Is Barbie Kenough to Save Barbie?

Spoiler alert: I’m going to share my thoughts on “Barbie,” the recent movie. If you haven’t seen it, you may want to move along, citizen. I’m writing with an expectation that the reader has seen the movie. Perhaps “spoiler” is not really the right term here, since it’s not a thriller with unexpected plot twists, and so much of the pleasure of this movie comes from its appearance and pacing so that even if I spill some plot twists for you, I hardly think it’s possible to spoil the movie—so maybe it’s OK to keep reading anyway.

It’s up to you. You have always had the power to become fully human if you want to. But you’ve been alerted that I watched it and am writing freely about it, so let me write at you the way that Ken plays a guitar at Barbie.

“Barbie,” the 2023 movie by Greta Gerwig, is one of those films that is aesthetically for kids, but in reality, is very much for grownups. It’s a sort of reverse “Toy Story,” only it’s the real world that isn’t understood by the toys, not the toy world that is hidden from our reality.

The film was rated PG-13, and anybody who took a young girl to the movie without pausing to wonder why may have had some explaining to do—but I appreciated the movie on many levels.

Like Gerwig’s “Little Women,” it takes a classic and uses it to launch a feminist critique of modern society. In this case, the classic is not a 19th-century novel, but a beloved and behated classic plastic toy.

The movie also reminded me a bit of “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World,” in that it’s set in a reality that clearly isn’t fully real. Of course, Babie Land is entirely fantastic. It represents an alternative universe that is created by the dreams of girls playing with Barbie, a point indirectly explained by the excellent unseen narrator (Helen Mirren) who now and then provides wry commentary during the film.

It’s not a perfect film. I was mildly irritated with the pink ninja scenes where the Mattel mom and her daughter and Barbie were separating Barbies from their Kens, because it was using too many easy clichés about men. Then again, some of the writing here is as snappy and witty as the rest of the movie. Having Ken say “sublime” when Barbie agrees to be his girlfriend again was unexpected and worthy of chuckle. I liked that Ken said he would play guitar “at” Barbie, too. But I wish Madam President would allow the Kens one seat on the Supreme Court, maybe in honor of Ruth Bader Ginsberg.

And I don't even have time to write about the songs in the movie, beyond the witty aside at the end of this post and that I've never appreciated the Indigo Girls more. There. To be fair to the film, I spoiled this blog post as well as the movie.

But even if parts of it got a bit too campy even for me, so much of the movie was delightful. Margot Robbie made a perfect Barbie, and was believable when she suffered her existential crisis (even thought, as the narrator wryly points out, she was the wrong actor to worry about not being beautiful enough). She’s not the only great cast member.

At first, I didn’t care for Ryan Gosling’s Ken, because, to me, the look was wrong. If anything Michael Cera’s Alan looked a little more Ken like—despite having some plastic abs, Ken was a smooth, mild pretty boy doll, not a jacked macho man.

But Gosling won me over. He’s not an adult in the film, but a 7-year-old girl's idea of a boyfriend for Barbie, and Gosling does a great job—I particularly like his awakening to the patriarchy in fake Los Angeles (the real world, here, is a “Scott Pilgrim” like real world—set in LA, but more in the idea of LA). He loves a world run by men and horses. His looks back at Barbie as he leaves her sitting on a park bench were poignant and hilarious at the same time.

Warner Brothers publicity image, Ken and Barbie, Ryan Gosling and Margot Robbie. Downloaded from a story on the BBC web site.

And Kate McKinnon? Weird Barbie as the wise and despised oracle of Barbie Land was a total hoot. And so much of the movie was adults looking back nostalgically at a childhood icon—as America Ferrera’s Gloria had a Weird Barbie, didn’t almost all Barbie players end up with many?

I didn’t get all of the references, but the movie did keep me on the hook with it’s many homages to other films. It begins with “2001: A Space Odyssey.” There is “The Matrix” when Barbie is given a choice between her pink heels or sandals (and it turns out the choice is fake, Weird Barbie insists on a do-over so she will choose to learn about reality).

America Ferrera is great as Gloria, and delivers one of the most famous monologues of the movie. That monologue is a highlight in a movie with many touching moments.

One of my favorites is when Barbie, discouraged with her first experience in LA, sits on a park bench and sends Ken away. She looks up and sees an old woman watching her. Barbie is startled and stares.

“You’re beautiful,” Barbie says.

“I know it,” the woman replies.

