I just want to start off by saying that the “reality” shows just have to stop.
I know I’m not the first to say that, and it’s unlikely that I’ll be the last, but I’ve just had all I can take.
I don’t even watch most of the damn things, and even the ones I do watch I do so only very irregularly, and yet they manage to insinuate themselves into my consciousness.
What I don’t get is who are these people who are so endlessly fascinated by them that they just refuse to go away? Haven’t you people had your fill yet? Can’t this trend die its long overdue death the way it ought to have like three years ago? Can’t you just let it die the way the whole game show trend died?
Please, I’m begging you, let it end.
It’s a good thing that I’m not that big on watching TV, since at this point TV programming consists almost entirely of reality shows and “Law & Order” and “CSI” spin-offs.
As a somewhat related aside, who was it that ever decided that Donald Trump is interesting in the first place?
Okay, so he’s a billionaire. And..? Oh, that’s it?
Who really cares? How does being rich make him interesting?
Steve Forbes is rich, but his personality-free campaign for president back in 1996 demonstrated pretty clearly that rich does not equal interesting.
Trump’s fame made a certain kind of sense back in the 80s, when he was the poster child for wealth, ambition, and greed, which were the earmarks of that era, but even then he wasn’t especially interesting.
The man has zero personality. ZERO. His horrible haircut/hairpiece/dead animal glued to his head is the only thing that’s even remotely fascinating, and even that is only the train wreck sort of fascinating. It’s just too gruesome to look at, yet you’re powerless to look away…
And the whole concept of “The Apprentice” is almost enough to put me to sleep.
It’s a bunch of people trying to get a job.
Yeah, the producers come up with wacky challenges for them, which result in wacky schemes, which produce all of the tension and reprehensible behavior that are the true marks of “quality” reality shows, but at the heart of it, it’s a show about people trying to get a job.
If I were interested in that, all I’d need to do is remember back to the various times in my life that I spent trying to find a job, and if I do that, I see that it wasn’t especially interesting then, and it isn’t interesting now.
In fact, trying to find a job sucked. A lot. So why the hell would I want to watch a show about the process?
How about a reality show about people getting root canals, or maybe a show about people waiting in line at the DMV? It would have just as much appeal to me.
People tell me about the show, even though I’ve made it clear that I DON'T CARE, and even as they try to describe how interesting it is to watch these people compete for a job I’m trying not to yawn.
Why the hell are you people watching this crap? If you want to see people behaving badly, go to a grocery store and watch way kids behave, and how their parents respond.
And what’s so fascinating about people eating bugs? Is “Survivor” really any more interesting than “Gilligan’s Island?” After all, they both appeal to the same IQ bracket.
I just can’t understand the appeal of watching people put into contrived circumstances designed to make them crack up, just so we can watch them act like stupid assholes. One of the main reasons I so seldom venture out into the world is because I don’t want to have to watch people acting like stupid assholes.
Oh, but what about the “talent shows,” you say. “I like to watch the people get up and perform.” No you don’t, you like to watch that arrogant, British nobody act like a bitch.
And what is the point of the judges anyway, when the winner is actually chosen by the audience?
I never listen to the radio because, with only a handful of exceptions, I hate popular music, so why would I want to watch a show about the manufacture of the next pre-packaged pop star?
And when it comes to cutting remarks, I prefer being the one delivering them, not seeing back and watching someone else do it.
I will admit that “The Surreal Life” is kind of entertaining, but it’s certainly not “appointment TV.” I also like some of the home improvement type reality shows, though the main reason I ever watch “Trading Spaces” is that I think Genevieve is HOT.
Some of the dating shows can be entertaining as well, but that’s only because the bitter single person in me (which occupies most of the available space) likes to watch people fail miserably in their attempts at romance.
In any case, the main reason I don’t understand the appeal of reality shows is this: if reality were interesting we wouldn’t need TV in the first place.
I say bring back scripted television. Hell, even “Three’s Company” was better than most of the trash out there now.
These cheap to produce reality crapfests are choking the airwaves and preventing wonderful shows like the late lamented “Wonderfalls” from ever getting a chance to find an audience. What a magnificently scripted, directed, and acted show that was, and yet, after only a few episodes it was unceremoniously yanked off the air. They didn’t even air the episode that was already scheduled when they cancelled it.
