Category: Scholarship In Action (Page 13 of 17)

A Cher Essay

January 29, 2009 / Cher Scholar / 2 Comments

Someone wrote an essay defending Cher! http://thedartmouth.com/2009/01/27/arts/music/

I would be SO excited about this literary event except that it’s so bad. The worst quote I can cull from it would be that the song Half Breed was about:

“the challenges she faced growing up as a half-Cherokee, half-Caucasian woman.”

The author also states that Cher would be a phenomenal commencement speaker which was really hard for me to picture (because that would be a bit of a boring existence for Cher – doing the Bill Cosby at uuniversities and colleges); although I agree she would have good life-experience to impart and two of the speeches I've heard from her (Sonny’s eulogy and her Academy Award acceptance speech, for example) have been good. On the other hand, I do seem to recall a few not-so-hot speeches (Billboard Awards Life Achievement Award speech).

This blogger also claims Cher is a “Diva of bygone days, star of the cinema and wise-worded woman, Cher brings much more to the table than she is given credit for.”

Diva of bygone days? Ummm…she is still kicking ass as a diva in Vegas, still active fodder for the 'bloids, still a big deal when she makes an appearance on TV, still winning awards, still being offered movie projects. I mean why cite Tea with Mussolini to sum up her crowning movie achievements? To not mention Mask or Moonstruck when making your argument, or even her more recent Stuck on You?

You say she “brings to the table” and then list out none of her sweets. I ask for chocolates and I get rice cakes.

Criminey! I can’t do this by myself! 😉

Collecting Cher

January 15, 2009 / Cher Scholar / 0 Comments

At first I got excited that this article on collecting Cher stuff was out there! Finally, something I could send my parents to ensure them I’ve investing my money properly. 🙂

Who am I kidding?

This article addressed none of the financial advantages I’ve always hoped there’d be in collecting Cher junk. And the author, Victor, is a bit stodgy to boot.

Typical sentence:

“A complete discography of her collectibles is not something to be taken lightly. Ideally, a complete collection could be gathered, giving you something that can be proudly displayed.”

Proudly displayed? A Cher collection can take over your house. Or Basement. Or parents’ basement. Or storage facility B.

“You could also try collecting her t-shirts from all of her different tours. This could also be quite a task to complete as she has toured a number of different times. Gathering a complete collection of these shirts could prove to be a challenge, yet one that you could have a great deal of fun with.”

Victor lists possible avenues of collection: Records, the aforementioned t-shirts, autographed photos, autographed movie scripts, the S&C model cars, stuff from her perfume line, the “look-alike dolls,” alarm clocks and night lights (Jesus, I don’t even have a Cher alarm clock!), wristwatches, trading cards, and musical instruments…

“can all bear her name and because of this, you would do well to add any of these items to your memorabilia collection…Cher has certainly always been a vibrant personality in our culture and building up a stock of her celebrity collectibles could not only be a bit of a challenge, but give you a great deal of fun in the meantime.”

Psst…Victor makes it sound WAY more boring than it actually is. I see that this is because he reuses bland monosyllabic words over and over again in his piece. I’d recommend a thesaurus, which you can also have quite “a great deal of fun with.”

The Captain & Tennille Show

January 15, 2009 / Cher Scholar / 0 Comments

For Christmas, among other things (like the awesome Carol Burnette "Went with the Wind" doll), I received a collection of the Captain & Tennille variety show episodes which aired on ABC on Mondays from September 1976 to March 1977.

I can’t help but compare this show to The Sonny & Cher Show running at the same time. In the episodes I’ve seen so far there are far less skits on C&T and more musical numbers, sometimes more experimental (there was a word jazz segment with Penny Marshall, Tennille and Ron Palillo –Horseshack- and Lawrence Hilton Jacobs -Freddie Washington- from Welcome Back Kotter which was good) but for the most part the show is heavy on Tennille singing alone or with musical guests, including an amazing duet with Dionne Warwick. The Captain actually speaks on the show and is actually pretty charming and has good comedic timing. I like him. They’re talented to be sure. And I do love variety shows, pretty unconditionally, including this one. Trouble is, the show lacks something sparkly that S&C had, despite all the required rhinestones on Tennille’s dresses.

