For the most part we watched four things: lots of commercials, A Christmas Story, an episode of an educational/demonstrative show about weapons, and a holiday episode of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Everything except A Christmas Story managed to offend me in some way. I worried that I may have simply become overly sensitive; but when I pointed out the offensive material, the family and friends around me generally agreed that the material was over-the-top. For the most part, we laughed about it. Deep down, however, I was concerned by the fact that people willfully--and often gleefully--absorb this stuff. Not enough of us are disgusted. If I took this programming back in time and showed it to families in the 60's, they would be outraged. It's easy to laugh at that statement because "people and entertainment were different back then. That stuff is nothing, now." How does that make it any better? Admitting we're desensitized to it doesn't mean it's not a problem. It actually means it's an even bigger problem. Think about it.
On to the examples.
- A Christmas Story. I love this movie. It's nostalgic, innocent without being unrealistic, and amusing to children and adults alike. It gives us a feeling I think we should feel more often than just for a few days at the end of December, and crams a ton of that feeling into an hour and a half. It's a dense package of positivity and humanizing awkwardness--a slight extreme. I argue, here, that television programming highlights (and encourages) these sorts of extremes. With that light opening, I bring you to the next example,
- Commercials. I still have to deal with ads on the internet, so these generally aren't very shocking anymore. Because there are so many more ads on television, however, I got to experience a larger selection of them in larger doses. I'm sure it's of no surprise to anyone that the level of mindless consumerism demanded of us by a majority of advertizing has reached socially damaging proportions. Luxury items are advertized as not only being absolutely necessary (and therefore simply expected by the general public), but being capable of delivering deeply personal emotional and psychological experiences like love and spirituality. Ads tell viewers that smart people watch such-and-such, and dumb people dislike such-and-such, and women all do this, and men all do that, and caring about things is stupid, and being a pig is totally acceptable, and making your neighbors jealous is an important goal, and the car you drive is more important than nature (and in fact, nature is stupid), and every other terrible falsehood that you've probably already seen. Despite none of this being new, I still wanted to include it since a massive portion of what I watched consisted entirely of just ads. Couldn't be avoided. On to the next example,
- Juvenile excitement over deadly weapons' demonstrations by grown-ass men. I have no idea what show this was and I don't recall what channel it was on (one of the History/Discovery/Nat Geo stations.) The underlying concept was perfectly fine, and actually rather interesting. Whatever the show was, this particular episode focused on comparing the capabilities of straight and curved swords, while (minimally) discussing some of the details of the blacksmithing process.
Most of the content consisted of people attacking stationary foam mannequins and at least one pig carcass. These objects were slashed in half, hacked diagonally, or stabbed. Mannequins were bare, armored, or constructed with the addition of life-like replica skeleton parts beneath a layer of transparent jelly "skin." All three mannequins were filled with tunnels of blood to skirt and/or drain from the body once wounded (fatally, of course.) The increasingly "realistic" additions (blood, bones, clear skin) were unnecessarily gory, and it seemed very obvious that the intent was to make it more exciting by making it more like hacking at a real body--not merely to give the viewer an educated idea of how a body might be damaged.
It wasn't just the methods or visuals which made this obvious to myself and my fiance, however. The boisterous exclamations from the host encouraged and highlighted the "Whoa, blood and guts, cool!" aspect of the display. He was overly dramatic and a little breathless with forced (or maybe sincere?) excitement. I was constantly surprised and annoyed to see a 30 year old man behave like a 15 year old goth kid watching a Rob Zombie video for the first time, while speaking about the history of war, war weaponry, and traumatizing (and deadly) war wounds.
Now, I'm not an idiot, and I'm not a pansy with violent entertainment. I play video games, read comic books, listen to Rammstein, and own a collection of fantasy/action/adventure/sci-fi movies. I understand the entertainment value (and, sometimes, even the educational value) of over-the-top violence. I also understand the difference between entertainment, and harmful glorification. Apparently, not everyone does. With that in mind, on to the last example, - It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. I've heard all sorts of people rave on and on about how great this show is--about how original and hilarious and (more or less) "indie" it is. Because of this, I actually hadn't assumed it would be a bad show (though I didn't necessarily expect to enjoy it.) This show made me feel bad inside. I hated every character and just about everything they said. The only watchable portions were those in which the two dumbest characters were alone in a scene, because if anyone else was around them, it was horrendous again. (And those two characters were annoying in their own way, believe me.) Otherwise, everyone was mean, apathetic, and greedy--gleefully so. They were proud of their behavior and judgment, and at no point did they actually "get what was coming to them." (Sorry, having luxuries stolen from you after you behave like a horrible person is no kind of comeuppance.) There was so satisfaction, no sense of completion, and nothing to glean from their experiences. They never learned anything from their self-caused struggles. The audience is supposed to feel positive about the characters' petty judgments, impatience, and callousness. The entire show is all sarcasm, impulsive (unrealistic) exchanges, and extremely abrasive people. Am I supposed to like these characters?
Even the worst of them--the guy who the others hate because he's such a douche (arguably the "main" character, played by DeVito)--isn't intended to be entirely disliked by the audience (not as far as I can tell.) His meanness is shockingly heartless, but "quirky and acceptable in its own way." (I use quotes to emphasize that this appears to be what is intended and therefore what is felt by the approving audience. This viewer does not agree.)