Beauty isn’t just pretty blondes who looks like dolls, but women and men who are comfortable in their own skins and know it. That’s a positive attitude that transcends age—the central message, to me, of the movie, beyond its critique of misogyny.

And that critique? Some have said the movie is anti-man. I didn’t see it that way. Ken himself recognizes that running the world himself can be exhausting and isn’t much fun. Men do have a responsibility to be responsible and fully human, and pointing out realities that have held back the majority of humans (women) doesn’t seem to me to be unfair or offensive.

It's a coming of age movie for Barbie. She realizes that the real world isn't the fantasy she imagined. She's not everyone's hero and all problems of misogyny and feminism have not been erased by her. But the human life is still worth living, and in the end, Barbie decides it is Kenough. She is willing to live as Barbara Handler, daughter of Ruth Handler. That's deep, man. And woman.

Finally, what was Mattel thinking? They so wisely stepped aside and let Gerwig have her way, including a rough caricature of the company. Years ago, Mattel missed the boat on the first “Toy Story,” film but wised up for movie two. Clearly, this movie that mocks Mattel is going to make a boat load of money for Mattel. And Mattel is clearly over a lot of water that's under the bridge. The movie ends with a remake of a song that caused a lawsuit when it came out, but now it is included here.

Life in plastic. It’s fantastic.

 

Reading Two Books About My Place

Cover images of two books, both from Amazon.com.

This summer, I’ve read two novels that offered more than the usual pleasure that any novel does of taking you out of the everyday world into someone else’s vision of the world. One reason I liked them is because these two summer reads were both set in my part of the planet.

“The World of Pondside,” by Mary Helen Stefaniak, is an interesting novel, part mystery, part suspense, about a death at an Iowa City fictional nursing home, and the slightly shady back story of a computer game that is set at that nursing home.

“Motel Sepia,” by Dale Kueter, is more of a crime drama, set in Cedar Rapids in the 1950s at a real motel, although the crime is fictional.

In “The World of Pondside,” Pondside Manor, a long-term care facility and nursing home, is recreated in a computer game in which residents and staff can have their own avatars and live their best lives. The administrator becomes a hot New York fashion designer. Long ago dances and events live again through the memories of some residents, brought to life in the game partly through digitized photos.

Image I made of Mary Helen Stefaniak when she was a visiting writer at Mount Mercy University one day in fall 2022.

A kitchen helper, Foster Kresowik, has helped Robert Kallman, a younger resident affected by Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), commonly referred to as Lou Gehrig’s disease, bring his vision to life via the game. And, at the start of the book, Kallman is discovered dead in the pond and the computer server that runs the game is gone. Was it suicide? Murder? Was there something about the game tied to Kallman’s death?

One thing that’s great about “Pondside” is Stefaniak paints interesting portraits of contrasting characters. One of my favorites was Erika Petersen, a U of I nursing student who gets a job at Pondside Manor. She’s young, she’s a sorority sister, she’s pretty—and she’s very bright. Besides studying nursing, she also studies computer science. And thus, she offers some of the more interesting twists and at times takes a leadership role.

To me, the idea of a nursing student studying computer science is an unusual combination, but not beyond reality. I teach at a university with a large nursing school, and I know some of our brightest students study nursing—they have to be bright, nursing is a demanding field of study. And, now and then, I’ll encounter one with enough transfer credits and gumption to add some unexpected other field. So, Erika, to me, seemed like a familiar kind of driven young woman.

Two of Stefaniak's books for sale at MMU last fall.

In the book, Stefaniak kept me guessing, and I was not expecting many of the plot twists. It’s a unique, timely book, firmly set in today’s world.

“Motel Sepia,” in contrast, draws from a world that was rather than the world than is. It is set in a motel in Cedar Rapids established by a Black couple who run several successful businesses. Early in the book, there is a brutal murder in Illinois, and somehow you know that the murder and some crimes in Cedar Rapids (a “kissing bandit” is politely robbing local establishments) will collide.

In the meantime, Roy and Lillian Sanders are busy, very busy, running their motel. And Roy is concerned about race relations. The motel is one of the few stops along Highway 30 in the 1950s that welcomes Black guests, and the motel becomes an unusual place where White and Black people sometimes come together.

Dale Kueter also wrote a nonfiction book about the Vietnam War and spoke at MMU in 2015 during a series on Vietnam. Image I made of him then.