And in the premiere episode they go through a long joke setup with Jackie Gleason, mistaking each other for other iconic celebrities of the time culminating in Gleason confusing them with Sonny & Cher. Which was probably the big elephant in the room. “We’re not Sonny & Cher” the joke seemed to say.

Which is something all new variety seems to feel compelled to say, especially if co-hosted by a man and wife. Nick and Jessica Simpson were emphatic before their TV special a few years ago — we’re not trying to be Sonny & Cher. Sharon and Ozzy Osbourne also recently declared their new show would not be a new Sonny & Cher. It’s kind of a back-handed compliment. They’re saying simultaneously, we’re not trying to copycat what has become known as the standard of couple-variety shows and we intend to be much cooler than that.

And that’s the fascinating paradox of Sonny & Cher. When they hit town in the 60s, they were hyper-cool, then in the mid-60s they were perceived as waning-cool. Then in the late 60s definitely not cool due to their anti-drug stance and the changing musical culture. Back on TV, they were cool kinda but not cool kinda because older people were now watching them.

Cher in Translation

October 13, 2008 / Cher Scholar / 6 Comments

I didn’t post last week. There was just a lot of drama going on and work was utterly busy. Yeah, I said it. Utterly. My upcoming wedding, planning for which had gone off track for about 6 months, got back on track last week just in time for the economy to collapse and the political process to implode with crazy candidate behavior and, quite frankly, what seems like scary lynch mobs forming. I’m addicted to election news.

Then I joined a Ulyssesreading group with my bf and some people at work which has been very challenging but rewarding (so far I like James Joyce's overall structure and much of his poetic language but the stream of consciousness, after pages and pages, fails to serve). I’ve been trying to keep up in pottery (did the annual trip to Ojai this weekend where we revisited Sylvia Raz and found a new favorite sculptor, Ted Gall). I’ve also been trying to organize the wedding planning schedule from a 6-month stockpile of notes, keep up with political emails and do the 9 to 5 (which has entailed a lot of web postings of foreign language translations on Internet policy). And then there have been the interpersonal disappointments, the alienation, the self-doubt, the mild passive-aggressive persecution, the ennui. What can you do?

But I’ve wanted to publish this blog post for months, back when Cher scholar Peter sent me a slew of Sonny & Cher singles on CD in Italian and French. There was a lot to chew on and I kept waiting for my bf to have time to translate the three rare songs; but that time never materialized. He’s just not as dedicated to Cher scholarship as I am. What gives?

I did learn many interesting facts about Sonny & Cher singing in translation in the 60s. Can I just say how very kewl the whole thing is, Cher singing in Italian and French? I really love it. Almost as much as Cher with an Italian accent in Moonstruck. It can really make you think about a song in a different way. According to one website, in 1966 Cher herself competed in Italy with four covers of "Bang Bang" already on the charts by cover artists. How crazy is that? And Ahmet Ertegun said the song was” one of the greatest post-WW2 songs ever written.” I mean it’s good but… calm down.

New CherScholar.com Cooking

September 12, 2008 / Cher Scholar / 0 Comments

There is a lot I wan't to talk about right now that I hope I can get to next week: a very interesting French/Italian collection of 60s Sonny & Cher songs a diligent Cher scholar sent me last week and my first experiences after joining The Official, International, World-Renowned Cher Fan Club. It was actually fun and I'll divulge my journeys into that early next week. In the meantime, I've been revamping CherScholar.com.

The idea for this came to me last year when I realized I needed to professionalize my publishing credits page and CherScholar.com looked pretty amateurish as it was inter-woven into my other sites. It needed to grow up a bit. Not that it's completely mature now, but it's better.

It's up and surf-able but only in a sort of beta form. When I transfered all the text, encoded punctuations became garbled and I now need to re-read every freakin word of the damn thing to find unfortunate parentheses and dashes a global search and replace surely missed. And that's a major pain in my ass and will take me a few days. I blame Microsoft products. But it's readable at this point.

I've organized the site more like a learning institution and expanded out some of the sections a tiny bit (tabloids, records) and added whole new sections on books on Cher, television, photographs and concerts. And there's a new glossary of Cher terms I hope you'll enjoy.

