The Wisconsin Magazine; 712; Dog sled?

Oh. How many of you girls that you had a choice would choose to be pregnant nine months from today. How many of you would not choose that. And how do you feel pretty strongly about that. Frank talk about the social issues of teenage life. A feature report on tonight magazine your day. With that I have to do it. Then we've come to magazine training January 8th. Some days I can see. Good evening welcome to this week's magazine. Today teenagers are a visible part of the national media. They are the stars of our movies and our television programs. The models in our ads and increasingly the subjects of our news reports. And tonight teens are on the cover of the Wisconsin magazine. In addition to being the topic of our feature report

this week we'll also have a teenage point of view. We'll be hearing from a 17 year old parent at Madison High School student who is also a mother and who's concerned about how sexuality is portrayed on television and in the movies. And then we'll be changing directions for our final feature tonight. You'll have the best seat in the house as we visit a dream palace. The old Oriental Theater in Milwaukee. Here's an interesting piece of information. The number of teenagers who will become pregnant in the next 24 hours would fill an average high school but is numbing as that statistic might be. Pregnancy is just one of many problems facing today's teens jobs alcohol drugs they're all part of everyday pressures that are involved in just growing up for parents and schools. Ostrich like instincts are understandable. But one school that seems to be resisting the temptation to hide from those problems is still in high school in southern Dane County. The class you're about to listen in on Bland's discussion reading assignments and guest speakers into a mixture called social

issues of teenage life. Parents sometimes look in on the class organized by a social studies teacher Steve Landfried several years ago. Our film cameras also looked in on the class a few weeks ago. Here's our report. How many of the girls that you had a choice would choose to be pregnant nine months from today. How many of you would not choose that. And how do you feel pretty strongly about that. Hey why don't you want to get pregnant and why and why do you want to get pregnant to have a kid nine months from today. What that have to do with it. All. That statement says a great deal about that the law facing teenagers how to handle the bombardment of pressures that come from every direction while still being a kid. Will.

The ads dance across the pages of the magazine carrying a not so subtle message cuddle me on baby soft because I'm not as innocent as I see Bo Derek after all first graced the pages of teen magazine and current adolescent star Brooke Shields offers not only Calvin Klein jeans one size too small but advice as well. It's moments like this Brooke tells us she's glad she wears baby saw the fragrance the ads tell us for the moment of discovery. The ads are right about one thing. Adolescence is a time of discovery of rapid growth and increasing independence. Everything happens fast so fast that confusion and frustration for both teens and parents is inevitable. Well I think with the kind of image that the television creates and the print media creates I think many of the teenagers want to be

responsible but they don't want to be left out either. And there's this there's this notion afloat that everybody else is doing this or everybody else is doing that and one of the pieces of information we like to share with them is that that's simply not true. We want to de-bunk that time set. What is everybody doing or not doing and what are schools doing or not doing in response. Stoughton high school offers a class designed to help teens and parents sort it all out. The class is called social issues of teenage life. Teacher Steve Landfried leads a class discussions that cover everything from sexuality to analyzing that age old parent teen conflict to go out or not to go out. I mean your parents tried to get you to stay all recently. How did your parents try to influence you to stay on that one.

You know it was you know it was great. You know people are going to do their thing. It was likely that someone might be drinking at the place you were going to see the concert. OK it was likely someone is going to be drinking at the bar. There wasn't very likely. OK likely that the people around might be drinking it was likely you think you're probably bet on it. OK now. Why didn't you. Why didn't they persuade you to stay home. Because I'm old enough to thank you for all you do. Let's say they made the decision so they said OK Jenny you just go ahead and do whatever you want. Think part of the problem the teenagers have is really

understanding why their parents do what they do. They haven't been in the role of a parent. However the parent has been in the role of a teenager before. To a certain extent then what I'm trying to do is to be a representative for the parents to speak to some of their concerns and help these young people understand so that when a child goes home and interacts with that parent they understand a little bit more. Parents this is what I want you to do dissipate the kind of complaints the kids are going to have. What is it the parents do that bugs them. I want you to be ready to explain your behavior. Why is it that you do these things that the kids don't like very much. Sure. I reflect back on my dad I didn't once not once until I was teaching socialist to start to put myself in the shoes of Erling see Landfried and think I had

emotions he was struggling with how to be a parent. He was struggling with his relationship with his wife. My dad sat down and me and said Steve you know I don't know if your mom and I are going to make it as a couple that were really well you know. OK. Now what you'll be doing you're going to thank your parents really. OK now you're going to anticipate I'm going to say about what motivates them. Now be ready to try to get you explain why you do what you do as well. OK let's start with the point about parents who don't like girls. Yeah I mean it's your friend we've been friends I'm going to hurt you.

