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Articles: Have A Cigar |
Posted by
Monolycus on Saturday, March 02, 2002 - 04:02 AM PST
I have a friend (and no, that is not a euphemism for myself) who imagines that he is a great deal more clever than he probably is. He has spent the past few years in sunny California in a fruitless attempt to pitch ideas to various network executives for the production of different television shows he has envisioned. He writes to me on a semi-regular basis to kvetch about how the latest attempt has gone and the reasons that he has been given for his most recent rejection. Although he has yet to pick up on it, I have noticed that, nearly invariably, the reasons his ideas have been shot down are that they are (in the opinions of those who produce and market short attention spans for a living) too cerebral. "No market for it", "That could only find an audience on PBS", and "Huh...?" seem to be the standard responses as they are related to me.
For anyone who has actually experienced the intellectual void that is spewed out on a regular basis by the so-called entertainment industry, none of this should come as a surprise. I have chided my friend many times about throwing in the towel and consider selling the candy-coated insipidity that they seem to be buying. Like so many others, I shrugged in self-satisfied complacency about the tastes of the lowest common denominator, but did not imagine it did any harm. As long as I have a local library, I told myself, what harm can it do to give the mentally bereft their bread and circuses...?
Then, out of the blue, it hit me. I was minding my own business when suddenly I saw what can only be described as "The Great Lowering Of The Bar". Out of my very own idiot-box came an advertisement for... and I have to warn you that I am completely serious... Disney's Cinderella II: Dreams Do Come True.
The lowest common denominator (that demographic that television, motion pictures, music and all forms of entertainment are marketed to) is, by definition, an outlier. This means that greater than 99 per cent of the population has happily gobbled up what can only really be appreciated by the single least intelligent denizens of the Earth...the bottom of the barrel... people who would not have any say in ANYTHING if there were a compassionate god!
I have long begrudged the Disney corporation and their soulless minions for their contempt for Homo sapiens, but how much more obvious does their cynical exploitation of all art and human history have to be before the masses rise up to vomit back the technicolour tripe they and corporate bastards like them have been force feeding us into their materialistic faces...???
Back to my earlier question: What harm can it do to devote the entirety of our art and entertainment to the congenitally stupid? Beyond the fact that it has homogenised the culture into a swirling and soulless cesspool, it has conditioned us not to expect... not to DEMAND!... more from anyone. We sit back on our jaded butts and feel superior to the "idiots" who believe that pro-wrestling is real and that people with lunch meat fetishes really want to talk to their spurned lovers on Jerry Springer. News flash people: Everyone else feels superior to this imaginary lowest common denominator as well, while sleaze merchants are growing rich by forcing you to consume what should be falling out of your large intestine.
The culture does not HAVE to be sterile and soulless. Intellect and art CAN be commercially viable (Dosteovsky made his living selling his works) IF AND ONLY IF the constituents of the culture pull their vapid heads out of their overly large bottoms and demand to have things produced that actually nourish people instead of distracting them from how miserable they have grown.
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Have A Cigar | Login/Create an account | 26 Comments |
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Re: Have A Cigar
by bettie_x (strangersangel@hotmail.com)
on Mar 02, 2002 - 09:55 PM
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This is exactly why I only watch the history channel, the discovery channel, and comedy central. Figure if I'm gonna be hypnotized by the idiot box, I"m gonna get something out of the deal.
I've only been watching it ALOT lately, 'cause I'm running out of scary books to read. Unless poppy z puts out anything new, I'm screwed. Yes, i've gone through stephen king. Yes, I've gone through every motherloving hp lovecraft novel, compilation, and collection of handpicked authors he put together in a book, every major decent horror compilation and now I'm hacking through Dean Koontz.
ACK!
Where's the scooby doo marathon...my bulb needs some dimming...
Long live the idiot box!
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Re: Have A Cigar by Shade (Shade@Gothcult.com) on Mar 02, 2002 - 10:53 PM (User info | Send a Message) http://www.hotelshade.com | Clive Barker? Neil Gaiman? If you like things with a cyber twist, could I suggest Neal Stephenson? Oh, and if you get i, try Nickelodeon, they might still be rerunning Invader Zim and they used to always play Scooby Doo. Invader Zim is frighteningly good if you don't mind feeling a bit pedopheliiac for wanting the antagonists older sister... |
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Re: Have A Cigar by bettie_x (strangersangel@hotmail.com) on Mar 03, 2002 - 09:38 PM (User info | Send a Message) http://bettie_x.tripod.com/strangeasangels/ | I've YET to see Zim, but I"ve heard it's sick and hillarious. What else would you expect from the guy who created "johnny the homicidal maniac"?