It was fun reading about Cedar Rapids of the 1950s. The businesses and other settings are of a bygone time but still familiar, too. I was not alive when the book was set and I never had been in Cedar Rapids before the 1970s, so it is not a time I have any memories of. Yet, I liked seeing my town of the past spring to life.

I enjoyed both and would recommend both. It was fun this summer to read two diverse works of fiction set in places nearby.

Is The Best Model Fictional Dad a Dog?

Stories that we tell say something about what we, collectively as a culture, believe about certain roles. And, while it was a while ago, June is the month of Father’s Day, so let me ruminate on fictional dads that I find to be decent fatherhood role models.

Because I am a dad. A grandad now. Which means I have thoughts on fatherhood (as does everyone else, I’ll concede). (Aside on images: All are publicity stills used in media, original sources are Disney, Pixar and Netflix. I don’t own any of the images.)

How well did I fulfill the role of father? That’s not for me to answer. And fatherhood is a role that we fall into--not always unexpectedly, but raising any child is a wondrous and scary and surprising adventure. I, for one, don’t think there’s just a one-size-fits-all answer to what makes for a good parent, anyway. After all, we’re complex sentient animals with big brains that complicate everything. What’s best for one dad- or parent-child pair does not always work at all for another

All dads muddle through, just as all moms do. The good news, I suppose, is that attitude makes a huge difference, and any parent who at least takes the role seriously and tries is likely, in the end, to do OK.

By the way, while men and women are not identical beings, I’m not one who believes the role of “dad” is always sex specific. So, for the many females out there fulfilling dad functions—good for you, and in commenting on fictional male fathers, I’m not trying to be exclusive to the XY genetic pattern.

Anyway, here are four fictional fathers of recent years who represent, to me, each some positive aspect of fatherhood:

Catherine Zeta-Jones as Morticia Addams, Luis Guzmán as Gomez Addams. Embarrassing their teen daughter with a PDA, as good parents ought to.

1-Gomez Addams from the Netflix series “Wednesday.” Spoilers coming, so back out now, if you need to.

The Addams Family is an interesting set of tales, starting as it did as a series of cartoons, spawning a 1960s TV series, movies both live and animated and now this streaming series. I’ve already noted that I am a fan of “Wednesday,” the Netflix contribution to this family of fables.

And I like the character Gomez and his latest incarnation. The Addams family is a Gothic tale with horror trappings, but it has a rather quaint sensibility, at the same time. The family itself is cartoonish—Wednesday, in all versions of the tale, is always on the verge of murdering her younger brother Pugsley. But there is a wink to the viewer, the violence here, even in the live-action versions, is cartoonish and not to be taken too seriously. Just as Wiley Coyote is never killed by going off the cliff holding an anvil, Pugsley survives electrocution, being buried alive, whatever. The violence isn’t “real.”

But the family dynamic is at least a real representation of how we think of family. In “Wednedsay,” Gomez tells Morticia that their Little Storm Cloud will never be alone. (In context, then sending a spy to watch over her isn’t an example of good parenting, but never mind.) Gomez is in love with his daughter, in a healthy, fatherly way, and that obvious love lands him on this honor roll of fictional father figures.

Not that the series, nor Gomez, is perfect. I’m not a lawyer, but some of the law in the series is very jumbled. For example, Wednesday digs up a grave to find a colored finger that proves the boy Gomez supposedly killed died of nightshade poisoning. Well, he didn’t really—he was stabbed as he was dying. Several issues here. Even if the boy had ingested a fatal dose of nightshade poison, stabbing him before the poison killed him is still a homicide. And digging up a grave does require a court order—even if it solved a crime, Wednesday and Morticia were both subject to charges for a serious offense. To me, the show is clearly not about the law—as law shows go, it’s pretty wackadoodle. And that hurts, a bit, in a show that is a basically a murder mystery. Still, it’s a live action cartoon, right? I don’t demand that a cartoon show adhere strictly to reality, and in this commentary, even more cartoonish shows are coming.

Agustín Madrigal, voiced by Wilmer Valderrama.

2) Augustin Madrigal from “Encanto.” First, he’s the sympathetic dad who understands Mirabel’s struggles more than anybody else. I also like that he has a good relationship with Julieta—the two are a team and both try to understand and support Mirabel. Unlike the next fictional relationship, mom and dad here are largely on the same page, which is a great family dynamic.

True, he also tries to hide things from Abuela—everyone in the family is afraid of her. But he also, in concert with Julieta, at least speaks up to Abuela in defense of Mirabel.

