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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Sept. 18, 2000)
Fall TV season could get ‘real’— real bad HOLLYWOOD — When reality, politics and sports collide: Ouch, what a prime-time mess. A confluence of television trends and issues — the presidential cam paign, the Summer Olympics, cor porate takeovers, reality TV fallout and a looming writers strike — could make the 2000-2001 season one of the most volatile and unpre dictable in history. Even scheduling the start of the season has been subject to more than the usual debate. With NBC carrying the 2000 Olympic Games (Sept. 13 through Oct. 1) and, with it, the potential for huge ratings re wards, its network competitors con vinced Nielsen Media Research to delay the start of the fall season un til Oct. 2. The result? A staggered intro duction of new shows, which is sure to confuse and frustrate an al ready fragmented audience with splintered viewing habits. And it doesn’t end there. According a recent front-page story in the industry trade paper Daily Variety, the considerable buzz created by CBS’s record-set ting “Survivor” and ABC’s “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” have put viewers in a heightened state of awareness about new network fare — about twice as high for CBS and ABC, but with almost every net work benefiting. But what kind of television — on the networks, cable, PBS and syn dication — are viewers in for? And who or what will have the greatest impact? “Survivor"’ mania might be his tory for now (the next million-dol lar challenge in Australia begins in January, following the Super Bowl), but the ripple effect on the industry has been substantial. Despite a full slate of sitcoms and dramas with big names — in cluding Bette Midler, bad boys Charlie Sheen and Robert Downey Jr. joining the casts of established shows such as “Spin City" and “Ally McBeal” and big projects such as the revival of “The Fugi tive” series — reporters at the an nual industry preview meetings stuck almost exclusively to reality, wondering whether so-called real TV would take over television. With talk of a strike by the Writ ers Guild of America in the near fu ture, one network insider says, “If that happens, it’ll be wall-to-wall reality shows.” This time last year, National As sociation for the Advancement of Colored People President Kweisi Mfume lambasted the four major networks, calling their prime-time schedule a “whitewash” that failed miserably to represent people of color. “Change is happening, but it’s not enough," said Mfume in a statement. “Television is showing more people of color on-screen, but most important is off-screen, where very little has changed.” This season, expect to hear from Latinos. A recent report. “Still Missing: Latinos in and Out of Hol lywood.” by the Tomas Rivera Pol icy Institute and sponsored by the Screen Actors Guild, argued that, “Old stereotypes and lack of un derstanding of Hispanic social, economic and cultural diversity are key reasons why Latinos re main one of the most under-repre sented groups in television, movies and other entertainment.” Although ABC has John Good man playing a gay father in a show called “Normal, Ohio.” Showtime, underscoring the perplexing differ ence between broadcast and cable standards, plans to launch an Amer icanized version of British import “Queer as Folk” in December. The series is a provocative and unblink ing drama about a group of gay men and lesbians living in Pittsburgh. Distributed by the Los Angeles Times Washington Post News Service Slug Queen continued from page 2D to love it. I admire anyone who can get through [the program], Q: If you could only choose one Eugene event to attend other than the Eugene Celebration, what would it be? A: It would have to be the Coun try Fair. How could you not go to it? Because of the vaudeville energy that is central there, it is totally amazing. It’s like a circus, really cool! I really like it and definitely don’t get enough of it. It’s only three days, too short, but it’s quite spectacular. It’s like a vor tex of talent. Q: What prompted you to com pete for the S.L.U.G. Queen title? A: I have a group called Accor dion Anonymous and we’re accor dion addicts. We work through the 12 steps of accordion addiction. We were rejected by the Eugene Cele bration to perform. But when “we” — I’m taking the liberty of using the royal we — are in charge, it’s a totally different ball game. Q: What are your plans for the actual Celebration? A: One of our enablers contacted the would-be powers of the Eugene Celebration and suggested that now that there was a queen in the group, we should be playing. But we were rejected again, causing much con troversy among the group. We went into a trance to ponder our next action and decided “we don’t need them,” we can do our own show whenever and wherever we please. I get the float [in the parade] and the accordion players are my court. We’ve marched in the human pow ered parade that happens in Eugene in June and have been in the Eu gene Celebration parade twice. I wanted to do a human powered parade. Because of “our” royal sta tus, we’ve gotten a commitment from Kinetic Sculpture Race out of Corvallis to bring this monster bike down. It takes eight pedalers [pis tons] to power it and it has a plat form that can hold 10 people. I’m excited to use this — we’re having a “floatilla” of human-powered ma chines. I’d like to see the Eugene Celebra tion parade be completely human powered. That would be really cool and less smelly. Q: What importance does the color green have to you? (Accor dionna’s costume, as well as her outfit during the interview, were green.) A: It's the general consensus around Eugene that slugs are green — though I think actually slugs are brown but they love green stuff. And I love everything green. So it’s a wonderful chance to. represent the symbolism of things I love best — nature. And since ‘‘we’re” queen, we are trying to fulfill our duties. This is where we get oxygen from. 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