As you'll see in the introduction to this week's video blog, I love the month
of May. May happens to be a month in
which spring is in full swing! I was
also born in May, so that's an exciting time...even though I'm a little
apprehensive in admitting that this birthday is a double digit birthday.
And
both of those digits happen to be "3".
But
May is also an important date in the blog.
May just happens to be the month in which this blog will be celebrating
a very special anniversary.
May 24, 2014 marks the third anniversary of the day that I created "A POP
CULTURE ADDICT'S GUIDE TO LIFE", and first of all, can you believe that I
have been doing this for three whole years now?If you asked me back in 2011 if I would still be doing this blog
for three years, I would probably say no.
What
a difference three years makes, huh?
And, speaking of differences...I'm going to warn you ahead of time. There's changes that will be coming to the
blog beginning next week. And over the
course of the month of May, I will continue to make some tweaks and twists to
the blog so that by the time June comes around, it will be fully set.
So, I suppose you could consider May to be a month where this blog will be
under construction. A transition
month. A month where there will
literally be a surprise every corner.
In this video, I introduce the first of these changes. The theme days will be shaken up quite a
bit. Some will change days, some will
stay the same, and there will be some brand new concepts! For more info, just click below. Don't worry, I'll post them after the video
is over to give you the full list.
Okay, so I know I talk too fast in some spots, but in case you missed any of
that, here's the list of the brand new theme days. Just so you know, black ones are ones that are staying the
same. Blue ones are days that are
moving to other days of the week, and red ones are brand new days!
MONDAY: MOTIVATION
MONDAY
TUESDAY: TUESDAY TIMELINE WEDNESDAY: WHO AM I WEDNESDAY THURSDAY: TUBE TALK THURSDAY FRIDAY: FOODIE FRIDAY SATURDAY: SATURDAY NIGHT AT THE MOVIES
SUNDAY: SUNDAY
JUKEBOX
A
COUPLE OF NOTES: Firstly, I purposely transposed the title of the Thursday theme because I discovered that it sounded better the other way AFTER I filmed the video.
Secondly, for those of you who
will be missing the Saturday Morning cartoon discussions, I'll be using the
Tube Talk Thursday section occasionally for that. And, I won't be sharing what "Who Am I Wednesday" is
until that day actually arrives!
Those changes start up on May 5. But
I've got a few extra tricks up my sleeve...including a brand new look! So, stay tuned.
Okay,
so I'm going to be using this space for today to once again promote the online
YouTube show that I am filming along with my buds JOSH and CARINE. The show is called MOTIVE2CHANGE and in case you're just
tuning in, it's a show made for youth by youth...well, at least TWO of us are
still considered youthful. Want to take
a wild guess which two?
HINT: They're the ones with the coloured names in Kabel
style font. Or, whatever font shows up on your
screen. Ah, let's just go with the
coloured font. That works.
At
any rate, this is our fourth episode of the series, and the first one we've
filmed in over two weeks. We had a
little bit of a setback in trying to get everybody together to get an episode
filmed. First, it was Easter
celebrations that kept us all apart, and then a couple of us ended up getting
sick, and plus our hectic work schedules...it was just one thing after
another! I'm sure most of you who are
reading this blog entry can relate to that, if only for just a moment.
However,
we finally managed to come together and record Episode #4, which is all about
the subject of self-esteem and self-worth.
Have a listen just by clicking
it! Hey, it's only a little more than
thirty minutes in length. In the
average human lifespan, that's peanuts!
Okay,
so now that the video is posted, I certainly hope that you enjoyed it...because
I'm not quite done yet with discussing this subject. When you only have a thirty minute window to talk about a
particular subject, it's only natural that there are some things that are
either left on the cutting room floor, or that you don't even get a chance to
say everything that is going through your mind at that moment.
So, I suppose that this blog entry is a complete addendum to the MOTIVE2CHANGE
episode about
self-worth.
And
the reason why I want to go into more detail over this subject is because I want
to share with all of you the very reasons why I believe that I have struggled
with this concept my whole life.
Basically,
I want to explain to all of you why I find it hard to see myself through the
rose-coloured goggles of positivity and happiness. Why some people in my life I compare to the Dementors in Harry
Potter. And, in trying to discover the
truth, I end up discovering some home truths about myself that aren't quite so
pleasant.
I
suppose that I'll start with the home truths section of the blog. The truth of the matter is that I haven't
exactly had the greatest love for myself during the entire span of my
life. And because of the fact that I've
had extreme self-esteem issues, it explains why I am still single, why I have
had difficulty keeping friendships going, and why I have been stuck in a rut
for some time when it comes to personal growth and development. And I'll definitely own up to that. I know that there are instances in which I
am my own worst enemy at times, and it's been a real challenge to try and keep
my eye on the prize when there are times in which you doubt yourself even
deserving the prize in the first place.
And yes, there are moments in which I have felt THAT bad!
The
good news is that those moments are few and far between, but the bottom line is
that I have had some bad experiences that have really made me doubt myself, and
I have had instances in which people I thought that I could trust ended up
betraying me, and I have had authority figures who were supposed to set a good
example be anything but. And, it's
unfortunate that I have had such poor examples of people pass through my life,
trying to suck all of the fun and happiness that I had as a child.
