Oh FOX, you're so FOXY!

Geez. I can't remember the last time someone asked me if I watch FOX. I mean, sure, there are quite a few good things to come out of the FOX/Newscorp Network, like Kelly Clarkson, but on a serious note, what is this world coming to?
Newscorp, the mastermind company that owns everything FOX and FOX-named, founded and ran (as Chairman and CEO) by Rupert Murdock, claims many things about their broadcast network. Their main slogan for their News Channel, "Fair and Balanced", is just a crock of junk propaganda used to lure in viewers who think they are actually getting the right information, all the information, and watching good TV.

It's fair and balanced to say, FOX Network is just so Foxy!

To use a fair and balanced example of how FOX uses its super-fantastic editing skills, I will show you two clips of Lady Gaga's performance on "American Idol", of her smash hit "Alejandro".

This is the version of the performance we got to see on "LIVE" TV. It wasn't live, it was prerecorded. When I watched the show, because Im a little monster die-hard huge fan of Lady Gaga, I was already questioning what just happened. The chorus in her song, "Don't call my name, don't call my name, Alejandro. I'm not your babe, I'm not your babe, Fernando. Don't wanna kiss, don't wanna touch, just smoke my cigarette and hush. Don't call my name, Don't call my name, Roberto..." (Alejandro, lyrics by Lady Gaga), didnt seem to fall into place at around 3:15 into the clip. While I'm singing along at home to her dance routine and chorus, I slipped up on the lyrics that I thought I had mastered after playing her album "The Fame Monster" nonstop for the past few months. Then it happened again shortly after that part of the song!! I couldn't figure it out, and was getting a bit confused.

Since I DVR'd the show, I rewound the clip to see if maybe I was just blanking out and hallucinating the scene, but nope, there it was again. Out of my confusion, I immediately jump on my computer and went straight to Twitter (twitter.com) to find out if I was alone in my world. I do not have a twitter account, but I do frequent Lady Gaga's twitter page to see what she's up to, and sure enough, she posted something which quickly fired me into an uproar:

" http://bit.ly/apyBrH FOX POORLY + AMATEURLY edited+cut my performance/musical arrangement on idol. Watch real version. http://bit.ly/apyBrH 11:36 AM May 6th via OpenBeak

http://bit.ly/apyBrH here's my full american idol performance ALEJANDRO. Fox chopped up my performance in 4 places. Real version on itunes. " (twitter.com/ladygaga)

I was livid! I knew something was fishy about the broadcast performance on "American Idol", but I couldn't believe there was more to the story than just a horrible editing job. When I clicked the link she posted to check out the REAL performance, I noticed that you can actually SEE the dance routine! It was the first time in "American Idol" history that there was an all-male dance group dancing together. Like, together together! They dip each other, spin each other, rub each other, etc...in a very tasteful manner. Lady Gaga is a professional and she knows her boundaries for how and what she can do, especially on a "family" show. In the FOX edit, you see many close up shots of her and her upperbody. You get a little less than 2 minutes of the actual performance that FOX pre-recorded. You don't get the magnitude of dance moves, shake and shimmy, and over all Gaganess of the performance. I'll give it to you, though, because it's sheer genius:



The fact that it was edited so much was because of the backlash FOX would face if the homosexual dance content was shown on air. Do we even know if the men in the background were gay? No. Do we even know if they have gay sex together? No. Does it LOOK like they are gays and going to have gay sex with each other? Heck no! They were performing art, dance, and did it in a very tasteful manner! FOX responded to the left by saying they had to cut down the performance to less than 5 minutes due to time constraints, but never mentioned anything about the fact that they took the male dancers out of focus during their couple's routine.

Focusing on another show FOX airs, "Glee", Im just gonna take a jump into something that also shows how homosexuals are depicted. We all know the stereotype that homosexuals don't have a strong relationship with their same-sex parent, which causes them to become gay. Case in point, we have Kurt Hummel, the token gay guy on the show. Throughout the series, for those who have yet to see it, he is the flamboyant and extremely effeminate boy who wears bright colors, fantasizes about the lead male character (who is straight, but that doesn't stop the gay guy from crushing on him), has a high pitched voice, has a thin body, uninterested in sports, and has an image of being weak. This is his character, this is a stereotypical gay guy in high school. Is this really what they're like?

I like to tell myself that I transcend boundaries and stereotypes for my cultural identity. I'm a strong-willed male who is very opinionated and aggressive in behavior. I wear dark colors, or rather not so pastelly, bulky, strong, and deep voiced. That's not me on the TV screen, and that certainly wasn't me in high school. Where are the real gays?! Are they too busy hiding in fear because of their lackluster relationships with their same-sex parent? To make my point, I would like to show an additional two clips of Kurt on "Glee". The first one is the typical Kurt, what he always looks like and how he sings. The second, is his response to his father shunning him to hang out and be a father-figure for said male lead, who is without a father. Kurt goes from flamboyant tinkerbell to roughneck, macho, John Mellencamp singing, wanna-be heterosexual wearing a trucker hat and bubble jacket vest who is in need of his father.





It just sends a message to the LGBTQ youth communities that, while it's okay to be gay, you have to play this particular role. Roles tell us a lot about our culture, and when you have a media conglomerate as large as FOX setting roles, stereotypes, and making it seem like the same-sex parent myth is true, future generations start to believe those messages.

Editing music acts and changing the way a character is portrayed to fit what media big wigs want? I fail to see how that is fair and balanced. I know, that slogan is for the news channel, but I really don't want to get started there.

I could go on and on, but I think these two very solid pieces of evidence are a good start for you readers out there to begin your very own research and develop a sense of what's right and what's wrong in the media.



All clips are courtesy of Youtube.com and are searchable.