Sometimes my "friends" on Gather or Facebook will mention shows like "America's Next Top Model" or "The Bachelor" and I have to ask, "Those are still on?" I mean didn't those things start in like 2001 or 2002? The same goes for when I watch CBS (which is only during football season) and they have a commercial for "Survivor: Whatever." I always think, "That's still going? Really?"
Because the thing to me is that each of those shows, not to mention "American Idol" all follow the same formula. Year after year it seems pretty much the same shit. SOSDY. (Or SOSDHY--Same ol' shit, different half-year.) How many "idols" have their been and "top models" and all that? Has any "Bachelor" relationship lasted until the final episode actually airs? Yet year after year (or cycle as "Top Model" calls them) people tune in anyway. Maybe not as many as in the early 2000s when it seemed like every other show was a reality program, but still apparently enough to keep people watching.
This seems to confirm something to me about America: we like SOSDD. We like the same old shit all the time. The same tired plots, the same boring arguments, largely the same songs repeated over and over again year after year. In the case of American Idol so many people like it year after year that there are a half-dozen imitators.
That's how a lot of authors make their money too, just repeating the same formulas over and over again. I think I've joked before that Nora Roberts must just use a Mad Lib for the 25 books she writes a year. Yet people keep buying them because deep down nobody really wants change. Nobody really wants a challenge. We just want something nice and safe to entertain us for an hour or two before we crawl into bed and go about our boring, repetitive, largely meaningless lives.
I'm as guilty as anyone most of the time. I mean, do I want to sit around watching the latest French drama? Um, no thanks. I don't like reading subtitles for two hours. I'd rather just pop in a disc of "American Dad" or "Superfriends." Because I'm lazy and after a day of "working" and commuting I really don't feel like putting the effort into much that's challenging.
But really, we should all try harder. We should try to reach out a little more because we've only got something like 75-80 years on this planet. (Significantly less for some people, significantly more for others.) We ought to try and make it count. But we don't. Instead we just make a bowl of popcorn or grab a bag of chips if microwaving popcorn is too much effort (or like me you just don't like popcorn much) and camp out on the couch to watch the latest regurgitated drivel.
When I was doing my upcomiing movies posts on my blog, I swear like 90% were either sequels or remakes. I like sequels, but the remakes are getting to me. They are evening thinking of doing a Ghostbusters 3. Ugh..you don't want to see the details of that train wreck.
ReplyDeleteThere might be 2 completely new movies coming out next year.
I mean THIS year. My mind hasn't made the switch to 2012 yet.
DeleteI wish there were more originality on tv, but I get the attraction of the same old thing. Repetition is comforting. But not in books - I want originality in books and don't want them to put me to sleep.
ReplyDeleteI think I want the same old thing that has fooled me into thinking its new. I mean - movies like memento are awesome because I can't really predict what's going to happen next. Repeat viewing just have me marvel at how cleverly it was done - but aside from the protagonist's handicap and the unusual way the story unfolds. It's still a pretty hum drum story. A guy is investigating his wife's murder.
ReplyDeleteSo, I'm not so sure how much 'new' I really want. Just a hair here or there. Quite happy with my Seinfeld reruns.
Maybe the problem is that we've run out of "new." The number one movie this year is probably going to be The Artist, a silent movie!
ReplyDeleteThat's the real issue, though; people -don't- want to think. People don't want to make an effort. People want someone else to tell them what to do and to be responsible. We are fixated on who is responsible for anything and everything. The easiest way to never be responsible is to not think.
ReplyDeleteIt's not a new thing, though. People have -always- been like this. It is apt that Bible refers to people as sheep, because that is exactly what 99% of people are.
A long time ago I decided that I'd try to stop rewatching old movies and rereading old books because of all the new things there are to do. I still try to stick by that, so mostly when I rewatch or relisten to things, it's as background while I'm doing something else (like now, when I'm listening to Family Guy on Netflix and "working."
ReplyDeleteRusty's comment is what I think of as the "Hamburger Problem," first raised by my kids, which is this: if you break everything down to its constituent bits, nothing is new. If you're going to say "ground beef" is the thing, then if you have tacos (with ground beef for meat) and hamburgers (made with ground beef) you have had the same thing -- but a taco isn't a hamburger, and Memento isn't a murder mystery any more than Batman is a police procedural.
I do agree, though: people generally do NOT want new, or challenging, in the sense that they want something new or challenging. They don't even want what Rusty wants: they want baby steps, as in "This year, Idol is letting people play instruments!"
I myself was flabbergasted that there've been something like 23 seasons of Survivor. How different can these shows be? Then again, how different was each episode of "Everybody Loves Raymond?"
That's why I try so many different things: I'm easily bored.
I agree. Americans like SSDD. I think it's because that's what makes money. If we had a culture where the importance of money was diminished and originality and art were admired, then this might be different.
ReplyDelete