Media Monsters: ZOMBIES, VAMPIRES AND WITCHES

Scholars have recently presented critical analyses of the popularity of zombies, vampires and witches to help explain the social and psychological implications of the undead in contemporary popular culture. Zombies are quick and easy metaphors that can be used for many purposes, representing any number of different themes. The proliferation of zombies in films, video […]

Yellow Journalism

Historians have argued that New Journalism “degenerated” into Yellow Journalism because the lofty, idealistic goals of New Journalism were quickly subsumed into sensationalistic pabulum as newspapers tried to out-do each other for advertising revenue. With so much competition between the newspapers, stories were over-dramatized and altered to correspond to ideas that publishers and editors thought […]

The Great Train Robbery

One of the milestones in cinematic history was the first narrative film, The Great Train Robbery (1903). It was directed and shot by Edwin S. Porter, a former associate of Thomas Edison. The movie is only about 10 minutes long, with 14 scenes. It was the most popular and commercially successful film of the pre-nickelodeon […]

BACKDOOR MAN

Whatever the outcome of the made-for-TV “feud” between President Donald Trump and Dr. Evil Elon Musk, the fact is that Trump didn’t “fire” Musk. Musk and his evil DOGE minions spent the last 5 months auditing all of the federal governments computer infrastructure, running AI surveillance scans on all the data. They were looking for […]

MAGICAL THINKING

Donald Trump believes only HE can solve America’s many problems. At least he believes in something, right? Come to think of it, Adolf Hitler believed in something, too. Quite fervently, if memory serves. It was something really fucking awful, but he sure as hell believed in it. So did enough other people… But this is […]

MY SWEET LITTLE GUY

PLEASE BE THEREWHEN I OPEN UP MY EYESI STILL SEE YOU IN MY MINDLIKE A GHOST IN EVERY ROOMI CAN CLOSE MY EYES AND TRYAND COUNT TO TEN ORI WILL KEEP THEM SHUT FOREVERIF I CAN JUST SEE YOU AGAIN I TOLD MYSELF A LIE TODAY:I AM DEFINITELY NOT OKAYIF I SHUT MY EYESAND WISH […]

MASOCHISTIC NATION

The US century of American economic and political hegemony is collapsing right before our very eyes. Like so many of history’s past empires, petty idiocies and hubris appear to be accelerating this inevitable decline. The real winner in all this chaos is China. Xi Jinping only has to follow Napoleon’s famous advice: “Never interfere with […]

THE BLUES MAN

[The scene takes place inside the plush offices of IMAGEMAKERS, a major New York PR firm. A kindly old black man with white hair [Mr. Jones] is led into the inner sanctum. He shuffles quietly to one of the big leather chairs at the foot of the enormous desk of Carl Anderson, one of the […]

THE DEATH OF AMERICAN CULTURE

Donald Trump announced on Friday that he is appointing himself chair of the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, adding that he is immediately terminating multiple people from the board of trustees as well as the current chair. Since President Trump made the announcement, his minions have been busy creating an exciting calendar […]