(Now you see where the Dementor reference comes from.)
Growing up, I think I kind of always knew that I wasn't like the other
kids. I had my own distinct
personality, I liked doing activities that other kids didn't, and I studied
things that other kids had literally no interest in.
Case
in point - I once checked out every single book about clocks in the library
when I was four. I still find clocks to
be fascinating things today. And,
there's nothing wrong with that.
But
you know something? My likes, dislikes,
hobbies, and interests were NEVER a problem before I entered school. They may have seemed a little eccentric to
people who came to visit, but they only visited. They never got to see me for who I really was.
That
seemed to be a recurring theme for me.
By the time I entered school, I had all sorts of people who came into my life
and who thought that they would interject by showing me the "right
way" to be. And, they came at me
under the guise of being a caring person who really did have my best interests
at heart.
But
let's be realistic. They only cared
about moving themselves up the education ladder, or making an example out of
me, or singling me out from the other kids because they deemed me
"different".
As
far as I was concerned, there was nothing wrong with the way I held my pencil,
or the way I walked down the hall.
Unfortunately, I had a teacher who was somehow bothered by the fact that
I was imperfect in both. I honestly
don't know whether she did it just to be nasty, or whether she was told to act
that way by the school board, or whether she simply wanted to have the
reputation that all of her students were "practically perfect in every
way", but regardless of which, she inflicted a lot of emotional abuse on
me.
Worse, she taught the other kids in my class - the ones she DIDN'T single out -
that it was perfectly fine to pick on kids who were different from them because
she singled me out for being different all the time. She made sure I was the last one to get a writing notebook even
though my handwriting was clearer than some of the other kids in the class (I
think she was punishing me for not holding the pencil the "proper"
way). She denied me the right to sell
fundraising materials even though she had extra copies of the booklets to hand
out. She even made fun of my walking
style and made it a song and dance production to make the other kids know that
I had a walking impediment.
My
only regret was that I didn't go to the school board myself and report her so
that she couldn't abuse any other children the way she abused me. Of course, I was only seven, and what school
board trustee EVER listens to a seven year old?
But you know, once I had her as a teacher, I couldn't help but feel that ALL
teachers were just like her. Many of
them weren't, of course. And none of
them EVER matched the level of cruelty that she exhibited day after day. But because she betrayed my trust and hurt
me in ways that many people don't understand, I saw all teachers as being
untrustworthy. And I think that's why
the bullying that I endured in school grew to become out-of-control. Because I didn't know who I could trust.
Mind
you, it wasn't just the teachers who I didn't trust. So often I formed friendships with kids and they ended up turning
on me for what appeared to be no reason.
I still remember one friendship that I had with a boy. For three years, we were really close
friends, and I remember that I even made it a point to invite him to my ninth
birthday party at the movie theatre where we saw a screening of "Teenage
Mutant Ninja Turtles". That's why I
found it so bizarre when just a couple of years later, he became friends with
three other boys who didn't like me very much, and he became my worst
enemy. And when I say worst enemy, I
mean it. He would call me all sorts of
names, chase after me with balloons stuffed in his backpack (remember, I can't
stand the sound of balloons popping), and he just caused me a whole lot of
emotional stress. Worse, he was the
type of kid who would instigate things in class so that I would react on
purpose (admittedly I didn't handle being bullied very well when I was
younger), and soon afterwards, the rest of the class joined him in taunting me.
I suppose in some ways, I could expect something like that to happen. After all, nobody wants to be the odd person
out. But, I'll tell you...one of the
reasons why I was doubting going to my eighth grade reunion is because of the
fact that I might end up coming face to face with this jerk and he might stir
up all sorts of trouble for me once again.
I know the odds of that happening are slim to nil, but still...there's
always that chance. And honestly, I
don't know if I'm prepared to handle it.
But
then again, I sort of just got used to the fact that whenever I made friends,
they would somehow find a way to turn against me. And, yes, this person who went from best friend to worst enemy in
just a couple of years was a huge factor behind it. Because that friendship ended on an ugly note, I went through
life believing that all friendships would end up that way. And, certainly this has been the case with
some people who have come across my path - after all, the kid who torched my
locker and the kid who sent me poison e-mails were also considered
"friends" at one time. But
because I had such horrible examples of friendship shown to me, whenever any
friendships that I had dissolved, I always took responsibility for it being my
fault for not being good enough for them - not even entertaining the
possibility that maybe they weren't good enough for me, because I always told
myself that possibility was not possible.
You
see how sometimes I can see myself as my own worst enemy?
Even at my workplace sometimes, I still have self-doubts, and I feel as though
I am either not doing enough, or doing too much. I volunteer for several things around the store, but yet some
people still won't have anything to do with me (though, I'm starting to see
that it's more THEIR loss, and not mine).
Whenever I get an irate customer, more often than not, they have the
attitude to begin with. But sometimes I
find myself wondering if anything I did caused them to get angry even
more.
And,
I shouldn't be like that. But then
again, I haven't always had the healthiest self-worth.
Truth
be told, there are times in which my self-worth has plummeted down to such
dismal levels that I worry it'll flatline on the operating table.
