sorkin insisted that it was a “non-fiction” film that shows multiple perspectives and possible “truths” of the history of Facebook’s origin and the lawsuits brought against its founder.

However, focusing on whether or not The Social Network has the veracity of a documentary or is as “non-fiction” as an Oliver Stone bio-pic largely encourages a focus on the idea of the movie, rather than on the movie itself and the significant influence that authorial imprint has on the final product. A New York Times article on the film claims that viewer response to the film divides generationally. Older people, it claims, will see “a cautionary tale about a callous young man,” while younger viewers “will applaud someone who saw his chance and seized it.” From the generation that not only brought us Gordon Gecko but seized upon his mantra “greed is good,” such a supposed generation gap is astonishing. Ultimately, it also misses the point.

The Zuckerberg of The Social Network is a callous, or at the very least socially oblivious, young innovator who prioritizes the future he sees for his creation over relationships and fairness. He is also an entrepreneur who takes a kernel of an idea and improves on it to create a website whose cultural significance is undeniable. He is other things too: an acerbic wit whose tongue and mind is just a little bit quicker then everyone else’s, making him appear rude and blunt to the point of cruelty. He also, in the film, appears oddly easily influenced by those he perceives as his equals, making it unclear how much the origins of the film’s most heinous acts can be traced to Sean Parker (played here by Justin Timberlake).

This Zuckerberg is, for all protestations to the contrary, an Aaron Sorkin character: morally complex, subject to idealistic passions and personal failures, sharp-tongued, and ultimately ruled by public triumphs and private indignities. One of the film’s most powerful images is Zuckerberg sitting in an empty conference room sending a friend request to the girl whose rejection started it all and pressing refresh again and again to see if she has accepted. This mournful final image can be traced easily to Charlie Wilson staring into his drink or Leo in The West Wing in the hallway of an empty house after he is left by his wife. So too does a look at the other artist that crafted the film fill in some apparent gaps. Zuckerberg in real life may have a long term girlfriend and not live a socially removed life, but this is a David Fincher film. Fincher, with Fight Club and Zodiac to his name, is a master of conflicted, isolated masculinity, and to see these logics inscribed on The Social Network should come as no surprise. Since the film is in part an adaptation of a book, whose primary source was a former Facebook founder, a large number of authorial hands have taken part in the shaping of the narrative in The Social Network.

Perhaps it is here that we finally come to our link to Facebook itself. As a Facebook profile is a carefully crafted version of identity, The Social Network is an authorially crafted version of reality. However, as much as I might like to leave off on such a neat analogy, it remains beside the point. The Social Network is not a great film about Facebook; it’s a great film. There may have been a way for the film’s structure or visual aesthetic to have been put in conversation with the new media on which it was based. However, Aaron Sorkin neither uses or likes Facebook … and it shows. What also shows is the talent and skill of the creative team behind the film. No matter how much we might like for old media texts about new media to demonstrate formal innovation in response to their sources, $#*! My Dad Says and The Social Network have proven that they will rise and fall according to how well they succeed at being well crafted examples of their own forms, not in their relationship to the new forms they mine for inspiration.

The festivals and amusement parks that dominate the summer months can contribute to what sets summers apart because of the carnivalesque pleasures they provide, set apart from daily life. A Labor Day weekend trip to Noah’s Ark Water Park  in the Wisconsin Dells reminded me of just how important a role amusement parks play in both the commercial value of summer (to both media franchises and tourist economies) and its often important role as a carnivalesque release valve in a labor intense society. While the franchise is an obvious part of a lot of summer entertainment, most evident in the sequels and franchise video games that are released, it is becoming an increasingly big part of other parts of summer that I nostalgically fantasized were more bucolic or carnivalesque.

It is possible to look at the carnival as detailed by Bakthin less as an instance of real subversion and more as a release valve for the tensions built up in every day life. When I walked into Noah’s Ark to be greeted by the sound of high pitched screams, it seemed that I was seeing this part of carnival in action. Release seemed to be the order of the day, as even the tamest rides and attractions evoked screams along with laughter.