If you can stand to wade through the typos, spelling errors and punctuation tragedies, check it out at www.cherscholar.com. Otherwise, wait a week!

Yours in Cher scholarship…

Cher Hearts Hillary

August 28, 2008 / Cher Scholar / 1 Comment

I’m a Cher fan; I’m a dog fan; I love Mexican food; I dig pottery and poetry; I adore the southwest and I’m a political junkie. Two of these things have come to clash this week – Cher and politics. Don’t get me wrong: I love me some Cher stuff; but I actually get really fired up about the politics.

And yet I really debated even covering this issue in 'I Found Some Blog,' even bothering to discuss Cher’s comments to Liz Smith about both of their feelings on US presidential democratic candidates Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama. I debated discussing it for two days and for two big reasons.

First, my parents told me never to bring up politics in a mixed crowd. So you can probably guess by that rule my parents are democrats. This blog is definitely a mixed crowd. So in warning: if you’re not someone of liberal leanings, go get yourself some coffee or take a walk around the block.

Secondly, is this blog really the place to hash out this sort of thing? And this is really a stickler. On the one hand the purpose of this blog originally was more about me and my learning to journal on a regular basis about semi-personal things, all under the guise of a celebrity blog; so political discussions sorta fit within that framework. And sometimes personal anecdotes bring readers and writers together—but sometimes personal subjects are just too derisive, you know? Sometimes it just doesn’t help to share.
But does that make soap-boxing permanently off limits? We can’t go that far.

CherCON 08

June 19, 2008 / Cher Scholar / 0 Comments

CherCon is coming with some new auction prizes of note. Below is the official press release:

Cher Convention 2008
The Ultimate Cher Odyssey
Caesars Palace Las Vegas
August 11-12

Pre-Concert and After-Concert Dance Parties With Non-Stop Entertainment
Grammy Nominee: Pepper Mashay. Musician: Frank D. Wright. MC: Wayne Smith, and One of the Largest Gatherings of Cher Impersonators in the World. Many Other Celebrity Impersonators of: Celine Dion, Elton John, Bette Midler, Sonny, Rod Stewart, and Laverne.

Live Charity Auction by Juliens Auctions
Including 2 Tickets to Cher's September 27th Concert, and Meet and Greet with Cher, and 2 Night Stay at Caesars. And an Autographed Guitar from Musician Frank D. Wright.

Cher Impersonator Show, Cher Seminar, Cher Game, Cher Museum, Cher Music, Cher Videos, Cher Karaoke Contest, Dance Contest, Awards Ceremony, Silent Auctions, Cocktail Parties, Rare Cher Memorabilia, Vendors Including StarWares Collectibles from LA.

Cher fans of all ages and from all over the world are invited to the 16,000 sq ft Tiberius Ballroom at Caesars Palace to celebrate the multi-talented Cher!

August 11th 9 PM-2 AM The Pre-Concert Dance Party
August 12th 11AM-5 PM The Convention
August 12th 9 PM-2 AM The After-Concert Dance Party

All 3 Events – $110 per person in advance, $140 per person at the door. To Pre-Register go to www.CherConvention.com.

Caesars Palace Special Convention Room Rate $159 per night, For Reservations go to
http://www.harrahs.com/CheckGroupAvailability.do?propCode=CLV&groupCode=SCCCA8.

All proceeds go to the Children's Craniofacial Association
Cher is the National Spokesperson. She became involved after her award winning performance in the movie 'Mask', in which she played the mother of a boy born with a severe facial disfigurement. CCA provides support to children born with facial deformities. www.CCAKids.com.

Registration Contact: Jill Gorecki
Email: JGorecki@ccakids.com

Media Contact: Kim Werdman
Email: KimWerdman@CherConvention.com

The Bono Marriage Marketing Plan

May 1, 2008 / Cher Scholar / 1 Comment

Last year a PHD at the University of Southern California sent me a link to her thesis paper on how Sonny & Cher defined celebrity marriage as a marketing strategy. She uses Nick and Jessica as an example of a modern celebrity marriage that she says heralds back to Sonny & Cher. Although now I wonder if Liz Taylor and Richard Burton were also a couple-as-one-marketable-celebrity-entity, too.

