Tuesday, February 20, 2024
With positive results of the pilot program, the CDC requested proposals to expand the program with a partner organization. After a competitive review process, USC Annenberg's Norman Lear Center was selected. What better place and what better name to increase outreach and provide experts to TV writers? Norman Lear was the pioneer of complex and controversial issues in popular TV shows he created. All In the Family featured Archie Bunker, a jovial bigot who shed light on racism and prejudice, The Jeffersons featured an upwardly mobile black couple to showcase a successful black lifestyle, and Maude addressed abortion as an emotional, personal issue. All used humor as the teaspoon of sugar to entertain audiences while presenting real people with real life issues. It was Norman's persistence with the networks and his willingness to fight for what he believed in that made these shows possible.
The aura of Norman Lear cast a glow far beyond TV. He was a generous philanthropist who contributed to organizations and causes he believed in. The Norman Lear Center at the USC Annenberg School was established "for the study of entertainment, media and society." Its mission is to "prove that media matters, (and) to improve the quality of media to serve the public good."
As fate would have it, my husband and I left Atlanta in 2000 for his new job in the San Diego area. We were eager to return to California and our growing family, but in 2001, when CDC announced USC would expand the Entertainment Education pilot project, I found myself driving to Los Angeles to jump start the program. Little did I know I would stay for six years!
It was an honor and a privilege to create Hollywood, Health and Society at the Norman Lear Center with Marty Kaplan's leadership. During my tenure, we hired staff, conducted and published research, and developed outreach to the entertainment industry with support from four health agencies, nonprofit organizations, and the Gates Foundation, which got a green light before I left the program. Through a fortuitous partnership with the Writers Guild of America, we formed a board of directors with health care and entertainment representatives, and produced expert panels for writers several times a year at the WGAw.
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| WGAw, Lear Center and HH&S staff |
Today, the program continues to flourish beyond my wildest dreams, with a user friendly, beautifully designed website, and new partners, staff, and critical topics, i.e. climate change, sustainability, racism in health care, the plastic crisis, impact of war, older adults, and so much more. It gives me enormous pride to witness how HH&S remains a highly relevant program with ever expanding potential to inform TV audiences about all the changes and challenges we face in our world today. BRAVO to Marty Kaplan, Kate Folb, and all the staff at USC and CDC who've shepherded HH&S through the years. This is another success story that Norman Lear made possible.
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| Marty Kaplan, Larry Wilmore and Kate Folb 2023 Sentinel for Health Awards |
The start of 2024 promises more on the horizon, but it's been a bittersweet few months for those who worked with, respected, and admired Norman Lear. His passing in December leaves a gigantic legacy, especially for Lear Center staff committed to fostering and perpetuating it. First and foremost, Norman was a man of principles. He had vision, brilliance, and energy, and made a difference in our culture, especially in how we view and judge each other. He truly believed in the power of TV and humor to inform people about tough topics, and would want all of us to keep on laughing, and HH&S to keep on growing, as his wife Lyn Lear said in her remarks after he passed.
Despite his largesse, there was a singular, small conversation with him many years ago that I treasure. Talking to Norman, whom I saw once a year at the holiday party, was like talking to a neighbor I saw infrequently. I certainly knew his professional accomplishments, but I was more interested in hearing his personal story. At a young age, he lived on Blue Hills Avenue in Hartford where my former husband also lived as a young boy. He was a radio engineer on airplanes in WWII, a veteran like my dad, who served as a Marine on battleships in the South Pacific. They were born the same year, in 1922. And Norman once had a business in Middletown, CT where I lived as a young mom with two children and a husband who also owned a business. It was a few moments of friendly conversation -- making simple, everyday connections with Norman.
Of course, my work at the Norman Lear Center was the biggest connection, which we both knew. And I am grateful. But most important, I remember Norman Lear as a man who had a vision to make the world a more just and fair place through television. For that, we can all be grateful, and hopefully, we can all contribute to his vision in our own way.
2023 Travels
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| John Burrow |
As the calendar moves through February, I'm reminded of two wonderful trips last year in February and March.
