Surreality Television Extravaganza
Last night I had a real wake-up call. I was forcibly made aware of exactly how insidious reality TV has become. It all started, as so many things do, with Letterman.
As I waited for Brendan to quit hogging the shower I noticed the TV was still on. Being so close to bedtime I decided to go into the living room and switch it off. By some strange coincidence this was right when he was doing his great moments in presidential speeches segment. I have two things to say about that. One, comparing Bush to the likes of Kennedy, Roosevelt and assorted other exemplary presidents of the past is like comparing Forrest Gump to Einstein, Aristotle, Newton and assorted other exemplary scholars. Two, am I the only person frightened by the prospect of a man with his finger on the “nukular” button?
Last night (here) it was a clip from Sydney’s recent APEC summit. He was standing at an APEC lectern with APEC signs all around him saying what a pleasure it was to be at the OPEC summit. Wishful thinking, I suspect.
That, of course, reminded me of the Chaser stunt last week. While Canadians seem unfazed by the besmirching of the good name of their motorcades the security forces weren’t happy. Of course excuses abound. If you ask me one of the group, Julian Morrow I believe, summed it up best when replying to the question of whether he thought they acted irresponsibly.
In the Chaser’s ongoing War on Everything two shows seem to catch the most fire. ACA and Today Tonight. As a result the gruesome twosome like to do “expose”s on the Chaser whenever the opportunity arises. The latest, yesterday, was regarding the promos for this week’s episodes. They have taken a bin Laden video and given it dodgy subtitles to make it look like he is promoting the show. People are up-in-arms about that. Al-qaeda is not funny. Terrorism is not a laughing matter. Probably not but when it’s laugh or cry, if we don’t laugh doesn’t that mean the terrorists have already won? Think about it.
Clearly they didn’t use the reputable SBS Translation Service, which is about the only reputable thing about SBS. It’s a long-standing tradition for SBS to run “Eastern European arthouse” flicks late at night. Most “Eastern European arthouse” flicks fall into one of two categories. One long sex scene or half a dozen short ones. As a result SBS is mostly documentaries and free-to-air porn.
For some reason people don’t seem to kick up quite the fuss about that as they do Big Brother Uncut. That probably speaks a lot more about the difference in ratings between those two channels than anything else but still, if you’re going to throw a wobbly about one then you really should about the other. Anything less is just double standards. Not that I particularly care if they stop making Big Brother entirely. In fact I’d prefer that. They don’t though because then they’d be forced to put proper programs on and those seem to be becoming fewer and farther between.
As far as I can tell all a man needs to become a BB contestant is a wang that reaches his knees. All a woman needs is either big boobs or willingness to expand them. At least with Idol you need to be able to do something other than shower naked and act like a whore.
And that was how I came to be standing in my shower, naked as a BB contestant, thinking about Australian Idol. Kinda creeps up on you doesn’t it?
P.S. Blame Brendan for the plethora of superfluous links. He claims I yap on without giving people any idea of exactly what I’m on about. I claim that most people know how to google something if they want to know about it. However in the interest of domestic harmony I’m playing along. Aren’t I just the sweetest?
Tagged: attitudes, current affairs, domestic inconveniences.