Who Would You Rather Be Dommed By?

[Netzach]

I am warming up to some TV. I've morphed from TV NEVER to South Park, Daily Show, Colbert compatible. And I like infomercials and trainwrecks and camp.

Dragnet and Adam-12 and Rawhide and camp camp camp.

 

[Homburg]

And Lost and the X Files and South Park and Mad Men and Weeds, and Big Love, and Rome, and Carnivale, and Deadwood, and on and on and on and on

TV /= mind poison.

TV = window into our collective cultural soul.

We have no soul then. Or, at best, it is a desolate wastelands with the occassional minimal flash of worth and creativity.

 

[Essene]

TV = mindpoison

Generally speaking. There are exceptions to that (Colbert, Daily Show, Peep Show, sometimes Flight of the Conchords)

I mostly watch medical shows. IE I autopsies.

What does that say about me and my part in society as a collective "soul"?

 

[Cattypuss]

Did you see The Limey? It hasn't really gone away.

No, although I have seen him in something recently... he is still beatiful and has all those other qualities too, I agree.

Just that 20 yrs ago he'd have been able to hold me down more forcefully

 

[00Syd]

We have no soul then. Or, at best, it is a desolate wastelands with the occassional minimal flash of worth and creativity.

It would be easy to say "oh, we as a culture are empty" but, like everything else, its much more complicated than that. It's easy to watch TV and say "this is crap" but far, far more interesting to say "Why do Americans (or if we want to get more specific "why do Americans of this demographic") want to watch this? What does it speak to? What does this say about us?" Its also so interesting to look at the history of television programming and see what it was influenced by, ad then see how current TV was influenced by that, and what cultural traditions it preserves. IMO vaudeville is most faithfully preserved in TV.

 

[Homburg]

I mostly watch medical shows. IE I autopsies.

What does that say about me and my part in society as a collective "soul"?

That your soul window apparently opens on the morgue.

--

It would be easy to say "oh, we as a culture are empty" but, like everything else, its much more complicated than that. It's easy to watch TV and say "this is crap" but far, far more interesting to say "Why do Americans (or if we want to get more specific "why do Americans of this demographic") want to watch this? What does it speak to? What does this say about us?" Its also so interesting to look at the history of television programming and see what it was influenced by, ad then see how current TV was influenced by that, and what cultural traditions it preserves. IMO vaudeville is most faithfully preserved in TV.

No, really, it's not more complicated. The vast profusion of what is on TV is pablum for the lowest common denominator. It challenges nothing, and is anaesthesia for thought. It numbs the churlish masses after they get off of work so that there is no worry that they will look outside the confines of their box and realise how bloody screwed up we've let everything get.

Like I said, there are flashes of worth. There are programs out there that will ask you to think, and some that will honestly make you laugh intelligently. There are some that provide honest news under the veil of sarcasm and commentary. The rest? Blech.

It is telling that we have one TV on in the house, and that it is largely used by the kids. The little ones watch educational TV (of which they have surprisingly good taste), and Boomerang, which is mostly cartoons from when I was a kid. I find it telling that my kids would rather TV from my era than theirs, given the option. (And I still think most of that was crap too)

I understand what you are saying to a point. There is worth in looking at TV as a mirror to our gestalt, but the mirror is showing us to be pathetic, tasteless, and sheep-like in our viewing habits. The networks have distilled these shows to a formula (which you are in the process of learning), and don't want, or need, creativity. They plug in the numbers and spit out the same tired BS that they have for years, and we, as a people, suck it down.

 

[Scotsman69]

I like your thinking Homburg. It's not much different in the UK, though Channel 4 and BBC2 occasionally produce pleasant surprises. But you have to have time on your hands to search the Radio Times, and I'd rather do other things.

My TV hsan't been on since my ex and I separated in July.

 

[Homburg]

I like your thinking Homburg. It's not much different in the UK, though Channel 4 and BBC2 occasionally produce pleasant surprises. But you have to have time on your hands to search the Radio Times, and I'd rather do other things.

My TV hsan't been on since my ex and I separated in July.

I've seen some excellent imports from BBC, but my guess is that we see some good stuff, but a lot of dross surrounds it.

My only actual experience with British TV was during the late 80's, and everything was about some election going on. I was there for a bit more than a week, and quite literally every time it was on it was election coverage.

 

[Homburg]

I am warming up to some TV. I've morphed from TV NEVER to South Park, Daily Show, Colbert compatible. And I like infomercials and trainwrecks and camp.

Dragnet and Adam-12 and Rawhide and camp camp camp.

Rawhide. I used to watch that show on Nick at Night. Your post a while back about homoerotic undercurrents on it really made me think. I kept thinking about various parts of that show in a new light

I'm still pretty much a TV NEVER person. I'll stop on occasion and watch Top Chef or Monk, but only because it is on while I'm wandering through. I will admit a certain fondness for the cooking shows. Iron Chef is good stuff, as is Alton Brown. Again, not good enough to sit and watch the whole thing, and certainly not good enough to modify my schedule, but I like it nonetheless.