I mean we only want about you know a lot of time for the wrong people and we don't think you might know what are some of the hardest things about parents for you to understand. What do you have trouble with right now. You know sometimes unsafe or dark. Or. You know. Kind of crack or something right. OK. You know you know. What to do and I think the great thing about social issues that a lot of parents

would be amazed to see what goes on is that kids can top that they'd have feelings that they can verbalize and do a pretty good job at. And maybe part of what's happening here will be that the parents won't give up on communicating with kids just like I'm trying to have the kids not give up on the parents. Not giving up on communication isn't always easy particularly when the topic at hand is sexuality. There are no doubt they would like their parents to think that they are responsible and the problem lies is that there is there's a void in terms of education about human sexuality because many of the parents simply don't talk to their kids. The church doesn't play a major role as it might have in the past some of those just gets left to the school. What gets left to the school is the old dilemma known as sex education for land for each class that means visits to places like the UW teen clinic in Madison for frank

discussions on sexuality pregnancy and venereal disease. It also means guest speakers like family counselor Barbara Locke with what was emphasized throughout his Both the need to talk and the need to listen. What do you think is the the topic that families have the hardest time discussing. What. Sex I mean you agree that human sexuality is one of the hardest issues for families to discuss. OK is there any doubt in your mind why the families have so much difficulty talking about human sexuality. Dearest they're embarrassed. That's one reason nestlé think about it. You are from your friend and they just want to bring it out. Do you think some of them are hoping that you'll learn about it at school so they don't have to deal

with it. What I try to encourage is that young people will feel more comfortable with that discussion with their parents. We try to work on ways in which if that subject comes up they can have a more meaningful dialogue rather than the awkward not communicative kinds of thing we often see. How would you like to play this role. Any ideas for me. Yeah. But. We haven't talked about it. How can you not hear.

It in the name of the game is communication. Where there where people are working at communicating with another human being in there somehow. I've seen teenagers in the course of the semester change their ability to sort of relate to where people are coming from and that gives me a lot of confidence in teenagers. That last story began with the question how many of you it was asked. Want to get pregnant. The answer as you saw was less than enthusiastic. Nobody wanted to get pregnant but you had over a million teenagers will get pregnant each year and most of those teenagers will keep their babies. One of those individuals has tonight's point of view. Seventeen year old Kate Mowbray is a teen mother who juggles parenting with school responsibilities in Madison. In fact sometimes she visits other schools to talk about the realities of pregnancy and parenthood. Kate Mowbray is concerned about how teenagers are portrayed on television and in the movies and the sexual message that's often implied. And tonight's point of view she argues that the media message just isn't realistic.

I think the message. Across everywhere is sex in the movies when you see a couple going into bed. You know it's so romantic and glamorous on television when you see women walking down the street and they're on the altar going and it's like they're not wearing nothing. And they're sheer and sexy and shapely and and even you know advertising you know they have a way of even making deodorant sexy. I think there's a definite relationship between the media and the teenagers now and they I think they look at these role models and they say oh gee that that's really glamorous and I want to do that and it's neat. I wore designer jeans a head to head to sand and my boyfriend wore my ass. We were both products of the media.

So the advertising is the thing that's wrong with that it's just that it's really unrealistic. And you know to think in a movie you see Burt Reynolds and Sally Field saying you know they're going to bad. They never talk about birth control. You know they don't know. You never see it. Whereas you know you go to bed now here in reality someone's going to end up getting pregnant sooner or later. I had a baby last summer in August. He's four months old now so my reality is that it's nothing is the way it was supposed to be. You see the commercials in the daytime with all the soap operas and game shows and these women are changing diapers Johnsons baby powder and you can just smell it coming right up to me and it's so elegant and so dainty and their baby is so precious. But they don't tell you that the baby is going to get up at night and scream you know all night or that he doesn't smell good all the time and you need to then maybe a couple times a

day. They don't tell you any and I go to different high schools here in Madison and I talk to high school students in their health classes and we mostly tell them about the realities of being a parent and what it's like to be a parent when you're 16 17 years old. And I don't it's really interesting I think it's I hope it's helping them because I think that maybe if someone had come around and told me when I was you know 15 16 before I had gotten pregnant with Stephen what it was going to be like I think I would have thought twice. And we welcome your participation in our point of view segment if you have a comment you'd like to make on our state public TV network. Write us at the Wisconsin magazine a 21 University Avenue in Madison Wisconsin 5 3 7 0 6. Just send us a sketch of what your citizen commentary is all about send it to a 21 University Avenue Madison Wisconsin 5

