The answer turned out to be: I watched the second half. Actually turned it on partway through the halftime show, and got to see part of the awful performance by the Black Eyed Peas.

I just want to point out a few things that intrigued me post-spectacle.

Salon posted an interesting article the day after the game, The Super Bowl’s Bloated, Chaotic Spectacle, which analyzed some of the media-related issues which surround the game. The article, to a certain extent, captures the experience of being the kind of attentive viewer that is compelled to analyze something that is seen by most people as “mere entertainment.” Of course, what entertains us say a lot about who we are and shouldn’t be taken lightly.

A couple of commercials that they don’t mention seem worth pointing out. One is this ad from Groupon that exploits the political strife in Tibet. I found it rather surprising that a company would decide to use such a sensitive political issue to try to hawk their goods. I haven’t seen any backlash against this ad, but there has been some against a tweet by Kenneth Cole who tried to capitalize on the recent events in Egypt. Perhaps the latter story created more of a stir because those events have been more in the news recently.

I did not see this other commercial during the game but came across it later via a Grist article. It is a piece of industry sponsored propaganda from Americans Against Food Taxes.

As the author of the Grist piece points out, the most outlandish part of the ad is the claim that we should resist the government trying to control what we eat and drink when the existing subsidies are what make soda so inexpensive to drink in the first place.

Finally, here is an interesting interview with Dave Zirin, author of A People’s History of Sports in the United States and co-author of the documentary Not Just a Game: Power, Politics & American Sports, who provides some insight into the role of politics in sports.

Not Just a Game | Media Education Foundation : taken from – http://www.mediaed.org/cgi-bin/commerce.cgi?preadd=action&key=151
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/

The film begins with the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 and the rebuilding process in the following years where architects were much in demand. The film provides brief glimpses of Chicago history that places Sullivan’s work in a greater context.

In many ways, the film is a pretty straight-forward bio pic told in strict chronology and does nothing new with the form, but it does all the conventional things quite well. The experts interviewed are interesting. The archival footage appropriate and fascinating. One of the real strengths is the wonderfully filmed examples of his architectural designs. Louis Sullivan is a beautiful film to watch.

Sullivan’s rise and subsequent struggles make for a compelling story. Much to its credit, the film is very convincing that Sullivan, who is probably not as well known as he should be, is an important and original architect whose work ranks with some of the best in the world. Sullivan’s work is a fascinating bridge between the dying Victorian influences and truly modern work.

I also have volunteered to serve for another 2 years on the Notable Videos for Adults Committee and the films we will be reviewing are starting to come in. I really enjoyed being on the committee the past two years even though it’s a big time commitment. For the past two years, I have blogged about most of the movies I viewed (2009 and 2010). I debated whether or not I wanted to blog about the films again this year. My hesitation stems from the fact that I have never been able to keep up with posts for all the movies I watch. But looking back at the posts, I realize that they have been helpful to me at least when the time comes to deliberate about the films and help select a list. And just because I haven’t been able to keep up with the posts in the past doesn’t mean I won’t be able to this year, right?

And, finally, I have been elected as the incoming Vice Chair/Chair Elect for the Video Round Table with my tenure as Vice Chair beginning on July 1. I look forward to serving in this capacity as I have found my involvement with the Round Table these past few years very rewarding and really enjoy working with the other members.

a 21st century approach to education. It provides a framework to access, analyze, evaluate and create messages in a variety of forms — from print to video to the Internet. Media literacy builds an understanding of the role of media in society as well as essential skills of inquiry and self-expression necessary for citizens of a democracy.

Similarly, the National Association for Media Literacy Education states:

Media literacy– the ability to ACCESS, ANALYZE, EVALUATE, and COMMUNICATE information in a variety of forms-is interdisciplinary by nature. Media literacy represents a necessary, inevitable, and realistic response to the complex, ever-changing electronic environment and communication cornucopia that surround us.

Although media literacy began as a reaction to the perceived negative influence of Mass Media during the middle of the 20th century, it has evolved to include and analysis and understanding of a variety of emerging media. In this way, media literacy is not much different than transliteracy, which The International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA) defines as:

an umbrella term encompassing different literacies and multiple communication channels that require active participation with and across a range of platforms, and embracing both linear and non-linear messages.

