Students are tuning in to David Letterman instead of Jay Leno and Chevy Chase in the late-night talk shows
Jason Cupp, Stillwell junior, left, and Eric Tow, Olathe junior, watch "The Late Show" last week in the lobby of Olin Templin Hall
No.1 reason for KU students sleeping in class: Letterman
By Sara Bennett Kansan staff writer
Dave, Jay and Arsenio are the battle-proven veterans. Conan and Chevy are the new recruits, fresh out of boot camp. Lines have been drawn in the airwaves as TV's colonels of comedy battle for the right to rule the war-torn late-night zone.
The late-night television wars have been raging for three weeks, and KU students agree that
Letterman threw down the gauntlet in the late-night battle and has conquered the nation's top ratings.
Dave Letterman is the victor so far. In a informal poll, students said Dave is having a red-letters season, and most agreed that he would chase Chevy off
the battlefield.
"Dave has that dry, witty, sarcastic, on-the-edge type of humor that's lacking in Leno and Chevy Chase," said Robert Zielinski, Omaha, Neb., junior.
"Chevy is kind of a rip-off of Dave," Zielinski continued. "He's funny in a movie falling down, or drinking a glass of water the wrong way, but not on TV doing that spontaneous, off-the-top-of-your-head humor."
Letterman, the gap-toothed everyman whose recent switch to CBS from NBC threw down the gaudlet in the late-night battle, has conquered the nation's top ratings as well. After
competing for three weeks in the same time slot as "The Tonight Show" with Jay Leno. Letterman tops the late-night ratings roster. Letterman had a 5.6 rating, which means that 5.6 percent of all televisions in the country were tuned in to his show. The show earned a 19 percent share, which means that of all televisions that were turned on during his time slot watched Letterman, according to the most recent figures from A.C. Nielson Media Research in New York City.
Students cited Letterman's Top 10 list and guests such as Vice President Al Gore and Robin Williams as selling points for the show.
Chris Wareham, Overland Park senior, said Letterman seemed comfortable in front of the camera.
"I like the casual spontaneity of his humor," he said. "He's just a funny guy and he doesn't have to try."
The same wasn't said about Chevy Chase, the slap-stick "Saturday Night Live" veteran who is trying his hand on Fox. Critics have panned Chase's show as boring and stiff, though it scored better in its premiere week than "The Tonight Show" with Jay Leno. Chevy Chase had a 4.3 rating and 10 percent share.
Most KU students interviewed agreed Chase seems uncomfortable in a talk-show setting and should stick with films.
"He doesn't seem to move very smoothly," said Erick Bryant, St. Louis senior. "He's better as an actor."
Doug Dorothy, Lenexa sophomore, said, "Chevy seems nervous, and he makes every
one else nervous too."
Students also expressed indifference or dislike for Jay Leno. Johnny Carson's replacement placed last for the week of Sept. 6-10 with a 3.3 rating and 10 percent share. The show scored a full point below "Nightline," which came in second place all around.
"I hate Jay Leno," said Stacy Stull, Overland Park senior. "He annoys me and he has bad jokes."
Shannon Norman, Fowler freshman, said,
"Leno has to live up to Carson and he's not
doing it very well. Nobody can top Carson."
Some students said they prefer to watch Arsenio Hall who has, so far, kept conspicuously out of the late-night wars. Ratings were not available for Hall's show because it is syndicated.
Ratings are also not yet available on Conan O'Brien, Dave Letterman's replacement on NBC's "Late Night" show. But those who have seen the show say the Howdy-Doody look alike doesn't quite live up to his predecessor. Critics have called O'Brien likable, but not very funny.
O'Brien doesn't seem to have the name recognition needed to lure viewers to his show because few students interviewed had seen it. Those who had said O'Brien, who had no previous television experience, was doing the best he could.
"He's filling in pretty good," said Tim McMullen, Liberty, Mo., senior. "It seems like he's making the best out of a bad situation, considering Dave was such a legend."
'Joy Luck Club' captures dynamic family relationships
Wang film reveals daily struggles and emotional experiences of modern-day Chinese mothers and their American daughters
By Sara Bennett
Kansan staff writer
The relationship between mother and daughter is mysterious and elusive, reaching into the crevices of the deepest and most painful emotions.