Jin Lee and Melin Lee, voiced by Orion Lee and Rosalie Chiang.

3) Jin Lee in “Turning Red.” The family dynamic isn’t quite as healthy here, and the father is a bit too much of a passive figure.

But he can understand his daughter’s emotions in a way that her mother doesn’t. The scene in which he finds the video of the friends and tells Melin that she can erase the tape if she wants to, but it made him laugh is an emotional highlight of the movie. Jin is able to appreciate and love his daughter’s “messy” side, something many parents struggle with.

And he’s also a 4-Townie. I think having the mental ability to “think young” without painfully trying to act young is a healthy thing. And it’s one reason Jin understand Melin so well.

In this fictional family, Jin also is the cook in the household—the trope in our fiction is often the father who can’t provide food for his family, who feeds them cereal when mom is not around. That’s a reality in some places and times—but I respect more a dad who recognizes the basic domestic skills--such as how to fix a meal, how to run the laundry, how the dishwasher functions--are part of a father’s role. A dad is a parent and should be competent in all parent things—changing a diaper, feeding a baby, washing the dishes and fixing meals in the first place. Yes, the traditional dad is a breadwinner and the traditional mom keeps the home, but the burden of domestic work needs to be shared, and no dad gets a pass for not knowing what most of the buttons on most of the home appliances do. So one reason I really respect Jin is that he know his way around the kitchen, as a good dad ought to know even if he’s not a chef.

Bandit. No actor listed, because, clearly, Dr. Heeler is a real archeologist.

4—Bandit in “Bluey.” Yes, I can imagine some of you objecting. “Bluey” is not a realistic show at all—Bandit is an archeologist who never seems to do a day of work. He’s relentlessly optimistic and clueless at the same time. The show does stereotype genders—Bandit Heeler is the carefree, fun parent while the mom, Chilli Heeler, is the sensible voice of reason. While those are stereotypes, that are also true personalities, and, in the improbable world of “Bluey," they ring true for me.

And there is something important and special in the playfulness of Bandit. He’s a character presumably who has a PhD but is quickly willing to imagine with his children at their level. That sense of play is sometime difficult for adults to achieve, but those who can suddenly turn a row of chairs into a bus, plane or train are, in my book, more effective fathers. Play isn’t something to look down on, it’s a lifelong habit that helps us mentally rehearse situations, imagine outcomes, enjoy interactions and create our own fictions.

As Wash says in “Firefly”: “This is a good land and we will call it ‘This Land.’” Not that our own fictions are always all that good nor complex (and there is the tragedy that the character Wash wasn’t a dad), but I think imagination, as long as it’s not narcistic or self-delusional, is a sign of a flexible mind that can stay mentally young.

So, Bandit is no more real than Wiley Coyote. Yet he does have something to say to us dads. Try never to ignore the fantasy lives of your children, and be the dragon or prince or ogre or pirate or captain that the situation demands. At heart, we are all a bit like Peter Pan. And the best dads are adults who can think like adults, but who also retain that portion of their minds that will never grow up.

Bandit comes last, because, in some ways, he’s the best. And his message is simple, but very important. While a parent—a dad—needs to think and act like an adult, they also still need the capacity to think imaginatively and creatively, as a child thinks.

Play with your daughters. And your sons. Never grow up so much that you’re too grown up for that.

Will Netflix ‘Wedneday’ Avoid ‘Penguins’ Sydrome?

 

If you haven’t seen the Netflix show “Wednesday” and plan to, you may want to move along, citizen. There will be spoilers here. I also discuss “Inside Out” and “Penguins of Madagascar,” but I would plead that not only has the expiration date on spoilers for those long passed, I also won’t get into the details of those plots anyway, which is easy in the “Penguins” case because there are no details of the plot to get into. Anyway: Official “Wednesday” spoiler warning issued. Now, on with the show.

There is a condition that sometimes has an impact on children’s movies in recent years; I call it “Penguins of Madagascar” syndrome.

If you haven’t seen “Penguins,” I urge you not to bother. The wisecracking swimming dinosaur protagonists of this tale have amusing things to say and engage in many slick action sequences. And that’s it. And that’s the problem. There is no character development, because there aren’t really any characters beyond surface personalities. The movie is all flash and dash with no heart.

The best entertainment, particularly “family” entertainment, has levels. Think of the Pixar franchise. There are long arguments to be found online about how realistic the psychology of “Inside Out” is because the underlying precepts of the film are debated by psychologists. Which means some don’t care for the emotional functions as presented in the film, while many people do find them insightful.

