08-08-2009, 04:38 PM
"Murdoch told the staff that he wanted the Sun to focus on ‘sex, sports and contests.'" [emphasis added]
America's commercial television networks -- broadcast and cable -- are now all but inundated by "American Idol"-like competitions.
Or, as Murdoch would have it, "contests."
I include in this category the "Real Housewives" series that dominates cable's Bravo channel -- originally offered as a PBS-like home for independent and classic films and other fine and performing arts programming, now reduced to catfights and caterwauling.
[Memo to my agent: "The Real Housewives of the Warsaw Ghetto" -- Watch as five jaunty Jewess jigglers fight tooth and nail over who makes the best rat-tatouie, who's been sleeping with Fritz the sentry, and who gets to keep their children alive." Appointment TV -- in the bunker that is the American heartland.]
"Contests" are all about picking sides and obliterating the competition, amassing toys and other trophies, and abandoning all scruples in the mad race to acquire.
"Contests" are all about differentiating between "them" and "us," and demonizing "them."
Consumerism does what its name tells us it does.
It consumes.
Everything and everyone.
America's commercial television networks -- broadcast and cable -- are now all but inundated by "American Idol"-like competitions.
Or, as Murdoch would have it, "contests."
I include in this category the "Real Housewives" series that dominates cable's Bravo channel -- originally offered as a PBS-like home for independent and classic films and other fine and performing arts programming, now reduced to catfights and caterwauling.
[Memo to my agent: "The Real Housewives of the Warsaw Ghetto" -- Watch as five jaunty Jewess jigglers fight tooth and nail over who makes the best rat-tatouie, who's been sleeping with Fritz the sentry, and who gets to keep their children alive." Appointment TV -- in the bunker that is the American heartland.]
"Contests" are all about picking sides and obliterating the competition, amassing toys and other trophies, and abandoning all scruples in the mad race to acquire.
"Contests" are all about differentiating between "them" and "us," and demonizing "them."
Consumerism does what its name tells us it does.
It consumes.
Everything and everyone.
Charles Drago
Co-Founder, Deep Politics Forum
If an individual, through either his own volition or events over which he had no control, found himself taking up residence in a country undefined by flags or physical borders, he could be assured of one immediate and abiding consequence: He was on his own, and solitude and loneliness would probably be his companions unto the grave.
-- James Lee Burke, Rain Gods
You can't blame the innocent, they are always guiltless. All you can do is control them or eliminate them. Innocence is a kind of insanity.
-- Graham Greene
Co-Founder, Deep Politics Forum
If an individual, through either his own volition or events over which he had no control, found himself taking up residence in a country undefined by flags or physical borders, he could be assured of one immediate and abiding consequence: He was on his own, and solitude and loneliness would probably be his companions unto the grave.
-- James Lee Burke, Rain Gods
You can't blame the innocent, they are always guiltless. All you can do is control them or eliminate them. Innocence is a kind of insanity.
-- Graham Greene