I am the man with existential questions about TV, MOVIES, the UNIVERSE and EVERYTHING.

05 jan 9876 | Logic_3

[Logic_3]

There was a time i liked tv a lot (to speak English), but those times are over, they are so over (to speak American).

I remember seeing SOAP and DALLAS and DYNASTY ... but whilst watching DYNASTY i lost interest, not because i had become such a cultural feinschmecker with the most advanced tastes imaginable... i simply lost interest.

I do still watch some shows sometimes ... like seinfeld (reruns i think..) and simpsons and ... no that is about it.

But i do not watch tv like i once watched tv, i do not tune in and spend the whole evening watching one show on this channel and then one show on that channel etc.

Take the police show thing, i turn on the TV and the show starts, somebody gets killed or have something ripped of and ... then something SCREAMS INSIDE ME THAT THIS IS ALL FAKE DISGUSTING AND WORTHLESS CRAP THAT DOES NOTHING FOR ME, so i turn the TV off and look grimly at this (now black) box as if it somehow owns me money and refuses to pay it back.

The MOVIES, once a avenue of joy, now evokes the same emotions in me as i find them fake and empty, the only difference is that it happened 10 years later than for tv shows.

Funny ting is, back in 70's (and early 80's) i liked tv and movies more than the next guy AND his girlfriend AND their parents (and police shows was among my favorites), what the hell happened?.

Has tv worn out its novelty and are we now in a process where the TV by the year 20xx has completely vanish?.

Is it me that does not connect any more and everybody (or most) still enjoy these shows and does not feel that they are fake?.

For the rest of my life (a good number of years me thinks, barring accidents) i do no longer envision any pleasure from tv or movies at all.

So farewell then to the guys and gals on the screen, once my heroes.

[thedugal]

I think it may just be growing up. I am totally amazed that adults actually sit and watch hours of tv, but evidently its quite common. The only tv I can watch is the news, though that usually makes me scream uncontrollably at the box once I hear one of the idiot liberals begin to opine the meaning of it all.

I have occassion to see tv, either at friends or in dept. stores, or cafes etc. Lately when I see Mtv I am reminded of the porn I used to hide as a teenager, and I am left to conclude that Mtv is definitely more explicit. When I see shows like "Friends", I am reminded of the old saying "With friends like that .. oh dammit just shoot me."

Television evokes in me a very strange yet unfortunately familiar emotion. It's a fine mix of nausea, disappointment, confusion, sadness, and pure unadulterated rage. I hate television.

Movies, well, I love movies. Unfortunately, PC and BS all too often combine to make a movie a bad experience. But I still go, because when I see a movie I like, it is a marvelous experience.

[rockfish59]

Videos and DVD's.
Tons of pre-PC stuff to buy or rent.
I prefer older movies (Hollywood pretty much died in the late 60's).
Documentaries and history are also faves.

[spodefly]

I watch less and less TV, other than Discovery channel, History channel, and other educational TV ... if I cannot learn something from it, then it is not worth my time ...

Movies are few and far between these days ... whenever I watch TV or movies now, I just see a bunch of pampered liberal actors 'acting' a part that, if the story is worthy, I would be better off reading anyway ... I can't get into the characters in alot of cases because I know too much about the whiney snotty self-absorbed narcissists busily 'acting' on the screen ... I believe this will have an impact on Hollywood as more and more actors feel compelled to spout their opinions and political views.

[Consort]

In 1961, Newton Minow articulately expressed the same sentiments about what he called The Vast Wasteland of TV in his articel, "Television and the Public Interest". Here's a sample:

"But when television is bad, nothing is worse. I invite you to sit down in front of your television set when your station goes on the air and stay there without a book, magazine, newspaper, profit and loss sheet or rating book to distract you - and keep your eyes glued to that set until the station signs off. I can assure you that you will observe a vast wasteland.