Tan's novel captured these dynamics with subtle words and characterizations. Wang brings them to life, painting a powerful and moving family portrait with gorgeous cinematography and flashbacks which expose each woman's experiences and motivations.
"The Joy Luck Club" tells four interwoven stories of mothers who try desperately to give their American daughters a better life than they had in China and daughters who try to earn the approval of mothers they barely know.
"The Joy Luck Club," Wayne Wang's adaptation of Amy Tan's novel of the same name, addresses that relationship as few films have before. Rarely does a film accurately capture the confusing and subtle power plays between a mother and daughter.
The film alternates between the daughters' modern-day struggles and
the mothers' experiences as young girls in China. Each sequence is artfully crafted. The daughters' stories are presented with confused poignancy as the women tiptoe around failed relationships and strained encounters with their mothers. The flashbacks to pre-war China are infused with brilliant color and tragic urgency as the mothers' often devastating pasts are revealed.
When the mother's past and daughter's present collide, the effect is electric. Four emotional moments-of-frith occur as each is forced to acknowledge her dependence on the other.
Although "The Joy Luck Club" is about Chinese immigrants, its themes are universal. The daughters grow up far from their mothers' homeland, yet they cannot escape their legacies. The more the daughters try to separate themselves from their mothers, the more they become like them. The conflicts in the daughters lives are only resolved when they allow themselves to learn from their mothers' examples.
See JOY,Page 8.
Film shows struggles of 8 women
By JL Watson Kansan staff writer
Wayne Wang was born in Hong Kong to a father who was so enraptured with western movies he named his son after John Wayne. It seems natural that Wang ended up directing Hollywood movies.
However, it may seem unnatural that Wang's latest film, "The Joy Luck Club," centers around the lives of eight women.
"Some of my best friends are female, and I grew up with a lot of women," said Wang, who is in Kansas City this week attending one of the film's debut showings. "I try to be as sensitive as possible. My wife says I must've been a
Valerie Bontrager/ KANSAN
Wayne Wang, the director of the "Joy Luck Club," tells the story behind his new movie on Monday in Kansas City.
See WANB, page 8.
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
People and places at the University of Kansas.
Perverts, weirdos wackos and losers: It's all here to read
At an August meeting in a Tampa, Fla., church, representatives of the Union of Independent (Ku Klux) Klansmen and the all-Black Pan-African Inter-National Movement vowed to work together to create an independent African nation for African-Americans. The groups agreed that integration in the United States is impractical and that relocation payments should be made to African-Americans as restitution for historical oppression.
Executive-style cowboy
Video pervert
Mark Wiegel, 33, was arrested in Salem, N.H., in May after mull security guards confiscated a video camera hidden in a shoe box in his bag. Wiegel allegedly would set the bag down at a woman's feet with the lens pointed upward so that he could videotape up the woman's dress.
Doctor, I need a second opinion
A well-dressed man in his 40s fled after an incident in February at a western wear store in Omaha, Neb. According to a clerk, the man asked for a horse harness for a costume party and went into a dressing room to put it on. He emerged a short time later, flung the door open and ran around the store wearing only his undershorts and the harness. After a few minutes, he quietly changed back into his business suit and told the clerk he would be back with his wife to buy the harness.
Marketing executive Leonard Schwartz, 34, was arrested in New York City in July and charged with impersonating a medical doctor in his swanky Manhattan apartment building. Allegedly, Schwartz took a female neighbor's temperature rectally, tried to administer an enema to her and offered to examine the 11-year-old daughter of another resident.
Mistress Ayesha
In May, Minneapolis Judge Richard Solum dropped prostitution charges against Jacqueline Reina, aka "Mistress Ayesha." She was discovered by police during a raid on her chambers standing beside a naked client who was strapped to a sawhorse and on whose genitals she had placed 16 clothespins. Reasoned Judge Solum, Reina herself was not responding to a sexual impulse from the act and could not be guilty of prostitution. (She was found guilty of running a disorderly house.)
See WEIRD, Page 8