An excellent final project from a student in my Spring 2012 Folklore Fieldwork course.

tons of brands and different kinds of stuff

"I love to watch you play." This is lovely.

Pretty and sophisticated nursery bedding and stuff

Baby Bedding | Crib Bedding Sets | Custom Baby Bedding. Kind of pricey.

Like Project Wedding, but for babies!

Do not make baby the center of the universe and do not buy into the advice which says you must address your baby directly as much as possible. Such an approach makes for nervous, precociously head-orientated children...Sing to your baby...Do not be afraid of silence. Do not have music on all the time – even peaceful quiet music. Let baby just be - Let her absorb what is happening around her so she can grow and flourish without constant stimulation (including background music). Let there be times of liveliness and music and noise – let there also be times of contented, centered, peaceful silence. Work around the house and yard – sometimes singing, sometimes in absorbed silence. Let your child experience that riches come from within, not only from without. Silence is a gift, not something to be avoided or feared... the key ideas are quiet, peace and not stimulating baby. The idea is to keep baby sleepy and dreamy and to not overstimulate him. Protect his senses and help him grow into a solid and grounded child, not a nervous and fretful child...

They want to empower you. And as a group of entitled white Americans, they know exactly what real power looks like. That’s why they’re giving you the chance to demand that America wage yet another bloody war based on zero knowledge and maximum hysteria whipped up over the wickedness of a single foreign figure. This is what democracy looks like according to Jason Russell: the power to choose on Twitter and Facebook who is to be the next target of America’s moral manhunt, all with the benediction of a panel of biddable celebrities.

great collection of info, writing, and resources from a folklore prof.

The implication is that if you are “too sensitive” then your feelings are invalid because they are extreme and those with feelings deemed extreme have no right to complain. ”Too sensitive” compared to whom, exactly? The term frames people who accept depictions of racism in media as normative, while we who are “too sensitive” are the ones not getting with the program (or getting the “joke.” Even if the “joke” is awful.)

The culture that we live in is designed to label folks who “construe something as racist”—regardless of historical context or modern exclusion— as people who are “too sensitive.” It is less concerned with exploring why people are sensitive to racism.

Playlist of actors (principles) showing off their dressing rooms!

Brown: As a black actor, it’s refreshing that I’m not playing the “sassy black woman.” It’s something that Dan Harmon was cognizant of from the beginning. It is something that I’m always cognizant of. Every woman on the planet has sass and smart-ass qualities in them, but it seems sometimes only black women are defined by it. Shirley is a fully formed woman that had a sassy moment. Her natural set point, if anything, is rage. That’s her natural set point, suppressed rage, which comes out as kindness and trying to keep everything tight.

"Native Americans have long struggled for accurate representation in media, particularly in film. Whether the uncredited performances of the “documentary” Nanook of the North or the familiar racism of traditional Westerns, Indigenous cultures have rarely been given much truthful, let alone positive, attention. However, Native people have been slowly cultivating their own voice in film, and that voice is what Dr. Joanna Hearne has spent her academic career studying." /// also features a great collection of related links and resources

Dear television writers of the world, we care about your characters. Do not mess them up for the sake of storytelling expedience. Do not give incident pride of place over people.

But while there are some interesting interpretations of racial stereotypes (white girls eat chips, black girls eat Cheetos, Asian girls eat Pocky, and I couldn’t quite make out what was on the bag in the Spanish video) and some annoyingly persistent gender stereotypes (CAN NO ONE USE A COMPUTER WITHOUT ASSISTANCE?!?! Oh wait, Spanish girls can.) I’m a bit more interested in the aftermath when people started using the meme for social commentary. While there were definitely people using the meme to advance their racist opinions of certain groups of people say, without the wink-nudge insider cred that the above videos rely on to be funny, the meme started mutating, turning the stereotypes in on themselves

SO COOL! With audio and transcriptions and comments, and historical and contemporary accents and dialects...Brilliant.

A young woman enters the job market and learns from others how to behave in an office. The "do's and don'ts" sequence is one of the more memorable in the Secretarial Film genre.

It’s not just that the people who don’t like Studio 60 are extremely vocal about it; they’re also unusually creative and eloquent in the way they express their dislike for the show. Actually, dislike isn’t fair. People don’t get obsessed with shows they merely dislike (or movies or books, etc). No, the Studio 60 Hate Brigade is obsessed with Studio 60 almost as much as the characters within the universe of Studio 60 are obsessed with Studio 60. That’s saying an awful lot, because nothing has interested anyone, ever, to the extent that Studio 60 interests its characters.

