Archive: Opinions

The studios really knew how to get people excited during Hollywood's heyday years from 1929 to 1960.  In those days they really knew how to take ordinary people and make them into shining legends who could transform us from the mundane world to a place of excitement, intrigue, and drama.  Frances Gumm became Judy Garland. Archibald Leach was transformed into Carey Grant. Eleanora Fagan morphed into Billie Holliday. Rose Louise Hovick famously became Gypsy Rose Lee (my Grandfather knew Gypsy, by the way. My Grandmother's reaction when they visited her in her dressing room was quite amusing! But that's a story for another day).  Mladen Sekulovich was Karl Malden. Leonard Rosenberg became Tony Randall, Michael Shalhoub was Omar Sharif's real name... and the list goes on, transforming the mundane into the glamorous.

After the golden late-night age dominated by Johnny Carson, glamour slipped quite a bit.  Carson was a genius at making interviews about his guests, while maintaining that sense of glamour.  Subsequent hosts made the interviews about themselves or about showing celebrities to be just like the rest of us, asking them to show pictures of their kids, or talking about doing the dishes, or vacuuming.  Jimmy Fallon is probably the king of mundane interviews.  Celebrities today are made to be diminished instead of larger than life.  The COVID-19 pandemic certainly magnifies this -- it may be driving the final nail in the coffin of glamour and  stars.

The first shows to be impacted by the pandemic were, of course, talk shows that, while not exactly broadcast live, were typically recorded on the day they were broadcast.  Fallon was a pioneer in the at-home talk show, with rough video shows, frequently interrupted by his young daughters, in made at home episodes that gradually became less painful to watch as better production values were introduced.

Probably the most successful is James Corden's Late Late show, in which the host broadcasts from his garage.  Or, because he's British, his GARage (though he also says garAGE some of the time, I suppose, because he has lived in the United States for several years now).  It also had a bit of a rocky start, despite the fact that CBS obviously installed a set and decent equipment in the garage.  Band leader / sidekick Reggie Watts appeared on a monitor on a shelf on the wall, and more recently the whole band has been added on smaller monitors below Watts.  Corden quickly learned to keep the comedy short and sweet (and actually funny much of the time), and does the same with celebrity interviews and musical performances.  It's hard to do a late night comedy show without someone in the room to laugh and applaud, but he has figured out a way to pull it off.

The biggest winner in pandemic broadcasting to date is American Idol.  Just as the singing competition began to run out of canned episodes, the pandemic and enforced social distancing hit America full force.  The producers decided to send the 21 contestants home for their safety, and then scrambled to come up with a way to see the contest through to the crowning of 2020's American Idol (which they will attempt in a live extravaganza (from home) broadcast a week from Sunday).

Clearly they do good work under pressure, because the result has been unexpectedly stunning.  Yes, the contestants are singing in their living rooms, porches, and garages, but somehow the American Idol crew managed to put together a package of iPhones, tripods, lighting, and sound equipment for each contestant and the judges, and make it all seem immediate and professional looking.  They sent technicians to make sure everyone had great Internet connections, and expand the intense coaching contestants typically get on singing, style, and performance to include setting up a performance space in their homes, finding the best camera angles, doing their own makeup and clothes.

The three celebrity judges seem a little dulled in their home surroundings, but not a lot, mainly because they are so focused on the contestants, and not about making dinner and doing the dishes.  Ryan Seacrest anchors the show from an American Idol desk with a logo behind him that Fox gave him after they cancelled the show.  It provides a professional set, which is much better for the show than just another living room.  He does a brilliant job of moving things along, almost making you forget that everyone is broadcasting from home.

It's not the same as being in a theater with a big audience, but ABC has treated American Idol like a big exciting television show, not just another dull Zoom interview by celebrities in their pajamas talking about what we are all facing every day.  They have taken the essence of the live shows and found a way to transpose it to the new format.  The other night, after we streamed the latest episode on Hulu, my wife mentioned that American Idol is actually better than it was, because the focus is more on the music and the work the young contestants are doing to become better singers and performers.

So, with varying degrees of success the more reality-based shows have adapted very quickly to the new reality of social distancing and electronic gathering.  The biggest loser may be scripted television.  CBS's "All Rise" attempted a social distancing episode this week that was so painful to watch that we turned it off after the first 15 minutes.  Filmed in close-ups so it wouldn't be that obvious that the actors were in their own homes and not their characters' homes, the episode was one big Zoom meeting gone completely off the rails.

The characters were written in the least interesting way possible, as if they were real people stuck at home with their cell phones and computers.  We like the show -- it's a different take on courtroom drama, the characters are likeable, and the plots are engaging.  But this week's episode might as well have had  have had big red letters flashing on the screen... FAIL!  FAIL!  FAIL!  It wasn't even dull.  It was annoying.  Kudos to the production for trying, but it just didn't work.  We couldn't stand it -- we had to turn it off.  CBS should have heeded the oft uttered television warning: "Please don't try this from home!"

American Idol found a way to keep the glamour with aggressive contestant coaching, an amazing use of technology, and clever editing and pacing, among other things.  Yes, in the Zoom era there is that sense of Zooming, but they have elevated it to make something special that actually transforms us from our enforced isolation and everyday lives to a happier place.

As our local venues are beginning to transform their seasons from actual stages to virtual ones, they will be wise to remember that it's about the drama, or the excitement of a music concert... not about commisserating with their audiences about the bordom of staying home.

That's what the Hollywood moguls of yore understood.  Sure, drama and movie or television stars have to be relatable, but in a dramatic, elevated, exciting way.  People don't need their entertainment to be just more of the same things they experience every week, every day, every minute.  What's the point of that?  Art is supposed to transform human experience, not simply mirror it.

It's time to bring back the glamour of Hollywood's golden era.

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