The UW-Madison homecoming video which talked about diversity in the narration, lacked it throughout the video. Problems arose around the promotional video when a sorority member who had been filmed for this video posted saying they were not featured, and neither was any other large minority presences. The committee who made the video took it down shortly after posting it because of the comments they were receiving.

The video was just a little over a minute long and when I watched it, I think I saw around 5 minorities. I don’t know whether the lack of diverse people represented int eh video was intentional or just an overlooked accident, but it proved to be a big one. One of the hard things to look past is the committee asking a predominantly African American sorority to be part of the video and telling them they would be featured. In the post from one of the girls it says they filmed for about an hour. That is a lot of film to not get anything out of it. Obviously not everything you film will make it into the video but when your video is promoting how this is home and it is a diverse home; how can you not find one shot in an hour-long film session to feature.

When I first watched the video, my reaction was that the shots they used were not controlled ones. There were shots of the football team, crowds cheering, cheerleaders, and even some from the cycling team. Those are not things you can choose who is in the shot. I didn’t have a problem with video until it got to set up shots around the campus, with students doing random acts around popular destinations. That was when they had a large control over, who was in the video and what they were doing. From that point on it all seemed very dominated by white students. That is when they could have done a much better job of using different videos showing the diversity on campus.

In the film League of Denial, it goes through the events of the discovery of CTE and how the NFL reacted to its discovery.  Dr. Bennet Omalu first saw this disease in long time Pittsburgh Stealer, Mike Webster. After the discovery the NFL denied a connection and shunned Dr. Omalu and his work. Later a group of doctors from Boston University discovered the same disease in other former NFL players. It was not until new NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, did the NFL start to consider the game having a long-lasting effect on players health.

It was interesting to see the NFL continue denying the risks of the sport after so many brains were examined. I believe at one point it was 10 of the 11 brains examined had CTE. Though admittedly that is a small sample size, that really seems like a bad look for the NFL. By the end of the film in 2013 the doctors had examined I believe 57 brains of former NFL player, 56 had CTE. By 2013 the league was more open to the fact that there could be problems with taking repeated hits to the head though.

I think my biggest surprise was the NFL’s shunning of Dr. Omalu’s work after other doctors confirmed seeing the same thing. At first, I understand them not wanting this information out, but then even when other doctors working with the NFL confirmed Dr. Omalu’s work they continued to shun him. When he got the go ahead from Junior Seau’s son to examine his brain after death, only to have the league call the son and tell him that Omalu’s work was not trustworthy. That is shocking that they would continue to lock him out of that work long after others say the same thing he had.