What does inequality and poverty look like in Southern California?, the movies to watch at Sundance and look at the role of masculinity in presidential elections.
A look at two Californias: the rich and the poor
Despite the wealth and beauty of cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco, California is home to many people who live below the poverty line. That inequality is one of the many topics hit on by California Governor Jerry Brown Thursday during his State of the State address.
He highlighted the efforts he has made to lessen its impacts.
“In the face of this growing inequality, California has not been passive,” Governor Brown said, "We've enacted or expanded many programs to counteract these powerful trends. We raised the minimum wage. We now have the first income tax credit. We strengthened our already strong prevailing wage laws."
Governor Brown's list went on, focusing on his efforts to balance the growing inequality by providing sick leave to millions of workers, offering $2 billion in Cal Grants to college students, and the healthcare coverage that will be offered to the children of undocumented workers in May.
The most recent data from the California Poverty Measure shows it could be tough to overcome those trends. Social scientists say that measure is a more accurate way to find out who is poor and in need of assistance as it accounts for the local cost of living and the benefits of social programs.
Beth Mattingly, researcher for Stanford's Center for Poverty & Inequality who works on that index, said that by those standards California has the most poverty of any state in the nation, and 25 percent people in Los Angeles fall into that category.
Please click on the blue player above to hear the interview.
Want more diverse TV? Focus on media mergers
Media mergers are more than big multi-billion dollar deals between companies.
Activist groups see them as opportunities to change the landscape of what's shown on screen.
When Comcast merged with NBCUniversal in 2011, for example, the new mega-media-monolith pledged to increase the number of Latinos in front of and behind the camera.
But a new study by Columbia University found that it was all talk and no progress.
Take Two welcomes lead researcher Frances Negrón-Muntaner who has advice on how activists can get more results.
An old friend remembers poet Francisco Alarcón
The world lost an influential bilingual, bicultural poet and children's book author this month. Francisco Alarcón died of stomach cancer. He was 61.
Alarcón was born in LA, grew up in Mexico and came back to California. He used his fluency in two languages and two cultures to create poetry that defied categories. And his importance was captured in a conversation that fill in host Shereen Marisol Meraji had with his friend and collaborator Francisco Aragón.
The two met in the 1980s, were friends for years, and Aragon translated three books worth of the poet's work from Spanish to English and he took time to describe the impact Alarcón had on his own life.
To hear the entire conversation click on the audio link embedded at the top of this post.
The debate over phone and data encryption
Among the many after-effects of the attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, a new turn in the debate of data encryption on phones.
The U.S. government wants manufacturers and operating system providers to grant a way to unlock any phone on request. But, for the most part, the phone makers have resisted that idea.
For more on the status of phone encryption, we turn to Kim Zetter, staff reporter at Wired covering cybercrime, privacy and security.
"The arguments are a reaction to the recent terrorist attacks in Paris and San Bernardino and claims that the attackers, at least in Paris, had used encryption apps like WhatsApp and Telegram to secure their communications" says Zetter.
Recently, California assembly member Jim Cooper recently introduced a bill that would require manufacturers or operating system providers to include a way for unlocking all phones.
But companies, in particular, Apple has been pushing back on the idea since it emerged.
"Having a backdoor for one law enforcement agency creates vulnerability for all users because that back door can be exploited by hackers and other intelligence agencies," says Zetter.
So far there's no compromise that would be acceptable to both sides.
How Netflix has broken the Sundance mold
Before the Sundance Film Festival started, Netflix made two major licensing deals that far exceeded what's usually seen at the event. Why?
The Hollywood Reporter's Tatiana Siegel explores their strategy in a recent article titled "How Netflix is Spending Huge and Annoying Studios." And she joins A Martinez on the line from Sundance to talk about it.
To hear the entire conversation click on the audio embedded at the top of this post.
What's new at the Sundance Film Festival? Weapons checks
Hollywood has bundled up and headed to Park City, Utah. The Sundance Film Festival is underway and dozens of films are making distribution deals, while others are making their world premieres.
Host of Southern California Public Radio's arts and culture show, "The Frame", John Horn joined the show to discuss what's generating early buzz at Sundance.
John's Top 3
The Birth of a Nation
Nate Parker wrote, directed and starred in this upcoming historical period drama about Nat Turner, the literate African American slave who led a rebellion.
Swiss Army man
This film stars Paul Dano, Daniel Radcliffe and Mary Elizabeth Winstead. Dano plays a stranded man who uses a corpse as a tool (kind of like a Swiss Army knife, thus the title) to survive. Daniel Radcliffe plays the corpse.
Captain Fantastic
Starring Viggo Mortensen, this film is about a man who was determined to raise his family out in the forest , away from society. However, circumstances force him to bring them into the real world.
Buyers
What are buyers looking for? To make up for last year, buyers are searching for something that will sell at the box office, Horn explained.
The big sellers last year, Dope and Me, Earl and the Dying girl, got lots of buzz, but that did not translate to the box office.