And I watch Colbert and Daily Show on the net, though nowhere even remotely close to regularly. Hell, just about every show I've mentioned previously I see more often on the net than I do on the television. I really just don't like sitting in the living room watching TV.

 

[FurryFury]

Of the original two I'm going to have to say Worf but I like both, a LOT.

 

[satindesire]

I avoid the Colbert report and the Daily show like the plauge. I also hate sitcoms...the only one that had any worth in my house was Friends, and that was kept to small doses.

I watch a LOT of History and Discovery channel programs...but right now How It's Made, CSI, Mythbusters and Good Eats are my favorite shows.

Some random ones on other channels I watch occasionally, South Park, Extreme Makeover Home Edition and Tool Academy.

As for anime and cartoons, well, hell, I watch a lot of those when I get the chance. I love Innuyasha, The Big O, Bleah, Death Note, Lupin III, The Venture Bros, Metalocolypse, FullMetal Alchemist, Robot Chicken, SeaLab 2021, Space Ghost Coast to Coast, Code Geass, Cowboy Bepop, Ghost in the Shell, Harvey Birdman Attorney at Law, and finally, King of the Hill.

Mostly I've been going to bed waaaay too early to stay up for Adult Swim...I miss it.

I occasionally watch Family Guy if I'm forced to by Mister, but I'd really rather not. As South Park alluded to, Manatees could write for that show.

 

[Netzach]

No, although I have seen him in something recently... he is still beatiful and has all those other qualities too, I agree.

Just that 20 yrs ago he'd have been able to hold me down more forcefully

See the Limey, really.

 

[Netzach]

We have no soul then. Or, at best, it is a desolate wastelands with the occassional minimal flash of worth and creativity.

I prescribe 9 hours of The Singing Detective or 8 hours of Pennies from Heaven, both Bob Hoskins, BBC - followed by a South Park enema.

 

[Netzach]

I avoid the Colbert report and the Daily show like the plauge. I also hate sitcoms...the only one that had any worth in my house was Friends, and that was kept to small doses.

I watch a LOT of History and Discovery channel programs...but right now How It's Made, CSI, Mythbusters and Good Eats are my favorite shows.

Some random ones on other channels I watch occasionally, South Park, Extreme Makeover Home Edition and Tool Academy.

As for anime and cartoons, well, hell, I watch a lot of those when I get the chance. I love Innuyasha, The Big O, Bleah, Death Note, Lupin III, The Venture Bros, Metalocolypse, FullMetal Alchemist, Robot Chicken, SeaLab 2021, Space Ghost Coast to Coast, Code Geass, Cowboy Bepop, Ghost in the Shell, Harvey Birdman Attorney at Law, and finally, King of the Hill.

Mostly I've been going to bed waaaay too early to stay up for Adult Swim...I miss it.

I occasionally watch Family Guy if I'm forced to by Mister, but I'd really rather not. As South Park alluded to, Manatees could write for that show.

Space Ghost Coast to Coast is genius. I have the Brak show on DVD. No one understands. Maybe if I bought some weed I'd have an excuse built in, but I really don't.

 

[Netzach]

Rawhide. I used to watch that show on Nick at Night. Your post a while back about homoerotic undercurrents on it really made me think. I kept thinking about various parts of that show in a new light

Wait till you see what I can do for Adam-12.

This has gone horribly awry, my bad.

And I am neither nerd nor submissive enough to really answer this question well, but the werewolfy nature of Klingon sex never really leapt out at me as that appealing. Dude with branded head who ditched a mother of a parasite? Ok.

 

[00Syd]

That your soul window apparently opens on the morgue.

--



No, really, it's not more complicated. The vast profusion of what is on TV is pablum for the lowest common denominator. It challenges nothing, and is anaesthesia for thought. It numbs the churlish masses after they get off of work so that there is no worry that they will look outside the confines of their box and realise how bloody screwed up we've let everything get.

Like I said, there are flashes of worth. There are programs out there that will ask you to think, and some that will honestly make you laugh intelligently. There are some that provide honest news under the veil of sarcasm and commentary. The rest? Blech.

It is telling that we have one TV on in the house, and that it is largely used by the kids. The little ones watch educational TV (of which they have surprisingly good taste), and Boomerang, which is mostly cartoons from when I was a kid. I find it telling that my kids would rather TV from my era than theirs, given the option. (And I still think most of that was crap too)

I understand what you are saying to a point. There is worth in looking at TV as a mirror to our gestalt, but the mirror is showing us to be pathetic, tasteless, and sheep-like in our viewing habits. The networks have distilled these shows to a formula (which you are in the process of learning), and don't want, or need, creativity. They plug in the numbers and spit out the same tired BS that they have for years, and we, as a people, suck it down.

