University of California, Los Angeles

Subterms

    Latest story

    150 Shares189 Views

    Teens Think Movies and TV Shows Have Too Much Sex, Study Finds

    by

    At least that is what they told researchers at U.C.L.A. The high popularity of romance plots in movies and shows suggests otherwise.Movies and television shows about rich people are the last thing we want to watch. And skip the sex: We prefer content that focuses on platonic relationships. (There’s enough porn online as it is.) We do like fantasy as a genre, increasingly so. But please, pretty please, fix how you incorporate social media into story lines. It’s cringe.That is what young people — ages 10 to 24 — think about movies, television shows, video games and social media, according to a study released Thursday.The study, Teens & Screens, conducted by researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles, found that 63.5 percent of participants said they wanted content that depicted platonic relationships, as opposed to romance and sex. That is up from 51.5 percent last year. (Questions involving romance and sex were not shown to participants ages 10 to 13.)Of course, what study participants say and what they actually do can vary wildly. There is ample evidence to the contrary among shows that are popular with younger audiences, including “The Sex Lives of College Girls,” a raunchy comedy; “Emily in Paris,” an impassioned romance; and “Tell Me Lies,” a steamy soap.Movies like “Poor Things,” which found an insatiable Emma Stone romping through a Paris brothel, and the sexually frank “All of Us Strangers” attracted a surprisingly large audience of people in their early 20s, according to box office analysts.This year’s study was conducted in August and included 1,644 young people.“We’re trying to shift the culture by giving storytellers better information,” said Yalda T. Uhls, the founder and chief executive of the Center for Scholars & Storytellers, which is based at U.C.L.A. “The problem is often that Hollywood storytellers use their own memories of their teenage years or what their children in Los Angeles are doing, and that does not remotely represent what young people really want.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    More stories

    • 150 Shares119 Views

      in Elections

      Bill Walton, N.B.A. Hall of Famer and Broadcasting Star, Dies at 71

      by

      He won championships in high school, college (U.C.L.A.) and the pros (Trail Blazers and Celtics) before turning to TV as a talkative game analyst in the college ranks.Bill Walton, a center whose extraordinary passing and rebounding skills helped him win two national college championships with U.C.L.A. and one each with the Portland Trail Blazers and Boston Celtics of the N.B.A., and who overcame a stutter to become a loquacious commentator, died on Monday at his home in San Diego. He was 71.The N.B.A. said he died of colon cancer.A redheaded hippie and devoted Grateful Dead fan, Walton was an acolyte of the U.C.L.A. coach John Wooden and the hub of the Bruins team that won N.C.A.A. championships in 1972 and 1973 and extended an 88-game winning streak that had begun in 1971. He was named the national player of the year three times.Walton’s greatest game was the 1973 national championship against Memphis State, played in St. Louis. He got into foul trouble in the first half, but went on to score a record 44 points on 21-for-22 shooting and had 11 rebounds in U.C.L.A.’s 87-66 victory. It was the school’s ninth title in 10 years.Walton — not yet known for his often hyperbolic, stream of consciousness speaking skills — refused to say much after the game. As he left the locker room, he told reporters, “Excuse me, I want to go meet my friends. I’m splitting.”He played one more year at U.C.L.A. before being selected by Portland first overall in the 1974 N.B.A. draft. He weathered injuries, two losing seasons under Coach Lenny Wilkens and criticism over his vegetarian diet and his red ponytail and beard before winning the 1977 championship under Coach Jack Ramsay.“I think Jack Ramsay reached Walton,” Eddie Donovan, the Knicks general manager, told the columnist Dave Anderson of The New York Times. “Of all the coaches in our league, Jack Ramsay is the closest to being the John Wooden type — scholarly, available. I think Walton responded to that.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 88 Shares139 Views

