Television Rant: Prove me wrong.
POSTED BY: HiroStone
UPDATED: Monday, February 23, 2004 16:35
VIEWED: 13366
PAGE 4 of 6
Man, I am long-winded!
-Hiro
Mal: Ohhh, i'm going to the special hell....
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TV is chewing gum for the mind. 
As we learned from McLuhan, the medium is the message. TV has psychological limits, as well as it's other attributes, that are never ever pushed beyond the very edge of shear boredom. You might think you're watching exciting and interesting TV but the truth is you have been trained by the medium to watch the message over and over again. It's your addiction.
After all, the TV constantly tells you to watch or you might miss something. It's lieing of course.
There are a very few out there who, in my humble opinion, have managed to take the medium and use it in a more artistically valid direction. We can draw a line from good journalism (E.R. Morrow) to innovative story telling (The Twilight Zone) but these exceptions are just that.
Understanding this we can look at TV today and understand one thing... it's far, far, worse and insulting than TV has been even in the frellin' 70s! Sure, I expect a lot of crap on TV but the Corporate Media Monster is a creature unseen by ANYone in the Arts since Napoleon! NAPOLEON!!! That is... complete and total control of the media including distribution, marketing, and production. So what do we get? Reality TV.
And by the way, calling it 'Reality TV' is like calling my ass a Fruit Roll-Up.
It wouldn't seen so crass and commercial if, rather like in the old days, TV producers would show thier cultural clout by doing American Playhouse and such. Today... it's Reality TV!?!?! I'm being glib... but not inaccurate. 
TV is mind control. Wether you agree with what you see on TV or not isn't gonna matter... it's what TV hides from you that will form your thinking. What's a good way to explain ... um, say you are an American in Iraq. You think these people will be push overs and they want desperately to be 'free', like Americans. After all, this is what TV tells us. But the truth is; Iraq is an ancient land with people deeply, deeply, proud of thier nearly 5000 year old culture. Do ya think a few Yanks with thier boysterous and barely 200 year old attitudes are gonna be anything more than just annoying to the average Iraqi? Think about it.
To me, Joss has changed TV just as Rod Sterling has. Joss has taken some basic conventions of TV and raised it to more than a melodrama. More than a soap. And it's here where I get off the Art bus when trying to nail down just what Joss has accomplished. I'll say this: seems that, rather in embarrassed secret form, many artiests loooove Joss and Buffy but haven't felt safe to 'come out'. At least, this is my impression (small though it is).
I know this is short and rant like... one more quote right from the Marshalls mouth - All advertising advertises advertising.
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TV is basically our version of bread and circuses. No big suprise there.
I doubt the nature of TV will change much. Or, rather, any change for the better that does occur will be the result of someone getting in charge of a network/group who really is passionate about making quality programming. In essence, TV has reverted to the Age of Kings and how good the next king is is a toss of the dice.
Of course, there's one other way TV might change, but the chances are somewhere around nil, and that is if a large, long-lasting campaign starts among the viewers to constantly bombard the TV execs with compaints about what's going wrong and how to fix it AND have such comments be firm, but CIVIL. Since that level of activisim will most likely never happen, well, thus my initial assesment of the chances as being nil.
Sad, but all too likely.
If you can survive death, you can probably survive almost anything.
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Quote:
And by the way, calling it 'Reality TV' is like calling my ass a Fruit Roll-Up.
Oh - my sides hurt! That is so frelling hilarious!!! Even funnier, when recently I was in the grocery store complaining about how there weren't any 'good' fruit roll-ups anymore! If only I'd known...
On a more serious note - we can bombard the exec's and whoever we want to until the second-coming (or to paraphrase Jason Carter, 'the first-coming would be nice, too.'), but they marginalize us. 2/15/03 - 10-15 million people protested across the globe about going to war in Iraq, and yet somehow those in power dismissed it.
The world has become a sensationalist tabloid. What to do about it? How do we change anything? Keep fighting the good fight, writing the letters and not letting our voices become silent. I have always been a 'the glass is 1/2 empty' person (big surprise, I know!), but for whatever reason, I have never stopped fighting. I've been fighting since I was able to form cognitive thought. So I guess I'll just keep doing that
. And things like what San Fransisco's mayor, Gavin Newsom, are doing - they brighten my day considerable!And hey - they cancel our tv show? Then let's get a movie!!!
****
Liberty has never come from the government. Liberty has always come from the subjects of government. The history of liberty is the history of resistance. The history of liberty is a history of the limitation of governmental power, not the increase of it.
