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Show u N I I T y SOUTHERN UTAH UNIVERSITY • CED DIGEST CAMPUS NEWS: The Club Carnival is set for Monday and Tuesday and offers opportunities for all students. PAGE 5. CAMPUS ARTS: Thesuu show choir A cclamation bas a dozen new members following open auditions this week. PAGE 16. CAMPUS SPORTS: The 'Bird grid squad takes off for California to m eet a vengeance-minded UC Davis team Sa turday. PAGE 17_ LOCAL NEWS: The new in terlocal agreement won't shut out SUU students in recreational pursuits, student leaders hope. PAGE 11. STATE NEWS: Although the layoffs weren't as bad as feared, scores of Hill Air Force Base w orkers lose their jobs today. PAGE 11. Michael Medved told Thursday Convocation goers that Hollywood perpetrates three big lies on the public. NATIONAL NEWS: The Clinton-Yeltsin summit is termed a success in furth er dismantling of nuclear m issiles. PAGE 13. WORLD NEWS: The search for bodies continues today after a ferry sinking claims more than 900 off the coast of Finland. PAGE 15. NATIONAL SPORTS: Goliath-like center Mark Eaton calls it quits after back injury ends 12 years as a fazzman. PAGE 21. ACADEMIC FOCUS Physical Science: 'The backbone' of all the sciences. THE BACK PAGE. Medved bites-hand that feeds him Convo guest and film critic asserts Hollywood is out of touch with American life By RYAN HATCH SENIOR STAFF WRITER Hollywood has gross misconceptions of today's society, according to author and film critic Michael Medved. Medved began Thursday's Convocation address by alluding to the popularity of and fascination with health foods and bottled water among Americans. "Here we are at a point in national history where people pay more attention than ever before to what they put inside their bodies, that they seem to be less discriminating than ever before about the images and the messages and the values that they put inside their minds, their imaginations, and their very souls." T he proof and theory Medved gave was astonishing to many audience members. He related that the average American spends approximately 28 hours a week watching TV. The fact that the Hollywood's main players believe that the exposure of movies and TV will have no impact on society, he said, was particularly revealing in itself. He cited what he called three main lies created by Hollywood and society's reception of these fallacies. "One, it's just entertainment; two, we just reflect reality, we don't create it, and :three, if don't like the material that you are seeing, you can always turn it off." Concerning Hollywood's first lie, he said "advertising is the use of televised imagery to impact real world behavior and you know what? It works. I Constant exposure of this imagery influences real world behavior profoundly. But that isn't all, if you think 30-second spots affect us, programming can have an even more profound effect." Medved also talked about the second lie dealing with the impact movie fiction on the real world, relating experiences he has had as a movie critic. "If the movies really reflect reality, then we would have a great reduction in population due to all the murders we see. Hollywood deems all the violence shown at the movies and on TV as normal. We need to redefine what is normal. To change our ideas. Not only by what is accepted , but by what is expected," he said. "If Hollywood believes that they are giving what the public wants, then why were the top three rated films of the summer The Lion King, Forrest Gump, and The Flintstones? Yet 60 percent of all film!> being made h:1Ve an 'R' rating." Medved pointed out also that the most popular shows on TV are clean and wholesome. In the third Hollywood lie, he related how media blitzes constantly expose viewers to more and more violence. He used Madonna as an example, saying, "not everybody likes her, yet she known by everyone, due to her constant exposure. Finally, he said, 11 • • • at a time when we are demanded to take responsibility of the pollution of our air and our water, it's entirely appropriate that we demand the entertainment industry take more responsibility for its pollution of a cultural atmosphere that we all breathe." |