Life, Above All

By chance, or synchronicity, my friend in Memphis and I discovered (on the phone) we were going to watch the same movie last night, the 2010 South African film Life, Above All. Our reviews this morning (via email) were similarly in tune: we loved it.

Set in a township outside of Johannesburg, it reads as an indictment of South African President Thabo Mbeki and his administration (1999-2008) for failing to address the HIV/AIDS epidemic in his country, denying its existence, rejecting treatment for the infected. Hundreds of thousands died every year, were shunned and exiled to remote areas to die. To this day, South Africa has the largest number of people with the disease, nearly 6 million. One in three women ages.25-29 is infected. There are 2 million AIDS orphans.

There is not a mention of political evil, however, in the film. Instead, the story focuses intimately on a 12 year old girl, Chanda, as she fights to keep her family together after the death of her baby sister. The death is the first indication of the coming cataclysm. Superstition and fear turn her neighbors against the family.

The friendship that is at the core of this film is one of the loveliest I’ve ever seen. Chanda’s friend Esther has been orphaned by AIDS, is herself shunned, testing their relationship. And Khomotso Manyaka, who plays Chanda and Keaoboka Makanyane, Esther, are fine, fine actors. Get the DVD or download immediately.

Class of 2012: Television

With the announcement today that Melissa Harris-Perry will have her own show on MSNBC starting in February, we have something of a surge in women of color on TV. I don’t know–this seemed to happen all of a sudden, and I ‘m not sure what it means. All our hard work demanding inclusion, finally paying off? I think of those many meetings we had in television executives’ offices, showing them the error of their ways.

Professor Harris-Perry, author (Sister Citizen), once of Princeton, now of Tulane, burst on the punditry scene during the 2008 Presidential election–and has since been a frequent analyst and guest host on many MSNBC programs. She will host a show Saturday and Sunday mornings, newly fertile news ground for the cable outlet, once (and still) dominated by prison reality “docs.”

MSNBC’s move follows the debut of Soledad O’Brien’s new daily morning program on CNN, Starting Point. Actually this was her starting point at CNN, anchoring the morning show. But CNN has been through many the testing of co-hosts since, turning  once again to O’Brien. In her exile she proved herself a war worthy correspondent, delivering a series of powerful (and highly visible) documentaries such as Black in America. She also wrote a couple of books (The Next Big Story, Latina in America) and dove into the women’s and people of color communities, building a solid following. The results, this week with shows from the campaigns in Iowa and New Hampshire: a more mature, comfortable O’Brien.

And this coming Monday (January 9th) Gayle King gets a star turn of her own on the CBS Morning Show, sharing hosting duties with Charlie Rose and Erica Hill. I can’t wait to see how the energy changes on that show. Her talker on the OWN network was a favorite of mine–it’s not so easy to carry a show on personality alone (if you’re not Oprah)–but I think she proved there that she can do it.

So the mornings just got a little more interesting–as these three join Ann Curry, newly ensconced as lead news diva on The Today Show, the always  ratings leader–and Robin Roberts over at Good Morning America, always right behind them.

MSNBC has given anchoring/hosting duties to two more women ofcolor on the dayside: Tamron Hall, who runs a very tight ship, and holds her own when she fills in on Today; and Alex Wagner does a midday show that looks and sounds refreshingly youthful…with lots of new faces/voices doing the analysis.

Over at CNN, crack White House correspondent Suzanne Malveaux has taken up the anchor desk with a midday show–and Fredericka Whitfield holds down the whole weekend with aplomb.

This great list is rounded out with Gwen Ifill over at PBS, who hosts her own show, Washington Week and is senior correspondent for the PBS NewsHour, and has proven herself the serious woman’s anchor.

I can’t help thinking about Carole Simpson as I write about this–she was the first Black woman to anchor a major network newscast–and anchored ABC’s Sunday  show for 15 years. She left in 2003. There hasn’t been a full-time woman of color on an evening network show since.

Let’s keep an eye on what this “surge” means, knowing that there are cavernous holes in participation shot throughout media that we need to work on

At the Movies, Part 1

As the film awards season approaches, with some great performances by women actors,   I am trying to get to the movies–and have so far seen Pariah, Iron Lady and Albert Nobbs .

There are four outstanding performances: newcomer Adepero Oduye, who skillfully portrays a young black woman coming out to her family in Pariah; the formidable Meryl Streep, who gives us a remarkable, Oscar-worthy take on Margaret Thatcher;  Glenn Close, actor, producer/screenwriter–and songwriter in the small budget but moving film about a girl in 1800′s Ireland who successfully masks herself as a man (Albert Nobbs) to escape poverty, working as a waiter. And Janet McTeer of that same film is brilliant as another “undercover ” woman.

