Long Live The New Flesh
Watching David Cronenberg's overlooked masterpiece, "Videodrome" (in the excellent Criterion Collection edition) last night, I was struck by how prescient the whole thing is, considering that it was made back in 1982.
In the movie, sleazy TV exec, Max Wren (played by James Woods) comes across this pirated copy of a TV show called "Videodrome" consisting of nothing but murder, torture and rape. His research assistant tells him breathlessly after investigating it that it is "all real!". After that, it reeeeally gets funky, but that's not the point.
The point is the horrible affliction to public television called "reality TV", something that was unheard of back then and has now become a terrible reality. Now, these shows are of course no more "real" than my grandmother's teeth, but the premise of these shows keep getting more extreme in the hopes of attracting increasingly jaded viewers.
Note that I said "more extreme", not "better". That's the difference between scripted television and these so-called reality shows. Scripted television has to rely on a hooky premise and added quality to keep people glued to their sets (in theory anyway), but it seems that all reality shows have to do is come up with something more.
What bugs me about these shows is that they always appeal to the basest parts of human behavior. Survivor is about people trying to fuck each other over for money, The Bachelor is about women fucking each other over to get the rich guy (and they never even stop to think about how close they to being prostitutes), Temptation Island is just mostly about people fucking and cheating on their spouses, Cheaters is about people finding out that their spouses have been exhibiting infidelity, and then there was that crazy show (can't remember the name) about guys fighting to get the girl, but what they didn't know was that she USED TO BE A MAN!
Anybody seeing a pattern emerge?
And the networks are laughing all the way to the bank. These shows cost next to nothing to produce, there are literally millons of people willing to make complete asses of themselves just to get their 15 mintues of fame, and people spend their valuable spare time watching creativly bankrupt and content devoid crap.
Maybe I'm turning into an old fuddy-duddy, and far be it for me to judge what other people should be spending their time on, but I can't help but wonder how the hell we came to this.
Personally, I blame it on Michael Jackson. Why?...well, he's just creepy.
In the movie, sleazy TV exec, Max Wren (played by James Woods) comes across this pirated copy of a TV show called "Videodrome" consisting of nothing but murder, torture and rape. His research assistant tells him breathlessly after investigating it that it is "all real!". After that, it reeeeally gets funky, but that's not the point.
The point is the horrible affliction to public television called "reality TV", something that was unheard of back then and has now become a terrible reality. Now, these shows are of course no more "real" than my grandmother's teeth, but the premise of these shows keep getting more extreme in the hopes of attracting increasingly jaded viewers.
Note that I said "more extreme", not "better". That's the difference between scripted television and these so-called reality shows. Scripted television has to rely on a hooky premise and added quality to keep people glued to their sets (in theory anyway), but it seems that all reality shows have to do is come up with something more.
What bugs me about these shows is that they always appeal to the basest parts of human behavior. Survivor is about people trying to fuck each other over for money, The Bachelor is about women fucking each other over to get the rich guy (and they never even stop to think about how close they to being prostitutes), Temptation Island is just mostly about people fucking and cheating on their spouses, Cheaters is about people finding out that their spouses have been exhibiting infidelity, and then there was that crazy show (can't remember the name) about guys fighting to get the girl, but what they didn't know was that she USED TO BE A MAN!
Anybody seeing a pattern emerge?
And the networks are laughing all the way to the bank. These shows cost next to nothing to produce, there are literally millons of people willing to make complete asses of themselves just to get their 15 mintues of fame, and people spend their valuable spare time watching creativly bankrupt and content devoid crap.
Maybe I'm turning into an old fuddy-duddy, and far be it for me to judge what other people should be spending their time on, but I can't help but wonder how the hell we came to this.
Personally, I blame it on Michael Jackson. Why?...well, he's just creepy.
posted by Völundur at 2:16 am
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