NO LET UP I am increasingly disturbed by the fact that the obvious growth of violence-oriented programming con continues in spite of repeated plans set forth which are designed to abate this negative value in our TV viewing. Intended to, at least, abate the use of sex-rooted language, actions and insinuations, many such efforts seem to have fed the contagion rather than curbed it.
So-called “new” shows introduced to our TV screen have been, for the most part, rather sad imitations of some previous empty shows which have been withdrawn so often because they were “old”.The number of natural deaths among them is indicative of some wrong choices having been made in fixing something that was not really “broke”. Many of the old shows continue to run on other than what we are still trying to call, “the major network” channels.
Cleavage and crotch sequences serve the new shows well. As skirt fringes rise, dialog sinks lower; as cleavages widen, action dangles loosely. Repeated limb and sternum shots and crotch transitions – both female and male - are costly decorations – in money and time. They are the spendthrift fool's tools, at best.
When applied to newscasts the three fatality factors are very offensive but being used more and more, as well.
Think back through the number of TV shows you count among your favorites, and only a few of them will be contain then excess of filth, suggestions and double-meaning which are made to be common in most new creations. Not that any of us can lay claims on purity awards...far from it. We all had standards of morality. We all had our own levels of depravity. Each had, is his or her own, personal degree a stance to which we might place ourselves and beyond which we did not. Present-day script writers, producers, directors, some actors and actresses and many critics, too often, today attempt to dictate that level of depravity beyond which we will not find it best to go and especially in our own homes among friends and family.
In the end we are, to some extent, have ourselves to blame. If we seem to approve of it, we share the guilt of it being allowed to continue...even be magnified for a time. Take courage in the simple fact that we are doing exactly what is needed: we are not watching it. The TV people, and others such a magazine editors are, even now, wondering how it is that their way is fading in favor of Internet, cable grown up, and the host of inventive “hardware” which are part and parcel of the new times...here now and just ahead! Their demise is assured as we ignore their faulty efforts at reformation without genuine changes being made.
We face a brighter future in the entertainment portions of our lives.
Faulty art - in all forms – exists because we buy it. Think about that, and act upon it!
A.L.M. January 30, 2006 [c505wds]
