Two issues ago in Mediacy I began writing a series of articles on films that explored the theme of how the mass media influences society, in other words, movies which addressed the media literacy issues that are of paramount concern to anyone reading this publication. I ended my first installment with a list of 17 films that would be explored in greater detail in future issues of Mediacy. As usual in this business, media events have quickly made my list obsolete. In the past few months, a mixed bag of relevant films have become available for the first time.
Before getting into this issue's feature films, I'd like to mention a source of cheap movies for cash-strapped collectors. Used video cassettes of feature films can often be had for $10 or $15 at local video stores. After the initial frenzy of new movie rentals, many video stores trim their inventory so that they can clear the shelf space for even newer films. The supply is uneven but a sweep of nearby video stores on a Saturday afternoon should result in an inexpensive foundation for a good film library.
Now onto this installment of movies about media, this time highlighting Radio Days and Avalon. Of primary concern to any media literacy teacher is the role that the media have played in transforming values and ideology. The family unit has always been the ideological mainstay of modern western democratic society. Of late the influence of the family has been assaulted from all sides. Single or no-parent family units, the overwhelming and often destructive influence of the peer group among children and adolescents, the increasing expectation that teachers and the schools provide the kind of support formerly provided within the family unit are all symptoms of this assault.
Of particular concern to those of us who are practitioners of media literacy is the role that the media have played in evolving into the primary purveyors and transfer agents of social values from adults to children. The most dramatic example of this is in the area of sexuality. Most children learn far more about sexuality from the media than they will from any other source, especially their parents.
Many parents are happy to let the media assume this role as they are mortified at the prospect of even discussing such issues with their children.
In the last few years, a couple of excellent Hollywood movies have come along that explore these issues with wit and superior storytelling. Radio Days and Avalon are both nostalgic remembrances of growing up Jewish in 2nd generation American immigrant families on the eastern U.S. seaboard in mid-century. Radio Days is certainly the more light-hearted of the two films.
Woody Allen's Radio Days was released in 1987 and was the last of his trilogy of films exploring media literacy issues. (The other two, Zelig and The Purple Rose of Cairo will be reviewed in a future issue of Mediacy). Radio Days is partly autobiographical with Allen himself providing first person narration even though he never appears on camera. Allen's childhood persona is well played by Seth Green.
The family in the film lives in Queens, New York around the start of World War 2. The father (Michael Tucker) has an indeterminate job but the working class extended family manages comfortably. The mother (Julie Kavner) and sister (Dianne Wiest) are particularly fond of and influenced by the medium of radio in an era when it was the most powerful and influential of all the mass media. The entire family is, to varying degrees, wired into the medium and it is this influence which Allen explores so expertly in this film.
Allen's view of the medium of radio is that it was a binding force within the family unit. Several scenes in the film show the family gathered around the radio in various tableaus of intimacy. In one particularly poignant scene, the father is chasing his son around the house with a belt and begins to administer a spanking. A radio flash comes on with a news report about a little girl who has fallen down a well. The rescue attempt goes on for hours with a wonderful montage showing various demographic groups riveted to their radios. Eventually the dead girl's body is retrieved and the scene dissolves with the son enveloped in his father's arms. It sounds maudlin but, this is Woody Allen's film, after all, and the scene works.
However, like most of Allen's films, the main emphasis is on comedy and there are many hilarious moments in Radio Days, particularly when Allen explores the nature of the medium itself. There are several marvelous tributes to radio genres and these can be obscure as Allen has changed the names of the programs and the principal artists responsible for them. Among the old radio shows twitted by Allen are the famous War of the Worlds broadcast, Bill Stern's Sports Legends, various game and variety shows, the pseudo-sophisticated celebrities of the era, Captain Marvel and his Secret Decoder Ring and, one of the most popular radio shows of the era, Charlie McCarthy and Edgar Bergen ("but he's a ventriloquist!....on the radio!..")
Like the other two films in Allen's media trilogy, Radio Days begins to wear out its welcome after about an hour. The film only lasts another 20 minutes so this is not a serious problem.
On a personal note, I can just remember the so-called golden age of radio which Allen refers to. My family didn't get our first television set until 1955 when I was six years old. I've always been fond of radio in that particular era and have tried to incorporate some study of it into my media classes. My interest in it, though, was always nostalgic and academic. I never really truly understood just how powerful a medium it could be as an influence in family life until I saw Radio Days.
I've used this film with various grades from 10 to OAC and I feel that the movie can work well if it is properly introduced and the class is adequately prepared with a viewing context that makes sense to them. Of particular value has been an essay which asks them to compare and contrast the role of television in their own family lives with that of the family in the film and the influence of radio.
Barry Levinson has become one of Hollywood's most distinguished directors in recent years with Good Morning, Vietnam,Rain Man and Bugsy being his most recent efforts. Levinson's breakthrough film was Diner in 1982 in which he provided a showcase for emerging young talent like Ellen Barkin, Steve Guttenberg, Mickey Rourke, Daniel Stern, Paul Reiser and Kevin Bacon. Diner was the first of Levinson's "Baltimore Trilogy", three semi-autobiographical films about growing up in Baltimore at mid-century. Tin Man, with Richard Dreyfuss and Danny DeVito, was the second installment, released in 1987. Avalon, released in 1990, is the third and final entry in the trilogy and the one of most interest to readers of Mediacy.
Armin Mueller-Stahl plays Sam Krichinsky, who begins the film by sharing with his grandchildren warm and nostalgic memories of immigrating to America in 1914. The film is set in the late 1940's and Sam presides over an extended family that celebrates its immigrant heritage. Sam is particularly close to his grandson Michael and their relationship infuses most of the film. Michael's father, Jules, is a door-to-door salesman who decides to set up a department store and sell television sets as the new medium is in its infancy.
Throughout the remainder of the film, television becomes an increasingly important factor in the lives of this family. Unlike Radio Days, however, the medium does not help bind the family together.
The first time that the family receives delivery of its new television, they turn it on and only find the familiar Indian head test pattern. The family members stare at it for a while, wondering what all the fuss is about. The next glimpse we see of the family TV set, they all bolt from the dinner table upon hearing the opening strains of The Texaco Star Theatre with Milton Berle. In another scene, the family is watching television while individually seated behind their folding TV trays and their TV dinners. Ironically, the television family that they are watching are sitting down to an old-fashioned family dinner just like the one that opened the film.
There are several scenes like this throughout the remainder of the film. Avalon explores the dark side of the media's influence on the family unit but this aspect of the film is subtle and understated. At no point does the movie become a shrill anti-television diatribe. Avalon is really about the dissolution of old values. Television is a visual metaphor used to illustrate this deterioration.
In the final poignant scene in the film, it is the 1960's and Sam is in a nursing home. Michael is now an adult and visits with his son, Sam's great-grandson. Sam attempts to tell the child the old stories that regaled his grandchildren in earlier years. The boy is sitting on Sam's bed and his gaze is constantly shifting to the TV set across the room. He finds television far more interesting than listening to the old man with the strange accent.
Except for those of us who are native Canadians, we are all immigrants or descendants of immigrants. Many of us find ourselves teaching students who have themselves just arrived in Canada. While the media influence is not the primary focus of Avalon, the film has something to offer all of us.