Critical Studies Professor Highlighted in Several Media Arenas

Critical Studies professor Todd Boyd has had an active summer.  He was quoted in Entertainment Weekly about Cinema-Television alumus John Singleton whose film, FOUR BROTHERS, was recently released.  He noted that “What you have are black filmmakers being given the opportunity to make movies that are not thought of as black.  They’re given the opportunity to make mainstream Hollywood films, and in most of those cases, the movies have made a lot of money." 

Todd reports that he has recently begun working as a commentator on the new ESPN program, Classic Now, an hour-long daily show which airs on ESPN Classic and ESPN2 and deals with contemporary sports, through the lenses of sports history.  He will appear weekly on the program’s opening segment, entitled “What’s Classic Now?”  he will also appear regularly in other segments on the program dealing with sports and pop culture, such as the relationship between hip hop and boxing. 

In June, Todd was invited to lecture to the Nike Basketball Global Marketing Department at Nike corporate headquarters in Oregon as part of a seminar entitled “The State of the Game.”  He was also an invited keynote speaker at the College Board’s “State of African American Education” conference, presenting on the issue of Hip Hop culture and African American Education. 

Todd continues to work as a commentator on the NPR program, News and Notes with Ed Gordon.  A recent commentary dealt with the the new Lee Iacocca/Snoop Dogg Chrysler commercials.  Todd was also quoted in a Los Angeles Times article about an African American woman who claimed that the ideas for the film, MATRIX and TERMINATOR were hers.  Her lawsuit for copyright infringement was dismissed, and in noting the lack of mainstream media coverage, Todd said, “A lot of people, regardless of race, continue to have very unsophisticated views of the media, and many African Americans in particular are still very distrustful of the media.  Finally, Todd was quoted in another Los Angeles Times story about the lack of media coverage for missing minority women (in light of the enormous coverage for the teenage girl missing in Aruba).  He thinks it might be more of an unconscious decision about who matters and who doesn’t.