Pitzer in the News 2007-2008 Academic Year

Professor Alex Juhasz Quoted in Washington Post on Popular YouTube Video

Professor Alex Juhasz was quoted in the April 17, 2008 edition of the Washington Post about a YouTube video that has attracted a variety of media attention and thousands of viewers.

Upper-Crass Video: Maybe the Rich Aren't Different

By Monica Hesse
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, April 17, 2008; C01

At first the video looks like just another shaming-by-YouTube. A scorned wife (blond, British, bug-eyed), fearful of being evicted from her Manhattan pad by her estranged husband, decides to air her grievances online. She rants about their nonexistent sex life and her husband's family.

But consider the subjects.

He: Philip Smith, 74, president of the Shubert Organization, which owns 17 Broadway houses and the National Theatre in Washington.

She: Tricia Walsh-Smith, 25 years younger, an actress and playwright best known for writing the play "Bonkers."

The video is 6 minutes and 22 seconds of utter and annihilating embarrassment, a low-production-value romp through the intimate lives of the rich and desperate…

…"Typically, YouTube videos are created by average people, people who never had access to anything," says Alexandra Juhasz, who teaches a course on YouTube at Pitzer College in California.

Juhasz says that Walsh-Smith's video is so squirmy because she's a fish out of water: "It blends the voice of a regular person with these very privileged circumstances. . . . She is a powerful person using the medium in a way more typical of a disenfranchised person."

For the full story, click here.