Well, small budget is a relative matter–$8 million for Close, who nurtured a small story for 30 years (ever since she played the part on Broadway) and tells the story of singing for a group of wealthy possible investors in Dallas–and coming away with a million dollars for her film.

Director Dee Rees, on the other hand, is being celebrated for this debut feature she made for under $500,000–a favorite at Sundance and on the festival circuit, Rees says Pariah is based on her personal story. Director Spike Lee was one of her Executive Producers, and Chicken & Egg Pictures, a funding source for women’s films run by Julie Parker Benello and Judith Helfand supported  the project.Rees has made a moving, sometimes funny, solid film.

Even Streep operated on a tight budget and shooting schedule  for the Thatcher film, a reported $13 million production budget–a little surprising given that the last time Streep and British director Phyllida Lloyd worked together they made a $600 million dollar movie: Mama Mia.

What do I think? I am impressed by the excellent work in Pariah–it’s delivered a new director and new leading actress to the industry.

I think Streep is  extraordinary,magical, deserves the Oscar and all of the other awards for this one (it has been 30 years, you might know, since she last won.) She is brilliant in an otherwise less than brilliant film. Not enough political analysis,a bit too much dementia (although I know that Meryl argues, “this is life.”)

But the best film of this group is Albert Nobbs: richly layered, well written, beautifully performed by the ensemble, with a terrifically moving Close and a  compelling McTeer. I am still thinking about this one.

Let me know what you think.

By the way, I saw both Pariah and Albert Nobbs at the new Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center at Lincoln Center–a pleasantly grown-up place with a nice cafe, wine. Great place to meet up.

Welcome to the Media Year of 2012

I’m linking to a story in the NYTimes today extolling the virtues of quiet. And while the author, Pico Iyer, has set the bar high–moving to Japan for some peace and quiet–I find that his thesis, that we are being drowned  by noise, particularly media noise, rings true this New Year’s.

http://tinyurl.com/77uve8n

My daughter, the writer Elizabeth G.Hines, posted this link to her Facebook page this morning. She has long held on to the notion that it is possible to live a life that includes silence. A writer would. I, of course, spending my life in noisy newsrooms–and noisy everything–always slept with my TV blaring, lest I miss some important kernel of indispensable information.

Until now. One day near the beginning of the holiday season the news was so monstrous–whole families dying, people doing despicable things to children, endless and ridiculous detailing of a ridiculous campaign–I found myself sitting with my hands covering my face. I got up, turned the TV off, and it has stayed that way for a week. Pretty troublesome for someone writing about the media.

As I look at a new media year, I wonder if each of us will reach our limits on information in some way this year. 2012 seems to me the pivotal year for our information (noise) tolerance testing. Especially since much of what comes our way in any form seems, well, empty. O r horrific. Let me not assault the messenger here–maybe it’s just reflective of our societal decline.

I can’t help but think, though, that we can do better than this. We must do better than this. The media gatekeepers must let the smart, compassionate creators into the newsrooms, scriptrooms, in the editors’ chairs online, director’s chairs on the lot. I bet if they do, we’ll find out that they include women and people of color in  droves.

Happy New Year, and let’s work for the best in 2012!

Oprah and Rosie: The OWN Reboot

I watched Monday night, eager to take in the relaunching of the mysteriously beleaguered network Oprah and the Discovery Network have poured so much money, time, and angst into.
The back-to-back shows were something of a time capsule: great to see Rosie telling jokes and seeming sane (very.)
The problem was that, while she had some good jokes, several of her references were to people we barely remember. Anyone under 40 might be clueless.
Then her guest, Russell Brand was funny, but anyone over 40 was clueless: who IS this person?

Rosie’s ratings were higher than Oprah’s, interestingly…perhaps the re-packaged shows are revealing their age?

I’m sure this is much more than Oprah bargained for: the realization that “re-invention” might mean throwing out those thousands of hours of shows…and really re-inventing.Starting over. Thinking new.

What a drag for a woman who has spent a lifetime living the media dream with astonishing success.
In the category of “you’re only as good as your last show…” this is a case of being as good as your “last network.”
As always, Oprah is singular…and I’m definitely rooting for her.