As for me, I’m a fan. If “Inside Out” isn’t a text in psychology, at least there is evidence that the people who wrote it have read a psychology text—it’s a family film that has layers. Sure, anger may present masculine stereotypes—even a good film can have flaws that people can legitimately complain about.

Nobody worries about the layers in “Penguins of Madagascar.” It doesn’t have any.

Now, I know the recent Netflix series “Wednesday” is not in the same entertainment universe as “Penguins” or “Inside.” Shame on any parent who lets young children view this series—it’s too brutal, too bloody, too violent, in my opinion, for most pre-tween eyes.

But for those of us who are either beyond our first decade of life experience, or whose teen years were long ago in the ABBA era, I endorse “Wednesday.” I like it.

It’s not a flawless show. I wish, for example, that Enid Sinclair, an amusing sidekick, had been given a bit more intelligent things to say. I was OK with a former Wednesday ending up on the dark side, but not so OK with the exit of Principal Weems, a character who would have been delicious to keep around for another season.

Larissa Weems played by Gwendoline Christie. Netflix publicity image.

It was sort of like seeing Principal Snyder die in Season 3 of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.” Then again, in Buffy, the characters were going to move out of high school at that point anyway, and it would have required improbable backflips to bring Snyder to UC-Sunnydale, so maybe he was expendable at that point, from a story-telling point of view.

Not so Weems. One expects that season two of “Wednesday” will be set at Nevermore Academy, a place that will miss its literal giant of a principal.

Still, I found much to like in “Wednesday.” I was not as disturbed by the appearance of her father, who is plumper and frumpier than the smooth movie Gomez. I recall the original Addams Family cartoons, and as many have pointed out, this streaming-service Gomez is true to the original. Also, I don’t mind a character shifting a bit from one interaction of an ongoing franchise to the next—and in this latest version, I found Wednesday’s dad to be an endearing, caring father. Indeed, despite the Goth trappings and dark humor, one thing that makes the Addams Family franchise work is that they really seem to be a family.

Three of the Netflix Addams family characters: Gomez Addams (Luis Guzmán), Wedneday Addams (Jenna Ortega) and Morticia Addams (Catherine Zeta-Jones). A great cast helps make this show work. Netflix publicity image.

And young Jenna Ortega—she has gotten lots of praise for her starring role. She is a delicious Wednesday with her stiff mannerisms, death stare, quick one-liners and, now and then, evil smile. Ortega has arrived.

Which might be unfortunate for Ortega as a human. Hollywood is not kind to its young talent. It can make a starlet fabulously famous for a time, but often leaves them with severe life troubles. It’s not always good to be a multi-millionaire so young.

To be fair, in the few interviews I’ve seen her in, Ortega seems intelligent, quick witted and sharp-tongued. And she was a child star who has found a niche as a young adult—a sometimes rare trick. Perhaps she has her head screwed on tight enough and can navigate the temptations and burdens of entertainment fame. She surely knows far more about that world and its pitfalls than I do.

And I’ve segued from writing about a role—Wednesday—to writing about the actor playing that role. It’s a common mistake, and I want to be clear that Jenna Ortega is not Wednesday Addams, she merely plays her in a streaming video series.

Anyway, I know Ortega was already a successful Hollywood figure before this Netflix show, although I’ve not enjoyed seeing her before. “Wednesday” has surely, if briefly, pushed her from the role of successful actor to a top-tier A lister.

From Wikimedia Commons, based on a screen shot from a YouTube video, Jenna Ortega.

Although there are many complications that sudden superstardom has brought to Ortega:

• A minor tiff with writers during their strike. Ortega noted that she was “unprofessional” and insisted on changing some lines. Writers, grappling with a changing landscape, the onset of AI and long being under-rewarded in Hollywood anyway, did not react well. I hope Ortega recalls that, like all stars, she is dependent on smart writing as well as her own personal talents.

• Speculation about her sexuality. She is a physically beautiful, physically small and very young adult Hollywood female star. On screen, her character in Wednesday stipulates that she will never marry nor have a family. Is Ortega straight? Gay? Bi? Frankly, why does anybody outside of her close friends and family care? She’s 20 years old. It would be nice to give her time and room to figure it all out without a media glare on her private life, although, sadly, that is not the nature of our media. And those who seek the spotlight often find it to be a very hot place to exist.