THAT'S why they were going to cancel it, because someone's mom found out that the guy that does THEIR little guy's favorite 'toon also does one involving a "homicidal maniac" even though they are totally different things. They got enough complaints by disapointed zim fans they decided to go forth with it afterall. We have all sorts of zim stuff at work, and we recently got the stuffed animals...grr, naked grr (robot) and zim.
I don't get what the big deal is, after all the guy who wrote a series of disturbing and gorily illustrated short story horror books...believe his name is richard scary of "scary tales to tell after dark"...also does a disgustingly benign and cutsie cartoon for toddlers/small children. And nobody bugs HIM.
All I have to say is "let us prepare for some DOOOM"
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Re: Have A Cigar
by Shade (Shade@Gothcult.com)
on Mar 02, 2002 - 10:56 PM
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The culture wouldn't necessarily suffer, but I can guarantee there are a few pocket books that would, and sadly those few are the ones whose money funds the entertainment industry, they get tax kickbacks on the occasional 'edutainment' piece they pump out, but beyond that they just try to put out money makers. I admit I really enjoyed the first Alladin, but three sequals??? I can so understand what you mean. Unfortunately I can't see anyway to fix it with out an alien mind control ray gun and easy access to Rupert Murdoch.
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Re: Have A Cigar by Monolycus on Mar 03, 2002 - 04:21 PM (User info | Send a Message) | That really was at the heart of my rant... they just put out "money-makers"... and for some reason, nothing makes money unless it is made to be absolutely worthless. Take the Cinderella example (although your Alladin example works as well); if there really is a new story here to be told, why does it have to be held within a framework of characters that have already been bastardised from the poor Grimm brothers...? The answer is that there is nothing to be told, there is no story, and the only way to cram it down our eager throats is to incorporate "characters" they have already succesfully crammed down our throats. Bad enough to bastardise classic works of art, literature and history... now they can get by with bastardising our very memories and nostalgia.
My question is not whether we should stop watching television, seeing movies or listening to music... my question is why it is that a thing can not appeal to people (that is to say "make money")unless it is made as superficial, one dimensional and devoid of any real substance as it is humanly possible to make it...? It seems very strange to me that nothing can appeal to everyone, but the less brain that is involved gives a thing a wider appeal. The media (and I am going to throw the so-called "news" in this as well) has become the mental/emotional equivalent of sugary snacks... they have no substance or nutritional value on their own and only serve to distract us from the fact that we are starving to death. |
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Re: Have A Cigar by callei (plyn@plynlymon.com) on Mar 04, 2002 - 01:37 AM (User info | Send a Message) http://www.plynlymon.com | It is far easier to make beer jokes that witty play on words, easier and therefor cheaper. ANd we are not a culture that supports the idea of quality. We like disposable, easy. prepackaged fun. We dont care so much what the fun is, we are not taught how to differentiate between mediocre fun and really big fun, so we (the general we here again) can't tell that we are getting low quality. We dont know any better.We (general again) are told that caring about our pleasure is a sin and that to care about our food, entertainment, sex, and education all lead to hell. (see the burning of shakespear's books and the banning of wilde, the censurship of so many great movies, and the lack of art education in schools)
They tell us again and again that it is entertainment so that we start to feel bad if we dont like it. They tell us that it will make us feel sexy, young, nostalgic, rich, or something until, thru repetition , we start to believe.
As for why it doesnt make money, it is too hard to comsume the quality that is out there. It is hard to find a theatre that shows the quality movies, hard to find the few good tv shows, and hard to find the new bands that are still able to put thier hearts into the music.
While the mass produced stuff is available on every corner, like a 7-11, mcfood, or denny's.
The truth is that good movies do make money, even lots of money, once the word gets around (clerks is the first one that springs to mind or Run lola run)
The first step is to get people involved in thier own happiness, despite the brainwashing that they have received.
