Movie, etc.: Anchor[people]

We recently watched Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004). I had heard surprisingly favorable things from various quarters on this one. As reviewer David Edelstein (NPR, Slate) describes it, they take a conventional narrative and "add jokes so broad that scene after scene goes past dumb, past unreal, and into some stratosphere of camp that throws you totally out of the movie." He goes on to say, "You're not laughing at anchormen. You're laughing at formula movie rituals blown sky-high." It's really, really funny for the most part. So much so, that it is easy to forgive the bits that don't quite make it. I was absolutely rolling in the gang-fight scene. I was laughing already, but when Tim Robbins shows up as the PBS news anchor, I about died. No kidding. I laughed so hard, I missed dialogue.

There are quite a few goofy cameos, actually. And even when my nemesis Ben Stiller does appear (as the Spanish-language news anchor), it's surprisingly enjoyable. Perhaps because it's so brief... And I think I can safely say that there are many in my generation (you know who you are) who have a fond place in our hearts for Kelly Bundy...er...Christina Applegate. Always nice to see her. (Notice: I didn't have to fall back on the "babe" factor with this review because there were actually other positive points. But Applegate, is, of course, a babe.)

While the narrator sounded familiar, it wasn't until watching the credits that I saw that the voice was, of all people, uber-narrator and newsman Bill Kurtis. For those of you who recall, he was the executive producer (and narrator of) the "Investigating History" programs that I worked on when I was Paul Hutton's assistant. You'd think I could recognize his distinctive voice.

While Anchorman is clearly not a meaningful examination of the difficulty women face trying to break into male-dominated fields such as television journalism, the topic seemed timely. Just this week (or just last week?), John Dickerson's book about his mother, Nancy Dickerson, On Her Trail, has come out. Nancy Dickerson was the first female network correspondent for CBS and the first woman to play a prominent role in the Washington TV-news corps. John Dickerson is a journalist as well, and I am familiar with him primarily as Slate's political correspondent. He didn't know his mother that well, and was not that familiar with her accomplishments until he did the work for his book.

I'm accustomed to seeing women as co-anchors, important correspondents, and even hosts of their own news-related programs, and I confess to never having really thought about the absence of female solo anchors. This may be, partly, because I don't get my news from television, but also probably because when I just plain didn't think about it. (Yes, bad liberal-minded, socially-conscious, educated female.) That's just how the news came. I was actually surprised when I heard it stated that Katie Couric is the first woman to anchor a network evening newscast on her own. Whatever people may think of Couric and her journalism, it's a noteworthy event and serves, at least for me, as a reminder that while women have made some in-roads into many male-dominated fields, often they still are not perceived--by the public and by their colleagues--as professional equals.