Documentaries
Newtown
Under the gun
Documentaries such as Newtown and Under the Gun are about gun control. Horn went on to say that these movies explore what can happen after the tragedies, and what hasn't happened in gun laws.
Coincidentally, the themes these documentaries touch are highlighted in the festival's security measures this year. "For the first time... there are now bag checks, weapon checks, there are signs on the theater saying no firearms," Horn said.
Utah is an open carry state so, Horn noted, festival representatives want to make sure people aren't bringing fire arms into movie theaters. "It's something I've never seen at the festival before. It's unfortunate, because it really reminds you if you go to any film festival, any theater to get away the real world and your suddenly seeing no firearms warnings and bag checks and you're having to open your jacket it's everything up to a put down and it really is unfortunate."
Deals and Diversity
The landscape of Sundance is changing, and streaming services are now big players. The two deals that have generated buzz so far: Tallulah starring Ellen Page sold to Netflix and Complete Unknown, starring Rachel Weisz, sold to Amazon.
As far as diversity goes, Sundance has always been more open to it. Filmmakers present at the festival now can be making films in Hollywood two to three years down the road. However, even though Sundance has a good history of promoting diverse filmmakers, this doesn't always mean they go Hollywood.
Boyhood, Whiplash, and Brooklyn were some of the biggest films to come out of the festival in the recent years, and all were all made by white men.
"It doesn't really mean that just because a movie connects here," explained Horn, "and with audiences outside Sundance that it's going to be made by a black filmmaker, or an Asian or Latino or that it's made by a woman."
To hear the full interview, press the blue play button above.
Forced sterilization in Los Angeles
The new documentary No Mas Bebes centers on a horrible period in Los Angeles history.
In 1975, a group of women brought a case to federal court alleging that doctors in Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center sterilized them without their informed consent.
Here's the theatrical trailer:
Take Two guest host
talked with the film makers of the movie, Renee Tajima-Pena and Virginia Espino.
Who wins when the Rams come to town?
The LA Rams breaking into Southern California won't just be a big boon for sports: there are pockets of industries all around the area that could benefit from a local football team.
While KPCC found that a new team won't generate huge economic benefits across the board, people in Hollywood, real estate and sales could all come out ahead.
Michael Colangelo, assistant director of USC's Sports Business Institute, joins Take Two to explain.
Masculinity and the White House: America’s long search for a comMANder-in-chief
With ten days until the Iowa Caucus, the gloves are coming off for candidates on both sides of the aisle.
It's the last chance to score political points, and that means poking at tax plans, talking about tough military strategies, and … impressing voters with your masculinity?
Republican candidate Marco Rubio recently got hammered by fellow conservatives, after rocking a pair of high-heeled men's boots.
Weeks later, the New York Times reports that Rubio has changed his stump speech to highlight his more hawkish policies.
He made a photo op out of buying a gun. He even talks football in a new campaign ad.
How important is masculinity in convincing voters you've got the presidential vibe?
Cal State Fullerton American studies professor John Ibson says it matters a lot more to a certain type of voter.
American Masculinity, a history
Ibson says masculinity became part of the political discourse at the end of the 19th century. That's because America was rapidly evolving.
"The nature of American life had changed. We were becoming much of an indoor society. Industrialization was fully taking effect, and so there was this feeling that American men were losing their strength," Ibson says.
Ibson says sexual orientation also became a topic of discussion for the first time.
"While people have been having sex with members of their own sex for as long as there have been people, the equation of homosexual males with weakness was a way to further stigmatize weakness and also stigmatize gay men," Ibson says.
Who really cares?
Turning again to "Bootgate," Ibson says traditional concepts of masculinity only really matter to conservative voters, making Rubio's boots an effective way to chip away at his popularity.
"It really is -- today -- only in right-wing Republican circles that such juvenile concerns would get any traction," Ibson says. "That's really where homophobia and sexism still thrive ... It's hard to imagine in any Democratic political circles, where there were high-heeled boots on some candidate, being a stick to beat him with."
Ibson points to the GOP debates for an example.
"It is a [kind of] arm wrestling contest in their debates to show who's the toughest," Ibson says.
He adds that Democrats aren't perfect either but in regards to masculinity, the issue was settled a long time ago.
"JFK ... there was a great deal of sexism in his attitude toward women. It was a different world then, and I think the Democratic Party has adapted itself much more successfully to that cultural world than -- at least -- large segments of the Republican Party have," Ibson says.
Hillary Clinton and Carly Fiorina
Ibson says there may be extra pressure on Hillary Clinton to appear tough, but based on her foreign policies, there may not be much to prove.
"In fact, one might object to some of Hillary Clinton's foreign policy for being a little too aggressive and tough," he says.
Ibson adds the same may be true of former HP CEO and Republican candidate Carly Fiorina.
"She does seem to emphasize her toughness and her aggressiveness, but I think that's less her being a female ... that may be just the kind of person she is."
Press the blue play button above to hear the interview.