I
know that I'm the only one who can change it.
I just sometimes feel that I lack the resources necessary to make those
changes.
Or,
maybe it's because as good of a judge of character I am with people, I still
make mistakes and put my trust in the wrong ones.
Or, maybe it's because I spent the better part of a decade locked away from the
world because I couldn't bear being hurt again.
Most times, I can find a way to get out of bed, face the day, and put on a
happy face showing that all is good. I
just wish that I didn't have to work so hard on putting on a happy face. I just wish that I could just do it.
I'm
tired of making excuses for who I am, and I am sick of having people come into
my life to try and change me, or betray me, or treat me as if I'm
invisible. I may be eccentric, but I am
still capable of showing real, raw, human emotion.
I
just think that I need to stop listening to negative people...and get myself
away from negative situations.
Are there any islands out there that are worth ten bucks?
It's
another exciting trip back through time as we take a look back on what happened
throughout history on the second-last day of April. And, I'll say this. While
I am sort of sad to see April fade away for another year, I'm really excited
about the prospects that May has to offer for this blog. It is the third anniversary, and I have got
some really big announcements coming up over the next few weeks, so I hope
you're excited to see some changes happening as we approach the
three-year-mark.
Of course, before we get to May, we have to finish off April. Have a look at some of the major happenings
that took place on April 29...
1429 - Joan of Arc arrives to relieve the "Siege of
Orleans"
1770- Explorer James Cook arrives at and names the area
known as Botany Bay, Australia
1781- The Battle of Fort Royal takes place off the coast
of Martinique during the American Revolutionary War
1861 - During the Civil War, Maryland's House of
Delegates votes not to secede from the Union
1882 - The "Elektromote" is tested in Berlin,
the precursor for the modern-day trolley
1917- Actress Celeste Holm (d. 2012) is born in New York
City
1931 - Scottish-British singer/guitarist Lonnie Donegan
(d. 2002) is born in Glasgow, Scotland
1945 - The day before they commit suicide, Adolf Hitler
marries his longtime partner Eva Braun in a German bunker at the tail end of
World War II
1951- Racing legend Dale Earnhardt (d. 2001) is born in
Kannapolis, North Carolina
1953 - The very first experimental 3D television
broadcast takes place in the United States, showing an episode of "Space
Patrol" on Los Angeles television station KECA-TV
1967 - Muhammad Ali is stripped of his boxing title
following his refusal to enroll in the United States Army due to religious
reasons
1968 - The controversial musical "Hair" opens
on Broadway
1974- During the Watergate Scandal, President Nixon
announces the release of edited transcripts of White House tape recordings
related to the scandal
1980 - Director/producer Alfred Hitchcock passes away at
the age of 80
1986- A devastating fire at the Los Angeles Public
Library destroys or damages 400,000 books
1999 - The Avala TV Tower outside of Belgrade is
destroyed during the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia
2004- The final Oldsmobile rolls off the production line
after 107 years in business
2005 - William J. Bell, the creator of soap operas
"The Young and the Restless" and "The Bold and the
Beautiful" dies at the age of 78
2011 - The wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton
takes place
And,
here are the celebrity birthdays for April 29; April Ashley, Richard
Kline, Tommy James, Joey Levine, Anita
Dobson, Jerry Seinfeld, Kate Mulgrew, Daniel
Day-Lewis, Mark Kendall, Michelle Pfeiffer, Eve
Plumb, Curtis Joseph, Master P, Carnie
Wilson, Jack Mackenroth, Andre Agassi, Uma
Thurman, David Sullivan, Sam Jones III, Jo
O'Meara, Renee
Alway, and
Jonathan Toews.
So,
what date will we be going back in time to this time around? Well, for most of us, it may seem like
another typical day. But for those of you
who lived in the greater Los Angeles area, it was the beginning of 72 hours of
pure hell.
Perhaps the actual date will jog your memory.
April 29, 1992.
That
date was a very scary day for people in Los Angeles. A state of utter and total confusion was in place over the
following three days following the conclusion of a very controversial trial,
and by the end of it all, several areas of the city were left in ruins,
fifty-three people were killed, a further two thousand were injured, and at
least eleven thousand people were charged with a criminal offence that day.
But
what trial could have caused people to create so much chaos and destruction to
their own city?How could a major
metropolis lose control so quickly?
Well, to answer that question, I think we have to start at the beginning.
It all began a little over a year earlier in March 1991. On March 3 of that year, then 25-year-old
Rodney King was driving west on I-210 with two passengers through the Lake View
Terrace neighbourhood of Los Angeles when the California Highway Patrol tried
to initiate a traffic stop. At some
point, the scene escalated into a high-speed police chase that spanned through
Los Angeles freeways and residential neighbourhoods before coming to a
stop. King and the other two occupants
were ordered under arrest on the spot - likely due to charges of reckless
driving. And if that's where it all
ended, it would have been seen as nothing harmless.
But then here's where things get extremely dicey.
At some point after the car King was driving was pulled to a stop, the two
passengers were taken out of the car and placed in nearby patrol cars as five
LAPD officers (all of Caucasian origin) arrived on the scene to subdue
King.