The copy of the paper I read was a longer, looser draft but essentially the same points were covered. The PHD student, Charisse L’Pree Corsbie-Massay, has now posted the essay on her website.

Her basic theory is that “the star couple creates its own marketing machine” which for S&C she dubs The Bono Plan. Star couples create their own unique celebrity entity. The marriage even helps solidify an individuals celebrity stature by giving them a safe-sex storyline and grounding their singular (sometimes scandalous) behaviors off-camera. Plus it’s all juicy biography material later on.

Okay, I’m making it sound more salacious than the theory really is. Although Corsbie-Massay does quote someone named Dyer who says “Marriage is a perpetual tabloid scandal.”

Drawbacks of this plan include the fact that you have to let strangers into your private life, or some staged (in Cher’s variety-show case) or edited (in Jessica’s reality-how case) version thereof. But the result is that the audience feels included somehow in your personal space. In any case, you need a constant medium to transmit your couple brand: for Sonny & Cher TV show and tabloids and for Nick and Jessica TV show and tabloids.

But then the PHD brings in the big guns: somehow this whole marketing plan ends up solidifying sexist cultural norms regarding husband and wife roles. In other words, the wife usually gets slotted “in her place” attempting to submit to the husband. When I think of this theory in terms of Liz Taylor, it’s interesting how hard she seemed to fight that exact subservience.

In Cher’s case, she could be feminist on the show with her suggestive banter, but be a proper wife and mother off-camera. In fact Corsbie-Massay credits Cher with helping to “spearhead the women’s lib movement” on air and I would agree with that assessment. Through image and attitude and the show’s opening duologue storylines, Cher made a statement of breaking out of subservient roles, no matter what the private reality of their lives was behind closed doors. In the draft I read, Corsbie-Massay says Cher’s “role as a feminist icon is obvious.” But here is where I think Cher actually gets short shift and is not often enough acknowledged for her role as a 70s independent feminist icon.

Corsbie-Massay provides a very interesting reading of Cher’s pre-variety-show biography with all it’s politics, counter-culturalism and early marketing strategies. And her research weights on Peter Bogdanovich’s article from 1966 in The Saturday Evening Post, one of the first scholarly-toned and critical piece on Cher. I know…Bogdanovich can be annoyingly cerebral and pompous, but the article is certainly worthy re-reading and an important piece on Cher, not only for the controversy regarding what it says about S&C but for that controversy’s impact on Cher and Bogdanovich’s relationship when he directed her in Mask.

It’s also interesting when Corsbie-Massay discusses how S&C were different than Nick and Jessica, how they embraced their physical flaws and ethnicity (whereas Jessica and Nick tried to snuff theirs).

In the initial draft Corsbie-Massay also briefly discussed how Iranian women associated with Cher’s "swarthy complexion and powerful presence" and how they emulated her. I am dying to know more about this. How did their television show get to Iran in the first place? And Cher’s influence on women of color is also grossly under-evaluated.

CherCON

March 19, 2008 / Cher Scholar / 0 Comments

Tentative dates have been announced on the Cher Convention website, August 11 and 12, for the next Cher Convention. This will be the third in five conventions residing in Las Vegas, most likely at Caesars Palace near Cher’s hullabaloo.

When you check your calendar you will find these dates to be week days. I wonder if this will have an impact on attendance. That and the fact that major amounts of monies are going to be spent down the hall for concert tickets where you can actually see Cher live, in the flesh. It will be an interesting study in celebrity obsession to see how many Cher fans are willing to pay airfare, hotel, buy concert tickets, and spend extra vacation days for a convention in the process, and all during a recession.

East-coasters may also continue to gripe about the fact that the convention is 8 years old and has never yet gone east of Chicago. But hey, Cher’s in Vegas again. It makes sense to co-mingle a convention with her shows. Barry Manilow’s fans are doing just that with their conventions (and if you don’t know, I’ve been a long-time student, if not participant, in Barry Manilow fan conventions).

Let’s face it: being a Cher fan isn’t as expensive as being a KISS fan, but it’s certainly no bargain basement celebrity obsessing.