Lessons of Kagando: Post from Uganda

Kasese, Uganda
Monday, August 22, 2011
It is ten o’clock at night. Inside an examining room the X-rays go up on the light box, the patients are queried about their problems, a decision is made about whether they will be operated on tomorrow.
Outside in the hospital courtyard, some 90 men, women and children sit quietly waiting to see the visiting doctors from AMREF. It will be impossible to see all the sick tonight: the two surgeons have been in the operating theater all day,performing six urological surgeries. Six more are scheduled for tomorrow, and with the endless evaluations of the patients who keep on coming, a week of outreach may not enough to treat everyone. Patients have been camped out on the hospital grounds since Sunday anticipating the arrival of these specialists–they will be waiting tomorrow–and beyond, hoping to be seen.
Today we saw babies being born and a child taking perhaps his last shallow breaths, the elderly being treated for deep wounds, patients with leprosy. We are told by Dr. Robert  Oluput, head of the fistula repair program here, that last week he performed 30 operations, including that of a grandmother who had been injured delivering her 8th child–20 years ago.
We have just spent our first day within the compound of Kagando Mission Hospital in Kasese, Uganda, which rests at the base of the Rwenzori mountain range and serves a community of some 400,000 people–800,000 if you count the people who won’t go anywhere else. Kagando currently has five doctors on staff. Another 120 nurses and a support staff of 116 care for more than 70,000 thousand patients a year. That’s an average of 50 patients per day per doctor. With support from the Anglican church, the Ugandan government and US and UK foundations, Kagando, originally a hospital for lepers, now sprawls across an enviable campus with twelve buildings. Add to that its nursing and midwives school, primary school and housing for staff, it’s a true medical center.
This part of Uganda is lush: while the people tend to live in the mountainside, they farm on the flatlands below, growing maize, cassava, coffee, nuts. An impressive resident elephant, meandering in the trees not far from the main road, was our welcoming committee of one. We are just minutes from the Congo border, having flown and driven nearly 700 miles from our headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya.
The “we” includes Dr. Rodney Davis, Professor of Urology at Vanderbilt University and a board member of AMREF USA. He has brought a surgery resident with him, Dr. Ekene Enemchukwu. Dr. John Wachira, AMREF’s coordinator of clincal outreach–who flies to a different hospital on the continent every week–has arranged  for these American doctors to bring their expertise to this rural part of Africa. The mission is twofold: treat the patients and teach the local health staff of doctors, nurses, midwives and community health workers.
AMREF has done this outreach since 1957. It goes to our founding roots as The Flying Doctors: three surgeons including American Dr. Tom Rees, taught themselves how to fly to deliver services in remote parts of Africa. Last year we were in 150 hospitals in Ethiopia, Rwanda, Somalia, Southern Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya, using our aircraft to deliver doctors from teaching hospitals around the world for weeklong assignments.
This time our team in Kasese has an additional mission. AMREF USA board member Christine Grogan is producing a film about our work, and so she has brought cameraman Rick Brandt, Endo Pharmaceuticals executive John Campell, and businessman Mike Desmond to add their expertise. All are AMREF volunteers.
This is the 8th outreach that Dr. Davis has taken in the last three years; Dr. Enemchukwu is the 4th resident he’s brought along at his own expense. His reaction after this first day: adjusting to the sheer numbers of patients. Because the Ugandan government and Kagando Hospital are underwriting this urology visit, the consultations and surgeries are free, unlike other country visits where patients must pay a small amount to their hospitals.  AMREF fully donates its contribution, including the flights.
The doctors here today have had to respond to the absence of  equipment  US hospitals take for granted: for instance, the lack of cauterization tools meant that Dr. Enemchukwu had to manually tie off every vessel; the power in the operating theater went out three times: Dr. Davis’s headband light was the only thing that allowed him to continue to work; even though they saw several children, they are not able to operate on them, because there are no tools small enough.
These are shortcomings of sheer funding needs. Father Benson Baguma, who runs Kangando Hospital, apologized to us in advance  for what we might see on our tour: mothers who have just delivered babies, lined up on the floor along corridors due to overcrowding; the power outtages in an antiquated and collapsing system; equipment that does not work because there are no trained technicians to make repairs.
But what is accomplsihed here at Kagando is admirable: today four mothers delivered by C-section, saving their own lives and those of their babies; women ostracized because of fistula complications are on their way back into their families and communities; men diagnosed with prostate cancer were seen and advised.
For Dr. Enemchukwu this first day, she said, was “overwhelming.” She realized that despite the fact that people had traveled hundreds of kilometers to get here, they would most likely not get to see everyone. “We just have to do the best we can.”
A lesson, at Kagando, that we are all learning.