The
actual policy at that time for the LAPD (I'm not sure if it's been changed
since 1991, so that's why I state 'at that time') was that if a suspected
criminal was resisting arrest (as King was reportedly doing at that time), the
procedure was to tackle a suspect and cuff them, only using force if the officer
themselves felt that they were in physical danger.
For
whatever reason, the five officers opted to go by a different procedure against
the African-American Rodney King. They
tasered him, kicked him in the head, used their batons to beat King repeatedly
for sixty seconds and then tackled and cuffed him. The officers stated that they felt it was necessary since they
claimed that King was under the influence of PCP at the time of his arrest and
he was very aggressive and violent towards them.
At some point after the arrest was made, the video tape that detailed the whole
incident was broadcast all over the media.
And, you can just imagine how frightened I was as a nine-year-old at the
time, watching these people kicking and beating this man. I was too young to understand the situation,
and I remember having a LOT of questions over it and wondering what Rodney King
did to deserve such horrific treatment.
Again, this was the nine-year-old me talking here, but even at nearly
33, I still question whether the decisions that were made that night (by both
King and the police officers) were the right ones. It was certainly a messy situation for sure.
To make the situation even more complicated, King was subjected to a drug test
which showed that he had tested NEGATIVE for PCP. And it later came out that the reason why King ignored the
traffic stop was because he had been released on parole due to a prior robbery
conviction, and he was concerned that had he been arrested for a DUI, it would
violate his parole terms and he would go back to prison.
The
end result (after the media reported on the case for what seemed like forever)
was that four of the officers - including one sergeant - were charged with
assault and use of excessive force.
There was a growing group of activists who claimed that the attack on
Rodney King was racially motivated, and tensions began to fester as the trial
grew closer and closer to beginning.
The
trial began in early 1992, and just to give a little bit of background in the
trial, here's the statistics.
Of the twelve jurors serving on the case, nine were white, one black, one
Asian, and one Latino. The prosecutor
of the case was black. And because of
the media coverage that the case generated, the trial was moved outside of Los
Angeles to Simi Valley.
It
wasn't until the seventh day of jury deliberations that the jury ushered in
their verdict. The date? April 29, 1992. And the verdict was heavily influenced by a small snippit of film
that was shown in the courtroom (but not on media broadcasts) which showed King
lunging towards one of the officers before being subjected to the beating that
would leave him severely injured. That
was enough for the jury to acquit all four officers of assault. Not only that, but three of the four
officers were also acquitted of the charge of using excessive force while the
jury couldn't agree on a verdict for the fourth.
That
decision set off the spark that ignited the dynamite inside of the city of Los
Angeles.
Half
an hour after the announcement of the acquittals was made at 3:15pm the
afternoon of April 29, a group of 300 people appeared outside of the Los
Angeles County Courthouse immediately protesting the verdict, and just a couple
of hours later, the crowd had grown to such a high number that the LAPD
dispatched two dozen officers to confront a growing protest in South Central
Los Angeles near the intersection of Florence and Normandie Streets.The crowd, however, outnumbered the
officers, and the police were forced to flee.Soon after, reports of looting, carjackings, and beatings were coming
out of the area, hence setting the stage for the infamous Los Angeles Riots of
1992.
For those of you born after 1992, here's some video footage of the riots as
they happened back in April and May 1992.
Some of the videos may be disturbing to watch, so definitely initiate
parental guidance if needed.
The stories coming out of the Los Angeles Riots of 1992 were barbaric. A white truck driver, Reginald Denny, found
himself in the wrong place at the wrong time, as he was physically dragged out
of his truck at the intersection of Normandie and Florence and badly beaten by
a mob of local black residents. The
whole incident was caught on tape by a television news helicopter. Another beating occurred that same day by
the same people who nearly killed Denny when Guatemalan-born Fidel Lopez was
attacked and robbed and left for dead.
Over
the next two days, racial wars were taken to the streets, and most of the
violence in the city was confined to South Central Los Angeles - the area of
town with the most visible minorities at the time. Businesses owned by Asian and Latino born Americans were looted
and burned to the ground. People began
beating each other up on the streets. A
strict curfew was placed over the entire city for several days. Even President George Bush went on the air
to plead with people to stop the violence and the anarchy. Schools and businesses were closed until the
following Monday. It wouldn't be until
the ninth of May before federal troops left the Los Angeles area, and some
soldiers were stationed in the city until the end of May - a full month after
the riots took place!
The riots had made such an impact on the world that they were referred to in
the world of pop culture. "Beverly
Hills 90210" featured a storyline in which the kids of West Beverly
considered canceling a planned integrated dance with an inner-city Los Angeles
school around the time of the L.A. riots.
"L.A. Law" actually featured a storyline that was set during
the riots in which one of the main characters became a victim of the violence
and his struggles to overcome the injuries, both physical and mental. And even Bill Cosby took to the airwaves to
persuade people to stop the violence to watch the series finale of "The
Cosby Show", which aired smack dab in the middle of the Los Angeles riots.