      in Elections

      U.C.L.A. Faculty Votes Against Rebuking University’s Chancellor

      by

      The votes came weeks after students at a pro-Palestinian encampment were attacked for hours by a large group of counterprotesters without police intervention.The Academic Senate at the University of California, Los Angeles, voted against two resolutions seeking to rebuke the school’s chancellor, Gene Block, largely over his handling of an attack on a pro-Palestinian encampment two weeks ago.The results of the votes, conducted after a three-hour meeting on Thursday, were released on Friday and showed that only 43 percent of voting members had backed a no-confidence motion. A motion to censure Dr. Block was evenly split, 88 for and 88 against, failing to achieve a simple majority of support.“It is clear that we are not united in how we view the major events of the past weeks and the campus response to them,” Andrea M. Kasko, the Senate chair, said in a statement. “I hope that we can try to find common ground as colleagues, and have the courage to listen with open minds and open hearts even when we do not agree.”Formal rebukes by faculty were unlikely to have practical implications for Dr. Block, 75, who is set to step down as chancellor in July, said William G. Tierney, a professor emeritus of higher education at the University of Southern California who has written about the response to campus protests across the nation.Dr. Tierney said he doubted that Michael V. Drake, the president of the University of California system, would require Dr. Block’s resignation “before that time.”But faculty members who backed the resolutions said they felt compelled to speak up on behalf of students and show resolve to Dr. Block’s successor.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 125 Shares179 Views

      in Elections

      A Chaotic Night at U.C.L.A. Raises Questions About Police Response

      by

      Nearly two weeks after a pro-Palestinian encampment at the University of California, Los Angeles, was attacked by counterprotesters, university officials still have not explained why security officers stood by for hours while the attack was underway, nor have they arrested any of those who swarmed in wielding metal rods, water bottles and firecrackers in one of the worst outbreaks of violence in the college protests that have rocked the country.The extent of the policing failure has become clearer in recent days, as witnesses have come forward to describe a chaotic night of violence on April 30, in which students and bystanders repeatedly called 911 and nonemergency lines, finding little help and calls that were disconnected. A dispatcher told one caller pleading for help that they were ending the call because “I have actual emergencies to handle.”One man was filmed by a local television station on the phone with emergency dispatchers, alerting them that people were getting hurt. “Security has abandoned this encampment,” he could be heard saying before lowering his phone and looking at it. “They just hung up on me again,” he said incredulously.Miles away in Sacramento, staff members in Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office contacted the U.C.L.A. chancellor’s office shortly after 11 p.m. to make sure that law enforcement officers were responding to the scene, and were assured that more officers were coming, according to a person familiar with the situation, who described the discussions on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to make them public.Protesters and counterprotesters fought one another for hours before the police intervened.Mark Abramson for The New York TimesBut as the night wore on and there was still no intervention, the person said, the governor’s office moved to circumvent local authority and ordered California Highway Patrol officers to the campus. The state officers began assembling on campus at 1:45 a.m., a few moments before L.A.P.D. riot police arrived, but it took another hour to quell the clashes.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 163 Shares99 Views

      in Elections

      Barbara O. Jones, Actress Who Brought Black Cinema to Life, Dies at 82

      by

      Her arresting roles in movies like “Bush Mama” and “Daughters of the Dust” helped shape a generation of independent filmmakers.Barbara O. Jones, an actress whose captivating work in films like “Bush Mama” and “Daughters of the Dust” helped define the cerebral, experimental and highly influential Black cinema movement that emerged in Los Angeles in the 1970s, died on April 8 at her home in Dayton, Ohio. She was 82.Her brother Marlon Minor confirmed the death but said the cause had not been determined.Starting in the early 1970s just a few miles from Hollywood, a generation of students at the University of California, Los Angeles, began making films that pushed hard against many of the tropes of commercial moviemaking.Budding filmmakers like Charles Burnett, Julie Dash and Haile Gerima eschewed polished scripts and linear narratives in search of an authentic Black cinematic language. They relied on actors like Mrs. Jones, drawn from far outside the mainstream, to bring their work to life.Mrs. Jones was in some ways the typical Los Angeles transplant, having moved from the Midwest in search of a film career. She took acting classes, but, rather than gravitating toward Hollywood, she fell in with the politically charged, aesthetically adventurous scene around the U.C.L.A. film school, a movement that the film scholar Clyde Taylor called the L.A. Rebellion.She appeared in several short student films, including Mr. Gerima’s “Child of Resistance” (1973), in which she played an imprisoned activist loosely based on Angela Davis, and Ms. Dash’s “Diary of an African Nun” (1977), adapted from a short story by Alice Walker.Mrs. Jones in Ms. Dash’s short film “Diary of an African Nun” (1977), adapted from a story by Alice Walker.Julie DashWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 125 Shares189 Views