3 7 0 6 as you sit at home watching this television program or any TV program for that matter. The phenomenon of moving pictures probably holds no sense of wonder for you. Movies films and these days even home video units are all pretty commonplace. But in the early days going to the Picture Show was really something special so special the theaters that were built during those times were actually monuments to the movies themselves. The Paradise theater Chicago's paramount the Roxy in New York These were the movie palaces built to provide a fitting showcase for the riches of the new technology. Hundreds of these movie palaces were built in the 1920s but few still stand today. One that does remain is Milwaukee's Oriental theater now designated a national landmark. In our final report tonight Kara Larson gives us a close up look at the theater and the age of motion pictures that reflect. This is a house except if it's the Oriental movie palace where for the

price of a ticket you can still buy entrance to a 1920s Hollywood fantasy. The intention was that the theater must be as important a distraction as the film itself that the movie industry has always been in the business of creating fantasies. The developers of the early movie analysis recognize a connection between those fantasies which we which we will call Hollywood was trying to create. And the overall experience of coming to theaters. Mariel has studied this fantasy connection a connection made by trying to dazzle the audience during them with ornate surroundings blinding them with brilliant lighting fixtures boggling their minds with intricate detail. Everywhere you look is the heavy gleam of gold. It was intended to work in the minds of the audience in two. Transfer from the future

to more ideal a world in which you didn't have to pay your bills. You didn't have to worry about all the war and what was further from the cities of America. Then the mysteries of the Orient with its lines depicted across the lobby glowing from the chandelier. Staring down in icy silence above the lights from India legions of golden elephants the beams of 50 foot ceilings from China comes the image of lions. The Polish guard the ascension to the upper floors at the top of the stairs the more archways draped in silk curtains their detail balconies curved and endless. Few people knew or even cared that the opulent surroundings were not strictly Oriental. They were strange the symbols of foreign extravagance.

Select details catalogs in order if they saw the sketch by the architect and recognize that something similar had been done before. They would simply call their friend it was a plaster of Chicago and they asked him to make castings of those other other details and the plaster. There's a lot of plaster in the oriental all the fancy flourishes the rows of golden balls on the Roosevelt conies. It's not wood or even carved it's molded out of simple plaster and all that gold with the exception of some silver leaf here in there. Most of the glitter and shine is an overabundance of paint. Even the marble isn't all marble. It too is paint. It is in that respect false a facade as phony as a Hollywood film set. This is falls in the sense that it's not true to what the materials are what it is true. This is true to the expectations

that the audience had. When they came into the theater is true to the expectations of developers here. They tried to develop an environment which would support the fantasy that was appearing on the screen. Yes the screen amidst the many distractions of the theater itself you could almost forget you came here to see what was on the stage. Yeah.

Ooh. This theater was made for grand entrances. The curtains first part at the Oriental on July 2nd 1927 to the overture of a mammoth pipe organ that filled the theater with music on stage. There was something for everyone. News reels short novelty films live musical acts and a full length feature film silent called Naughty but Nice talkies were still a few months down the line. If you didn't see

anything on stage that you did at the theater. The richness of the March gave color to black and white pictures like The Thief of Baghdad Valentino with pillars no more splendid than this battled each of the 28 dragons perched atop elephant head circling the entire ceiling. Each corner with the mystery of tales like The Phantom of the opera and all films were touched exotic by the murals of painted peacocks. But what caught the eye most were the giant Buddhas towering statues inset to each of the side walls a glowing red forehead a layer of green eyes casting a look of serene mystery who took a seat in the land and to see. Best seats in the house. Audiences love the oriental on opening night there were three shows 2500 people per show and they were still turning people away. Popularity continued through the 1930s. The buildings do age and audiences do

change. And by the 1960s the Oriental was pretty much an empty theater. But that's not the end of the story. In the 1970s there were new owners a new coat of paint. And would you believe that audiences have again discovered the Oriental dream palace. What now brings people to the revived theater revival films Bogart Hitchcock the classics foreign films comedies and cult films and the setting helps. I think it's beautiful. I love it the second time I've been here. Did you like anything in particular. Well it's a lot more pleasant than there's a lot more pleasant than the average shopping center movie theater it's a lot more pleasant place to watch a movie. You like the place do you like the way it's decorated. Yes I like the decorations here and I am really happy Bud coming. And I remember as a little boy of the mystery that this theater was to me because inside it's a little bit like the Arabian Nights. And there was a sense of romance and glamour which the modern theatres today simply don't have.

What about the atmosphere. Well just. The spaciousness I guess in the. Is the big screen and the ornate shaker ations you think they should go back to. What I think is too expensive and they take is about about $10 of it in that cost. Strangely enough was not what made the Oriental one of the last great theaters to be built. It was not the 1.5 million it took to build it or the Great Crash of 1930 that ended the era of movie palaces. It was the film technology itself talkies and more true to life pictures. They were just too real to be projected in the midst of a fantasy. And our special thanks to the Pritchard brothers who now own the Oriental theater thanks for their cooperation in making that report and for painstakingly restoring every inch of the old Oriental theater. That's tonight's Wisconsin magazine next week at this time we'll be taking a look at microwave energy. Not the kind this time will be looking at the satellite for a ride.

It's a possible new source of energy for Wisconsin but it may also pose a few problems. And we'll also be taking a look at a unique family some of whose members are gay and who are also involved in child rearing. And since we like to take you for rides on this program this time two weeks from tonight we're going to be going out on a balloon or an airplane or a train we're going to be taking you dog sled racing in the far north. That story two weeks from tonight. That's this week's Wisconsin magazine. I'm Dave Iverson. Have a good good.