So,
what was the aftermath of the Los Angeles Riots of 1992? Well, there was a lot of pressure from the
public for a retrial of the officers who were involved in the King beating, and
new federal charges of civil rights were brought against the officers. In April 1993 - almost one year to the day
that the riots began, two of the officers were found guilty. Those two officers - Sgt. Stacey Koon and
Officer Laurence Powell - were sentenced to thirty months behind bars. All four officers were either terminated
from the LAPD or left the force of their own accord. Another officer who was at the scene, Susan Clemmer, later took
her own life in 2009.
Rodney
King was awarded $3.8 million in damages from the attack, and he used the money
to found his own record label, "Straight Alta-Pazz Records".But the record company soon folded, and King
ended up getting arrested a grand total of eleven times for charges ranging from
hit-and-run to domestic violence.In
his later years, King attempted to rebuild his life by leaving Los Angeles and
settling in Rialto, California, even seeking treatment in rehab (most famously
appearing as a patient on Dr. Drew's Celebrity Rehab), but sadly, King was
found dead in a swimming pool on June 17, 2012 at the age of 47.
As
for victim Reginald Denny, the truck driver who was brutally attacked the day
the Los Angeles riots started?He
sustained a massive seizure as a result of the injuries he sustained, and he
had to endure years of rehabilitative treatment to learn how to walk
again.His speech remains permanently
damaged.The men who were responsible
for his attack were all charged - the worst of the bunch, Damian
"Football" Williams - served four years of a ten year sentence issued
to him in 1993.He is currently serving
a 46-year-sentence in a state prison for an unrelated charge.
Yes, April 29, 1992 was an extremely dark day in
the city of Los Angeles. The buildings
destroyed were rebuilt, the physical injuries healed as best they could, and
people soon went back to living their lives as best they could.
The question is...did anybody learn anything from it all?
I'm
going to just come right out with a huge confession.
I
can't dance to save my life.
Seriously. I have two left feet when it
comes to mastering dance moves. Trust
me when I tell you that when I am coerced on a dance floor that I am no Michael
Jackson. Hell, I'm not even Michael
Bolton. But then again, he's more of a
singer than a dancer, and I can't even do that.
Maybe it's a good thing that all my musical training involved a rusty baritone.
Anyway,
I suppose that if I were to have a couple of beers or a cocktail that is spiked
with liberal amounts of vodka, I suppose it would give me enough liquid courage
to get out on the floor and pretend that I'm at the hottest discotheque in the
world.
Which in itself is a bad thing since discotheques went out with roller disco
nights.
Anyway,
back to my little opening statement before we move ahead with this week's
Monday Matinee.
Because my dancing abilities were not that great, I tended to avoid all things
that had to do with dancing. I never
enrolled in any dance classes because I didn't think I had the rhythm to keep
up with the rest of the pupils. At the
rare wedding ceremony I attended, I avoided the dance floor the way that
someone with peanut allergies avoided a Peanut Buster Parfait from Dairy Queen. And, don't even get me started on school
dances. After being laughed off the
floor by some of the kids at a ninth grade dance, I never attended another one. But, I look back on it as being my fault for
lacking the strength to stand up to all of them.
And even so, it still wouldn't have made me a better dancer.
I
mean, let's face it. There are just
some things out there in the world that people will never excel at. My Achilles heel happens to be dancing. It's not that I didn't try to learn how to
dance when I was younger...I just couldn't seem to grasp it. And that's okay, because I make a much
better writer than I do a choreographer any day of the week.
But
one thing that I will say is that while I admit to being a terrible dancer, at
least I had several resources available to attempt to improve my dancing skills
- or lack thereof - available to me.
Could you imaging living in a place in which there were no such outlets
to learn how to dance?
Even worse...could you imagine a place in which dancing is absolutely
forbidden? No school dances. No ballet recitals. No cheerleading routines. Not even rock music blaring out of CD
players, iPods, and mp3 players!
Wouldn't you consider a place like that to be one of the most depressing
places in all the world?
Why, you'd just have to ask any teenager who lived in the Midwestern town of
Bomont circa 1984 what that would be like.
They'd probably tell you that it was absolute torture. And, yet, that's exactly what it was like in
the fictional community...
...well,
that is until a fleet-footed hellraiser from Chicago dropped in and decided to
bring the funk back to Bomont.
This
is the story of how that one teen flipped things upside down in Bomont, and
made sure that the entire population would get a chance to get up on the dance
floor to cut loose, footloose.
So,
kick off your Sunday shoes because everybody's losing their blues to cut
"Footloose"!
Don't worry. We're going to be
reviewing the original version released in February 1984 - not the lame remake
some two and a half decades later.
After all, this is the film that made Kevin Bacon a star.
Come to think of it, a lot of people got their big breaks in this movie. It was Sarah Jessica Parker's first major
role in a motion picture, and was one of several huge films that the late
Christopher Penn starred in. The film
also starred Lori Singer, John Lithgow, Dianne Wiest, and Francis Lee
McCain.