Blogger$ at BlogHer11

You know you have it made when you can get Indra Nooyi, the Chair and CEO of Pepsi–boss of 300 thousand people in 200 countries toting up 60 billion dollars in revenue–and ranked the #1 most powerful woman executive in the country by Fortune– to pay attention to you.

That’s what I thought when I attended BlogHer11 in San Diego earlier this month. I was there participating in the closing plenary on the future of women in media. My companions on the stage were talk show host and documentarian Ricki Lake, and Fatemeh Fakhraie editor-in-chief of the online media site Muslimawatch. Part of the future, it would seem, is here.

BlogHer.com, for those who may not yet know, is the online hub for 2500  women bloggers, who reach an estimated 25-26 (after a certain point, no need to be all that precise) million women readers per month–and, it became clear at the conference, corporate America has realized they are shoppers, too.

I can’t tell you how long and how insistently those of us toiling in the women’s space have been pointing to the fact that women buy almost everything. Until now, the yelling warranted a condescending pat on the head.

Indra Nooyi has changed all that: her recognition, by sponsoring the conference in a big-time way, meeting privately with a select group of influential bloggers, and then sitting down for an in-depth keynote conversation with Willow Bay of HuffPo–signaled a shift. I don’t know if this is the proverbial tipping point–but it’s certainly a shift: PepsiCo wasn’t the only big name throwing swag at the attendees–100 other sponsors were there, too, including P&G, Ford and Google.

And so were something like 3600 women bloggers, who had flown in from far-flung places, even other countries, to participate in three days of sharing, pumping up skills, and writing…did they ever write! It was healthily diverse, babies were swaddled and seemed to be absorbing the presentations–in other words, a safe place for women who blog.

BlogHer was founded in 2005 by Lisa Stone, Elise Camahort Page and Jory Des Jardins in answer to the question “Where are the women bloggers?” They found a few and now have a staff of 50 people in NYC and Silicon Valley–and have financial backing from Venrock, NBC’s Peacock Equity Fund, and Azure Capital.

With its strength in aggregating, it would seem to have found a similar economic model to the Huffington Post…except BlogHer does have a sharing model as well,  based on individual bloggers’ traffic.

Nooyi was compelling in her talk, insisting that:

” …blogging democratizes the power of women to make peaceful, positive change happen.”

As for PepsiCo’s formal stance on BlogHer: women are the key demographic, and BlogHer is an  integral part of our strategy to have digital both drive our business and advance our corporate reputation,”

All you women out there banging away at your keyboards: take note.

Gloria, the HBO doc

I hope you will tune in to HBO  Monday night (8/15) at 9 for the documentary profile of my friend Gloria Steinem. It’s an extraordinarily instructive film–and even though I was around for a lot of it (as reporter and then friend)  watching the sum-in-celluloid of this remarkable woman was very moving.

In it is the example of how one becomes–and stays–a life-long activist. It’s not so easy: for sure, you will be brought to tears–and here we see the cruelty imposed on Gloria–for being a feminist, for being smart, even for being beautiful. But we also see the arc of involvement, commitment and purely heroic efforts to make lives of women better. No one says it more succinctly, as reported in the film, than astronaut Sally Ride’s mother, when asked what she had to say about her daughter taking off into space: “Thank you, Gloria Steinem.”

While I’d seen a DVD version of Gloria–In Her Own Words, sitting in a theater to watch with Women’s Media Center family and friends one night last week brought to full power her  lifetime’s achievement. I took with me four Black media professionals–a group I meet with regularly to talk about “the business”–two young women, two young men (after all, feminism is for us all.) I think our responsibility now is to make sure a wide audience has  access to this life story: absolutely singular, worthy of emulation.

Speaking of the media, HBO’s Sheila Nevins, the genius behind so much good work at that network, hosted a media luncheon for Gloria this week at La Grenouille: Katie Couric, Ann Curry, Gayle King, Tina Brown, Leslie Stahl, Glamour editor Cindi Leve–along with a sprinkle of  actors–Candace Bergen, Kim Cattrell, Christine Baranski.