The first was a long weekend in Arizona. I met my friend Vicki from Cincinnati in Phoenix to explore the Scottsdale area. Our definite highlight, after landing a Mercedes sports car at the rental counter, was the annual Arizona Fine Arts Expo. It's running again this year, January 12-March 24, and I can't recommend it more highly. It was nothing short of a kaleidoscope of truly mesmerizing works of art. Strolling from one display to the next, impressive talent and techniques lured us into a trance. Lauren Knode, Dawn Normali, and George Jones stood out, using brilliant contrasting colors of the southwest to infuse energy and raw emotion in their paintings. Knode's luminous landscapes and delicate flowers intoxicated, Normali's rich desert scenes captured the stark mood of the setting, and Jones' stunning animals in motion leaped from the canvas. So much to savor that we spent much longer than planned. Worth every minute.
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The Mercedes Sports Car |
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George Jones |
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Dawn Normali |
The oversized, ornate wood doors were the first hint that this place was special. It's a two-story, elegant room dripping with jewel-colored fabrics, and a wrought iron staircase leading to a loft of luxury dining upstairs. Furniture in dark mahogany wood shades was accented by classical Middle Eastern designs, setting the mood of the spacious setting. The authentic cuisine was a celebration of taste and harmony, the perfect match for the other world atmosphere, both alluring and welcoming. The cocktails were equally pleasing and generous. A toast to the proprietors for creating memorable decor and food.
In March last year, a most worthy treat was a trip to Oaxaca. My friend Doralece from Virginia Beach invited me to join her for a culinary tour offered by Les Dames d'Escoffier International, an organization of female chefs and women in the beverage and produce industries serving fine dining restaurants.
A former convent, the Quinta Real Oaxaca is a Unesco Cultural Heritage of Humanity hotel with four centuries of history in its interior. A must consideration if you are planning a trip to Oaxaca, considered number one or two of the most desirable destinations in the world by at least one highly regarded travel magazine.
Each day of our tour featured a cornucopia of world-class cuisine created by chefs throughout Oaxaca, a world-class culinary region. In addition, traditional candlemakers, figurine painters, and Mezcal producers demonstrated their crafts, and instructed us how to make our own samples, an immersive experience which led to a range of creative results!
Finally, Dan and I outdid ourselves in June 2023 when we traveled to Arizona for a Colorado River rafting trip through the entire Grand Canyon. It was a dream of his, and he wouldn't go unless I came along. I had my qualms because I'd done half the trip years ago, and thought it might be wise to avoid it some 40 years later. I loved the original voyage with all the adrenalin pumped by the rapids. This time, with the assurance of a motorized raft, I agreed to go along. It may have been our best trip ever! The fact that we could even do it, getting on and off the huge inflated raft being the hardest part, was an accomplishment. We slept outside under a million stars every night except one, which threatened a repeat performance of the day's downpour. We lugged our gear on and off the boat, set up and took down our own camping area, peed in a plastic container the size of my yogurt container at home during the night, and walked through the brush to a semi-private outhouse for more serious elimination during the day.
There were three major highlights of the trip -- our GUIDE JJ, the fellow RAFTERS, and the RAPIDS!! Everyone was extremely congenial, with a shout out to the nine teenagers from Alaska and Arizona. They were Awesome kids. We were propped on our benches holding onto grab ropes for the rapids and sat on the floor with grab ropes for the more challenging ones, which produced a bigger and longer roller coaster ride. But the world famous Lava Falls put all the others to shame. Our guides were extremely experienced in reading the river and calling the shots when it came to maneuvering through those badass rapids and boulders. The mighty Lava Falls on the last day, and well worth the wait. I would compare it to the height of an earthquake which keeps on quaking. I kept my eye on JJ, and she kept her focus on the water!! It was thrilling. We told our kids and grandkids they need to do that trip!
What we brought home with us, besides a broken toe, bruises, and very dirty garb, was an appreciation of the Grand Canyon as one of the true wonders of the world. We hiked into deep canyons with Caribbean colored water and cathedral caverns that were once the sacred settings for Native American ceremonies, we slid down rocks into an offshoot of the river with its own set of fast moving water, and we camped and ate next to the mighty Colorado every day and night. The water had been dangerously low the week before, but was perfect for our trip, thanks to the management of the dam -- except for one morning. We lingered at camp until after lunch before the water level returned and we were able to push our two rafts off land. It gave us the perfect opportunity to pose for our group photo in front of one of the rafts. We are grateful for the experience, and learned that climate change is affecting the Grand Canyon just as it is other precious places on the planet.