Now,
most of you already know what the major plot of "Footloose" is.Kevin Bacon plays the role of Ren, a big
city teen who moves to Bomont with his family, and is stunned to discover that
the town he now calls home has absolutely no fun whatsoever.It appears as though every social event
revolves around the town's only church, which is headed up by the extremely
conservative Reverend Shaw Moore (Lithgow).And just how conservative is Reverend Moore?Well, he's the one you can thank for eliminating dancing from the
town of Bomont!A few years prior to
Ren's family arriving in Bomont, there was a terrible tragedy which saw the
lives of several teenagers come to an abrupt end after a dance was held, and
the Reverend decided that in order to protect the rest of the children from
experiencing a similar fate that he would remove the temptation completely.
Sounds
like something that could only happen in a movie, could it?
Well, allow me to blow your minds.
Because the events of "Footloose" were based off of a real
life community that had banned dancing for almost an entire CENTURY! No kidding!
That community was Elmore City, Oklahoma, a village with a population of less
than a thousand people and whose residents were extremely religious.
And
it is estimated that when the community was first established in the late
1800s, the ban on dancing was first placed.
I was unable to come up with a reason as to why the community would
implement such a ban to begin with, but I can only wager a guess that it had to
do with the religious morals that the townspeople grew up with. Maybe they saw dancing as a gateway activity
to more scandalous activities, and the community felt the need to nip any
sinning in the bud before it even happened.
It
wasn't until 1980 before the ban was finally lifted, after students of that
year's graduating class asked for permission to hold a dance at their
school. If you rent the DVD version of
"Footloose" (or buy a copy of the film for five bucks at many retail
outlets), you can hear stories from the people of Elmore City themselves
talking about how the ban was lifted, and how the 1980 graduating class of
Elmore City High School held their very first prom. It's a very interesting feature for sure.
So,
right off the bat, you can pretty much guess the ending (one of the very few
Monday Matinees in which I had really no choice but to). But I'm purposely leaving out a few details
about how we get there, because the story behind how we get to the end is
probably more interesting anyway.
For instance, Ren's friend, Willard (Penn) is apprehensive about having a dance
in the first place...not because he sides with the Reverend...but because he
has a secret shame that he doesn't want anyone to know. With help from Ren, will Willard gain the
strength necessary to fight ahead?
There's
the pretty young woman named Ariel (Singer), who immediately warms the cockles
of young Ren's heart - but Ariel's family background is extremely
complicated.What happens when Ren
discovers that his antagonist is closely linked to the woman he loves?And, for that matter, why is the main
antagonist of the film so anti-dancing?It wouldn't have to do with a personal tragedy, would it?
And,
what about Rusty (Parker)?What sort of
role does she have to play?Well, I
don't want to go into too much detail, but she finds herself at the center of a
conflict which quickly erupts into a bar fight.
And, hey, with a successful soundtrack that included hits such as this one...
...and
this one...
...and
who could forget this one?
Why,
the movie quickly became a smorgasbord of everything that was cool about the
1980s! Sure, it wasn't a critical
darling, but when you consider it was released the same year as "Indiana
Jones and the Temple of Doom", "Ghostbusters", "Beverly
Hills Cop", "Gremlins", and "The Karate Kid", I'd say
it held its own.
So, that's all I have to say about "Footloose" the movie. But I'm sure you want to know some secrets
behind the filming of "Footloose".
Believe me, there are quite a few to share!
For
instance...
1 - Tom Cruise was an early favourite to play the role of Ren in
"Footloose" after producers noted that he really could dance during
his tighty-whitey jivin' on "Risky Business". Alas, it was not meant to be, as he had
already committed himself to "All The Right Moves".
2 -
Rob Lowe was also considered an early favourite for Ren, and had he not gotten
injured, he probably would have had the part handed to him.
3 - The list of actresses who were considered for Ariel is extensive. Heather Locklear, Julia Louis-Dreyfus,
Elizabeth McGovern, Daryl Hannah, Lori Loughlin, Tatum O'Neal, Bridget Fonda,
Jamie Lee Curtis, Rosanna Arquette, and Brooke Shields were all contenders at
one point! Of that list, I could see
Lori Loughlin and Brooke Shields doing just as well as Lori Singer did playing
Ariel, but that's just my opinion, of course.
4 - Madonna actually auditioned for the role of Ariel. That would have been...interesting. Especially given that her future
brother-in-law was in the film as well!
5 -
The majority of the film was shot in Utah.
6 -
Kevin Bacon remarked that he had four stunt doubles in the film - one for
dancing, one for stunts, and two for the gymnastic scenes.
7 -
Prior to joining the cast of "Footloose", Christopher Penn really
didn't know how to dance at all. I
wonder if that influenced a particular scene with Deniece Williams playing in
the background...hmmmm...
8 -
Believe it or not, to get the authenticity of playing a high school student,
Kevin Bacon (with the principal's knowledge) managed to slip into the high
school classes as a transfer student named "Ren McCormack". At the time of filming, Kevin Bacon was 24!
9 - Look closely at the opening sequence.
All the different pairs of shoes featured belonged to the cast and crew
of the film. And speaking of which...
10 - ...look at the pair of feet wearing gold shoes. Those belong to Mr. "Footloose" himself, Kenny Loggins!
11
- In an interview that he did with Howard Stern, Kevin Bacon admitted to paying
off DJ's at parties NOT to play "Footloose"!