As I too began to brave these behemoths, screaming at steep drops, practically drowning as water shot at my face as I rode the Black Anaconda, I wanted to chalk up my enjoyment of this park up to the carnivalesque. The rides invited me to relinquish control, to experience the catharsis of fear and relief, to scream in public without the injunction to remain calm. The park allows its patrons to relinquish many of their every day constraints. They are invited to: lose control of their bodies, make spectacles of their emotions through screams and laughter, and be allowed to look ridiculous in these public spaces, all in the service of pleasure.  I wanted to think of this park experience as an example of a more classical kind of popular culture modeled on the carnival … then I came face to face with Sponge Bob.

He was several stories tall, adorning a building to announce the park’s 4D Sponge Bob Square Pants Movie. Suddenly, I noticed that Sponge Bob was everywhere. His face appeared in the gift shop, on lunch boxes at the snack stands, and on t-shirts on the patrons. The idea of an amusement park getting in bed with a media franchise is certainly not novel, indeed this country’s most famous parks were founded on just such a partnership. However, franchise figures have rarely been a huge part of more local theme parks that may be associated with more nostalgic ideas about community entertainment.

Sponge Bob’s presence at Noah’s Ark was neither an anomaly nor an inevitability, but rather an important part of the experience of carnivalesque pleasure that summer amusement parks and festivals can provide. Sponge Bob became the most obvious embodiment of the complex matrices of commerce, labor, leisure, and pleasure that underlie much of the summer entertainment industry. The Sponge Bob Square Pants 4D Movie functioned as a marketing tool for the water park in an attempt to capitalize on the franchise success, the film (which is shown at many theme parks simultaneously) gives Nickelodeon an opportunity to reinforce and extend the Sponge Bob Square Pants brand, and the licensed products at the gift shop and snack stand are beneficial to both parties.

I was initially tempted to see Sponge Bob as an interloper into the more “authentic” community-centered cultural experience I believed I was having, but it became clear quickly that his function was more complicated than that. The involvement of the Sponge Bob franchise at the water park threw into more distinct relief the importance that commercial interests have in this location of summer culture; it made the reality of the presence of commerce amongst the pleasures of the carnivalesque inescapable. It also did not negate, and in fact may have extended, the more carnivalesque pleasures. Theme park patrons could use Sponge Bob as a bridge between the pleasures that they experienced there and something that is part of their everyday life.  The insides of those Sponge Bob lunch boxes may go on to carry in them the foods featured during Sponge Bob’s commercial breaks but they may also bring with them the memory of what it felt like to let go and scream. For someone who is about to return in earnest to the business of teaching about, writing about, and thinking about media, this reminder that pleasure, commerce, and community experience is wrapped up together in many texts — this living example of the complexity of media literacy — was just the thing that I needed as I left the carnival of summer behind.

It took The Hollywood Reporter and Entertainment Weekly to help me realize I had fallen into a common trap, overestimating the show’s ubiquity. Recent articles have observed that Mad Men does not have spectacularly high ratings, with a regular viewership of only 1.9 million. Critically successful, the show has also garnered a good deal of interest from academics. Over the next few months Antenna will be featuring weekly the opinions of several media scholars who will comment on Mad Men’s fourth season as it unfolds. What makes a show on a network with extremely limited original programming and a viewership just under 2 million such a significant cultural event? Is it an issue of quality? content? the program’s relationship to the past? This series of articles will give our readers and contributors an opportunity to address these questions as well as many more issues involving the series.

For the record, I think the attention paid to Mad Men is well deserved. It always strikes me as not only a well written series but one that is extremely well crafted down to the music choices, lighting angles, and small gestures. It is a series that shows its work, the artistry that goes into a really good show. It is a series that captures a period of history and change complexly and with great pathos. But such nuance is not the whole story of Mad Men’s success.