• The smoking thing. Paparazzi recently caught Ortega lighting a cigarette, and much was made of her mother, a nurse, posting anti-smoking messages on social media after that. Well, I do hope Ortega quits if she has started smoking and does not make it a habit if it’s not one yet.

This one, the smoking thing, feels a little different, to me. Anybody who has  become a star has some responsibility to live a responsible life. So, a minor wag of a digit at Ortega for putting herself in an awkward place vis a vis a deadly habit.

Sure, what she did is legal. Anybody is allowed to do it. And I can see the point of, again, giving her some space. Yet, I do not want any of my young grandchildren to think smoking is cool because a smoking hot young superstar is puffing away.

Maybe she is dealing with stress—smoking is often a habit that arises in stressful situations. The old WWII saying was “smoke ’em if you’ve got ’em.” Wasn’t a good idea for young GIs and isn’t a great idea for a Hollywood star, either.

But it’s not Ortega’s fault that people may idolize her. She is an immature human, living a complicated life as all of us do. As a human, she seems packed with talent, which she displayed in season 1 of “Wednesday.” I’m a fan. And it’s great to see a Latina icon, something not common in our media.

Anyway, where did the Penguins go? Here they come again. Previous Addams Family franchises have a mixed record. I’m not going to comment on the 1960s TV show, although I am old enough to vaguely recall it a bit. I don’t think I was a regular viewer.

As for the 1990s movies, well. Movie 1 and movie 2 are great. Movie 3 had a change in cast and fell victim to Penguin syndrome—the writing was tired and trite and the results pretty bad.

And the recent animated movies follow a similar pattern. The 2019 “The Addams Family” featured, surprise, Wednesday Addams as arguably it’s most important character as the family battled a cable TV show host seeking country-club perfection in a planned town. It is an amusing movie, partly because it’s a dig at HGTV sensibilities. But the 2021 follow-up “The Addams Family 2” makes little sense, is full of action meaning nothing and mostly goes nowhere. Like a penguin.

The live action movie series managed two good installments before stumbling in the third. In the cartoon world, there was one amusing tale followed by a lame one.

I have some hopes for our current “Wednesday.” May the creators, writers, director, talented cast, continue to push story—to have something to share that has some wit and depth. May they not pursue the one-liners so hard that they subsume what every good tale needs—a tale.

And I wish Jenna Ortega well. Good luck, kid. You already know this, but in Hollywood, you need it.

Honoring A Graduating Great Student Journalist

Note: This post is the text of the presentation I did at the 2023 Honors Convocation at Mount Mercy University, May 12, 2023. Convocation is kind of the kick-off event of a series of events associated with commencement at MMU. The first two images below were used during the presentation, the rest are just bonus images from Annie’s time at Mount Mercy.

Annie Barkalow reflection

Hello, my name is Joe Sheller, associate professor of communication at Mount Mercy University. Many know me for being faculty advisor to the MMU Times, as well as official DJ of the Times office.

Here is an early image I made of Annie Barkalow, covering an event in fall 2020, when she came to Mount Mercy and first began writing for the Mount Mercy Times.

Fall 2020--The masked era. Annie Barkalow covering a speech for the MMU Times.

By fall of this year, she achieved the high office and dignity of Editor-in-Chief of the campus newspaper.

Fall 2022--Annie as editor recruiting students at Involvement Fair.

As you can see, some things have changed over the years. Annie has grown, partly fueled by new life experiences. She herself wrote in her final column for the Times that being on the editorial staff of the newspaper, and of the MMU literary magazine Paha, were important to her. As Annie states:

Quote: Being part of these publications was the highlight of my school experience and proved to be invaluable. Writing for the Times, I learned how to ask strategic questions, honed my writing and photography skills and met a lot of interesting people. Unquote.

Annie was quite complimentary to both me and to Dr. Mary Vermillion, advisor of Paha, and I appreciate her kind words. Kind, but heartfelt, too, because that was Annie—she has the attributes that a great journalist and writer needs: a big heart combined with a critical-thinking mind.

I am proud to have been part of Annie’s growth over the past three years. True, Reece’s Peanut Butter cups were also a part of that growth, for both of us, but I mean the growth of her skills and mind.

