Whether it’s shows or commercial advertising, there are some things I just don’t need to see. Call me old fashioned, or outdated, but I really don’t understand what the folks making some critical decisions about what streams out onto my tv screen are thinking. And worse, I have to ask myself, “are there people that actually like to see this stuff?” There must be, because they’re appearing on the screen.
Former FCC Chair Newton Minow famously described television in 1961 as a “vast wasteland”. He was probably writing about the superficial, often inane characteristics of what passed for entertainment. “Gilligan’s Island” silliness. Just recently, as a Republican congressman from Missouri, in proposing that the Kennedy Center be renamed for Donald Trump, referring to Trump as an “icon of entertainment”. His “entertainment” career seems to be as a reality host of “The Apprentice”, and a smattering of cameos. An “icon”? I guess that if more than 10 people read this, I’ve become a “blogging icon”. Back to my original premise, Mr. Minow isn’t still with us, so I’ll update for him. Television has become a “vast, disgusting wasteland”.
A few years back, there was a show called “Here Comes Honey Boo Boo”. A deeply annoying child from a deeply dysfunctional family. Now, I don’t know about you, but I can watch clueless on the air when it’s fiction. Archie Bunker and Ted Baxter come to mind. Or the quirky – Dr. Sheldon Cooper, who’s mannerisms and antics can be entertaining. Somehow, though, when these are real people, telling us about their lives in disturbing detail, like the family with dozens of children and whose fall from grace was epic, they really shouldn’t be given either publicity or air time. Recent ads suggest that her family’s back in all of its alarming, irritating dysfunction. It isn’t reassuring that any number of American television viewers tune in to watch these people.
Dr. Sandra Rebish, going by the nickname, “Dr. Pimple Popper”, is a dermatologist and YouTuber, now with a show on one of those television channels I try hard not to watch. She’s advertised everywhere, though, I even have to turn my head for the ads. I have a dermatologist for an itchy rash, but I don’t think my disfigurement would make it onto her show. Her patients are the deeply disfigured. Things growing on people about which I really, really, really don’t want to see or know. I just don’t get it. We know that physical abnormalities exist, because we see folks with them going about their daily business, but we all know better than to call attention to them, much less exploit them. So, why put them on television? Dr. PP seems to be the new P. T. Barnum, who marketed physical deformities extensively. He searched the world for them – conjoined twins, people abnormally tall and short. Was it just a way to make money, or did he have a dark side, a personality that reveled and delighted in those deformities? At least, Dr. PP is attempting to help her patients fix their issues, even as she markets them for profit. So too does “Dr. Now”, who exhibits people with extreme obesity even as he’s treating them. Thank you, Dr., for your work, but I still don’t need to see it. Even the ads make me uncomfortable. Again, I don’t understand it why we’re seeing it.
I think that “reality” television in general has taken us to that next level of “vast wasteland” that Mr. Minow described. I sometimes wonder if many of the folks appearing find that whatever they’re being paid is worth the shallow vanity they exhibit. Are they really that superficial? And if they are, someone should tell them to keep it under wraps so the world doesn’t know. Attractive young adults sitting hurling invective across the hot tub. Or looking for a new “mate”, only to be rejected in a very public and ugly fashion. The more outrageous, the better. Is it any wonder that we as a country are finding ourselves less and less empathetic? There’s a research survey project for a major university. Oh, wait, their funding’s been cut.
Commercial advertising isn’t much better. There’s one ad for a pet food, where a young boy mentions the dog’s “poo is better”, followed by a slogan, “better poo for a better you.” While we don’t see the “evidence”, I certainly don’t need any images of that – either before or after. What a pet does, on a leash or off, is none of my business. When I was growing up, a can of dog food and the occasional milk bone was it, unless my mother had leftovers that none of us would eat. And the one where the two dogs are talking to each other as they look out the window for a parcel delivery is, well, in a word, silly. I’m not anti-pets. I love dogs, less for love with cats, but seriously, just give me basics. But now, we have prepackaged “healthy” food, taking up space in the refrigerator. I can’t imagine how much people spend on these pet foods, but then again, if people are taking their animals to a therapist or getting them calming medications, that ship has left the dock.
We all know that the pharmaceutical companies are inventing diseases by the day, so they can develop new medications with unpronounceable names. The eye injections. I wouldn’t be “dancing in the moonlight” if a doctor had just done that to me. Fortunately, they don’t show us the treatment, but it still conjures up images I don’t want. My favorite is the woman in vision treatments driving around in a custom sports car, top down. Yes, she stops for ice cream, and I often think, if she misses the brake and plows into the ice cream parlor, that would be a fitting ending to the commercial. There are the people doing a dance routine because their joint pain is better, and others marching down the street en masse, because they’ve lowered their A1C. Then there are the disclaimers. Is it wise to show someone diving off a cliff or plunging into the ocean when one of the side effects is “suicidal thoughts”? I think not. I did, as they recommend, tell my doctor about something new once. He hadn’t seen it. I told him he needs to watch more “Wheel of Fortune.”
As I mentioned, the disclaimers are always a treat. Some of them strongly imply that the typical American consumer of medications is, in a word, a moron. Warnings like: “Stop taking if you’re allergic to . . . . or its ingredients.” That, to me, goes without saying. Or my other favorite: “Tell your doctor about all the medications you’re taking.” Maybe I’m wrong, but wouldn’t they have prescribed them in the first place, and more than likely, kept track of them? Or maybe you’re getting your prescriptions from an offshore pharmacy, and when it comes to your primary care physician, you think keeping them in the dark is advisable.
I have a couple of general guidelines for the folks creating the “content” that we see every day on television. I don’t wish to see anyone sick to their stomach, whether it’s too much to drink in a tv sitcom or rookie detective seeing their first mutilated body, and doing what normally follows that upset. I don’t want any mention whatsoever of “gut” or “belly”, or images of one’s digestive track. Nothing having to do with bodily functions or flushing toilets. (Although, if you can remember that far back, the upstairs toilet flushing in the Bunker house was funny.) I don’t want to see someone spritzing body parts with “full body deodorant”, or any mention of “vaginal odors”, as I heard in an ad last night. Nor, and I can’t emphasize this enough, any references to the condition of your pet’s poo.
In short, let’s make a pact to remove from the airwaves the blatantly offensive, the openly stupid, and boldly repetitive. If the words, “Oh, God, not this again” escape my lips, the television gurus have gone a step too far.
I'm Thinking...No! 