“Steve Harvey: A Comedy King Looks To Speak Across A Cultural Divide - NPR News” plus 1 more |
| Steve Harvey: A Comedy King Looks To Speak Across A Cultural Divide - NPR News Posted: 26 Jan 2011 07:55 PM PST  Enlarge Adele Hampton/NPR Entertainer and relationship guru Steve Harvey signs copies of his new book, Straight Talk, No Chaser: How to Find, Keep, and Understand a Man, at the Borders on 18th Street in Washington, DC on Thursday, January 19, 2011. Adele Hampton/NPR Entertainer and relationship guru Steve Harvey signs copies of his new book, Straight Talk, No Chaser: How to Find, Keep, and Understand a Man, at the Borders on 18th Street in Washington, DC on Thursday, January 19, 2011. Call it "disintermediation" or "cultural fragmentation," but American culture is sliced up in so many ways that what's popular with one group can go virtually unnoticed by another. NPR's Fractured Culture series explores life in "a culture of many cultures." The explosion of Internet outlets and TV channels means it's harder for any one star to break through to everyone. But Steve Harvey is doing his damnedest. Harvey's audience numbers 7 million for his nationally syndicated radio/TV show, which airs in 64 markets around the country. His first relationship how-to book, Act Like A Lady, Think Like A Man, sold 2.5 million copies. His second, Straight Talk No Chaser, has been a Top 10 New York Times bestseller since its release six weeks ago. Harvey hosts the game show Family Feud. (He's credited with boosting its ratings almost 40 percent since joining the show last fall.) And — oh yeah — he's a formidable stand-up comedian, featured in the 2000 Spike Lee documentary The Original Kings of Comedy, who's also starred in two sitcoms, including one that ran for six years. So how come millions of people have never heard of him? In part because our culture has become profoundly fractionalized since the advent of hundreds of cable channels, inward-gazing Internet communities and rigidly specific niche marketing. Harvey says he believes it's practically impossible to imagine any comedian these days accomplishing the reach Bill Cosby had with The Cosby Show, for example, or a musician selling as many albums as Michael Jackson. There is just so much out there that it's impossible to be familiar with all of it. He's had to fight that reality in his current career — even in his own cultural consumption. Take movies. When I went to see him a couple of weeks ago, he plugged a movie I wasn't very familiar with: Burning Palms, starring Zoe Saldana, of Avatar. Then I asked him during our interview about The King's Speech, because Harvey struggled with a debilitating stutter as a child. But Harvey hadn't heard of The King's Speech. This relatively major star was fascinated to learn about this relatively major movie. But then 25 years ago, there were barely 200 movies released every year, and everyone in media and entertainment would have heard of the short-listed likely Best Picture nominees. (In fact The King's Speech took 12 nominations when they were announced Jan. 25.) Last year, there were more than 500 movies in theaters. Plus, Harvey had a good excuse. He works so hard, he said, he hadn't managed to see a film in theaters in years, with one huge exception: The week before, he'd taken his wife to see True Grit at a theater in Atlanta, where he lives. Harvey started doing stand up when he was 27. Now, he's 54. For years, he ground out gigs in clubs across the United States. "If you name me the city I can tell you how to get there," he offered — and did, in spectacular fashion. But Harvey's had more trouble finding a road map to a multiracial fan base. His WB sitcom, The Steve Harvey Show, got decent ratings and earned NAACP awards, but it never found Cosby-like traction beyond black audiences. When he got a book deal based on the relationship advice he gives during his show, his publishers tried to keep him in that niche. "They were convinced at HarperCollins that [Act Like A Lady, Think Like A Man] was for black women, and when I sent the book in, they were putting stuff in it like, 'Sisters, let me tell y'all, black women got to stay together!' Whoa. I didn't say that. Take all that out." Men are men and women are women, says Harvey, so his books are for everyone. "I think he does a fabulous job of getting people talking," says Tonya Ladipo, a psychotherapist with a mostly black and African-American clientele. She's been surprised by how often her appointments start with the question: "Did you hear Steve Harvey's show this morning?" That's their in, a way to start talking about their problems. Ladipo doesn't always agree with Harvey's advice — take him as a comedian, not a mental health professional, she says. And at a moment when relationship success is critical to Steve Harvey's brand, his second ex-wife has been publicly furious about their divorce, lambasting him on social media. "Hey man, I got a divorce," he said recently on his show. "Hey man, I stepped out on my girl." But then Harvey started talking about his upcoming national tour with Kirk Franklin, one of gospel's biggest stars. He calls it the Ain't Nobody Perfect Tour. Harvey promised his on-air sidekicks that the tour would make them laugh — not chuckle. "A laugh is when you hit the people you roll with," he said. In a fragmented media culture, that's pretty much the definition of success. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php |
| Cultural program OASIS forced to cut back - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review Posted: 26 Jan 2011 08:35 AM PST Dave Shaffer learned to speak German 14 years ago by going to Pittsburgh OASIS, a nonprofit that offers classes, day trips and volunteering opportunities to the 50-and-over segment. That was the first of about 70 classes he took. At the end of April, though, OASIS will curtail its education and cultural programs because of financial problems. Its executive director, Gail Weisberg, who turned 65 on Tuesday, has decided to retire. "I feel very bad about it," said Shaffer, 76, of Sheraden. "I enjoyed coming down here. You meet different people from different areas of the city and county. I really (will) miss it." OASIS will continue its reading and tutoring program at 30 elementary schools in Pittsburgh Public Schools and all six elementary schools in the Woodland Hills School District. It also will continue computer classes for residents 50 and older at Macy's. The organization, based at Macy's Downtown store, has 24,500 members and serves 5,000 people a trimester. The cost of its programs varies from free classes to day trips that cost $87. "OASIS should be proud that we offered a lot of opportunities to many people," said Weisberg. "We wanted people to stay active and challenge their minds." She said the nonprofit group with a $300,000 annual budget suffered cuts in grants from foundations and corporations. "We're just victims of this economic downturn," Weisberg said. The local chapter is affiliated with the OASIS Institute, a St. Louis-based network of 16 centers in the United States. Janice Branham, spokeswoman at the institute, said it initially budgeted $65,000 -- "an unusually large allocation" -- for Pittsburgh last year. Eventually, however, the institute gave the Pittsburgh chapter $80,000 in the hope that it could sustain itself. "We have a responsibility to the whole network, not just to Pittsburgh," she said, "and there's a limit as to how much we can invest just in one city." Marlene Robb started the school tutoring program 10 years ago. It has enough money to operate at least until June. But she worries about what older beneficiaries of OASIS' educational and cultural programs will do. "It's really a tragedy for these people," said Robb, 76, of Churchill. "They cannot afford to live in assisted living places where programs are provided, and they have a more active life." This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php |
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