TV-o-Rama
I've had the flu this weekend. It was one of those delicious illnesses that left me too sick to work but not so sick that I couldn't get decently comfortable. Just sick enough to stay home and watch tv.
Watching 20+ hours of television in two days is quite a strange experience. These are the things I learned:
"This Week" hasn't changed in the 15 years since last I watched it. Well, except that it used to be "This Week With David Brinkley," who is now dead and replaced with George Stephanopolis. But everything else is still the same: Cokie Robert's hair is still frosted within an inch of it's life. Sam Donaldson's hair still looks like it came from the bargain bin at The Hair Club for Howard Cosell Impersonators. George Will's hair still looks like it came off some wholesome lad in a Norman Rockwell painting called something like "Little Know-It-All Gets the Shit Kicked Out of Him." Also, the political commentary is still largely moronic.
That Law and Order show is always on. Is there any crime those clever writers can't commit and then solve?
Television offers a kind of disturbing cultural continuity. It isn't simply that the genres are so calcified that there is very little variation between a '60s sitcom and a current one, but that the old ones have been on in reruns for so long that they feel like part of the fabric of our consciousness rather than artifacts of a lost past. Somewhere out there, the Beaver is always getting into some misguided but well-intentioned scrape and Ricky won't let Lucy in the show. And 24 hours a day some authority figure is coming to the 4077th, ready to bust them for disobeying regulations only to be deeply impressed by how well they do their jobs. Doctors are heros.
Wolf Blitzer is some kind of automaton.
I learned a lot from the advertisements, as well:
I am fat.
I am hungry.
My supply of personal electronics is dangerously low. In fact, if I don't get start buying tiny devices to play music and talk and take photos it's entirely likely that I will never get laid again and I will die alone. Of cancer. Of cancer of the loneliness.
Freud's theory that homosexuality is essentially narcissism would be better applied to the people who hook up on eHarmony.com. Those people in the commercials all look exactly the same. It's seriously freaky. I mean have you seen them? These couples look like identical twins of different genders. Freaky.
It's been a very educational weekend.
Watching 20+ hours of television in two days is quite a strange experience. These are the things I learned:
"This Week" hasn't changed in the 15 years since last I watched it. Well, except that it used to be "This Week With David Brinkley," who is now dead and replaced with George Stephanopolis. But everything else is still the same: Cokie Robert's hair is still frosted within an inch of it's life. Sam Donaldson's hair still looks like it came from the bargain bin at The Hair Club for Howard Cosell Impersonators. George Will's hair still looks like it came off some wholesome lad in a Norman Rockwell painting called something like "Little Know-It-All Gets the Shit Kicked Out of Him." Also, the political commentary is still largely moronic.
That Law and Order show is always on. Is there any crime those clever writers can't commit and then solve?
Television offers a kind of disturbing cultural continuity. It isn't simply that the genres are so calcified that there is very little variation between a '60s sitcom and a current one, but that the old ones have been on in reruns for so long that they feel like part of the fabric of our consciousness rather than artifacts of a lost past. Somewhere out there, the Beaver is always getting into some misguided but well-intentioned scrape and Ricky won't let Lucy in the show. And 24 hours a day some authority figure is coming to the 4077th, ready to bust them for disobeying regulations only to be deeply impressed by how well they do their jobs. Doctors are heros.
Wolf Blitzer is some kind of automaton.
I learned a lot from the advertisements, as well:
I am fat.
I am hungry.
My supply of personal electronics is dangerously low. In fact, if I don't get start buying tiny devices to play music and talk and take photos it's entirely likely that I will never get laid again and I will die alone. Of cancer. Of cancer of the loneliness.
Freud's theory that homosexuality is essentially narcissism would be better applied to the people who hook up on eHarmony.com. Those people in the commercials all look exactly the same. It's seriously freaky. I mean have you seen them? These couples look like identical twins of different genders. Freaky.
It's been a very educational weekend.
posted by Feemus at
3:35 PM
2 Comments:
I learned a lot from the advertisements, as well:
I am fat.
I am hungry.
Those three sentences initiated a laugh-out-loud moment for me. Yes. That is a perfect summary of what advertising (the ugly wallpaper of the whole world) has to say to us.
By
jjdebenedictis, at 8:07 PM
Yeah--it's amazing how much advertising we're exposed to. Even without television, they're just everywhere.
By
Feemus, at 11:40 AM
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