Every student faces a balancing act of life and school and activities, and Annie showed a lot of grit and determination completing her undergraduate degree as a non-traditional age student whose balancing act is incredibly challenging. I hope that her family shares fully in the pride those of us at MMU feel in seeing what Annie has been able to do. As a journalist for the MMU Times, Annie covered key stories with maturity, balance and insight. She wrote about MMU removing art installations in a controversy last spring. She wrote about the struggles of teachers in a challenging time for education. She covered a Holocaust remembrance ceremony in a story that was recognized as the best feature story in the state by the Iowa College Media Association. Her personal blog, Anne with an E, was recognized twice by ICMA for being among the best student journalist’s blogs in Iowa.

More than the accolades from ICMA, I think Annie will long be recalled for her clear devotion to the newspaper and its service to MMU. She innovated, creating, for example, the “Flashback” feature that is an ongoing aspect of the Times.

She wrote many of our best news stories, staff editorials and features, and made many of our best photographs, over the three years she spent on The Hill.

It is my pleasure to recognize the many contributions that Annie Barkalow has made to Mount Mercy as a journalist. The outstanding student journalist of the year for 2023 is Anne with an E, a.k.a. Annie Barkalow.

A Dramatic News Shift

Bundles of the Mount Mercy Times on the McAuley Hall loading dock, 8 a.m., May 3, 2023.

How long will there be “paper” newspapers? When will the final print edition of whatever the final publication is smack the porch of the last subscriber?

The hand has been writing on the wall for a while. And, yes, I still get my morning paper, and I still like having the pages there with me at breakfast to flip through, to read what catches my eye. I get The Gazette, the Cedar Rapids, Iowa, newspaper. I also am a digital subscriber to The New York Times.

I like my NY Times, and try to dip into it daily. But I most often look at it on my phone screen, and the words are teeny tiny there—readable, but though the phone is always with me and the pages of the Gazette are not, it is still not as conveniently consumable as ink on paper. I’m sure I consume many more stories in the Gazette than in the Times.

But I have issues with my paper Gazette, too. As their subscriber base narrows, their delivery service is getting iffier. We went from having a carrier who put the paper on our front stoop to “driveway delivery,” which means, it seems, a biplane tosses out papers in our neighborhood that randomly land in the vicinity of subscribers. Finding the paper is a daily morning hunt, and Monday it wasn’t there at all—an occurrence that has become way too common since the biplane was launched.

And one winter day, after a snowfall, I ended up chewing up the Sunday Gazette with a snowblower because I didn’t see it buried under the blanket of white. On rainy days, given the haphazard nature of the paper drop, it’s an even bet whether we have a readable newspaper or a soggy brick of mushy newsprint.

It gets irritating paying for a product whose delivery is getting dicey. My wife and I have discussed whether to continue getting the paper, since we’re not always “getting” the paper. Digital would be an option, but I hate to give up reading a paper newspaper.

When I was growing up, my family usually got three daily newspapers, at least in Iowa. I wasn’t very literate when we lived in California (we moved just before I turned 8), so I can’t say what the sitch was there. 

By the way, Word doesn’t like shortening “situation” to “sitch,” but Word clearly is not a Buffy the Vampire Slayer fan—I am, so that’s the sitch.

Anyway, in Clinton, it was The Quad City Times, The Des Moines Register and The Clinton Herald. In Muscatine, it was the first two (QCT and Register), and The Muscatine Journal.

The local papers were afternoon publications, the area “big city” paper, and the newspaper Iowa used to depend upon when the sports page was Peach colored, were both morning papers. None of them were dropped from biplanes. As I became interested in journalism as a career, two of them became part of my experience—my undergraduate internship was at The Muscatine Journal, and I had a part-time gig as a sportswriter for The Quad City Times when I was a senior in college.

The world changes. Web-fed rotary presses were invented before the Civil War, making mass newspapers possible. Today, that industry makes less sense, which is why it’s scrambling so hard to acquire cents.

And so, we come to today. A big day that I have decidedly mixed feelings about.

My wife set the alarm for 5:30 a.m., a brutally early time to a night owl like me. I had to arise early to get to the Mount Mercy University campus before an early class.

I had the glamorous job of moving the pile of newspapers that are dropped off at a loading dock to the newspaper’s library office, where a student doing work study will later distribute those dead trees around campus.

Papers on cart in MMU Times office. Collector's item soon to be available around campus.

Meanwhile, she will collect all of the fortnight-old copies of the previous edition—well, not “all,” since some get picked up, but a disturbingly large percentage of the previous paper will end up in recycling bins rather than before the eyeballs of our intended audience.