Mad Men has succeeded in carving out its space in the culture by practicing what Don Draper preaches: good advertising. Entertainment Weekly and The Hollywood Reporter observed that amongst those 1.9 million viewers is a much higher percentage of viewers with incomes over $100,000 than comparable cable dramas. The series has parlayed this into a targeted, strategic marketing campaign. The Mad Men/Banana Republic match may be the most visible partnership, but the show’s marketing efforts are much more complex. Viewers of the first episode were treated to lengthy advertisements from the episode’s sponsor, BMW, featuring a real “Mad Man” discussing the company’s early advertising. The ads beautifully tied together the series’ content, the ads’ product, and its affluent viewers. For a full month, Mad Men prepped these viewers to get excited for the new season. Having once indicated that I ‘liked’ Mad Men on Facebook, I was treated to daily updates letting me know about AMC marathons of previous seasons, on-line programs letting me Mad Men myself or have a job interview for Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce, mix period-appropriate cocktails, listen to Mad Men radio on Pandora, or access DVD style extras after the first episode ended. The series has clearly committed itself to creating as many opportunities for immersion for its viewers as possible. This marketing approach, and its apparent success – Sunday’s premiere drew over 2.9 million! – focuses on the quality of viewer for advertisers and the quality of these viewers’ interactions with content.

Apparently the group at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce received this memo as season four begins with a recently separated Don Draper who has becoming increasingly impatient and committed to his vision for creative directors and the company. The season begins in turmoil. The new agency has had some success but is still at risk. Don’s house has been taken over by Betty and Henry, and Don is living in a small bachelor apartment. This episode, “Public Relations,” was an excellent balance of melancholy and hope. The storm clouds are overhead, but the episode ends with a wink that with the spark of genius evidenced by Don, Peggy, and the others in previous seasons, success is on the horizon. Whether Matthew Weiner and his team will have their own spark of genius in this new season is yet to be seen. We hope you will join us in discussing this season of Mad Men as we watch to find out.

“Dream On” brought back this dynamic and foregrounded it in contrast to some of the more music-themed recent episodes. Neil Patrick Harris is the king of bitter(sweet) cynicism, and his performance as Bryan Ryan maintained the comedy in what otherwise was in danger of becoming a maudlin episode. Rachel and Artie’s storylines gave both characters an opportunity for growth. Artie’s triumphantly joyful flash mob scene (fangirl moment – thank you Glee, for a flash mob!) in particular made his final moments of aching vulnerability that much more poignant. There has been reflection on this blog about the way that Glee sometimes uses, one might even say exploits, disabled characters for emotional endings and to humanize its more difficult characters (Sue and Rachel), and Artie’s storyline comes dangerously close to becoming part of this trend. There are certainly issues with how Artie’s storyline is presented in this episode, and I leave those issues for other commentators more knowledgeable in these areas. Problematic though this is, it is consistent with the series’ ethos from the beginning. The show has always undermined its own after-school special themes, or at least made them less saccharine, by unabashedly drawing on stereotypes and refusing after-school special endings: Artie cannot dance, Tina doesn’t do the “right” thing. All is not well in McKinley High. If it were, it wouldn’t be Glee.

That this episode spoke most clearly with what I feel is Glee’s unique voice is made even more important through its intertextuality, which evoked a self-awareness on the part of the series about its place amongst contemporary musicals. Here again we return to Joss Whedon and Neil Patrick Harris. Both figures have had important roles in bringing contemporary uses of the musical to television and the web. They worked together on the web series Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. Neil Patrick Harris has performed in musical episodes of How I Met Your Mother and Batman: The Brave and the Bold, and Whedon’s musical episode of Buffy often makes lists of the best musical television episodes of all time. In this same episode that the guest director and guest star positioned Glee within the contemporary use of the musical on television, we discover that Shelby Corcoran is Rachel’s mother. Shelby is played by Idina Menzel, who originated Maureen in Rent and Elphaba in Wicked on Broadway, with Glee guest star Kristin Chenoweth. Menzel and Chenoweth further link Glee to the tradition of the contemporary musical that may be a much more appropriate reference here than for the more obvious, but deceptive, High School Musical. Contemporary musicals have become increasingly mature, cynical, parodic and subversive, trends that Glee falls squarely within. In an episode so drenched in references to the contemporary musical context, it was all the more important that Glee followed the examples of its characters in the last episode and emphasized its own unique voice. Whedon showed himself to be a true Gleek by emphasizing the voice of the show over his own.

