Hip Hop Ergo Propter Hoc

Loews pulled rapper 50 Cent's new autobiopic Get Rich or Die Tryin' from a Pittsburgh-area theater after a man was fatally shot in the lobby of that theater. He had seen the film and then gotten into an argument with three men in the bathroom. The argument continued in the lobby, where one of the three men shot him. They remain at large.

First problem: Nobody knows what movie the three men saw. Perhaps, as Shawn suggested, they saw Chicken Little. We don't know.

Second problem: Nobody knows if the victim had a history with the three men. Perhaps they had a long-running feud, and they could just as well have been at a Dunkin Donuts when the fight broke out. Again, we don't know.

Third problem: Even if they were all at the 50 Cent movie, just because the shooting took place after the movie does not mean that the movie caused the shooting. This is a logical fallacy, post hoc ergo propter hoc, "after this, therefore because of this."

How many people are shot nationwide every year at movie theaters? I don't know, but the fact that is the only one that has gotten any press certainly doesn't mean it's the only one that has happened. Pulling that movie isn't going to stop any shootings from happening; it might relocate them, and that's about it. This is a combination of (1) the belief that TV and movies influence the behavior of adults and (2) fear of black people.

(I cribbed most of this entry from a conversation with Shawn, who brought the fallacy issue to my attention.)

Oh, Obama!

My favorite senator, Barack Obama, recently made a speech threatening federal regulation of the television industry because there's too much sex on TV. A Kaiser Family Foundation study says that the number of sexual scenes on TV has nearly doubled since 1998.

Of course, the study is a crock of shit. According to this Washington Post article, "the Kaiser study includes a first good-night kiss at the door in its definition of 'sexual behavior.' And 'sexual content' includes any discussion about sex."

Also, it looked at pay channels like HBO, but not MTV, which teens are more likely to actually watch. It looked at channels like Lifetime and USA Network, both of which boast less than 5% teen viewers.

If parents want their children's television viewing regulated, they could probably start by not buying them TVs for their rooms (70% of kids have them). This is yet another entry in the endless debate over who is responsible for raising kids, the parents or the government. I'm all for an honest appraisal of what kids are actually watching. But this study isn't it, and I'm sad that Obama chose the side he did.

Last.fm

In case you've ever wondered what music I listen to when I'm at home, now you can see for yourself: all Britney Spears, all the time! Last.fm is a site that keeps track of the music you listen to. You can also listen to music online through them, but I haven't looked into that yet. I guess it's not stalking if you invite the stalker in. (This is probably bound for the sidebar eventually.)

Golden Silents

At first glance, Golden Silents looks like a great site for silent-movie fans. It's got a wealth of information about dozens of silent stars, from Theda Bara to Rudolph Valentino. Each entry has a nice essay outlining the star's career, along with some screenshots from their films. But whose idea was it to use colorized photos? This strikes me as a bad idea. They look like Hallmark greeting cards.

I guess it's possible that they're original colorized greeting cards, which were introduced in 1893. But still, it's off-putting. The colorized photo is not representative of what they looked like in their films (although many silent films were tinted, it was a monochrome tint), and the weird colors in the pictures are likely not representative of what the person looked like in real life.

It is likely that I am peeved by the colorization because I would have liked to use the ZaSu Pitts photo as my desktop wallpaper, if not for the color.