Despite the fact that print is a communication medium, media literacy tends to focus on non-print or non-text print materials. Transliteracy attempts to be broader. IFLA, in its report “Transliteracy: take a walk on a wild side,” quotes Sue Thomas, who defines transliteracy as “what it means to be literate in the 21st Century,” that is, having a “unifying perspective” on the ability to “read, write and interact across a range of platforms, tools and media from signing and orality through handwriting, print, TV, radio and film, to digital social networks.”

In this respect, media literacy can be considered a sub-topic of transliteracy. Regardless of how one chooses to use the terminology, the emerging field of transliteracy is building on the foundation set forth by media literacy.

Having a long-standing interest in media literacy in my work as a media librarian, the recent wave of interest in transliteracy fascinates me, and I hope to investigate and write more about it, especially as to how it relates to libraries.

I bring this up in a review about Beauty Mark: Body Image & The Race for Perfection because it is a very similar film. Unfortunately, I did not find it as engaging as Youth Knows No Pain. I think if I had not seen Youth, I would have liked Beauty Mark more than I did because it is a very good documentary by Diane Israel who is a psychotherapist and athlete. Like Mitch McCabe’s Youth, Beauty Mark is a very personal film since both directors are also the main characters in each film.

Both filmmakers explore how their young lives affected their images of their adult selves. Israel focuses on growing up as a competitive athlete. McCabe’s father was a plastic surgeon. Whereas Israel keeps the focus on her own life, Youth Knows No Pain goes beyond the personal with a series of interviews with other people talking about their self-image.

The shorter educational version of Beauty Mark was nominated for the committee and I wonder if I would find the longer version more interesting.

Although I feel that Youth Knows No Pain is a better film, I do think Beauty Mark has plenty to recommend it. This would be a great film to show in a classroom to begin a conversation about body image.

Not only is Consuming Kids an excellent documetary specifically about marketing to children, it also presents a great overview of media literacy issues in general.

Being a fan of Tropic of Cancer and Naked Lunch, I was aware of Grove Press, Rosset, and the court cases surrounding these books. But I was not familiar with Rosset’s life or a lot of the other work that Grove Press published.

What makes Obscene a great film is that it not only provides an understandable overview of Rosset’s life and the importance of the works he published, but it also sheds light on the difficult issues surrounding censorship. The most fascinating part of the film traces the publications of Lady Chatterley’s Lover, Tropic of Cancer, and Naked Lunch. With each successive book, claiming literary importance (one of the tests for censorship) became more difficult as the books veer further and further from contemporary standards.

Although it is easy to champion Rosset for publishing these now important books, he also guided Grove Press to publish much more questionable content. To it’s credit, Obscene does not shy away from the seedier side of Rosset’s work. The exploration of the later years of Rosset’s work with Grove Press raises a lot of questions about the nature of censorship and how far we are willing to go to defend free speech.

The interviews do not form a cohesive narrative but this is not a shortcoming. Given the brief running time, Baghdad Twist is not attempting to be an all-inclusive family history. It’s a string of memories brought together by well-chosen artifacts.

I watched Baghdad Twist the same week I watched Blood and Oil (also for the notables committee) and Persepolis which made for a rather interesting combination of views about life in the Middle East during the mid and later parts of the 20th Century.

Blood and Oil opens with the question of whether the war in Iraq was motivated by the quest to secure their oil. It then traces the history of the United States relationship with the Middle East in terms of how its foreign policy was based on oil. It does so through Klare’s expert research and through well-chosen archival footage. Blood and Oil provides a fascinating look how World War II, when the U.S. went through 1/3 of its reserves, helped form FDR’s realization that the U.S. could not remain oil dependent forever, and how he met with the leader of Saudi Arabia to provide protect to the Saudi’s in return for the right to develop their oil. Blood and Oil traces how that arrangement has affected U.S. foreign policy ever since.

Despite my initial reservation about the lack of diverse speakers, I found Blood and Oil to be an interesting and necessary film to view.

Given the number of World War II and Holocaust movies available, Blessed Is the Match is notable for it’s unique topic. The film is just shy of 90 minutes, and this tight running time enhances the excitement of the story. After a brief history of Hannah’s early life, Blessed Is the Match gains momentum at about the 20 minute mark and remains intense the rest of the way.

The film mixes in some dramatizations which, at times, are a little cloying, but that is a minor complaint in an otherwise fascinating documentary.