Joe Gantz: June 2008 Archives

CrushedPlanet has chosen to be a subscription-based model.  For the cost of a movie ticket a month, about $10, one can join CrushedPlanet, support innovative online video and help us to cover our overhead so that we can provide the most amazing programming of any network.  

Many people have told us that no one will pay for Internet programming.   Our critics have pointed out that everything is free on the Internet, so why would people pay to subscribe to CrushedPlanet?  

I would counter that the television viewing public, and the Internet viewing public, pay either way.  Let's start with television--free, fast, and predigested into bite size morsels.  The cost of not paying for your television shows over a lifetime can be enormous.  Because what we watch affects how we think, and communicate, and how we live our lives.

On Television there is little that is real and almost nothing that challenges us.  Humongous corporations own the airwaves, and massive corporate advertisers have an enormous influence on what we see and what we won't see.  They've determined, over the years, the soft center of what is television viewing in America.  And in the process they're creating a soft center in our brains.  

Our programming impacts us from the moment we're old enough to be placed in front of the screen.  Corporations must condition us to be the only class that matters in this country -- the consumer class.  And the advertisers don't want the viewers to be too concerned about our world or our future, because then maybe the potato chips or the car they're selling might seem insignificant by comparison.

And now, because there is technology allowing us to skip commercials, they've put the commercial inside the show.  Or rather the show is the commercial.  From the Hollywood Reporter, 5/6/08, "Among the broadcast nets, product placements jumped 39%, with 15,404 occurrences in the top 10 programs.  Among broadcast nets, NBC's The Biggest Loser had the most product placements with 3,977, followed by Fox's American Idol with 3,291."  To me, it's scary to not know what is a commercial and what is programming.

These corporations don't have our best interests at heart.  In the LA Times, 6/7/08, "General Motors Corp. and 21 other carmakers denied claims that they could comply with the state's carbon reduction rules and asked a judge for an order blocking the requirements."  They want to continue to make their inefficient, polluting vehicles, but they will certainly soft-pedal that in their sensual, beautiful commercials selling cars and trucks.

And what do you get when you go on the Internet?  Either you get the same type of show that you see on mainstream TV.  Or you get to watch user-generated uploaded videos that can pass the time, or even pass the lifetime.  Watching the U-tubes of this world is like going on a long car ride with an accident always outside the car window--you can't help but look, but it isn't often worth a second look.

At CrushedPlanet we want to change the way business is done in Hollywood.  The artists who make our programming retain all the rights to their work. They also get the majority of the fees from the viewing of their shows.  The split is in gross receipts, not net.  The whole net receipts concept has been used to confuse and cheat artists and we've been on the wrong side of this accounting equation too many times.  Instead, we offer transparency and a fair split of the fees paid to view our programming.

CrushedPlanet provides innovative, provocative, intimate content. We have animation, comedy, documentary and fiction films, theater and dance, environmental films, blogs, "disorganized" sports and the Joke Love community site.  And there are a ton of people who do powerful, challenging, provocative work, who aren't able to get that on mainstream television, or are fed up with the deal that they are offered from traditional outlets.  So we already have lots of amazing work that has been entrusted to us to distribute, and more great stuff is being sent to us everyday.

The Internet allows us to imagine an alternative.  Please give CrushedPlanet a try.   And let us know what you think.

Today marks the launch of an exclusive, webisode series on CrushedPlanet called Gender Blender; Gender Blender follows three Transgender Beauty Pageant contestants as they navigate their lives, their loves and their gender.

The women in this series have a ton of heart. They're honest, funny, and full of insight into what makes us all human. Watching this series is a wild ride as each of them explores who they are and who they want to be.

The world is racing in two opposite directions.  Fundamentalism verses openness and self-expression. Fundamentalism is not just happening in far away countries, it's deeply entrenched here. Many people in the United States don't believe in basic human rights including gay rights, don't believe in stem cell research, don't even believe in evolution.

It's so much easier to preach hate and fear than openness and self-expression. Hate and fear bring people to the polls, they're powerful emotions which can harness what we focuses on and what we ignore.  Openness and self-expression can feel scary, and perhaps the part of openness and self-expression that is the scariest, is when it comes to our sexuality.

That's why I have tremendous respect for the women of Gender Blender. To understand and accept who we are, we must claim our sexuality. We need to understand what drives us sexually and try to appreciate where those powerful impulses come from. Those who insist on denying their sexuality can become a ball of confusion, and have a hard time loving themselves or anyone else. By claiming their sexuality, the cast of Gender Blender opened themselves up to live their lives and are able to love themselves and others.  That's something to learn from.

CrushedPlanet is all about accepting who we are and sharing that, and then being open to others without judgment.  Gender Blender gives us a view into life with honesty and openness, and we are thrilled to present Gender Blender to our viewers. Come try CrushedPlanet and be a part of our community.  The fringe is our middle.

Here is the information on our premiere party for Gender Blender.  Please come!

CrushedPlanet invites you to the Premiere of GENDER BLENDER
this Thursday night, June 12th.