And do you know what they put on its place? A rerun of “The Swan.”
And talk about reprehensible, that show should be pointed to as the definition of the word.
I can see the pitch:
“So we take all of these ugly people, right? Then we pay for them to get plastic surgery and style makeovers so that they aren’t ugly anymore. Now, these are going to be people whose appearance has profoundly affected their self-esteem. They’ve felt ugly and undesirable their whole lives, you know? Like they aren’t as good as anyone else because they aren’t good-looking enough. And, you know, the media has just beaten them over the head with the idea that if you aren’t attractive you don’t matter.
“So when we’re through with them, they’ll have this new confidence, and they’ll feel good about themselves for the first time in their lives.
“Then we’ll make them compete with each other in a beauty pageant so that we can tell them that even after all they’ve gone through they’re still not good-looking enough.
“And, you know, with any luck, as they get better-looking it’ll cause tension with spouses and friends and stuff, so basically we stand to be able to ruin a LOT of lives.”
Yep, that’s Fox for you. They take away a wonderful, quirky, life-affirming show set at Niagara Falls, and in its place put on a show that makes you feel like you need to get under the falls just to wash the sleaze away.
And that’s the thing. When I watch a TV show I don’t want to feel like I have to take a shower afterwards, or that I should feel (even more) ashamed to be a human being.
Not that I want everything (or really, anything) to be a nice, clean, sanitized “Touched By An Angel” hour of schmaltzy, saccharine sweetness, either.
But there’s no reason we need to spend all of our time wallowing in filth. Yes, that’s part of who we are, but it’s only ONE part. There’s a whole spectrum of human behavior that isn’t being explored, and if we keep focusing just on that one part, eventually we might forget that the rest even exists.
And for me, that’s the real “Fear Factor.”
Okay, moving on (Stumbles as he steps down from soapbox. Swears. Shakes fist at soapbox.) to other things…
On the topic of filmed programming that explore other, non-bug-eating aspects of life that actually have a script, I watched a really sad movie last night called “My Life Without Me.”
It was made in Canada, and starred Canadian actress Sarah Polley, who some may remember as “Sally,” the little girl in “The Adventures of Baron Munchasen,” though she’s grown up considerably since then (It has been 15 years after all.).
The basic premise was actually a lot like that Michael Keaton movie from several years back with which it shares part of a title, “My Life.”
I never saw “My Life,” but from what I saw about it, it looked to be a lot glossier and more melodramatic. This movie, I think, was a lot grittier, and more subdued, though the subject matter was much the same.
Polley stars as Ann, a young wife and mother who discovers that she has only a few months to live.
She keeps the fact that she’s dying a secret from everyone, but prepares for her absence while going on with what’s left of her life.
It was just very sad and very sweet, and Sarah Polley (who has apparently been something of a political activist in the Great White North), puts in an amazing performance. Nothing too over the top, just very matter of fact, like a woman who has resigned herself to the fact that her time is limited.
Some people might object to the fact that she has an affair, but in the context of what is happening to her, and, indeed, what’s happened to her prior to this, it makes a great deal of sense, and is presented in a very sympathetic way.
In any case, I’d recommend it as a movie that’s worth seeing.
“Munchausen” notwithstanding, since she was just a little girl in that, I first took notice of Sarah Polley in the movie “Go.”
What struck me about her was just how sullen she looks, no matter what she’s doing (Though I am amazed by her ability to convey a range of emotion without saying a word, despite the overall air of melancholy about her).
In fact, she actually reminded me of someone I once knew.
Come to think of it, if anyone were of a mind to make a movie featuring this person as a character, Sarah Polley would be the ideal person to play her.
In any case, this was around five years ago, and I often cite my association with this person as proof that I am not, as some would say, “too picky.”
Her name was Lisa.
She was probably the most sullen and unhappy person I ever met in my life. For those of you who know me and think that I’m sullen and unhappy, I can honestly say that my unhappiness, bitterness, and general distaste for life pale in comparison to hers.
She would make Eeyore look like a cheerleader.
I was enormously attracted to her.
What can I say? I’m attracted to the sullen type, and besides that, she was actually very pretty.
