Things that really .. really piss me off: part III
Reality TV and soap operas.
'Nuff said...
posted by Wayne Smallman at Wednesday, February 23, 2005
Wednesday, February 23, 2005
Reality TV and soap operas.
'Nuff said...
About Me
- Name: Wayne Smallman
- Location: Barnsley, Yorkshire, United Kingdom
Technology convergence, enabling society and business alike. “Wayne Smallman looks for technology trends and makes educated guesses about where technology is heading.” I'm the guy behind Octane, a web design & development agency that's been around since 1999.
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We get a SOAP channel on our cable. It sucks!
What with the likes of "I'm a celebrity, get me out of here!", or should I say "I want to be a celebrity, get me in there!", todays viewing experience is tele-visual equivalent of a fast-food diet .. looks nice, smells like shit, makes you want to be sick and is just no good for you at all.
Recently, an idea for yet another C-list celebrity game-show was thrown together.
The idea is simple: take a bunch of has-been wankers who've pissed away what little money they did have for that two month of fame they managed to get decades ago, put them in a aeroplane and fly them all to high altitude.
Now, ask them a bunch of mind-numbingly easy questions .. and then watch the dense bastards get them all wrong.
And the forfeit? They get kicked out of the aeroplane.
Indeed.
But I'm reliably informed, there was a charity slant to to this rib-tickling festival or mirth and merriment, so that's alright, then.
If this is the future of television, then something has gone sadly and badly wrong...
The culture of reality shows says something about the society at large. There is nothing 'real' about these so called shows.
a) We have grown up into a voyeuristic society, who want to have fun at the expense of others.
b) In a fast-paced world, something that is created with little input/time/money is always appealing to the producers.
c) The goal is not to create something that might last an eternity. One week in the headlines is good enough for today's TV programs.
Wayne: Related to your last post.. Apple released a 4GB version of iPod today.
I agree, Reality TV sucks.
And while I also hate Soaps, there's a theory that they actually help people to learn about how to deal with situations in real life.
In previous generations people socialised, with large families, and with close neighbours and friends. And learned about how to deal with other people. In this communication-age, there's more communication, but strangely, less socialising.
So being able to watch situations arise and learn how to deal with them is actually a good thing. It's a pity that the moral compass setting the direction is that of morally impoverished TV writers/producers. (apologies to any TV writers/producer who aren't moreally impoverished, I'm talking about the other ones).
"And while I also hate Soaps, there's a theory that they actually help people to learn about how to deal with situations in real life."
Now, I was waiting for someone to mention that.
Personally, I think the producers of soap operas who believe that they are providing some public service ought to get their heads examined.
Soaps are neither informative nor entertaining. They are utterly unrealistic and have a tawdry habit of crystalizing so-called real-world scenarios into over-excited tosh.
Rarely do soaps cover an issue with even a modicum of sincerity.
I mean, how many 'painful love splits' must we endure?
About the only painful love splits most people are familiar with are the kind that need some anti-inflammatory ointment rubbing into them.
There's just a rash -- keeping in theme, you like that? -- of love triangles -- another sexual euphemism -- gay couples, philandering, deceit, teenage angst, angry relatives, under-age sex, venal neighbours .. the list goes on!
How is that real?
This goes back to the one of my other posts on the power of the media.
If people do believe this bollocks, then their perceptions of real life are going to be skewed in the most woeful and lamentable fashion.
I can almost guarantee that if I switch channels and catch an episode of EastEnders at any point in the half-hour slot, I'll be sure to see some seething exchange of words, someone screaming at someone else, someone crying .. its fucking depressing, that's what it is!
Give me a game of football / soccer, four cans of beer and a couple of mates to watch it with any day...
Don't forget cricket!
Absolutely agree (not about the cricket though).
Goes back to the moral compass thing. There are far too many people out there who believe that stuff is real!
How about a 'real' soap where someone comes home every night bored to death with work, and watches tv all night, drinking beer, until bed. oh wait, no, that'd be another reality tv show! damn, and I thought I was onto something there....
Sray: cricket at this time of they year is great for seasonally affective disorder.
Onkroes: you see! You're way ahead of them!
Just imagine: a camera in every home. Sat atop the television.
You just dial in a number or a web address and there you are, watching them, watching you, watching us.
Oh, the voyeurism...
The thing that atttracts people to 'reality shows' is not what they show, but that people dont know what to expect from one moment to next. A perfectly boozed up fellow might just jump up and beat his wife to pulp. That's the attraction!
That's precisely what puts me off.
Although there's an element of spontaneity, it's usually of the deeply egregious and breathtakingly embarrassing kind...
I love cricket! It goes on for too long sometimes (Especially some of the boring test matches), but the one-dayers are great :-).
Gindy, the game is a (distant?) cousing of baseball. And it is not really that hugely popular across the world, only 10 or so nations at the world level. But it is wildly popular in most of those countries (England, Australia, NewZealand, India, WestIndies, Pakistan, SouthAfrica, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Bangladesh).
Hmm.. I wonder if Lucretia and Wayne (being that they are from cricket playing countries) watch cricket?
I watch cricket occasionally.
Most of the football and cricket has been gobbled up by the media monster that is Sky Sport.
Maybe there's a rant article in there somewhere?
I'm more partial to one-day cricket. Like Sray says, it's more entertaining than the protracted test matches.
And yes, this is I. I'm on my iBook, and I don't have my login details to hand...
Murdoch's Sky... he owns FoxNews here.. not a very nice channel, that.
Wayne, can you please check the sidebar on my blog is appearing where it should? Gindy says it appears at the bottom of the screen for him.
Check it here.
Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, which was originally the sole owner of BSkyB, currently has a 38% stake in the company (Sky). It also fully owns the similarly-named Sky Italia and about 78% of New Zealand's SKY Network Television Limited.
Gindy: yes, Rupert Murdoch is the media mogul who practically owns the horizontal and vertical of every television in the west.
Apparently, he was the inspiration for the villain of the piece, Elliot Carver (played with panache by Jonathan Pryce) in the James Bond film: Tomorrow Never Dies,.
Rupert Murdoch was said to be fairly upset when told of this...
The guy is an arse-hole who backed the Conservative party during the 80's when he ran a couple of newspapers over here.
So we had a situation where an Australian had begun a vendetta against the likes of my father, a miner who -- along with his colleagues up and down the nation -- fought for their rights for better wages and better working conditions.
In the end, Rupert Murdoch put his money into Conservative party coffers and destroyed the entire coal industry and left hundreds of thousands of men redundant and whole communities utterly destroyed.
Why did they do this? Because the miners brought down an earlier Conservative government and this was simple revenge. Nothing else.
Over here in Britain, we sit on top of vast reserves of coal that we can no longer make use of because the infrastructure has been meticulously and systematically dismantled for the satiation of sick revenge and nothing else...
Thank Christ/Buddah/Allah/My foot (Whatever you subscribe to basically) I thought I was the only one who hated these two things. Like the song "1985" goes .. "When did reality become TV?".. and as for the rediculous face the actors in The Bold and the Beautiful pull as some kind of segway to the next shyteful scene...
Thanks for the rant. I feel better now just having read it.
Hi DJ, and thanks for posting!
There's a fair number of things that get well & truly under my skin, so no doubt I'll be extending the series...
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