We might have to agree to disagree.

I agree with what a lot of what your saying, but I still see value in even the crappiest of crappy TV shows. I'm kind of a pop culture scholar, I guess. I see equal value in studying what the masses are rotting their minds with and what art the educated are viewing in galleries in NYC.

Also keep in mind that I'm kind of in school right now to get into the film/TV industry, so of course I love it and see artistic and intellectual value in it.

 

[00Syd]

As for anime and cartoons, well, hell, I watch a lot of those when I get the chance. I love Innuyasha, The Big O, Bleah, Death Note, Lupin III, The Venture Bros, Metalocolypse, FullMetal Alchemist, Robot Chicken, SeaLab 2021, Space Ghost Coast to Coast, Code Geass, Cowboy Bepop, Ghost in the Shell, Harvey Birdman Attorney at Law, and finally, King of the Hill.

..Awesome. Dethklok rules!

 

[Netzach]

We might have to agree to disagree.

I agree with what a lot of what your saying, but I still see value in even the crappiest of crappy TV shows. I'm kind of a pop culture scholar, I guess. I see equal value in studying what the masses are rotting their minds with and what art the educated are viewing in galleries in NYC.

Also keep in mind that I'm kind of in school right now to get into the film/TV industry, so of course I love it and see artistic and intellectual value in it.

I totally agree with this in large part. I think it's useful to look in the mirror when you may have a deadly melanoma and maybe check it instead of just being so grossed out you don't look. My contempt for people in the main has taken a nose dive in my last few years, and there's actually some not-so-stupid-shit that's remarkably popular, even if it's not totally gripping for me. House and Monk and Rescue Me and whatnot. I still hate sitcom format like the plague, and have since Norman Lear's heyday ended - I can't understand how a show formatted like "two and a half men" STILL exists. Ugh.

But something that really interests me is in how sophisticated formats have become. The trajectory that Hill St. Blues really started has changed and made, I think, better, our ability to deal with complex narrative and that's spilled into film and text and art all over, too - in kind of postmod high-culture low-culture feedback loop.

I grew up FWIW in a "tv always on" house and I'm not at all a TV nut, in fact if M didn't have one I'd possibly still not have one. But I've never felt actively hostile to the form, I just didn't have time.

The people I know who are raving TV lunatics who can't get enough and Tivo stupid crap are the people who were allotted their one hour of TV plus educational shows only.

 

[00Syd]

I totally agree with this in large part. I think it's useful to look in the mirror when you may have a deadly melanoma and maybe check it instead of just being so grossed out you don't look. My contempt for people in the main has taken a nose dive in my last few years, and there's actually some not-so-stupid-shit that's remarkably popular, even if it's not totally gripping for me. House and Monk and Rescue Me and whatnot. I still hate sitcom format like the plague, and have since Norman Lear's heyday ended - I can't understand how a show formatted like "two and a half men" STILL exists. Ugh.


I grew up FWIW in a "tv always on" house and I'm not at all a TV nut, in fact if M didn't have one I'd possibly still not have one. But I've never felt actively hostile to the form, I just didn't have time.

The people I know who are raving TV lunatics who can't get enough and Tivo stupid crap are the people who were allotted their one hour of TV plus educational shows only.

That was me

 

[Netzach]

That was me

Well, as long as you've got critical brain on at least some of the time, that's a good thing.

 

[Homburg]

I watch a LOT of History and Discovery channel programs...but right now How It's Made, CSI, Mythbusters and Good Eats are my favorite shows.

History Channel and discovery are both good stuff. I didn't mention either because I figured it went without saying that I would be in favour of both.

Mythbusters is interesting. The show has its' fair share of BS science/reasoning, and they screw up a good bit, but they have a fun attitude. I can't tell you how many times I've strongly felt that contractual reasons were the only thing keeping the guy in the beret from taking a swing at the other one (can't recall their names, sorry).

--

I prescribe 9 hours of The Singing Detective or 8 hours of Pennies from Heaven, both Bob Hoskins, BBC - followed by a South Park enema.

I would safeword. I'm not even remotely close to masochistic enough to stand 8-9 hours of TV, regardless of potential quality.

--

Wait till you see what I can do for Adam-12.

This has gone horribly awry, my bad.

*snort* It's more fun that way.

And I am neither nerd nor submissive enough to really answer this question well, but the werewolfy nature of Klingon sex never really leapt out at me as that appealing. Dude with branded head who ditched a mother of a parasite? Ok.

I think what I liked about the glimpses into Klingon mating was Michael Dorn's portrayal of it. Worf was clamped down so very often that the mating stuff let him emote a broader range, and I think he did it well.

--

We might have to agree to disagree.

