All posts by Tyler Blydenburgh, Correspondent

Arts and Entertainment

The pandemic’s effects on entertainment media

 

On Thursday, March 19, 2020, the first state-wide stay-at-home order was issued. States all over America quickly followed suit in an attempt to stop and or slow down the spread of COVID-19.

With so many people at home, families naturally flocked to the television to keep themselves entertained during lockdown and to keep up with world events. We live in a day and age where streaming services dominate our current day media space, and when COVID-19 hit, there was a noticeable increase in their uses. Why have people gone to streaming services in particular?

According to the American Psychiatric Association (APA) 62 percent of Americans felt more anxious than they did at this time (Oct. 21 2020) last year. When participants of the public opinion poll were asked what was causing them the anxiety, the top two reasons were related to the Pandemic and how it would affect aspects of their life.

To escape the chaos and stress of everyday life, people looked for a form of escapism: a different world to melt into. Several million people found it in the form of the amazing shows found on streaming services like Disney+, Hulu, and Netflix.

According to statista.com, in the first quarter of 2020 the number of Netflix subscribers jumped from 61.04 million to 69.97 million from fourth quarter 2019 in the U.S. alone. And that isn’t even the biggest jump.

When we look at variety.com’s numbers for the newly created Disney+ it’s number of subscribers jumped to 86.8 million from just over 10 million in the span of November to October of 2020.

However, COVID-19 hasn’t been too kind to traditional Hollywood. California became the first U.S state to issue a statewide stay-at-home order, shutting down movie production and traditional forms of media production in the process. This caused any anticipated movie releases to be delayed by months, and even years in some cases due to the lack of availability of staff, and actors. Even if a studio did have the manpower to film a movie or TV show, you can’t film if your actors aren’t allowed to be within 6 feet of each other.

Granted, filming for movies was finally authorized in June of 2020, however production for movies was impacted, with film crews needing even more rules and regulations than ever to ensure all actors and crew remain healthy throughout the duration of filming.

The production side of things aside, movie theaters may not be able to recover from the Pandemic. Since most movie producers are allowing straight to streaming service releases of their movies, this has ruined any reason for people to risk going out amidst the pandemic to see any new movies. AMC’s stock price has been on the decline since 2016, but in 2020 people saw the stock price drop even lower.

We see movie stars like Zendaya making movies successfully amidst the early days of the Pandemic. Companies like Disney not breaking a sweat thanks to their investment in streaming services legitimizing the medium even more. Hollywood as we knew it before the Pandemic is gone, and the Hollywood we see after the chaos of COVID-19 will be a sight to behold.

Opinion

FDA cracking down on Big Tobacco following menthol ruling

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Cigarettes, as well as other Tobacco products take lives every single day. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), tobacco products are responsible for 7 million deaths a year, and in the United States alone it’s around 480 thousand. If the pattern of smoking doesn’t change, then by 2030 the CDC predicts that tobacco related death counts will reach 8 million a year. As grim as this sounds, things may start changing.

This fight goes all the way back to 2009, when a U.S law passed called The 2009 Tobacco Control Act, which gave The U.S Food and Drug Administration (FDA) the power to regulate the tobacco industry, also banned the sale of all flavored cigarettes. There was one exception, however. Menthol, which gives cigarettes an almost minty flavor to soothe the harsh flavor of regular cigarette smoke, was exempt from the ban due to there being major pushback from the tobacco industry, as well as there being a lack of evidence to ban menthol. The FDA has said they have attempted several times to get rid of menthol since 2009, but they have “faced pushback from Big Tobacco, members of Congress and competing political interests in both the Obama and Trump administrations.”

However, finally, April 29, 2021 the FDA has finally put the lid on an almost 12 year long debate, beginning to pursue banning the sale of menthol flavored tobacco products, citing multiple health concerns, such as there being an overwhelming number of young people and minority smokers primarily smoking mint flavored cigarettes, the 2020 study in which non-Hispanic Black high school students reported past 30-day cigar smoking at levels twice as high as their White counterparts, and the statistic stating that nearly 74% of youth aged 12-17 who use cigars say they smoke cigars because they come in flavors they enjoy.

One study conducted by Tobacco Control in 2020 suggest that banning menthol cigarettes in the U.S would lead  923,000 smokers to quit in the first 13 to 17 months after a ban were to go into effect.“These flavor standards would reduce cigarette and cigar initiation and use, reduce health disparities, and promote health equality by addressing a significant and disparate source of harm,” said the FDA in their initial news release, “Taken together, these policies will help save lives and improve the public health of our country as we confront the leading cause of preventable disease and death.”