Any time a beloved text is adapted, there is the risk that the adaptation will deviate significantly from the world that readers have imagined; however Universal has an already accepted template provided by the films and the video games on which to base their theme park, significantly reducing this risk. The real gamble here, and the question the theme park most pressingly begs, is how the franchise will be kept alive after the final film is released in 2011. Paratexts, as Jonathan Gray points out in Show Sold Separately, are a vital part of any text’s life, and this is particularly true of the franchise. Harry Potter has done well with paratexts, spinning out not only video games and board games but also toys, candy, Halloween costumes, etc.  However, paratexts are most effective in conversation with a primary text – but soon all of the planned narrative texts for the Harry Potter franchise, both films and novels, will have been released.

Of course the world of Harry Potter will live on long after 2011 in the imaginations of the franchise’s fans and this is what Universal Studies is counting on. Yet the investment laid out by Universal Studios is too much to be justified by the fans that Harry Potter has today. While certainly rides are based around now defunct films like Water World or Honey I Shrunk the Kids, the construction of small theme parks around a single textual worlds are very rare. The unusual focus of an entire park on a single text indicates a faith in a franchise, like Star Wars and Batman, with long-term cultural currency. (And even Star Wars only has one ride, one stage show and occasional “Star Wars” Weekends at Walt Disney World.)

The question left by the announcement of this theme park is not whether or not it will succeed – children everywhere will have ruined the rest of the Super Bowl begging their parents for a trip to Orlando – but how the franchise will be kept alive to reward Universal Studios’ investment?  There are three possibilities: 1) the world made by the Harry Potter franchise has such mythic power that the existing texts are enough for fans to return to again and again, for generations to come.  2) Universal Studios is counting on the fans to keep the world alive. This wouldn’t be a bad bet given the massive amount of fan texts created around Harry Potter. Everything from fan-fiction, to recipes, to Wizard Rock available on iTunes from bands like The Remus Lupins have been created by loyal fans. Even the unopened theme-park already has a fan site! Yet the studio’s occasionally draconian measures regarding copyright might hinder the saturation of fan creations. 3) Finally this may portend the possibility of more licensed ancillary materials after the final film comes out. The Star Wars franchise was not kept alive by fan creations alone, but also licensed novels, role-playing games and video games. Will Harry Potter comics, novels about other Hogwarts students, an MMORPG and an animated series be soon to follow? Although it would be consistent with how other franchises, Spiderman, Batman, Star Trek, etc. are handled, the unique magic of the books make this much more difficult. How the future of the franchise will play out remains a mystery for now, but what is certain is that soon there will be many a glass of Butter Beer toasted, by both kids and Universal Studio shareholders, in celebration when the Wizarding World of Harry Potter opens its gates in Orlando.

Thanks to the magic of live-blogging, Apple fans across the country were able to follow the announcement of Apple’s long-awaited tablet in real time. The new product, called the iPad, experienced a lot of hype prior to its official announcement.

Its focus as a media and web surfing device has been particularly intriguing. Would this product function well as an effective mobile entertainment center? Would it change the way that people consumed media? Would it contribute to the number of people who are forgoing cable internet or declining to watch television in traditional ways? Many of my students say that they only really watch television via Hulu and similar websites. Could iPad be the media delivery choice for them? The rather unsatisfying answer is that it depends on the future of app development but right now the iPad’s possibilities as a go to mobile-media device is troublingly limited.

