It’s up to Saturday Night Live to decide who will be the Democratic nominee for the election 2008.
The role SNL takes on in the nomination process is an incredible example for the way political debates are being turned into entertainment in the U.S. at the moment. At the same time however, it’s an incredible example how political issues are permeating the entertainment sector, creating a new arena for public discourse. There simply is no retreat to hide from the debate over Hillary vs. Barack. [Read more]
Call him the Black Kennedy, the Tiger Woods of politics, or the Second Coming. The epithets used to describe presidential hopeful Barack Obama (D-Ill) are a testimony to an election that is so much more than politics.
There is something close to biblical about rain, when the skies give way to an almost cathartic downpour, draining off the drudge, sins and conversation-residuals clogging the streets. In any Hollywood movie (especially considering the writers’ strike) it could have been a Second Coming scenario, yet it was an unassuming Monday with weather more befitting of an unassuming British city pronounced Gloomster (but probably spelled Gleucmcester) in the midst of Berlin. The prophesized savior of American politics, Barack Obama, drew close to a 100 people, who sought shelter in the Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung on this rainy, borderline-suicidal Monday evening, to learn about the self-professed harbinger of a new era – in a country so far from theirs.
Hidden in the cellar of the largest library of the world a treasure was buried. A glut of color, monochrome and black-and-white photos was stashed away, unsorted and barely cataloged.
Two and a half months into the writer’s strike and the first late night shows are back on the screen. In the first week of January, David Letterman, Jay Leno and Conan O’Brien all returned to restore nightly TV routine. A week later, The Colbert Report and The Daily Show followed suit. How did Jon Stewart do? Did he survive out there without the scripted gags of his humoristic elves and their mighty pens?
To find out, we tried to get into the studio and watch the taping of his first show back on air. Unfortunately, about 500 other people had the same idea. Instead of lining up at the end of the queue around the block, we talked to one of the protesting writers in front of the studio. [Read more]
In case you didn’t notice already – it’s christmas season! Here at the tapmag headquarters, the team is eagerly awaiting the festivities. We are happily humming christmas songs all day long and the air is buzzing with anticipation of all the presents to come. [Read more]
Yes, lumping together a whole birth cohort in a single catch phrase is bound to fail. In the end, I don’t feel part of generation X, Y or Z. While I sense a trace of unity when meeting people with whom I share the birth year, I doubt that this connection transcends watching Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on TV at the same age.
What makes me a part of generation Y then (I am slightly too old for the instant accessers)? Other people define me as. Why do they do that? Because they want to express their alienation with people of my age through a concept that allows them to point their finger at exactly what it is that they just can’t understand about my generation. [Read more]
It’s election time in the Danish Kingdom, and what better way to churn out those votes, than to let the Prophet Muhammad work his magic?
The Danish People’s Party (DPP, Dansk Folkeparti) has published election posters (here) featuring a drawing by Alexander Ross from 1683 of the Prophet. The poster reads in bold, capital letters: “Freedom of Speech is Danish, Censorship Isn’t – We Hang on to the Danish Values,” and continues, “Danish People’s Party – Your Country, Your Choice.” According to Danish People’s Party’s party leader, Pia Kjærsgaard, “We [Danish People's Party] are not doing this to provoke, but are doing it exactly because a drawing – a 400 year old drawing of Muhammad – is a symbol of the freedom of speech in Denmark, because we hung on to that freedom of speech.” [Read more]
The man who brought you “Politically Incorrect,” which ABC eventually took off the air in 2002 after Maher made a comment on live radio that the 9/11 terrorists were not cowards, but “we [the American government] have been the cowards lobbing cruise missiles from 2,000 miles away,” might just have hit home with the political right. [Read more]
FOX Business News launched yesterday; the channel has been on air since 5am EDT, same for the website. Here is how they kicked it off:
A Business News Station had been in Rupert Murdoch’s sketch book for quite a while, although FOX Business Networks (FBN) has to share the market with CNBC - reaching almost 90 million households alone - and Bloomberg. FBN will only be broadcasted to 30 million homes in the beginning. So what’s it going to be? A conservative, big-business friendly PR-machine? [Read more]
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