I must be one weird bird, but what can ya do?
I just watched half of a TV show called “Top Chef” on the Bravo channel with my wife and her sister and her husband, and I swear it hurt my feelings. I’m still trying to sort this one out, but I just don’t get it — maybe this is high satire and I’m too emotionally involved to see. Anyway, the show seems to consist of teams of young chefs competing to see who can prepare food the fastest, which to me is like competing to see who can have the quickest sex (or the shortest life). Something about this that I can’t quite explain yet makes me, well, sad.
First they literally abuse the food. Not a mention of anything relating to taste, smell, texture, or pleasure, just clashing egos and bleeped swearwords. Certainly no artistry or charm, and nothing about love of cooking. In fact, there isn’t any love at all. Everyone on the show conspicuously uses the sponsors’ products, which include Verizon cell phones. Then you’re supposed to “get your cell phones ready!” so you can call in your vote for which team won (?). The manipulation isn’t even disguised, forgodssakes.
“Top Chef”? I didn’t see any.
Watching commercial television is rare-to-non-existent for me, which may explain why this probably sounds like I’m from another planet. But maybe Bravo should have a reality show called “Top Surgeon.” There could be operating room teams competing for the fastest heart transplants, and just to make it interesting, the producers could let the audience know that the doctors are operating on their own family members but don’t know it!
Hey, I’m not sad any more. Interesting.
Comment by robbo
1 May 8, 2008, 11:36 am o'clock |
Welcome to reality TV. If you want to get seriously depressed, think about all the impressionable youngsters who are watching this shit and will adopt this nastiness and nihilism as the model for their future adult behavior.
Comment by K.J. Webb
2 May 8, 2008, 4:15 pm o'clock |
You’re really voicing an esthetic judgment. It’s one I share. But then I shrug my shoulders and move on to something that suits me better. However, even the most sophisticated folks have a taste for the gutter from time to time. In Hyde Park in Chicago in the 60’s there was a theatre which went in for French nouvelle vague and other “art” films. It got pretty good attendance on most weekends, from University of Chicago profs and students, but it only really did land office business when it brought in the latest Bond flick. Point is not to be too solemn about this stuff. We’re not in church every minute of our lives. The comics used to be deplored. The Three Stooges were thought vulgar. But Warhol and Lichtenstein made art of them, and the rest of us survived them.
Comment by david in maine
3 May 8, 2008, 8:27 pm o'clock |
john
hope you take some various photos of the trip home, interesting to see how the land changes elevations from flat, rolling, all the way to Rocky Mountain height - i am reading a book about the Lewis and Clark expedition - david in maine
Comment by Tammi
4 May 9, 2008, 5:04 am o'clock |
Ray Bradbury predicted our society such as we are in the book Fahrenheit 451….incredible that he wrote it in the 40’s and it is OUR world-today. I love to read this with my students and we talk about all the similarities, etc.
Dubuque–LOVE IT. Going there this July–when it is all full of muggy delight.
Tammi
Comment by Number 6
5 May 9, 2008, 10:00 am o'clock |
Tammi- a great double-feature to try sometime is Francois Truffaut’s film version of Fahrenheit 451 and George Lucas’ first film THX-1138. different aesthetic depictions of very similar future dystopias; would make for excellent “compare-and-contrast” exercises for you and your students.
Comment by Number 6
6 May 9, 2008, 10:08 am o'clock |
oops! forgot to mention - in any discussion of works that depict the Individual fighting aginst the Conformity of society, i always have to throw in a plug for The Prisoner, probably the greatest tv show EVER. “I am not a number, I am a free man!!”
Be Seeing You!
Comment by frank powell
7 May 9, 2008, 12:45 pm o'clock |
I am number 6, I wish to see number 1.
Loved that series!
Also loved the Lotus Super Seven he drove.
Comment by donna
8 May 9, 2008, 5:37 pm o'clock |
Well, is it really any worse than the game shows that see how many irrelevant facts people know? Not whether they could apply their knowledge or anything, just what trivial facts they remember…
Cooking, like life, should have more art to it.
Comment by Number 6
9 May 10, 2008, 9:43 am o'clock |
frank: check out http://www.caterham.co.uk and http://www.uscaterham.com - you can still get an actual official authorized Seven, in a few different variations (classic, racer, extended size), even get the kit and build it yourself (”I know every nut and bolt and cog, i built it with my own hands!”). and the price isn’t too insanely outrageous either, considering what an automotive oddity it is (the basic Seven Classic kit goes for around $26,000, less engine & transmission, for which there are a few options as well). a thoroughly impractical vehicle, but i still want one to this day.
Comment by K.J. Webb
10 May 10, 2008, 4:39 pm o'clock |
But - replying to Donna’s observation - a game show is just a game. The alternative to a game show isn’t some form of testing one’s deep knowledge of life. The alternative is a reality show, or a sitcom or a sports event. Nobody has to like any of these things, but each is a species of the genre entertainment. That’s the rubric for judging them.
Anyone who reads Proust in order to answer questions about him on “Jeopardy” is some kind of idiot (if anyone like that even exists). Anyone who does crossword puzzles to increase vocabulary is similarly imbecilic. But these are harmless activities which at least honour knowledge of the world in which we live. I can’t say the same for most of what I see on television or read in the papers.