helllooo out there in TV land...
Well, not having had anything to rant about for a while, I guess I'm overdue. Today's topic of annoyance: morning TV culture.
I had the uhm... opportunity... today to sit in a waiting room while a friend went to to the doctor, and the waiting room TV had some apparently typical morning programming on. Regis and whoever, or Dr. Phil, or who knows what. I couldn't see it, just hear it, and I have to say that I was really kind of amazed at how much of it is essentially a full-length commercial. Commercials for other TV shows (with clips of the previous day's TV shows), promotion of fucked-up body image stereotypes, telling you who to trust and how to spend your money, accentuation of unnecessary anxieties. It's torturous. I don't know how people can watch it. And no, I'm not ranting from the high-and-mighty holier-than-thou perspective of the TV-free. I'm just reacting as someone who hasn't adopted this into their life. If it's not already something you do all the time, it is a weird-assed thing to see the constant performance of fake laughter.
Hours and hours of labor, millions of dollars worth of equipment to bounce a signal back and forth to satellites, all of it about... nothing. No wonder it's just one big ad.
It gets me all twitchy.
6 comments:
Okeedoke then, I guess I have a new policy. Anonymous crazy-talk comments that obviously haven't actually read the post just get deleted.
Farewell, (former) anonymous commenter. Have a nice day in repetitive-crazy-talk land.
While I much prefer the 1971 classic version, maybe you like the lyrics from the 2005 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory film?
The most important thing, that we've ever learned,
The most important thing we've learned,
As far as children are concerned
Is never, never let them near the television set
Or better still, just don't install
The idiotic thing at all.
Never, never let them.
Never, never let them.
Never, never let them.
Never, never let them.
It rots the senses in the head,
It keeps imagination dead,
It clogs and clutters up the mind,
It makes a child so dull and blind,
So dull, so dull.
He can no longer understand,
A fairytale in fairyland.
A fairyland, a fairyland.
His brain becomes as soft as cheese,
His thinking powers rust and freeze,
He cannot think, he only sees.
Regarding little Mike Teavee,
We very much regret that we
Regret that we
Shall simply have to wait and see
Wait and see, wait and see,
Wait and see, wait and see, wait and see.
We very much regret that we
Shall simply have to wait and see
If we can get him back his height,
But if we can't it serves him right!
How about this? An edited down version of the Oompa Loompa song for Mike Teevee from "Willy Wonka" (1971):
What do you get from a glut of TV?
A pain in the neck and an IQ of three
Why don't you try simply reading a book?
Or could you just not bear to look?
...You'll get no commercials
Really looses something without the oompa loompa bit, though... Now your blog readers won't be singing along...
Dang typos :(
public television is a plague on our psyche(s)
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