2018
December
18
Tuesday

Monitor Daily Podcast

December 18, 2018
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Here’s a quick quiz. If you were a Hollywood exec, who would you choose to star in your next film: Scarlett Johansson or Chris Hemsworth?

If you answered Ms. Johansson, you’d likely make an extra $70 million. A recent study found that female-led movies dominated the box office from 2014 to 2017. Out of 350 films, fewer than one-third were female-led. Yet, in big- or small-budget movies, films starring women, on average, sold more movie tickets.

Why haven’t more female-led films been greenlighted? “A lot of times in our business there is a lot of bias disguising itself as knowledge,” Christy Haubegger, who worked on the study, told The New York Times.

That bias was exposed in an email exchange in 2014 between Marvel CEO Ike Perlmutter and Sony CEO Michael Lynton under the subject line “Female Movie” – where Mr. Perlmutter listed three female-led superhero movies that flopped.  

But the plural of ‘anecdote’ is not ‘data,’ as is noted in today’s podcast episode of Perception Gaps (more below).

The past three years suggest that by failing to be more gender or ethnically diverse film industry execs are hurting profits. But we’ll leave you with one sign of gender-equity progress: Ms. Johansson will reportedly bank $15 million to star in Marvel’s upcoming film “Black Widow.” That’s the same salary Chris Evans (Captain America) and Chris Hemsworth (Thor) were each recently paid for their starring roles as Avengers.

Now to our five selected stories, including an interview with a rising star in Congress, drone deliveries in Africa, and what Mary Poppins might teach us about balancing tradition with modernity.  


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Today’s stories

And why we wrote them

Thomas Peter/Reuters
An ethnic Uyghur woman walks in front of a screen with a picture of Chinese President Xi Jinping in the main city square in Kashgar in the Xinjiang region of China on Sept. 6, 2018. The screen's slideshow of images of Mr. Xi includes propaganda images of his previous visit to Xinjiang.

Beijing has cast itself as a global leader, building relationships with other nations through roads, pipelines, and trade. But its security policies at home rely on exclusion and fear, and China’s international partners are taking note.

SOURCE:

Reuters, Bloomberg, Xinhua

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Jacob Turcotte and Ann Scott Tyson/Staff

Perception Gaps

Comparing what’s ‘known’ to what’s true

Where gaps come from, and how we can close them

Misperceptions tend to occur when people are given evidence that directly conflicts with their worldview or their values (on climate change, for example). Our latest podcast looks at how we might start to bridge those gaps.

Interview

J. Scott Applewhite/AP
Rep. Karen Bass (D) of California (c.) walks through the Capitol with Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton (D) of Washington, D.C. and Rep. Paul Tonko (D) of New York, last month. Congresswoman Bass, the incoming chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, has been mentioned as a potential future House speaker.

Here’s a rising star to watch: The incoming leader of the Congressional Black Caucus talks with the Monitor’s Francine Kiefer about investigating the president, protecting voting rights, and whether African-American women are being taken for granted by the Democratic Party.

Breakthroughs

Ideas that drive change

We’ve watched Africa leapfrog the traditional path to progress before when it quickly adopted mobile phones over landlines. But this story notes that new tech may not always be the best long-term solution.

Film

Courtesy of Disney
Disney’s ‘Mary Poppins Returns' stars Emily Blunt (l.) as Mary Poppins and Lin-Manuel Miranda (r., rear) as Jack. The sequel to the 1964 ‘Mary Poppins’ pays homage to the original with scenes that include animation.

John Myhre was a fan of the 1964 classic film as a child, and now he’s helping bring its sequel to a new generation. How a production designer tackles envisioning the new with a nod to the old. 


The Monitor's View

Kacper Pempel/Reuters
People attend a Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice demonstration before the final session of the COP24 UN Climate Change Conference in Katowice, Poland, Dec. 14.

High hopes preceded a two-week gathering of some 14,000 delegates from nearly 200 countries that concluded Dec. 15 in Katowice, Poland. The conference, known as COP24, was expected to reignite worldwide efforts to curb climate change.

Whether to applaud the meeting’s modest achievements or condemn the lack of major action on this urgent issue lay in the eye of the beholder. The conference chair, Poland’s Michał Kurtyka, was so pleased at the conclusion he leapt off the podium to congratulate delegates. Yet earlier speaker Greta Thunberg, a 15-year-old Swedish schoolgirl who has raised international awareness of the dangers of climate change, scolded the gathering, saying, “You’re not mature enough to tell it like it is. Even that burden you leave to your children.”

Reaching any agreement, especially one that might call for national sacrifices, from such a large and diverse body was always going to be a daunting task. But in fact some essential, if somewhat wonky, progress was made that keeps the 2015 Paris global climate pact alive and keeps open the possibility of more progress.

Most significant was an agreement on how countries will measure and monitor carbon emissions, essential to understanding exactly what each nation’s emission levels are – and whether they are growing or shrinking. 

Action now returns to individual countries – and in some cases even cities – and what they will do. The challenges ahead were dramatically illustrated recently in France, where the government attempted to enact a fuel tax to discourage the use of fossil fuels. After days of confrontations with rowdy yellow-jacketed protesters French President Emmanuel Macron was forced to back down. 

Canada may prove to be the next testing ground. A carbon tax going into effect there soon will raise the prices of oil, gasoline, and natural gas. But the money collected will be returned to households; in most cases, families will receive a larger “rebate” than the cost they incur in higher energy prices. 

In the United States, a so-called Green New Deal is gaining momentum. It would speed the transition from fossil fuels in the next 10 years, converting 100 percent of the nation’s electricity supply to renewable sources. It would also update the nation’s energy grid, increase energy efficiency of buildings, invest in research into more green technologies, and provide job training for workers in a new green economy.

When described in these terms, without attachment to any politician or political party, 81 percent of American voters either “strongly” (40 percent) or “somewhat” (40 percent) approve of such a plan, according to a new survey from the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication and the George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication.

The plan was seen most favorably by Democrats (92 percent) and independents (88 percent). But nearly two-thirds of Republicans (64 percent) liked it, too.

That may be in part because 82 percent of those surveyed had heard nothing previously about a Green New Deal, though the idea already has the support of some 40 members of Congress.

The new Congress, with its Republican Senate and Democratic House, now has the opportunity to resist turning the Green New Deal into a battlefield for partisan warfare. It could move forward on a plan that already has clear voter support and that could make a significant contribution to stemming the ill effects of global warming.


A Christian Science Perspective

About this feature

While Jesus’ advent was meek, what he gave us is invaluable. This season and beyond, each of us can pause to humbly acknowledge Jesus’ example and walk forward drawing on the healing goodness God freely provides to all.


A message of love

Bruno Kelly/Reuters
A resident looked out over the Educandos neighborhood of Manaus, Brazil, Dec. 18 after a fire swept through part of that Amazon Basin city. Several hundred homes were lost, and more than 2,000 people were forced to flee. The cause was being investigated, though a cooking accident was suspected.
( The illustrations in today’s Monitor Daily are by Karen Norris. )

A look ahead

Thanks for joining us. Come back tomorrow: We’re working on a story about a California congressman's effort to tap Big Tech to revitalize struggling rural communities – and why this attempt may be different.

More issues

2018
December
18
Tuesday
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