To top it all off, this holiday episode included an animated portion intended to mimic the hold stop-motion Christmas movies from the 1960's. The segment was intended to teach the main character a lesson by comically and ironically encouraging him to be nice to others or else they'll collectively kick his ass. That could have been the punch-line, right there. Instead, the animation went on for minutes, demonstrating in graphic (stop-motion) detail the myriad ways his "friends" would mortally wound him if he didn't become a better person. The list included ripping off his limbs (and licking the blood from the bone), gauging out his eyes, chainsawing his leg, hanging him from the Christmas tree by his spinal cord, pushing what remains of his leg into a meat grinder, tossing him to an alligator, repeatedly stabbing him in the face with a knife, macing his face-wounds, and burning him alive on a Christmas tree. If I have to explain why this is unnecessarily grotesque and not funny--if you find yourself more annoyed or distanced by what you're reading than shaken by it--then I encourage you to either have patience with me and muscle through to the end, or just skip to the red text at the bottom of this post.
The only character in the entire episode who was consistently "good" was mocked incessantly for wanting to preach about peace, forgiveness, and Jesus. The audience was supposed to be amused and relieved whenever the other characters silenced his attempts. Yes, religious preaching is annoying and I myself dislike it, but the show took the only decent thing about the entire episode and made it "dumb and unacceptable," and at the end of the episode, made the man into a lying hypocrite who threatened everyone with a gun and stole all their stuff, anyway. Now I have no one left to like.
Lastly, as an interesting (and probably inaccurate) side-note, this episode's animated segment incorporates a little routine with the California Raisins. Remember those guys? They were an R&B musical group comprised of anthropomorphic raisins used to advertise dehydrated grapes in the 1980's. (I know. Brilliant.) It should be noted that the Raisins are the only "black" characters in the entire episode, save for an extra in an office scene who is disgusted by one of the main characters earlier on. (I put "black" in quotes because I'm well aware that there's no guarantee the California raisins were black. It was merely insinuated at every possible turn.) When the "black" Raisins make their entrance, the singing narrator specifically describes them as being "racist." In keeping with the joke, the Raisins are the ones who burn DeVito alive on the tree (while dressed as Klan members.) Now, I'm pretty confident they simply referred to the Raisins as being racist in order to drive home the image of them in Klan robes, and therefore giving them a reason to suddenly appear and burn someone at the stake. At the same time, I did find it a little odd. For a moment, all I could focus on was the fact that the show introduces some rare minority "cast members," and makes them racist murderers. In all honesty, however, I probably read too far into it. I could really take or leave this portion of the blog entry. I may delete it later.
Skip to this part if you disagree with what you're reading, here.
Remember that the purpose of this post is to share with my readers how I feel about television programming in general: that it depicts extremes of our current culture (while also encouraging it, thereby creating a self-sustaining cycle.) My goal is not to bring you down with examples of awful TV. (I meant what I said when I included the bit about A Christmas Story.) However, I do tend to use this blog to draw attention to things I think people should notice, and at this point in my life, I'm worried about a lot of bad stuff. (Welcome to my blog. Maybe I should focus on more positive things, too...) That having been said, I'm not looking to tell you that I hate something you may like. I'm not here specifically to tell you that the things you like are bad. My goal is to make you think, and to get things off my chest so I don't let them fester internally.
I'm rambling.
Today, in this post, my goal is to give examples of some of the extremes in our televised entertainment (good or bad, though I complain about the bad more often than I praise the good. Hm. I don't think I like that.) I'm concerned that we absorb this stuff without realizing just what it is we're watching, or what it means about (and does to) our culture. I'm concerned that we blindly and eagerly absorb promotions for extreme consumerism, extreme gore, extreme negativity, extreme assholishness, and extreme selfishness, while thoughtlessly believing that it's all okay. I'm not upset with people. I'm shocked and I'm worried.
So I'd like to leave you with this. Before anyone disregards my concerns with a roll of their eyes and defensive scoff--before I'm compared to aging grandparents droning on about how bad movies, music, and young people have become--please stop to consider that maybe, just maybe, old people keep saying this stuff because sometimes it's true. Having experienced generations of people and culture, the elderly have a lot to compare this stuff to. Sure, opinions are biased and lots of older folks are just plain cantankerous. I'm certainly not insinuating that their younger years were spent in a lost Utopia. But let's at least admit that the graphic violence, willful cruelty, and general rudeness in entertainment has increased consistently over the years. Let's just admit that our entertainment often encourages us to cheer for the meanest and/or sassiest of characters. Hell, it's why so many people find old programming to be so damn boring. We need it extreme, and we need that extreme behavior in our faces at all times. And usually, bad extremes are more dramaitic and therefore more entertaining than good extremes. Notice, I only experienced one good thing on TV all day, and I really struggle to even call it an "extreme." (Maybe only in comparison to how negative everything else is.)
Just because we enjoy something else, now--stuff clearly very different from the entertainment people enjoyed 50 years ago--doesn't mean what we enjoy is better. (At least, not in all ways.)
What say you we be a little more discerning with our entertainment?
Woo... done ranting. Merry Christmas everyone. Mine was awesome. It gets better every year, seriously. In 2013, I think I'm going to try to focus more on the positive. It's better for my health, right? Love and peace to ya'll!
No comments:
Post a Comment