Holy Smoke! A Political Cher Song

February 11, 2008 / Cher Scholar / 1 Comment

I know it’s difficult to look into our Cher past when Cher future is so gloriously in front of us. But before the Vegas news broke, Cher Scholar JimmyDeanPartee (gypsy90028) contacted me to discuss the song from Cher’s 1979 album Prisoner “Holy Smoke” in order to see if this piece was still relevant to our troubled modern times.

With the political climate being what it is (see the Ben Sargent cartoon above): an unwanted war, soaring gas prices, the mortgage collapse, stock market woes, US religious-unrest – I do believe it is time to re-explicate this work composed by Michele Aller and Bob Esty. Maybe it will reinvigorate your ambitions to join the political process this year. Remember, it’s your right and it’s your duty.

I mean…come on, people died for you (not only in this war but back during the Revolution). Show them some love for your country and vote. I’ve never missed an election, even the stupid silly ones filled with Arnold Schwarzenegger propositions.

Holy Smoke

Where do we draw the line
on what’s going on

(Well…you can vote.)

When do we take a stand
and demand to know the truth

(Uh…about 8 years ago.)

Talk is cheap
Won’t get the problems solved

(Seriously, TV talking heads are not my biggest pet peeve. My real rage comes over those news sources who just print competing lies and fail to investigate the truth of any claims politicians make, giving American yokels the dangerous luxury of continuing to believe whatever cockamamie thing they want to. Case in point was a recent article on Yahoo! News where John McCain accused former Republican candidate Mitt Romney of flip-flopping on issues and Mitt Romney then denying it. No attempt was made to root out a very verifiable truth there: how often Romney did flip flop. Yahoo just presented both statements like a free outlet for them to do a pissing match, lie for lie. Talk is way cheap.)

We’re in too deep
Not to get involved

(If you think gas is expensive now…)

We got the sun for free

(I never knew that’s what that line was. I guess I always thought it was: we get this song for free.)

So explain to me
Why gas is up a dollar

(More like two-and-a-half dollars.)

I gotta holler holy smoke

(Well, you can holler but as we’ve already ascertained: talk is cheap. Hollering is hillbilly.)

Oh, they say atomic power
could never hurt a flower
Holy smoke

(That flower-power rhyme sounds hippie-ish; Rush Limbach might accuse this song of being a left-wing conspiracy.)

Every quick solution
leads to more pollution
Holy smoke

They say they found the answer
breathing causes cancer

(Okay I thought she was singing: the reed that causes cancer…like smoking reeds…I know it’s stupid; but I was nine when this album came out!)

Holy smoke
All I can say is holy smoke

(clearly)

Why do we turn away
from what’s going on

(Because we’re lazy and celebrity obsessed.)

We’ll ever believe again
in those who hide the truth

Talk is cheap
Won’t get the problems solved
We’re in too deep
Not to get involved
Don’t throw it all a way
it’s easy enough to say

When gas is up a dollar
everybody holler holy smoke
They say atomic power
could never hurt a flower
Holy smoke

Fifty-five or faster
could drive us to disaster
Holy smoke

(I think Sammy Hagar would see the sarcasm in that line, too.)

If I say go on and shove it
The media would love it

(I would have said this wasn’t true anymore: young celebutard’s swear so often; but Cher swore on the Billboard Awards years ago and they made a federal case out of it. Cases in fact, case nos. 06-1760-ag (L), 06-2750-ag (CON), and 06-5358-ag (CON). Read the overview: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/06/11/fcc_profanity_ruling/)

Holy smoke
All I can say is holy smoke
Holy smoke

Where do we draw the line

(dramatic music)

When do we take a stand
Why do we turn away
We’ll ever believe again

Talk is cheap
Won’t get the problems solved
We’re in too deep
Not to get involved
Don’t throw it all away

It’s easy enough to say….repeat
Holy holy holy holy
All I can say is holy smoke!

Category: Scholarship In Action (Page 13 of 17)

A Cher Essay

Collecting Cher

The Captain & Tennille Show

Cher in Translation

New CherScholar.com Cooking

Cher Hearts Hillary

CherCON 08

The Bono Marriage Marketing Plan

CherCON

Holy Smoke! A Political Cher Song

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