The Women’s Media Center is running a campaign to coincide with the HBO screening: after watching the doc, let us know what you think the future of feminism is: http://tinyurl.com/3gfvzce

The Help, Redux

OK, now.  So, The Help opened solidly–$25.5 million over the weekend, $35.4 since Wednesday. Time magazine had perhaps the most unfortunate headline of this news: Apes Fight Off the Help. The prequel to Planet of the Apes just bested –at 27.5m–the film about Black domestic workers in the pre-civil rights South. And it was the South that gave the film its biggest support–places like Memphis, Atlanta, Dallas, and Jackson, Mississippi, the locale of the (allegedly fictional) story.

I posted about this film before the opening (see below Going to the Movies–at The White House) but feel a couple of notes necessary after the volumes of protest from, most notably the Association of Black Women Historians, which issued a formal statement:

…The Help distorts, ignores, and trivializes the experiences of black domestic workers. We are specifically concerned about the representations of black life and the lack of attention given to sexual harassment and civil rights activism.

The Association goes a step more, by giving a reading list to help us put the situation in historical context.(http://www.abwh.org/images/pdf/TheHelp-Statement.pdf)

The controversy surrounding the film makes clear how fundamentally important media is, no matter how small or large. And I’ve begun to believe that The Help is too frail a project to carry the weight of emotions that  have erupted around it.

For one thing, I’m disturbed by some insulting descriptions of domestic workers–by those opposing the film’s portrayals. I would hate to think that in defending Black women, we must disparage the hard working, honorable women who did, and still do (to the tune of 2.5 million mostly women of color) support whole  families, raise children and send them off to college by working as domestics. I suggest that in addition to words, we all send a contribution to Ai Jen Poo’s National Domestic Worker Alliance for its work in New York and California (still pending) and internationally  to establish minimum wages and fair working conditions for domestic workers. (www.domesticworkers.org)

Secondly, let’s take seriously our own roles in film, television, online, publishing by supporting the positive projects and boycotting the negative ones…no matter who makes them. That means showing up on opening night for films and using our social networking tools to bring other folks to the theater. And it means aggregating responses to networks and film studios in a prompt, consistent manner.

The stakes are too high to let the energy unleashed by this one small movie (alright, and one big book) dissipate.

Black Voices and Second Chances

The launch of AOL/HuffPost/Black Voices is underway and what I love most about it is that Christina Norman sits atop the new venture.

It remains to be seen what becomes of this site for African Americans, but the Norman choice as Executive Editor reaffirms the notion of  “second chances” for women media executives, something that has, until recently, been denied us. With the Norman appointment, and former NPR head Vivian Schiller headed into the NBC/Comcast fold in charge of their online efforts, we have achieved some parity in the game of revolving doors in the C-suites. Just another top job in the industry…not banishment if things don’t work out.

As you know, Christina Norman was infamously fired from Oprah Winfrey’s OWN Network. Arianna Huffington, with her unerring sense of PR, said she approached Norman afterwards, asking if she wanted to do something different. Actually, Norman did:

After I was fired from OWN, I knew that I wanted my next chapter to begin in an area that was new for me…Selfishly, I love the chance to step into a new kind of role and unleash my inner blogger. And I’m getting another front row seat — this one as we continue the jerky dance we have with the issues of race, class and equality. 

This, from her first “inner blog,” describing herself as a Black/Puerto Rican from the South Bronx who knows race issues when she sees them. In this introductory statement she mentions her successes as president of MTV, at VH1, and is extremely delicate about the Oprah parting:

In January, I was there for the launch of OWN, the Oprah Winfrey Network, now being steered to its next phase by OW herself and a talented, dedicated and passionate team.

Arianna has partnered in Black Voices with another high-profile Black woman–co-founder of BET and billionaire philanthropist/filmmaker Sheila Johnson. In her blogpost she promises a high-profile and deeply experienced cadre of contributors:

As the editors of the nation’s first black-owned and operated newspaper, Freedom’s Journal, declared on the front page of their inaugural issue, 184 years ago, “We wish to plead our own cause. Too long have others spoken for us.”

And, finally, Rebecca Carroll, the talented author and Managing Editor of the newly-launched site has this insight:

“…it has occurred to me that for the first time in my own history and the years I’ve thought about my racial identity, it’s actually really cool to be black. “

Of course, there is  the complicated and controversial Arianna to be dealt with, the lawsuits from bloggers who were never paid (and didn’t think about it until Arianna cashed in), the competition from the other of-color sites: NBC’s The Griot, WashPo’s The Root, and what we hope will be a more boisterous online presence from Ebony and Essence magazines.

But I have a feeling these three women of color will give it their best. And if it doesn’t work out here, they will certainly find spots elsewhere in the media megaworld. That’s what we call progress.  In the meantime, let’s all be cool.