– Woodrow Wilson
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I think if you tack down the CIA predictions for 2015 they actually agree with you. It has been awhile since I read the document, but basically it said that the gap between the haves and the have nots will continue to increase and that the government must take steps to protect itself from the unruly elements of the have nots.
Um, I'm lost. Uh, I'm Angry. And I'm Armed.
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Miloradell wrote:
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Could the American Civil War happen today?
The possibility is there yes, but quite honestly, I doubt it. People have a tendancy to be sheep for lack of a better word. Without a leader type to whip them up into a fighting frenzy, no one will ever be bothered to fight for anything.
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Overlook the whole time-line thing, alternate future, etc. Think about this - your country is being hi-jacked away from you by money and corporations, rich old men are in power who couldn't give a fig about anyone outside whatever they perceive as their "own" people.
What you are speaking of is the "haves" and "have nots". People of wealth, power and position have everything, want for nothing, and are not held accountable to the law to the same degree the average person is today. The majority of our population is made up of those of us that have to work our butts off just to get by in the current economy and worry how we are going to live when we retire. We are held accountable to the fullest extent of the law, and because we are not celebrities or hold positions of power, we are not guaranteed the leniency as the privileged.
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Elections can't be trusted. Technically, the law would support incarcerating me because of posting this. Our purported leaders lie to us as a matter-of-course and get upset when we don't just let it slide. Our media is comprised of parrots. A fetus has better laws protecting it then an actual, living and breathing woman does.
The problem w/ elections is that the popular vote, the vote of the people, does not guarantee the candidate the people want will win the election. The election of George W. Bush was such an example. Gore won the popular vote, but Bush won the electoral vote. The electoral votes are where the true power lies. One could say that the electoral votes are skewed and could be bought by political favor or personal bias.
As far as the lying goes, governments have been doing that as long as there have been governments. That will never change. Power corrupts and administrations will further their own agendas, and the public will be lied to and have information withheld from them.
Don't get me started on the liberal media. They are as bad as networks broadcasting whatever garbage they can to increase their ratings. I do not like the media, and I find their handling of news to be less news reporting and more sensationalism at its worst.
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So...what do you think? Ready to take up arms and fight for what you believe is right? Are you willing to risk your family, your body, your health, your pension, your mortgage to fight for freedom?
I would take up arms to fight for my family, home, and beliefs if it comes to that, yes. I would prefer to settle things peacefully, but I am not above protecting what I love.
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SO WHAT THE HECK DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH TV????? Isn't it the same thing? Acceptance? A life too busy, too tired, too disengaged, too fragile, to take up a cause? How much has to be taken away - and not necessarily directly from YOU, but from a people en masse - before you feel the need to demand it back? How many people really don't mind being treated like morons by tv exec's, because then they don't have to think, because it's easier?
I don't really think you can seriously compare poor television to freedom. You have the freedom to turn the channel or turn off the TV and read a book.
I do agree that the masses blindly following along in the current programming offered by networks is part of a problem, but it is not one we can do much more than we have up to now. Fight to get Firefly back on the air anyway we can, and refuse to watch those ridiculous so called "reality" shows. If they ever tried to force me to watch their garbage, then yes, it would infringe on my rights and I would fight.
The truth of the matter is that our society runs on capitalism, and that means money is power. Unfortunately, viewers gobble up these "reali
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The problem w/ elections is that the popular vote, the vote of the people, does not guarantee the candidate the people want will win the election. The election of George W. Bush was such an example. Gore won the popular vote, but Bush won the electoral vote. The electoral votes are where the true power lies. One could say that the electoral votes are skewed and could be bought by political favor or personal bias.
I think the problem with elections goes much deeper. Many criticized Ralph Nader for causing Al Gore to lose the election, but I found Bush and Gore to be too similar on the issues that mattered to me.
I am reminded of a quote by G.K. Chesterton.
"For the powerful class will choose two courses of action, both of them safe for itself, and then give the democracy the gratification of taking one course or the other. The Lord will take two things so much alike that he would not mind choosing from them blindfold and then for great jest he will allow the slaves to choose."
Um, I'm lost. Uh, I'm Angry. And I'm Armed.
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Arawaen wrote:
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I think if you tack down the CIA predictions for 2015 they actually agree with you. It has been awhile since I read the document, but basically it said that the gap between the haves and the have nots will continue to increase and that the government must take steps to protect itself from the unruly elements of the have nots.