Im too sleepy to make this make more sense, sorry. But its sort of a self-fulfilling prophesy; we believe that the movie will be big, so it is big. we all go and pay our 7 bucks so that we can 'belong', and it is sorta fun for an hour or two. It is not so painful or horrible that we are reject it completely. But it leaves us hungery, unfulfilled so we go back for more, like an addict, or a hungry puppy. and the cycle continues. |
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Re: Have A Cigar by Monolycus on Mar 04, 2002 - 01:01 PM (User info | Send a Message) | Maybe I am as sleepy as you are, because you made perfect sense to me. I was particularly interested in your observation that people must become involved in their own happiness before things can begin to change. Unfortunately, I believe that Capitalism breeds mediocrity and apathy... as long as the yardstick we use to determine a person or thing's "value" is how much money they make or have, we (scientific "we") will never appreciate a person or thing's worth. By the amount of money he has made, Kevin Costner is apparently one of the greatest actors of all time.
Sadly, our detachment goes beyond our personal happiness in many instances. In the 1970's, the Ford Motor Company estimated the amount of money they would be forced to pay in wrongful death lawsuits by keeping the explosive Pinto in production versus how much money they would lose by fixing a dangerously designed car. Guess what...? Human lives are worth less than crappy cars. This "profits over people" mentality surely contributes to our inability to distinguish what is worth contemplating and immersing ourselves in and what are vapid wastes of time. And, like the addicts you described, we (royal "we") do not try different things... we keep listening to the droning voice of the media to point us to our next fix. |
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Re: Have A Cigar by Meranda_Jade (Meranda@mymind.com) on Mar 09, 2002 - 10:10 PM (User info | Send a Message) | My in-laws bought the kids that damn cinderella video... it sucks (well, that goes without saying) but the original was pretty good... and they went and sucked the soul right out of little cindy... no quality to the whole thing... and my kids watched it a few times... I think they'd watch anything over and over again... anyone remember when there were no vcrs? You couldn't watch mind-numbing crap over and over... only in the theater, or if there was a special on tv... now, you have thousands of crappy little videos, that kids can watch over and over again... it's not enough to have it on tv, you have to have it on video and watch it 1,000 times... videos of kids shows, that are the same damn thing they've seen on nickolodeon... or how about 8 "Land before time" videos... one was enough... the lowest of the lowest common denominator is being marketed to the kids, so they don't expect anything new in the future, I think... we tend to let ours watch old betty boop videos, and we got a copy of "Fantastic Planet" that they like as well... hopefully when they get older they'll just remember the trippy stuff, and not the horrid stuff that they were given as presents by well-meaning grandparents |
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Re: Have A Cigar by Monolycus on Mar 10, 2002 - 02:59 PM (User info | Send a Message) | Not that children are any more susceptible to brainwashing than adults are (their minds are just not as ossified as the average thirty year old's), but watching the same messages over and over is a very real danger of the world we live in, especially if a message is packaged as innocuous entertainment. That said, let me reassure everyone that I am not one of those freaks who believe we need to police ourselves from backward messages in pop songs or anything... but...
Not only are they watching the videos and DVD's over and over, recent development studies have shown that the proliferation of "realistic toys" (Toys that look identical to the characters/settings in the movies) cause children's play to mimic the movies that the merchandise came from verbatim with no introduction of creative imagination. Any message contained in said movie is reinforced over and over again, and much more efficiently than passive viewing alone.
This begs the question: Is there, in fact, a message being absorbed, or is the entertainment simply devoid of substance entirely? I can not answer that one... propaganda in one form or another is all around us, both unintentionally and VERY intentionally. I am picking on the Disney Corporation to the degree that I am because they have greater access to the media (Christ, they and two or three others own the damned thing!) and therefore have more "voice" than practically anyone else (If nothing else, it's downright antidemocratic!).