Old fogeys like me love the paper newspapers. Young flappers, like MMU students, apparently, aren’t so enamored by dried ink on dead trees.

The Mount Mercy Times maintains its own web site but, frankly, doesn’t do a great job of it. Partly, that’s because the print product occupies so much energy and time, and partly because the few readers we do have aren’t motivated to seek out a secondary experience online that is not as good as the fish wrap in the news rack.

Nonetheless, the world is changing. Newspapers are an industry that is contracting. Not that the need or desire for information is gone—but that desire is less fulfilled by felling Canadian forests for paper.

We have crossed the Rubicon. Recognizing the media trends in the world and on college campuses, I asked the governing body of the MMU Times, the ill-named “Board of Student Publications,” (there is more than one student publication at MMU, but only the Times is regulated by the board) to review the status of the newspaper this spring, to answer the question: Does it make sense to go all-in as an online news source and leave the paper behind?

The paper. Get yours later today on campus.

In examining the question, the board surveyed the MMU community. The voluntary responses showed that many people love the paper newspaper and will dearly miss it. But I don’t think it was enough to justify printing and recycling most of a press run.

I was asked to inquire of other colleges what their experiences are, and I queried the Iowa College Media Association. In general, many colleges are committed to maintain a paper newspaper, but only for now. At many places, the frequency of publication and number of pages is in noticeable decline. And at Buena Vista University in Storm Lake, the switch to all online was more than a decade ago.

The board asked me what I wanted. I want the world to go back as it was. I want people to get more of their information from newspapers. I want the college student generation to appreciate and deeply be into reading. What I want, however, doesn’t change what is. Given reality, I don’t know for sure what I should want, but I said it was time that the Times get with the times. We know we’re going online as some point—let’s do it now.

I hope I didn’t make a horrible mistake. Maintaining a vibrant student “newspaper” without any paper will be a challenge. Yet, the staff of the paper will no longer be treating our online presences as an afterthought; instead, it will be the thought.

Who’d have thought it? An old paper fan pushed for the shift to online. What an odd sitch. It feels right to me, sort of. And a little sad, at the same time. I’m not always good at change even if I think it can be a healthy thing.

So, today, I picked up the final paper. Delivered it to the newsroom. And sighed.

Let’s hope what comes next can be vibrant and lively. I don’t want MMU to turn into what too many communities have become these days—news deserts. The news is there, but nobody is covering it.

May we be an oasis of journalism instead. Even if that journalism will now be all electrons dancing in cyberspace and on people’s phone screens.

Dated May 4, 2023--the final MMU Times paper edition.

Kevin, Tucker and the Weird Big Lie

The stunt that Kevin McCarthy pulled, releasing hours of Capitol video to Fox News host Tucker Carlson, may be backfiring.

I think part of the problem is that too many of use recall Jan. 6, 2021. Trying to reframe it now as peaceful patriots simply visiting our seat of government is to completely miscast events we watched unfold. It seemed like a violent insurrection meant to gum up the work of democracy only because it was a violent insurrection meant to gum up the works of democracy.

Take, for instance, this clip, in which Tucker says video “proves” a Capitol police officer was not a victim of violence:

But wait, there’s more. As PolitiFact points out, in an essay on seven lies pushed by Carlson, the video doesn’t prove what Tucker claims it proves.

Well, as violent historic events go, the Jan. 6 riot was not all that organized. It wasn’t 9/11 nor Pearl Harbor—the death toll was much more modest, the Capitol was damaged but not burned as it was when British tourists wearing red coats visited early in the 19th century. But it was not peaceful, either, and it was an attempt to shut down a peaceful transfer of power following a legal election.

Let’s say it again. The 2020 election was not stolen. Joe Biden won. It’s OK to not be OK with that, but it’s not OK to not acknowledge it as a reality. When you lose an election, you dust yourself off, pick yourself up and vow to come back in the next election.

You don’t march on the Capitol and demand a redo.

And if you’re the Speaker of the House, and you want to go against the advice of law enforcement and release a bunch of raw video form that day, at least you release that video to all media all at once, not some weird alt-universe commentator like Tucker Carlson.

What McCarthy did, and how Tucker used that video, is not transparency. It is the opposite. It’s ink in the water. It’s a big lie, parading around like it was truth.

We are always better off if we at least can agree on the basic facts, and the problem with Tucker and Trump’s Big Lie is it remains a Big Lie. And Jan. 6, 2021, was a shameful day. People did die. Democracy was in danger. And it still is.