Our BetterMost Community > Chez Tremblay
Is it just me, or...
ednbarby:
... does anyone else here find television *really* irritating?
I flicked the tube on tonight, thinking I'd check out the Monday Night Football. And who's playing, but the Falcons and Saints IN THE SUPERDOME. I can't believe they didn't take a wrecking ball to that atrocity. Hello? People DIED there. Horrible deaths. And were attacked. And lived in squalor because our country didn't give a shit about them. And they're playing fucking football there? What the holy fuck?
So I shake off that anger and think, all right, enough of that crap. Let me see what else is on... I land on NBC and "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip." And in the space of about 30 seconds, I kid you not, I count not one, not two, but three gay jokes. So I think, "Well, fuck this noise." I fly through the chanels. I get up to Showtime and stop on "Weeds." In the space of 60 seconds, another derogatory gay reference. But I think, "You know what? I'm taking things too seriously. Let me step back a bit and give this show a chance - I hear it's really good." I see it through. I like certain aspects of it, don't like others. Get to the end of it and find out it's produced by my buddies at Lionsgate. I about yak.
I just give about give up on the whole shootin' match altogether, but I come across "Pleasantville," just starting. And I can't help but watch because it so perfectly matches my black mood.
Katie Freaking Couric doing the Evening News? Fox "News" driving Bill Clinton to spew in the general direction of Chris Wallace (aka Shithead Extraordinaire)? Homophobia passing as entertainment on what's perported to be the "biggest hit" show of the new TV season?
Screw television. I'm watching movies from now on. I've pretty much given up on the major networks altogether. I can't help but take it all too seriously. Somebody's got to.
I want you all to go to your windows right now, open them up, and yell at the top of your lungs, "I'm mad as Hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!!!"
The truth is, television is gonna get us.
Don't wanna be an American idiot - one nation controlled by the media. Information Age of Hysteria - it's going out to Idiot America.
This country is going straight to hell, and TV is lighting the way.
_________________________________
(Sorry, y'all. Just needed to partake in a good, old-fashioned American bitch fest.)
serious crayons:
Oh, don't be so shy, Barb, tell us how you really feel! ;D
A quick couple of words about the dome: the horrifying reports of murders and rapes in there were later debunked (the papers doing the debunking were the Chicago Tribune and, I think, the LA Times). Apparently there is no evidence that anyone actually did die. I don't think anyone disputes that people lived in squalor, though.
Also, there's an interesting piece on Slate today saying that the dome, once widely scorned by New Orleanians (that was certainly the case when I lived there in the '90s-- it was hideous even before Katrina) has now become a beloved landmark and symbol of rebirth. Here's the story:
http://www.slate.com/id/2150341/
Also, did you see that your favorite band played there tonight (along with U2) for the big reopening celebration?
http://www.usatoday.com/life/music/news/2006-09-13-superdome-rebirth_x.htm
Ellemeno:
Barb, did you know that the pilot for Studio 60 has Judd Hirsch playing a Peter Finch type character (the one in Network who has people go to their windows and yell), going on live TV with a diatribe not unlike your own? It was pretty good. No gay jokes that I noticed in that episode.
I don't seem to want to ever watch live TV, and didn't watch any til the TiVo moved in with us.
And re Superdome becoming a revered landmark - that's what happened with the World Trade Center. When I lived in NY a couple of decades ago, I never heard anybody say anything good about it.
alec716:
I am one of those accidentally-countercultural people who does not watch TV at all... not so much by way of conscious decision, but just because since the passing of Murphy Brown, not much on the tube interests me. I would rather do something interactive than watch TV, and I get my news from the internet. I moved nine weeks ago and my TV is still packed! Although I am starting to miss watching some of my concert DVDs.... and of course there is this DVD about some sheep herders who love each other that I really would like to see again soon... ;)
I say BRAVO, don't let mass expectations rule you, and most of all, YES, PLEASE keep being so attuned to the subtle and not-so-suble references to homophobia and other hatreds. It really is amazing how much denigration and prejudice and violence are expressed in so-called "casual" speech. We can't counteract it unless we are aware of it.
OK, end of sermon. That was my rant for this morning! ;) Thanks for listening. :)
ednbarby:
--- Quote from: alec716 on September 26, 2006, 10:44:44 am ---I say BRAVO, don't let mass expectations rule you, and most of all, YES, PLEASE keep being so attuned to the subtle and not-so-suble references to homophobia and other hatreds. It really is amazing how much denigration and prejudice and violence are expressed in so-called "casual" speech. We can't counteract it unless we are aware of it.
--- End quote ---
Exactly. The first "joke" was particularly denigrating. I found it even more distasteful than the "Jake likes it in the rear" bit at the Espy's, if that's any indication.
Frankly, I'm more than a little disturbed at the major networks' apparent need to make the same lame-o jokes again and again and again. Resistance may be futile, but as long as I'm breathing, I will *not* be assimilated.
(So, I just dated and outed myself as a Star Trek: Next Generation geek at the same time, there...)
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