Are they conditioning us to believe anything? They have the apparatus in place to do that if that was their agenda. Fortunately (?), we can be reassured by an internal memorandum that came from the desk of Will Eisner that said to the shareholders of Disney: "We have no obligation to produce art. We have no obligation to say anything... Making money is our only objective". |
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Re: Have A Cigar by Meranda_Jade (Meranda@mymind.com) on Mar 10, 2002 - 06:27 PM (User info | Send a Message) | Yes! it's true... if they have an action figure they act out the show... even if they don't have the action figure, they act it out, pretending to be the characters themselves... and playing in the same damn episode they saw... I've tried getting them to watch educational stuff, like Sagwa, the Chinese Siamese Cat, which teaches a lot about China and other cultures, and they go around acting that one out as "kittens" *sigh* at least they're learning something in that case... in most cases it's just repeating whatever they've seen... once again, I think they're being trained to expect a very narrow range of newness, so the puppeteers will have an easier time in the future... |
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Re: Have A Cigar by Monolycus on Mar 10, 2002 - 07:43 PM (User info | Send a Message) | I'm not a huge fan of Sagwa. Every time I watch at that time of day they play that jingle... "PBS Kids"... over and over. Whenever I hear it, I have to remind myself that they are not actually chanting the words "Creepy Ass Kids". |
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Re: Have A Cigar by Meranda_Jade (Meranda@mymind.com) on Mar 11, 2002 - 07:50 AM (User info | Send a Message) | I'm not a huge fan of any of it... I just have stuff on for the boys so they don't pester while I'm teaching the girls... PBS is the main one I use, due to the lack of commercials for the kids to go repeating... and Sagwa is better than many of the shows on there... "Creepy Ass Kids" that's really funny... and now that you've said that, I'm gonna think it every time I hear it too... thanks. On a bright note, it's almost 11:00 and the tv hasn't been on at all... I woke up this morning, and one boy was sitting in the hallway putting a toy together, and a girl had gotten up and was folding laundry without being asked to do it... it's really weird... they've been calm and inventive, and I wonder who stole my children and left these in their place... |
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Re: Have A Cigar by Monolycus on Mar 12, 2002 - 07:43 PM (User info | Send a Message) | Check the house for pods. *chanting* Creepy ass kids... DOINK! |
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Re: Have A Cigar by Meranda_Jade (Meranda@mymind.com) on Mar 12, 2002 - 09:09 PM (User info | Send a Message) | No pods anywhere in the house. I think this weird change has come on because we haven't bought anything artifical or with sugar added since we moved here, and it's just taken effect. we still get some screaming fits, but not as much as we used to, and the kids seem to be able to think much better... it's still creepy when they study or do housework entirely on their own without nagging, but I'm not gonna argue with it... and they were watching pbs earlier today, and dammit, I thought "creepy ass kids"... thanks a lot, it's gonna take a while for that one to go away.. |
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Re: Have A Cigar by Meranda_Jade (Meranda@mymind.com) on Mar 13, 2002 - 05:52 AM (User info | Send a Message) | Funny you mention that... today is the boys' birthday. They're 4 now. but no party or presents until this weekend... |
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Re: Have A Cigar
by callei (plyn@plynlymon.com)
on Mar 02, 2002 - 11:14 PM
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This sounds awful cynical, but stop watching it.
I don't and havent for months at all (ok i saw some Buffy last summer, but hey what can i say, i think spike is sexy) and I dont feel like spending the money on comercials.
I sont see why I should have to pay for the advertisers to sell stuff to me. I dont have to pay for radio, they make due with advert money and studio kickbacks, PBS gets by on gov,'t money and consumer kickbacks; so why cant the rest of the media get it the same way?
grrrr tv bad
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Re: ...zuh? by Monolycus on Mar 03, 2002 - 04:23 PM (User info | Send a Message) | It is every bit as real as the State of the Union address. |
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Re: Noooooooooooooo! by Monolycus on Mar 12, 2002 - 07:44 PM (User info | Send a Message) | I'm very sorry, Dolo. I wanted you to hear it from a friend. Then I decided to save time and break it to you myself. *insert smiley face emoticon here* |
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Re: Have A Cigar
by Devin (devin-at-vibechild-dot-com)
on Mar 03, 2002 - 10:37 AM
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Come in here dear boy, Have a cigar, you're gonna go far. You're never gonna die, you're gonna make it if you try, they're gonna love you.
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Re: Have A Cigar by Monolycus on Mar 03, 2002 - 04:24 PM (User info | Send a Message) | This could be made into a monster if we all pull together as a team! |
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Re: Have A Cigar
by pAris (dparis@columbus.rr.com)
on Mar 03, 2002 - 10:40 AM
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yeah, turn it off. I had mine banished to the basement, unplugged for about three years and I got so much accomplished. Of course, you may have noticed that was in past tense.... So now I try to get my cathode ray addiction through the other> brain sucker, the one I am typing stuff into right now.... And who the hell decided that commercials need to be twice as loud as shows, anyway? Do they really think that I will suddenly pay attention? I do - long enough to mute the damned thing. I admit I am addicted to cartoons; some of the best TV writing is done for cartoons. Damn them!
...Must go destroy TV....
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