      in Elections

      Taking Cues From Students, U.C.L.A. Faculty Members Join the Protests

      by

      At U.C.L.A., a few professors helped negotiate with the university. At Columbia, they guarded the encampment. But not all faculty members are on board.Earlier this week, some faculty members at the University of California, Los Angeles, had an emergency call with students who were active in the pro-Palestinian protests.“We just got a really clear message from them: ‘We feel unsafe, and we’d like your help in fixing this,’” recalled Graeme Blair, an associate professor of political science.In that moment, several dozen faculty activists volunteered to join the students in shifts around the clock at their encampment on campus.And in the dark hours of Thursday morning, as the police cracked down on the protests, those faculty members were linking arms with students, allowing themselves to be arrested.It was one of the clearest instances of a little-noted fact of the student demonstrations against the war in Gaza — that a small fraction of faculty members at U.C.L.A., Columbia and other universities have provided logistical and emotional support to the protesters.Some faculty members have formal ties to Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine, the counterpart of Students for Justice in Palestine, a decentralized national network of pro-Palestinian groups.Others are not necessarily sympathetic to the Palestinian cause but see a moral obligation to protect the free speech and the welfare of their students, who are facing some of the biggest disruptions to their educational lives since the pandemic.“It’s a breach of trust that they would call the police on our students,” said Stephanie McCurry, a history professor at Columbia University, who watched over the perimeter of the encampment before the last police sweep on Wednesday.The issue has torn apart the faculties at these universities. More than a few say the activist professors are romanticizing the demonstrations, which have thrown campuses into chaos.“It’s a sad way to end the semester,” said James Applegate, an astronomy professor at Columbia University.At Columbia, some faculty members had shown their support for the students — if not necessarily for their message — by visiting the encampment before it was swept away by the police on Wednesday morning. They delivered food and water, incorporated the protests into their academic lessons, participated in panel discussions and stood guard outside the perimeter to make it harder for the authorities to evict the students.The faculty members did not necessarily agree with the views of the students on Gaza, said Camille Robcis, a history professor at Columbia. But, she said, “I believe in their right to protest more than anything.”Over the last few chaotic days, they had communicated with one another through Listservs and on the encrypted Signal app, signing up for time slots to appear on campus.In a counterweight, pro-Israel faculty members and students formed their own WhatsApp and email support groups.“Those have been really helpful,” said Carol Ewing Garber, a professor of applied physiology at Teachers College, an affiliate of Columbia. “They actually brought people together who had never met before. It was a silver lining.”Bruce Robbins, an English professor at Columbia, is among those who are more devoted to the Palestinian cause, a member of Columbia’s chapter of Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine.He brought one of his classes to the tents as part of a course studying atrocities.“It was one of the things that faculty who supported the encampment did,” he said, “was take their classes inside the encampment.”Two of his students, who he believes were former members of the Israeli military, did not show up for that lesson.“I was planning on making it as comfortable as I could,” he said. “But I think the feeling in the class was not running in their favor, and that may be why they didn’t show up.”At one point, students asked the faculty members to help protect them, Dr. Robbins said. “We were described as ‘de-escalators.’”Several faculty members put on orange safety vests, he said, and got “a quick training on how not to get into a fight — if they push past us, let them push past us.”“I played football,” he said. “It was not my instinct to de-escalate. But that’s what I was there to do.”Dr. Applegate, the astronomy professor, thought the faculty’s participation in the campus protests was part of a romanticization of the Vietnam-era antiwar protests.“These guys are trying to relive 1968,” he said, referring to a violent confrontation with the police that shook Columbia back then. “I don’t think they have any intention of having a sensible conversation with anybody.”At U.C.L.A., members of Faculty for Justice in Palestine helped negotiate with the administration, Dr. Blair said.The faculty members even hired a professional to train them in de-escalating physical or verbal conflict, he said, “with the idea that the faculty could help play this role.”Dr. Blair also called on his sister, Susannah Blair, an adjunct lecturer in art history at Columbia, to share her experience with about 75 U.C.L.A. faculty members. On Zoom, she told them how most of her students were hungry to talk about what they were going through, even though they came from different backgrounds and experienced things differently.“Their libraries are closed right now,” she said in an interview. “It’s finals. They have had friends arrested. Some of them have been protesting against a genocide, and this has deeply disrupted all sorts of aspects of their lives.”The crisis at U.C.L.A. reached a climax on Thursday morning.Protesters learned that the administration was going to shut down their encampment, Dr. Blair said.“The faculty was there to try to be the first people arrested, to stand in front of the students to bear witness,” he said. “We watched from that vantage as the California Highway Patrol aimed weapons that were using nonlethal ammunition. We basically pleaded with them to not aim their weapons at our students, at what was an entirely peaceful protest.”Ultimately, about 200 protesters were arrested, along with about 10 faculty members, Dr. Blair said. Many were lecturers and assistant professors, without the protections of tenure, he said, adding, “It remains to be seen what the consequences will be.”Stephanie Saul More

