The 90’s, episode 111: Conspiracies

Episode 111 of the award-winning TV series The 90's. This episode is called "CONSPIRACIES" and features the following segments:

02:18Copy video clip URL Excerpt from “News From Afar” by Shu Lea Cheang. A documentary about Emile de Antonio, the innovative documentary filmmaker, radical leftist, and critic of the Establishment. It was produced a few weeks before his death in 1989. Featuring interviews with de Antonio himself.

03:36Copy video clip URL “Todd Alcott” by Skip Blumberg. Hyper, obsessed, New York resident Todd Alcott laments over the stress of his big-city lifestyle.

06:59Copy video clip URL “Diana’s Hair Ego/AIDS Info Up Front” by Ellen Spiro. A piece about a South Carolina hairdresser who is involved in dispensing AIDS info and condoms from her hair salon. She has developed game to teach kids “safe sex”… Bambi Sumpter, VP of SCAEN ( S.C. AIDS Education Network) comments on young peoples’ continuing promiscuity and the need for everyone to get involved with AIDS prevention education.

16:37Copy video clip URL “Phoebe Legere” by Skip Blumberg. Phoebe Legere, a New York lounge singer, prepares for her performance and shares some insights. “Criticism is easy…but art is very difficult,” says Legere. She comments about being on TV, “I hope it’ll conquer my shyness.” A scantily clad Legere insists that “sex is the last thing on [her] mind.”

20:29Copy video clip URL “Father Bill Davis/Christic Institute” By Eddie Becker. Father Bill Davis spent the last ten years in a poor, drug-infested neighborhood a stone ‘s throw away from the nation’s capital in Washington D.C. He’s outraged at the government’s “war on drugs.” Davis comments that “It’s just a PR campaign…how can we purport to have a major war on drugs when foreign policy supports drug cartels?” He is convinced that drugs are only part of the problem – unemployment, housing conditions and hunger are the real issues. “People who have very few choices in their lives are told to say no,” he says.

27:29Copy video clip URL “Ain’t Gonna Pee in the Cup” by Bianca Miller. A comical, anti drug testing music video.

29:44Copy video clip URL More from “News From Afar.”

32:45Copy video clip URL “Harold Pinter in London” by Chuck Olin. Playwright Harold Pinter speaks about political and economic changes in Eastern Europe: “We in the free West have a responsibility to the people of Eastern Europe who have demonstrated incredible courage…There, the words ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy’ mean cheap labor. We have to look at our obligation…”

34:22Copy video clip URL “Witness” by Barbra Nei and Judith Yourman. Various witnesses recall events. Although the courts claim that eyewitness testimony is the best testimony, the truth is that more people are wrongly convicted by eyewitness testimony than anything else.

39:08Copy video clip URL “John H. Davis” by Skip Blumberg. A piece about the theories of John H. Davis, author of Mafia Kingfish , who is convinced not only that the Mafia was involved in the assassinations of John and Bobby Kennedy, but is also sure that the CIA covered it up.

43:27Copy video clip URL “Washington Pro-Choice Demonstration” by Eddie Becker. A raw, unedited tape of a pro-choice demonstration in Washington D.C., in which police threaten the media. “You have five minutes to leave or you get locked up,” an officer says. The crowd chants, “Just like China! Just like China!” Police verbally abuses cameraman: “Get outta my face…”

49:53Copy video clip URL “Abortion: Past, Present and Future” by Educational Video Center. On her way to get an abortion, a woman admits that she is glad she doesn’t have to go to a “butcher” for the procedure. Another woman who had an abortion in 1946 offers a graphic description of what it was like when abortions were performed in back rooms under less than sterile conditions. Since then she has vowed to help legalize a woman’s right to an abortion .

55:22Copy video clip URL More from “News From Afar.”

58:07Copy video clip URL End credits.

1:00:12Copy video clip URL Promo for The 90’s.

1:00:49Copy video clip URL End of tape.