Klarinet Archive - Posting 000124.txt from 1996/02

From: OLIVER SEELY <oliver@-----.EDU>
Subj: Re: Mr. Holland's Opus
Date: Tue, 6 Feb 1996 10:27:41 -0500

Lorne, Marie, Anne and others,
Add two other films to your viewing list for their own reasons.
"The Choir" (the choir gets saved but everyone loses his job)
"The Piano" (see a piano sit in the rain on a New Zealand beach
for a couple of weeks and keep its beautiful lacquered finish
and remain in perfect tune.)

Ten years ago Alvin Poussaint, then an advisor to the Bill Cosby
Show, was a resident scholar at my university during Black History
Month. His message dealt with the media -- that writers and
producers are NOT the worldly people they'd all like us to believe
they are. They carry with them the same tired old prejudices and
stereotypes familiar to all the rest of us. And those prejudices
and stereotypes find their way again and again into their sitcoms
and screen plays.

His message: you as individuals have LOTS of power if you'll just
use it. Every letter to Kraft saying that you'll never buy another
fricken jar of their goopy mayonnaise because of a show they
sponsored, or a letter to a producer or director saying that
you think of him as an intellectual midget with no social conscience
can carry the weight of about 10000 opinions (because very few
other people write). Finding addresses isn't particularly easy,
but the letter once written can be very satisfying -- particularly
when one has a growing collection in one's file for pulling out
rereading and laughing at from time to time.

And today, with e-mail, addresses are easier to get than ever before.
It is a great therapy which I highly recommend.

One warning: be careful about sending a message to every
congressman with an e-mail address. There seems to be some kind
of algorithm used there for common messages going to everyone.
The sender gets five automatic responses from each recipient.
At least I did. That was 1000 automatic responses over a period
of two days!

Oliver