    • 75 Shares99 Views

      in Elections

      How the UCLA Protest Standoff Unfolded

      by

      Follow our live coverage of the college protests at U.C.L.A. and other universities.As protesters chanted and sprayed fire extinguishers at them, police officers moved in on the pro-Palestinian encampment at the University of California, Los Angeles, in the early hours of Thursday, tearing down its barricades, arresting dozens of people and clearing out the tents that had dominated the center of campus for days.The chaotic scenes were part of a tense, hourslong back-and-forth between protesters and police that had been building after violent clashes a day earlier — involving counterprotesters who attacked the encampment — prompted administrators to call in law enforcement. On Wednesday night, the authorities issued a warning to pro-Palestinian demonstrators: Leave the encampment outside Royce Hall or face arrest.As the night wore on, officers in riot gear tried to approach the encampment through one of its entrances but were turned back several times.Demonstrators appeared to try several tactics to fend them off. At one point, they blocked an entrance with wooden pallets and homemade shields. They surrounded police officers, chanting “Free, free Palestine!” and “Peaceful protest!” At another point, they opened umbrellas and began flashing lights and taking photos of the police officers. Then, at around 3 a.m. Thursday, officers breached one of the barricades at the encampment and began to pull apart plywood and other materials that demonstrators had used to build a wall. Some demonstrators sprayed fire extinguishers in response, briefly forcing some officers to fall back.But an hour into the raid, the encampment’s main barricade had been dismantled. A line of students linking arms took its place.Officers gave another dispersal warning to protesters. They corralled those who refused to leave and began arresting them, zip-tying their wrists and leading them away from the encampment.Police pulled up tents — one removed a Palestinian flag and tossed it aside — and at several points fired devices at demonstrators. It was not clear what the officers were using, but Erik Larsen, an officer for the California Highway Patrol, said in a telephone interview that its officers were equipped with a variety of “nonlethal” tools, including flash-bang devices.By dawn, the camp had been cleared of all but a final group of demonstrators, some of whom chanted, “We’ll be back, and we’ll be stronger — you cannot ignore us any longer.” Some were detained and marched away with their hands zip-tied behind their back.The C.H.P. — which, in addition to patrolling state highways is responsible for the safekeeping of state property, including public universities like U.C.L.A. — said that 132 demonstrators had been arrested and would be handed over to the university’s police department. At least 250 C.H.P. officers were involved in clearing the encampment, Mr. Larsen said.Other law enforcement agencies, including the Los Angeles Police Department, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and the U.C.L.A. university police, were also on the scene, he said. More