Athens, Ga. – The George Foster Peabody Awards and the Peabody Collection at the University of Georgia will resume “The Peabody Decades” screenings on Jan. 14 with “America in the 1970s: Express Yourself,” a program featuring excerpts from “All in the Family,” “The Flip Wilson Show,” “M*A*S*H,” the 1972 Munich Olympics, “Roots” and other decade-defining news and entertainment programs.
Each month, The Peabody Decades series highlights a different time period with the first screening of the month featuring a potpourri of clips from the Peabody archive and the second a full-length movie. The film in January, scheduled Jan. 28, is “Green Eyes,” a 1977 Peabody Award winner about a Vietnam veteran (Paul Winfield) who returns to Saigon searching for the biracial child he left behind.
“The Peabody Decades” will proceed chronologically, twice monthly, through April. February films will focus on the 1980s, March films will focus on the 1990s and April films will focus on the 2000s.
All “Peabody Decades” screenings will start at 7 p.m. in the auditorium of UGA’s Richard B. Russell Building Special Collections Libraries, 300 Hull St. Refreshments will be served from 6:30 to 7 p.m. at the multi-clip events.
The clips for each event are chosen by a UGA undergraduate who has also curated an exhibit about the period. Following the multi-clip screenings, the student curator and a Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication graduate from that decade will host a dialogue. Single-show screenings will be followed by a discussion led by a UGA professor.
“Our series uses the Peabody Awards Collection, the largest broadcasting archives in the Southeast, to tell stories about radio, television and history,” said Mary L. Miller, an archivist at UGA. “The Peabody Collection is like a giant time capsule. The archive houses not just Peabody Award winners from more than 70 years, but just about everything that has ever been entered in the competition.”
The 2014 “Peabody Decades” screening schedule is as follows:
Feb. 11 – “America in the 1980s: That’s Legit”: Clips from “Cheers,” “Hill Street Blues,” “Motown Returns to the Apollo,” Live Aid coverage and more.
Feb. 25 – 1980s movie: “An Early Frost.” Aiden Quinn stars in the first major film to deal with HIV-AIDS.
March 4 – “America in the 1990s: Defining Women”: Clips from “Ellen,” “Roseanne,” “Oprah,” “Sex and the City,” “Murphy Brown” and more.
March 25 – 1990s film: “Troublesome Creek: A Midwestern.” This documentary follows a farm family’s struggle to hold on to its land and lifestyle.
April 15 – “America in the 2000s: I Couldn’t Look Away”: Clips of 9/11 coverage, Hurricane Katrina, “The Sopranos,” “The Daily Show” and more.
All screenings are free and open to the general public. Evening event parking will be available in UGA’s Hull Street Parking Deck.
The Peabody Awards, the oldest in broadcasting, are considered among the most prestigious and selective prizes in electronic media. The awards recognize excellence and meritorious work by radio and television stations, networks, webcasters, producing organizations and individuals. The 16-member Peabody Board is a distinguished panel of television critics, industry practitioners and experts in culture and the arts. Selection is made by the board following review by special screening committees of UGA faculty, students and staff. For more information regarding the Peabody Awards program and the “Decades” series, see www.peabodyawards.com.
The Walter J. Brown Media Archives and Peabody Awards Collection is one of the largest broadcasting archives in the country, with over 250,000 titles preserved in film, audio and videotape and other recording formats. The only public archive in Georgia devoted solely to the preservation of audiovisual materials, the Brown Media Archives holds programs dating from the 1920s to the present day. For more information, see http://www.libs.uga.edu/media/index.html or visit the exhibit space in UGA’s Richard B. Russell Special Building Collections Libraries.
UGA Grady College
Established in 1915, the UGA Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication offers undergraduate majors in journalism, advertising, public relations, digital and broadcast journalism and mass media arts. The college is home to the Peabody Awards, internationally recognized as one of the most prestigious prizes for excellence in electronic media. For more information, see http://www.grady.uga.edu or follow @UGAGrady on Twitter.