Never heard of these so called CIA predictions of 2015, but if anyone has a link point me in that direction.
I do believe that the gap between the haves and have nots will continue to increase. Look at the cost of living compared to say 25 years ago. A dollar now is worth 20% of what it was in 1979. I make triple what my grandfather made, and nearly double what my parents make, yet they seemed to have had an easier time of it. Taxes are higher, healthcare is through the roof, and the only thing we are not charged for is air. Given time I am sure the feds will find a way to tax even air.
I do think that the class difference will come to a head in the next ten years, though I do not know for certain it will mean a physical conflict.
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I think the problem with elections goes much deeper. Many criticized Ralph Nader for causing Al Gore to lose the election, but I found Bush and Gore to be too similar on the issues that mattered to me.
I have no doubt that you are right. The election system, like so many things with our government, is broken and needs to be fixed.
"May have been the losing side. Still not convinced it was the wrong one."
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Wow.
Now this... this is what I love most about this forum. We start off with a rant about how luh-suh TV has taken over and is killing off good shows and great story lines. We talk about what luh-suh shows look like and how they have infiltrated our lives to the point where we feel dirty. Then the focus shifts, just a bit at first, to what should be a fitting demise to our niao se dub doo gway, more commonly referred to as TV execs. That lasts for a post or three before we start talking of politics and open rebellion. Before you know it, we have secret CIA documents about the haves and have-nots.
And all because some gou tsao de exec @ FOX (spit!) thought that Mal should always win, the plot moved too slow, and that a midget trying to find romance was better TV than this jing zi show called Firefly.
Well, that's my two cents on this.
I call her "Vera"
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Ahh I'm so reminded of the words of my beloved Anya, whilst conversing with Andrew in an abandoned hospital (Buffy eps 7.21):
ANDREW: It’s going to be bad, isn’t it?
ANYA: Yeah.
ANDREW: So how come you’re here? I mean, you could just go, right?
ANYA: Yeah. I did once before.
ANDREW: Before what?
ANYA: Well, there was this other apocalypse this one time and… well, I took off. But this time, I don’t know…
ANDREW: Well, what’s different?
ANYA: Well, I guess I was kinda new to being around humans before. But now I’ve seen a lot more, gotten to know people, seen what they’re capable of and… I guess I just realized how amazingly screwed up they all are. I mean, really, really screwed up in a monumental fashion.
ANDREW: Oh.
ANYA: And they have no purpose that unites them so they just drift around blundering through life until they die… which they know is coming yet every single one of them is surprised when it happens to them. They’re incapable of thinking about what they want beyond the moment. They kill each other, which is clearly insane… and yet here’s the thing. When it’s something that really matters, they fight. I mean, they’re lame morons for fighting but they do. They never… they never quit. So I guess I will keep fighting, too.
We all may be really lame morons, but we keep fighting, and that's the difference between 'us' and 'them.' It makes all the difference in the world.
Basically the way I see it is, eventually things HAVE to get better, or else they will end in which case no one except Keith Richards and a handful of cockroaches will care. Eventually Reality TV will go away, Eventually the masses will rise up (I think it was Thomas Jefferson who said that this country should have a revolution ever 50 years, he's not wrong), and Joss will win an Academy Award, and an Emmy.
Life happens to those who show up. Lots of people in this country don't show up because they are afraid of what will happen. The greatest controller of all the people is Fear (with a capital F). If there is one thing I have noticed in the last year, is apparently death is awaiting us behind every corner. If it isn't SARs, it's Mad Cow, if it's not Mad Cow, it's Chronic Wasting Disease, if it's not that it's Monkey Pox, if it's not that it's small pox, if it's not that it's ebola, not to mention the cancer that is most likely developing in you courtesy of all those cheetos you ate as a small child. Add to that that your next neighbor could really be an Al-Queda operative, and didn't that young black man at the grocery store look suspicious, and be careful there might be anthrax in your mail, someone could set off a 'dirty' bomb in the local park, and your SUV's tires may in fact split in 3 places on your way to grandma's house for Christmas dinner. Fear. Fear works.
Keep people scared and they won't try to do anything to the contrary (cos their too scared of the reprocussions). Then there are the crazy fearless masses, who are walking kamikaze's who get everything done.
Where is this going? I don't know I lost my rant somewhere in all that sh*t to fear.
Oh yeah the fruit roll-up refrence up there made me laugh so loud people actually stared.
-A
Well that's a radical interpretation of the text.
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