12
- Dianne Wiest plays the role of Ariel's mother. In reality, there is only a nine year age difference between
Wiest and Lori Singer!
13 - Kevin Bacon was so nervous about filming the scene at the City Council
that he actually broke out in hives!
14
- John Lithgow did double duty while filming "Footloose". He was simultaneously working on "Terms
of Endearment" at the time.
15 - Kevin Bacon's hairstyle in the film was
styled after Sting's.
I'm
going to do something very different for this Sunday Jukebox entry. I know I say this phrase quite often in this
blog, but I do believe that this time around, this will be something very
different.
After
all, how many times have I opened up a blog with a discussion about a
television commercial? Not very often,
if ever. But trust me. The discussion about the commercial will
lead to the discussion of the background music playing in the commercial, which
flows into a chat about the song itself, and so on and so forth.
Now,
I'm sure most of you have drank at least one Pepsi in your lifetimes. I know I certainly have drank my fair share
of them. Well, over the years, Pepsi
has been known for creative some rather creative and expensive advertisements over
the last few years. I seem to recall
Pepsi spending a lot more money on ad campaigns than Coca-Cola did - at least I
remember it being that way when I was a child.
After all, they had "The Pepsi Challenge" all throughout the
1980s!
And,
that's not even mentioning all of the celebrities who have pitched Pepsi
products over the last few years. Ray
Charles was "the right one" to pitch Diet Pepsi. Michael Jackson's commitment to Pepsi was so
great that he actually had some of his hair singed in a pyrotechnics stunt gone
wrong. And, the Spice Girls certainly
brought Pepsi over to "GeneratioNext".
(It's
really scary how much I remember Pepsi commercials.)
But,
how many of you actually remember the one and only commercial that a
self-proclaimed "Material Girl" filmed? Not many of you probably do.
That's because the one and only commercial that featured Madonna as the newest
spokesperson for Pepsi was pulled from the airwaves after just a few
airings.
But
why was it pulled?
Well...to
get into the discussion over why, I think it's best if I show you the offending
commercial. I'll let you try and pick
out what the kiss of death was.
Have you figured it out yet? No? Truth be told, neither could I at
first. To me, it seemed like a typical
Pepsi ad, with a lot of dancing, a lot of warmth, and a lot of product
placement (though given that Madonna's 8th birthday was in 1966, I highly doubt
that Madonna would have even had a VHS tape of the party...just saying, is
all).
And
Pepsi really wanted to sign Madonna as a spokesperson.The commercial was filmed in January 1989,
and Madonna had signed on to do the commercial at a very pivotal time in her
life.She had just turned thirty the
previous summer, she was set to release her fourth studio album in March of
1989, her acting career was fizzling out with the disastrous "Shanghai
Surprise" and "Who's That Girl" (though the latter film spawned
the #1 hit of the same name for Madonna back in '87), and she had just signed
the divorce papers which ended her almost four-year marriage to Sean Penn.
It
was already decided that Madonna's first single for the new album would be the
title track - "Like a Prayer", and while she was filming the video
for the single, she had signed a five million dollar contract with Pepsi, which
would have made Pepsi an official sponsor for Madonna's "Blond Ambition
Tour".The way things would work
was simple.Madonna's commercial would
air in February 1989, featuring the brand new single in the Pepsi
commercial.Then just days later, the
single would be released, providing a cross-promotional opportunity for both
Madonna and Pepsi.
At
least, that's how it was SUPPOSED to go.
True to Pepsi's word, the commercial aired in its entirety during the 31st
Grammy Awards in February 1989. Just a
few days later, on March 2, the commercial debuted on network television during
an airing of "The Cosby Show".
But
by the very next day, a swarm of controversy erupted upon Madonna releasing the
official video for "Like a Prayer", and that controversy caused Pepsi
to withdraw their association with Madonna for good, and caused Madonna to
become the target of extreme scrutiny, even getting banned from the country of
Italy as a result!
Really! So, I guess this leads to the
question...was the "Like a Prayer" video really that controversial?
Well, you tell me. Here's the video
below, a #1 hit for Madonna this week twenty-five years ago!
ARTIST: Madonna SONG: Like a Prayer ALBUM: Like a Prayer DATE RELEASED: March 3, 1989 PEAK POSITION ON THE BILLBOARD CHARTS:
#1 for 3 weeks
Okay,
you can pick your jaws up off the floor now.
This scandal is old news now.
But it's still an interesting story to tell.
The video was a masterpiece in itself.
It was directed by Mary Lambert, whose other major project that year was
directing the film adaptation of Stephen King's "Pet Semetary". While
the then seven-year-old me completely missed the storyline the first time I saw
this video, the adult version of me totally gets it. To be honest with you, I'm definitely not a very religious
person, and I certainly can't even remember the last time I set foot inside of
a church. But while I never did find
the video to be personally offensive, I certainly can see how some might have
felt that way at the time.
Why, this video seemed to have practically every single taboo squished into a
nearly six minute single! It had
murder, it had racial tensions, it had divine intervention, it had burning
crosses...it was a definite departure from the cutesy-pie 50's inspired Madonna
we grew to love during the "True Blue" era of 1986-87.
