Our BetterMost Community > Chez Tremblay
Is it just me, or...
ednbarby:
--- Quote from: kelda_shelton on September 28, 2006, 10:02:14 am ---are you serious!? How cool!!!!
meh. 100 channels - is standard?!
I pay £40 per month for my cable and broadband combined and I have nowhere near 100 channels!!!
--- End quote ---
Yes, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Think about it - you've got ditchdiggers walking around over there who are much more worldly and vastly funnier than our best comedians over here. Why? Because your brains haven't been turned to oatmeal by a constant barrage of inane television like ours. I mean, who the hell needs 100+ channels? I find I only ever watch about 10 of them. And about five of them regularly. If it weren't for "Lost," I wouldn't watch a lick of network TV (ABC, CBS, NBC, the dreaded Fox, UPN, the WB (or whatever the hell it is they've merged into now)). Beyond that, I watch ESPN, HBO, Comedy Central, The Weather Channel (sort of a guilty pleasure - I go there when mind-numbing is what I'm looking for), and in a real pinch, MSNBC. I can't even stomach CNN Headline News and CNN anymore. That's it.
But the damage is already done in my case. I grew up eating all my meals in front of the boob tube, and now I can barely think for myself. Trying to keep the same thing from happening to my son is a real challenge. I guess if I were a real hard-ass, I'd have my DirecTV removed, not buy cable, and only rent educational programs. But then we'd be the weird parents who don't let their kid watch TV and he'd grow up stigmatized. They watch PBS at his school, anyway. There's no escaping it.
Be glad you're forced to pick up a newspaper, read a book, or take a walk once in a while. Live by the tube, die by the tube. Or something like that.
serious crayons:
Well, I say this with huge trepidation, but ... I actually think TV can be pretty good sometimes.
I know this is not the cool position. I once carried on a three-day-long email argument with a philosophy professor in which I defended TV and he trashed it. Gets tiresome. But I actually find it entertaining and often informative. Some programs, IMO, are just about as good as movies. Even network ones! It can be a problem if you find yourself constantly vegging out in front of the set, but I really only watch when I want to see some particular thing.
Coincidentally enough, I am having cable installed this very afternoon (no HBO, though). We had it for a couple of years, then moved and now have lived without it for the past nine months. I miss Jon Stewart. But otherwise, I'm not particularly fond of cable, because it does increase the temptation to just click around watching stupid things. If you can resist that, though, I agree with Barb, it doesn't matter whether you have 100 channels or 1,000 -- you wind up watching the same few, anyway.
BTW, Barb, if you want to keep your son from watching TV, just move to southwest Minneapolis, and he'd fit right in. Most kids watch TV there, too, of course, but some don't, and those who do are ashamed to admit it! ;D
serious crayons:
--- Quote from: nakymaton on September 29, 2006, 05:51:22 pm ---When the kid gets into school and figures out how all his friends know about Power Rangers and everything, though, I'm going to cave.
--- End quote ---
I did that, eventually, with video games. I vowed I wasn't going to enable that terrible habit. Then my sons started making such a fuss about it that, after a few years, I finally realized it was more of an issue NOT having it than it would be if we DID. And also, I began to wonder if my opposition to video games wasn't at least partly ageist -- that is, I'm suspicious simply because I grew up without them.
Many times, though, I have wished we could go live in the wild somewhere, or in a country so poor kids play with cornhusk dolls. I have gained a lot of empathy for parents who home-school their kids (not that I would ever do that in a million years; at least one of us would not survive the experience). But peer influence can be a real drag.
Ellemeno:
Pretty much the only show Miranda ever watches (she's 3 1/2) is Signing Time, which is a tiny jewel of a show on PBS (at 5:30am, but I TiVo it) where a family (a real family) with one deaf daughter sing and sign, with a different theme every week. We sit and watch a half hour episode together about once every week or three, usually while I'm folding laundry and after a tiring day. I am so grateful that so far she isn't interested in watching TV any more than that.
Hey, I watched that episode of Studio 60 that started this thread and caught the jokes you mentioned, Barb. I had a different response, and wanted to share it here:
The three gay jokes near the beginning of Studio 60's episode "The Cold Open"
1) Someone says to Matt and Danny (the two partner guys now running the show) something about them liking Barbra Streisand. One then turns to the other and says, "Is she implying that we're liberals or that we're gay?" The other replies something like, "Not sure there is a difference to her" or something like that.
2) One guy, to imply that someone else has job power over him, says something like, "I am SO his buttboy."
3) One of the same partner guys, in the press conference, when asked about the difficulty they will have working with the uptight, cranky boss guy played by Steven Weber, jokes something like, "Nah, from the first time we made love it was wonderful."
The main thing to me about these three jokes is that they are gay-related, but they are not put downs of being gay. The first one is based on a stereotype that gay people like Barbra Streisand - or for that matter that liberal people like Barbra Streisand, yes, so doesn't get many points from me, but the other two don't seem pejorative at all. That second remark is crude, but it's not the gayness of it that is shocking, it's the violation implied. Anyway, I thought that they NORMALIZED gayness, not the other way around. (I also am guessing that as we get to know the characters, that the Steven Weber character is going to turn out to be gay, but that isn't based on much evidence.)
Thank you for listening. BTW, I loved the first two episodes, and am excited that for the first time in years I "have" a TV show, and that I'm getting in at the beginning.
Clarissa
David In Indy:
--- Quote from: ednbarby on September 29, 2006, 09:45:31 am ---
Be glad you're forced to pick up a newspaper, read a book, or take a walk once in a while. Live by the tube, die by the tube. Or something like that.
--- End quote ---
Television is getting very confusing too. God. Sometimes it seems as if I need a special college degree just to figure it all out.
TNN is now Spike. The WB is now The CW. PAX is now I. WNDY is now My Network TV. Bill Hemmer switched from CNN to Fox News. Tucker Carlson left CNN for MSNBC. Rita Cosby moved from Fox News to MSNBC. Greta Van Susteren left CNN and joined Fox News. Aaron Brown just disappeared altogether. CNN is now channel 66 instead of 23. MSNBC is channel 67 instead of channel 26. C-SPAN switched from channel 78 to 23. C-SPAN2 changed from channel 46 to channel 22.
Sheesh.
Good Night..... and GOOD LUCK! ;)
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