GENDER BLENDER, a CrushedPlanet, a exclusive, captures the high stakes, drama and excitement surrounding a group of transgender beauty contestants who compete in the Queen USA and the Queen of the Universe pageants.

Click here for GENDER BLENDER trailer.

By the way: Gender Blender is, like all CrushedPlanet shows, free of product placement, advertisement or subtle manipulation to make you consume the stuff America wants you to buys.  It is also free of agenda from corporations, free of censorship and free of moral judgment. Try to find that on TV!

We're celebrating the Premiere of Gender Blender this Thursday and want to invite you.  The cast will be there and it's going to be a lot of fun.  

Remember the party is this Thursday, June 12, 2008, 10 pm - 2 am

Club Cobra, 10927 Burbank Blvd, North Hollywood, CA  91601

for information or questions feel free to call Felicia at 818-594-8881
or send Felicia an email: fcaplan@crushedplanet

We also hope you can support what CrushedPlanet is trying to do by spreading the word, especially to your artists and filmmaker friends.  You can also purchase a membership to CrushedPlanet by clicking here.

Explore the site some more.  Check out "It Just Might Work" - a humorous solution to the wolrd climate problem on our "Enviromaniacs" channel.  Then there's the raw, hilarious "War on Comedy" channel.  Leave a comment and let us know your favorite video.

 

Much has been written about how everyone is drinking bottled water, and carries their water bottle with them everywhere.  It's been pointed out that bottled water costs three times as much as gas, that tap water is clean, and that at least tap water is tested.  Bottled water has no information on the label because the bottling people have no responsibility to inform the public about how pure or impure their water actually is.

But I have great sympathy for those of us that clutch our water bottle to our collective chest.  We're all swimming in a sea of pollution-- breathing it, eating it and drinking it. We don't know what's in our water bottle, and we don't care.  Because what the water bottle represents to us, really, is a little lie we tell ourselves to feel safe, "at least this bottle of water is free of pollution".  The water bottle, like the Cross or a Star of David, has become a talisman that we tell ourselves will somehow protect us.

Most of us would rather not talk about how toxic our world is.  It's too depressing.  We all have to live in this muck.  We can see the brown air in cities around the country and around the world.  Why talk about it when you have to breathe it.  And the same goes for the water.  Most lakes and rivers around the country are unfit to swim in.  Our bodies of water are contaminated by chemicals from years of factories dumping waste, run off of all the stuff that runs down our drains, or they contain a toxic cocktail of pharmaceutical drugs that we flush down our toilets.  And study after study shows that fish harvested from every corner of the oceans are full of chemicals.

But if we can avoid thinking about the water, we still have to eat.  What about our food?  Fruits and vegetables are grown using a ton of pesticides.  The very pesticides that are killing weeds and bugs we are told won't harm us.  It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that those pesticides are affecting our bodies as well.  The meat we eat is pumped up with additives, drugs and antibiotics.  Some of the meat is cloned, and the vegetables are transgenic, though that simple fact is hidden from us because the powers that be don't want a warning label that could give us the opportunity to decide if we want to eat cloned food or not.  Our government refuses to clearly tell us if the meat they approve is genetically modified or not.  Even organic, that magic word, is loosing its meaning as well.  There is a long list of substances that can be added to foods labeled organic, that are anything but organic.  But if the corporations need to call food organic to make people feel safe so they can make more profit, then they will just lobby the legislature to define organic to mean whatever is convenient.

The health problems from pollution affect us deeply.  Who doesn't have a sibling or a parent or a close friend who has or is now battling cancer.  It is a known fact that though Cancer is overall the number one killer, cancer would be reduced exponentially if we could clean up the pollution, the poison that we're breathing, eating and drinking. 

Since denying the existence of Global Warming  is no longer a political possibility, this looming reality should, in theory, no longer be ignored.   But as governments and scientists acknowledge that Global Warming is perhaps even too far along to be stopped, and that Global Warming is an end of the world scenario, the car companies and the Bush administration are doing everything in their power to prevent  California  (and by extension the rest of the country) from instituting higher gas mileage on our vehicles, while dragging their feet on numerous other easy to implement improvements.  Even facing the dire consequences that are coming in the not too distant future, even with that information, corporations want to slow down the progress and sell more carbon spewing, gas guzzling vehicles because it is more profitable in the short run, and our government is backing the corporations every step of the way.



So, back to our water bottles... For the moment at least, I must breathe the toxic air, ingest the pesticide and hormone-laced food, drink the questionable water, and drive the cars they find profitable enough to produce.  And so I don't feel that those of us who are clutching our water bottles are being ridiculous, we're just scared.  When we carry that small plastic bottle along through life we feel a little more protected, we tell ourselves that we are doing something healthy.  In the grand scope of things, there are small things we can do, but we can't really change our environment without the governments and the corporations totally changing the way they think.  Forget the war on Drugs, and the war on Terror, we need a war on Pollution.  We need a worldwide change to the way we interact with this planet of ours.  But until then I need something to protect me-- like my little water bottle.  It's the adult equivalent of the teddy bear that toddlers carry to feel safe.