It appears that because iPad is based on the iPhone OS and that you still cannot use flash on it, preventing users from using its web-surfing capabilities to watch Hulu or video from Comedy Central’s web site. It is clear that YouTube works very well, but YouTube’s offerings are limited. Similarly it would require new apps and patches to make Netflix Instant Watch viewable on the iPad or to make TIVO recordings easily uploadable and watchable on the iPad. However all of this would be theoretically doable and would make the iPad a good option for watching the ever proliferating options of on-line video. The extent to which Apple attempts to lock users into the iTunes store may remain telling in this respect.

On the other hand, this new development might have a far more serious impact on games. As pointed out elsewhere on this blog, games created for the iPhone have become an important sub-set of gaming. The iPad looks like a seamless and tactile device for the playing of games and may have its most impact on media consumption in this area. Like the iPhone the iPad will have multi-touch and games developed will have to adapt to the iPad’s specific kind of interactive platform. This will likely continue to produce slightly different kinds of games, including educational games, for different kinds of gamers. This might be a particular boon to the casual gaming market Electronic Arts presence at todays announcement demonstrated that at least some game designers are ready to step up to this challenge. It could be in the area of games that iPad has its most impact on media.

As expected, the device attempts to compete with the Kindle or, more realistically with the Nook, with the introduction of e-books through a program called iBooks. Certainly the large screen looks like an enjoyable way to consume text, particularly magazines and newspapers with lots of color pictures, although its lack of a paper-like display will limit its usefulness for some people.

Additionally while the Kindle attaches to its data service for free, it appears the iPad will require data service from AT&T if it is to be used outside of a WiFi network. Given the far lower than predicted price of $499 for a 16G WIFI only base model (some commentators had predicted precises more like $1000) and the tremendous buzz that the product has generated, one can expect the product will do reasonably well commercially at least in the short term.

Whether or not it has an impact on the extent to which people choose to consume more on-demand entertainment, whether provided by iTunes or through internet services like Hulu.com or Netflix’s Instant Watch, and whether or not it will change the way gamers feel about Apple will depend entirely on the Apps that are developed for it and whether or not Flash will eventually be allowed on the iPhone/iPad OS. (Or if companies like Hulu find a way around the Flash restriction) What do you think about this new product and its possibilities?

When the New York Times reported that Netflix’s instant streaming video would soon be available on the Wii the feeling of inevitability was palpable, but not for the reasons you’d think. Netflix, the article explained, is already on Wii’s competing consoles the PS3 and XBOX and a reflection of the fact that most consoles today want to be “entertainment centers” rather than solely specialized gaming consoles, evidenced by the number of people who buy a PS3 primarily for its Blu-Ray player.  Yet when it comes to being more of an appliance then a specialized toy, the addition of Netflix is in fact just another part of Wii’s existing, largely successful, marketing plan. Traditional stereotypes of gaming culture would be confounded by the Wii and who owns and plays them; everyone from my seven year old next door neighbor to my boyfriend’s grandmother has one or wants one. In many of these households the Wii is already being used primarily for reasons other then playing the kinds of games available on other consoles.

Wii has created a niche for itself among non-gaming audiences not only by providing family friendly multi-player games but through providing games whose function as games is only secondary. I am not alone in reporting that the primary function of my own Wii is as an exercise machine; a functionality Wii has carefully cultivated with yoga games, Wii fit plus, and the recent Just Dance, which was a commercial success during the Christmas season. The Wii Fit audience, unsurprisingly, is often quite different then the Resident Evil audience, and despite being more expensive then the average game the Wii Fit sold out in many stores when it was first released. The more recent Just Dance goes one step further in this direction is barely functional as a “game” (since scores and skill are largely irrelevant). It is rightfully described by some reviewers as a souped up exercise video, yet it is perfectly consistent with Nintendo’s apparent business strategy: making its console indispensable for a larger range of potential audiences.