It’s more than just the air of melancholy about Sarah Polley that reminds me of Lisa; there was also something of a physical resemblance.
Besides being pretty and sullen, Lisa was a bartender, which ultimately is probably what put her over the top in terms of how attracted I was to her. When I was drinking I was a sucker for a pretty bartender. Hell, I was at least a little attracted to anyone who provided me with alcohol.
In terms of specifics, Lisa was a bartender at a strip club in Wisconsin, which was just a quick drive across the Mississippi River from where I was living in Minnesota at the time.
I don’t know that it would be fair to say that I went to the strip club a lot, but…okay, I went there a lot. When I walked in it was almost like Norm walking into Cheers. At least until I finally got a job and could only really make it there on weekends.
I don’t know how I ended up talking to Lisa for the first time. Maybe it was a slow night and I was in the mood to pay way too much for beer without also watching naked women gyrate in front of me.
I can’t really say (or, for that matter, remember), but somewhere along the line I started talking to Lisa.
Or rather, I started listening to her. In a reversal of roles, Lisa would stand behind the bar and tell me all of her troubles. And she had a lot, a whole lot more than I can remember.
But the thing about her that appealed to me was that she wasn’t just whining or randomly bitching like anyone else might. She had a dark, bitter humor to the way that she complained, and I think that I found in her something of a kindred spirit.
She was intelligent (she probably wouldn’t have been nearly so unhappy if she weren’t) and she had a dry and acerbic wit that showed that, while she did let it get her down, she maintained a healthy sense of humor about the dark cloud hanging over her.
Eventually I began to spend more time sitting at the bar talking to her than I spent giving away dollars to the strippers, and finally the night came when, in a moment of drunken candor, I expressed to her just how attractive I found her.
I don’t remember just how I put it, though I’m certain that it was eloquent, poetic, and profoundly romantic…and there was probably a great deal of slurring and stammering involved. Drunk as I was, I was probably also embarrassed and nervous, so I imagine I was flushed and sweaty, though this is speculation on my part, since I don't really remember.
In any case, I do remember this: whatever I said made her smile.
It wasn’t a big smile, more of a slight upward turn at the very corners of her mouth, but considering who it was, that was a tremendous accomplishment.
On a subsequent trip to the strip club I “made my move,” buoyed by my earlier success.
She shot me down.
She couched it in terms of it being “against the rules” of the club, but that was an obvious lie designed to spare my feelings.
I didn’t see much of her after that. It wasn’t really a matter of avoiding her so much as I didn’t have any money to go to the strip club after I lost my job, and then I left Minnesota in the summer of 2000.
But that was Lisa, pretty, sullen Lisa.
So you may be wondering how my attraction to her justifies my claim that I’m not too picky. After all, physically, while not exactly a raving beauty, she was attractive.
Is it because she was sullen? No, because the specific way in which she was sullen was actually part of what attracted me to her in the first place, so even though it might be a turn-off for other people, since it was something that drew me to her, I can’t count it as evidence that I’m not picky.
No, the proof that I have (at least once) been driven to absolute desperation lies in the details that I didn't provide about Lisa.
For one thing, she was only 19, which, even then, when I was 27 or 28, was a little on the young side.
But the main proof lies in the fact that, for much of the time that I knew her, Lisa was pregnant.
With her third child.
Yes, I was actually THAT indiscriminate. I tried to pick up a pregnant 19 year old.
Worse, I got shot down.
By a pregnant 19 year old.
So when I say that I’m not picky, I can point to this experience, just as when I say that there’s nobody out there for me, I should think that the fact that I was rejected by a pregnant 19 year old lends that theory some credence.
In any case, seeing sullen Sarah Polley brought back memories of Lisa. Like most of my memories of living in Minnesota, they’re blurry, indistinct, more than a little embarrassing, and they have a sort of bittersweet tang to them.
At the rate she was going, I would imagine that Lisa has even more children by now, though I hope she’s managed to find some level of happiness.
I guess that’s it for today’s entry. I’ve tried doing some drawing, but the results have been mixed at best, so there’s nothing much worth sharing.
I’m not too likely to get much done tonight either, between “Smallvilee” and “Law & Order.”
So I guess that’s it for now…
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