Capturing TV History Through Video Interviews

Writers Bob Carroll and Madelyn Pugh Davis discusses their early years and influences before they teamed up. This is part of a multi-segment oral history interview.

The whole film!

"But more than the dulcet tones of his caramel voice or his razor sharp Tilda Swinton cheekbones, Benedict Cumberbatch has a really funny name. It’s memorable, it’s ridiculous, I can’t get enough of hearing it. Here are some things I would do, if Benedict Cumberbatch was my name:"

"You also should know that Benedict Cumberbatch isn't a man. He's a situation that me and most of my friends are all having."

Storyboard samples and tutorials for film and animation students.

Every DOCTOR WHO story from 1963 to 2012! Allons-y!

Meta: a detailed discussion (and explanations!) of the various implicit and explicit references to John Watson's military service in BBC Sherlock.

With PICTURES and everything!

But how did Moffat and Gatiss solve the most vexing mystery, Sherlock's sex life? "There's no indication in the original stories that he was asexual or gay. He actually says he declines the attention of women because he doesn't want the distraction. What does that tell you about him? Straightforward deduction. He wouldn't be living with a man if he thought men were interesting."

First, I do not “take off” points. You earn them. The difference is not merely rhetorical, nor is it trivial. In other words, you start with zero points and earn your way to a grade. You earn a grade in (say) Econ 100 for demonstrating that you have gained a degree of competence in economics ranging from being able to articulate the basic principles (enough to earn a C) to mastery and the ability to apply these principles to day-to-day affairs (which will earn an A).

how not to do race in a sitcom

Fashion from 1300s-1930s. So many fun pictures!

use for ethnography course?

awesome discussions of The Shining

Also published in Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim. For ethnography, ethics, doing fieldwork in the family.

"The paperwork at every junction of adult life is a challenge that often feel insurmountable. I cannot sustain my attention to finish up more than one page of paperwork at a time, so, I do it immediately or put it off. If I don't get it done immediately, my anxiety explodes and keeps me from looking at, thinking about, or working on it."

Adorable. Definitely the best interview ever.

For all of Ron Swanson's meme-worthy one-liners, all the raillery between Tom Haverford and Jean-Ralphio, and the surprisingly charming love story between April and Andy, Parks and Rec succeeds because the show exudes affection for the townspeople without idealizing them. It's a show where being from a small town, the South, or a  Red State doesn't necessarily make you dumb, any more than it inevitably makes you magically more in tune with nature. On Parks and Rec , living in a place like Pawnee doesn't make you anything necessarily, except an American. Even if, like Leslie Knope, you come from a family with two dads.

"The easiest ways for TV to deal with gender differences (like race or anything else) is to ignore them or obsess over them. What’s tougher, and what Up All Night has been pulling off well (even if it’s still finding its way as a comedy) is treating them as simply one factor among many, sometimes more important than others."

Positive reinforcement for writing! A new kitten picture for every 100 words you write! (or 200, 500, 1000 words). Yes.

My bro is Broadway hero of the month in November 2011! For gaylifeinnyc!

by Rob Foreman!

A charming music video starring David Tennant and the cast, crew, and aliens of Doctor Who

From the age of 3 to the age of 23, Brian Spitulnik was sure of one thing: he wanted to be a Broadway dancer. When he was 24, he was cast in the long-running revival of Chicago. Since then, he has regularly worn black mesh before thousands of people. Now the only thing Brian is sure of is that he isn’t 24 anymore.

Actually, it makes perfect sense. Horror plays off of social anxieties of the times, and it's all about what the left and right are afraid of. For instance ...

A film can be read via costume, sometimes overtly, other times by subtext. This applies to not just conspicuous sci-fi or period pieces, but also contemporary stories set within a familiar world in familiar attire. On screen, even the most rudimentary item of clothing can take on meaning.

Good for teaching!

Amazing and in depth look at costuming in Inception. "This costume is perfectly suited (pun totally intended) to the physical demands of this sequence. The trousers are cut narrowly so that baggy fabric doesn't indicate gravity when there isn't supposed to be any; cuffing the shirt at his wrists fulfills the same function for his arms. The dark vest would be perfect for hiding the harness necessary to do the wire work - and the contrasting lightness of the shirt draws our eyes from any tell-tale signs on his torso that he's wearing one."

Proppian fairy tale generator

Wow, these jokes are kinda mean to PROFESSION MEMBERS! - No man, they're all in fun! (Use for folk humor lesson)

Actually a myth!

In which John discusses the absolute insanity of front yards. Turf grass is the biggest irrigated crop in the US; we irrigate grass almost exclusively with drinkable water; also, you will be surprised to learn that grass is INEDIBLE.