This strategy is behind many Wii games that game commentators may consider “bad;” not only the exercise games but the electronic board game collections or virtual aquariums that are also released for the console. Wii has long been gaming for non-gamers. Reviews for Just Dance clearly demonstrate this phenomenon. Among gaming commentators the game often can’t even break three out of five stars. However, on amazon.com, being reviewed by its intended audience, it has four and a half stars – a near perfect score. Nintendo may have been the last to strike a deal with Netflix but this move should not lead people to believe that the Wii was late to the convergence game. Instead, this recent marriage of Netflix and Nintendo represents a continuation of a focused and successful strategy on the part of both companies; Netflix wants to be everywhere and Nintendo wants to be used by everyone, a fine but important difference, and both companies have long been doing whatever they can to make this happen.

I am not foolish enough to claim that we are truly entering the era of the black box, Henry Jenkins has already pointed out the dangers of that particular pitfall, but this most recent business agreement only emphasizes how important multiple-functionality has been and will continue to be in the console-wars.

In GLAAD’s recent report they mention that the total number of LGBT characters on television actually decreased this year. In part this was a result of the cancellation of the L-Word, the majority of whose character’s were LGBT. However, I believe that this year we actually saw an increase in the visibility of LGBT characters on TV. Because, some new shows have LGBT characters and other have recently added them,  a relatively large number of prime-time network television programs, both dramas and comedies, have gay and lesbian characters. Nearly every network has at least one clearly gay or lesbian central character on one of their shows. On Sunday you can see LGBT characters on Desperate Housweives and Brothers and Sisters on ABC, Monday there is House on Fox, Tuesday has Modern Family on ABC, Wednesday there is Glee on Fox, Thursday Grey’s Anatomy on ABC. Friday ABC has Ugly Betty, and Saturday there is Mercy on NBC. (This is not an exhaustive list) CBS alone seems to have ignored the trend. These representations are not all perfect, far from it, but looking back only a short decade ago when Will and Grace was considered unusual, being able to find an LGBT character on network TV every night is a pretty amazing thing.

Network prime-time has not until recently been the location of most LGBT visibility on television. In the past networks confined  LGBT characters to daytime soaps. HBO and Showtime have longed featured LGBT characters on their shows and have provided many of the characters that made up the numbers that  were counted in  drama and comedies on television. LOGO on cable has certainly also punched up these numbers. But these shows weren’t on network prime-time televison. I was a fan of Showtime’s LGBT heavy shows, Queer As Folk and The L-Word, but if you were uninterested or even hostile to LGBT issues you would be unlikely to tune in. In contrast, you may not be interested in LGBT issues but if you are a long term fan of Grey’s Anatomy  you would likely continue watching the show now that a lesbian relationship is among the major story lines. Many of the shows with LGBT characters and themes in the late 90s and early 2000s took place in primarily LGBT worlds and contexts, interaction with the “straight” world often took the form of narratives of conflict. Integrated shows, like those we now have on network prime-time television, play a different role. They may show conflict, but they also show cooperation. LGBT characters are part of workplace communities, families, and friendship groups with both LGBT and straight members. This integration lets these show tell different stories and let them tell more familiar stories differently. Callie can be horrified and hurt at her father’s hostility to her homosexuality and Arizona can advocate patience on Grey’s Anatomy in part because they are addressing a more integrated (and possibly ambivalent) audience and because they have a more integrated cast of characters; filled with many heterosexual characters who are supportive of their relationship. I certainly don’t suggest that these kinds of shows should replace programs that represent LGBT communities and worlds more extensively, as the programming on LOGO and the Showtime do. But I think the long-term goal for LGBT representation on television should include both kinds of show. Representations are still too problematic and too few, they are not, and most likely never will, be perfect. But as Kath Weston has observed in her work a group cannot fully be accepted until they are seen as “fully social persons” who are part of families and communities. Integrated shows may be a step towards this. Paired with increased visibility I would like to hope that this season does not represent a loss at all but a different kind of gain. Am I just a wide eyed optimist? What do others think?