Okay,
so let's set up the story. In this
video, a newly brunette Madonna (brown IS Madonna's natural colour, in case you
weren't aware), is running down a pathway towards a church, stumbling along the
way. Turns out that she had witnessed a
brutal crime. A young woman was stabbed
by two Caucasian men and unfortunately Madonna was unable to intervene due to
fear. However, she did see a young
black man running to the woman's aid as the perpetrators fled, and as a result,
the man was arrested wrongfully by police.
Cue
the burning crosses. Well, okay, not
quite yet. We're coming to that part.
(Actually,
if Madonna had her way, the video's original concept would have featured an
interracial love affair between a black man and a white woman, with both of
them being shot by members of the Ku Klux Klan!)
Deeply
wracked with guilt and pain over the whole situation, Madonna walks inside of
the church and spots a statue of a caged saint who bears a striking resemblance
to the murder suspect arrested in the video.
TRIVIA: The wrongly accused man/statue
was played by actor Leon Robinson.
Madonna
prays in front of the statue, and it is here where we see our first image of
religion...the image of the statue shedding real tears.
From this point on, the middle of the video is one gigantic dream that Madonna
has after passing out in the middle of a church pew. We see her falling through the sky and clouds into the arms of a
woman who reassures her and gives her a warm smile before pushing Madonna up
into the air where she finds herself back in the church in the presence of the
young black man who Madonna witnessed going to jail while she was
conscious. He kisses Madonna on the
forehead, walks out of the church, and Madonna proceeds to stab herself with a
convenient knife.
Well, okay, not really. She just cuts
her hands in what becomes the second religious symbol of the video. Just before Madonna can rummage through the
church's medicine chest for some gauze, she proclaims that the choir is ready
to sing...and sing they shall!
TRIVIA: The choir singing back-up
vocals in the video is the Los Angeles Church of God choir, lead by Andrae
Crouch.
Now,
this is where the video begins to get really deeply mired in controversy.As the video showcases Madonna dancing along
with the choir (where one of the singers strangely resembles the woman who
caught Madonna in the clouds), it cuts back and forth to Madonna also dancing
in front of several burning crosses - which symbolizes the obvious frustration
and anger that Madonna feels about the sheer injustice of a black man going to
prison for a crime that he did not commit.Of course, Madonna witnessed the whole thing and initially said nothing
about it.So, maybe this was one video
in which Madonna experienced both the beauty and peace of Heaven, and the dark,
dangerous place known as Hell.It makes
sense, when you think about it.When
Madonna first witnessed the attack, she said nothing about who really did the
deed, and I suppose that could be considered a sin.But the minute Madonna prayed for God to forgive her, she
ascended up to heaven.It's absolutely
brilliant when you stop and think about it that way.And, again, keep in mind that I am NOT a religious person either.
Oh,
and we also see brief flashes of other religious symbols...including one image
in which a portrait or statue actually sheds tears of blood.
At
the end of the video, Madonna wakes up, realizes that in order to truly be
forgiven for her sins, she must go to the police station to clear the man's
name. She does, the man is released
from custody...and at the end of the video, it's all revealed that the whole
video appeared to be just a high school production complete with a red curtain
and a "THE END" graphic added onto the screen.
Now,
on one hand, the song was absolutely praised.
Critics loved it, calling "Like a Prayer" one of Madonna's
best songs, if not the best. Fans
seemed to love it too, as the song hit the #1 spot in April 1989, and spawned
the eventual sale of fifteen million copies of the "Like a Prayer"
album.
On
the other hand, the controversial imagery found in the video angered a lot of
people. Never mind the fact that
Madonna lost her endorsement deal with Pepsi. Religious groups protested and boycotted Madonna over the fact
that they claimed she was committing blasphemy by displaying such sensitive
religious imagery in the video. Pope
John Paul II was so offended by the Madonna video that he actively took on the
cause to have Madonna barred from both Italy and The Vatican! Television stations were even ordered not to
play "Like a Prayer" on Italian airwaves at all because of the
controversy!
But
here's the irony of it all. Pepsi
pulled the commercial in almost no time at all (even though the company still
considered airing it before protests from consumers forced them to do an about
face). That same year, Madonna's
"Like a Prayer" was nominated for two awards at the 1989 MTV Video
Music Awards - ironically enough sponsored by Pepsi! And when Madonna won the Viewer's Choice award, she actually
thanked Pepsi in her acceptance speech for causing so much controversy!
And here's another reason why Madonna ended up getting the last laugh. You know that five million dollar contract
that she signed with Pepsi? Well, Pepsi
was so desperate to distance themselves from her that they let her keep the
money that they paid for her endorsement - even though the commercial only
aired a few times! And she used that
money to fund her Blond Ambition Tour as well as filmed this video that was
released after "Like a Prayer".
ARTIST: Madonna SONG: Express Yourself ALBUM: Like a Prayer DATE RELEASED: May 9, 1989 PEAK POSITION ON THE BILLBOARD CHARTS:
#2
Yes.
It's a double shot of Madonna.
If you're a Madonna fan, you're welcome. If not...well, I hope you enjoyed the story of "Like a
Prayer" at least!