I agree with what a lot of what your saying, but I still see value in even the crappiest of crappy TV shows. I'm kind of a pop culture scholar, I guess. I see equal value in studying what the masses are rotting their minds with and what art the educated are viewing in galleries in NYC.

Also keep in mind that I'm kind of in school right now to get into the film/TV industry, so of course I love it and see artistic and intellectual value in it.

Sometimes there is value in the crappiest of the crappy. As MST3k and Ed Wood showed us, sometimes films are so awful that they film around and because oddly good. The thing is that so much of TV is formulaic crap that it is to mediocre to reach the dismal levels of accidentally good.

--

I totally agree with this in large part. I think it's useful to look in the mirror when you may have a deadly melanoma and maybe check it instead of just being so grossed out you don't look. My contempt for people in the main has taken a nose dive in my last few years, and there's actually some not-so-stupid-shit that's remarkably popular, even if it's not totally gripping for me. House and Monk and Rescue Me and whatnot. I still hate sitcom format like the plague, and have since Norman Lear's heyday ended - I can't understand how a show formatted like "two and a half men" STILL exists. Ugh.

But something that really interests me is in how sophisticated formats have become. The trajectory that Hill St. Blues really started has changed and made, I think, better, our ability to deal with complex narrative and that's spilled into film and text and art all over, too - in kind of postmod high-culture low-culture feedback loop.

Eh, I'm sort of with you. I just don't feel the need to be the guy looking in the mirror. The activity has no worth to me, and there are professionals (or soon to be professionals anyway) like Syd to handle that look. Sure, the so-called professionals are frequently the ones screwing it up i the first place, but I don't consider TV to be a medium that needs saving, especially not by me.

I grew up FWIW in a "tv always on" house and I'm not at all a TV nut, in fact if M didn't have one I'd possibly still not have one. But I've never felt actively hostile to the form, I just didn't have time.

The people I know who are raving TV lunatics who can't get enough and Tivo stupid crap are the people who were allotted their one hour of TV plus educational shows only.

This has been my experience too. My parents had no restrictions on TV when I was young, and I watched plenty. Then I realised that I had way more fun with books and the computer, and never looked back.

I'm sure a few years of AFN/AFRTS helped me form those opinions though. I can guarantee that AFN at the wrong time was why I missed out on the anime craze that my friends wound up getting into. When anime was really hitting the States in the 80's, I was in Germany. AFN (Armed Forces Network) was the only channel in English, and they didn't have it, so I never saw all the classic anime that got my peers hooked. I got back to the States and had no idea what they were talking about. Never got into as a result, though I have watched plenty of it and have incredible access.

 

[satindesire]

And I am neither nerd nor submissive enough to really answer this question well, but the werewolfy nature of Klingon sex never really leapt out at me as that appealing. Dude with branded head who ditched a mother of a parasite? Ok.

Worf is the Klingon. Not Teal'C. Teal'C is a Jaffa.

And his symbiont was male. So that would be a motherfucker of a parasite.

History Channel and discovery are both good stuff. I didn't mention either because I figured it went without saying that I would be in favour of both.

Mythbusters is interesting. The show has its' fair share of BS science/reasoning, and they screw up a good bit, but they have a fun attitude. I can't tell you how many times I've strongly felt that contractual reasons were the only thing keeping the guy in the beret from taking a swing at the other one (can't recall their names, sorry).

Jamie Hyneman and Adam Savage. Jamie gets fed up with Adam, I've often wondered if they get along at all when the cameras are off. ^_^

 

[Netzach]

Worf is the Klingon. Not Teal'C. Teal'C is a Jaffa.

And his symbiont was male. So that would be a motherfucker of a parasite.

I was explaining my preference for the Jaffa over the Klingon. I have a basic nerd to english knowledge.

Jamie Hyneman and Adam Savage. Jamie gets fed up with Adam, I've often wondered if they get along at all when the cameras are off. ^_^

I always thought maybe they have hot hatesex after the show. My dar pings like crazy watching mythbusters.

 

[satindesire]

I was explaining my preference for the Jaffa over the Klingon. I have a basic nerd to english knowledge.

Oh, okay. I was confused by your last message.

I always thought maybe they have hot hatesex after the show. My dar pings like crazy watching mythbusters.

Really? I couldn't imagine anyone sleeping with Adam. Yuch.

 

[Homburg]

Jamie Hyneman and Adam Savage. Jamie gets fed up with Adam, I've often wondered if they get along at all when the cameras are off. ^_^

Yeah, that was my thoughts. Jamie approaches the challenges seriously, with a nod to science and reason. Adam wants to blow shit up.

--

I always thought maybe they have hot hatesex after the show. My dar pings like crazy watching mythbusters.

Really? I couldn't imagine anyone sleeping with Adam. Yuch.

I could totally see Kari pegging him with some grudgefuck vigor.