"You will see a procession of game shows, violence, audience participation shows, formula comedies about totally unbelievable families, blood and thunder, mayhem, violence, sadism, murder, western badmen, western good men, private eyes, gangsters, more violence, and cartoons. And, endlessly, commercials-many screaming, cajoling, and offending. And most of all, boredom. True, you will see a few things you will enjoy. But they will be very, very few. And if you think I exaggerate, try it."

[Woahhs]

It's a comming of age, friend. You have grown to appreciate the complexities of life, and now you've found that television is tuned to those who haven't yet learned what it means to be "man." Take the time to teach your children and younger brothers and sisters what liberty means, along with the dangers thereof. They are just as astute as you, but they lack the experience that integrates the concept with the zeitgeist.

[Glenn]

To mangle a phrase: "It's the story, stupid."

If it weren't for cops, docs, lawyers and pinheads willing to do anything for 15 minutes of fame, there would be no TV. The networks don't have the b*lls to take a chance on real writing. It might offend some demographic or advertiser.

[maestro]

There was a time i liked tv a lot (to speak English), but those times are over, they are so over (to speak American).

I agree!
Its ALL 'empty',.... talk, talk, talk,.....'monkey-chatter'.

Its 'made' for(and to create) sociopathic/psychopathic (perverted) audiences.

(Flashing bright-light (hypnotic) visual 'frams' speeded up with 'morphing' brainwashing (subliminal) SHOCK techniques)

Its visual and sound bites have been 'so' compressed (sped up) to uncomfortable human (relaxed) viewing,...even headache commercials give you a headache!

Its "News" programs are full of nonesense (?human interest injections?) and PC 'monkey-chatter' it lacks any 'real' true individualistic VALUE reporting!

(T.V. is now 'made' for the 'Planet of the Robot-Apes'.)

The ONLY thing T.V. is now good for is 'Breaking News' period! (and that too is rarely VERY good)

The above refers to ALL T.V. shows, movies, commercials, news/views, and Public Interest programming!

I would not let my 'Dog' watch any of it fearing emotional abuse in lowering the the health and values of a 'Dog's Life'.

Thanks for your posting this!

BTTT

[maestro]

BTTT........................Ping!

[SamAdams76]

My experience is very similar to yours. Back in the 1970s, I would watch insipid shows like Welcome Back Kotter, What's Happening and whatever else was on prime time TV back then.

I have not watched a regular TV show in some 20 years now. I do watch The Sopranos but I own the DVD's of the first three seasons and watch them sporadically on my own time. Thus I will not see the fourth season until they have come out on DVD. I do not even subscribe to HBO. I got into The Sopranos only because I liked mafia movies like The Godfather and Goodfellas and I was bought the first season as a Christmas present. I confess I was hooked and bought the next two seasons myself. If other TV shows are that good, then TV has definitely changed for the better. But I doubt it. For when I visit other people's houses, they are often glued to loud and obnoxious sitcoms with those annoying laughtracks.

I think that sitcoms give me bad memories of growing up because I cannot have them in my house. There is something about the loud, brassy voices of sitcom actors and laughtracks that makes me almost physically ill. I have never posted these thoughts here but your post has inspired me to reveal them. I have the same reaction with game shows. The studio audience, the slick car-salesman appearance of the hosts and the gongs, bells, and other stupid noisemakers make me want to flee the room.

When I do watch TV, it is almost always for a game of football, a movie or a documentary on the History or (please forgive me) PBS channel. I also turn on FoxNews during breaking news but often leave it mute.

Not watching TV became much less of a problem with the advent of the Internet. There is just so much to see and do on the Internet. Some of it is insipid as well, but there is just so much to learn out there. I like to come up to the computer after dinner and catch up on all the news by checking my favorite sites (starting with Free Republic, of course). The Internet is also a phenomenal research tool. Any time a question pops in my mind such as "What is the population of Dresden, Germany" or "How do you troubleshoot a lawn mower that won't start" or even stupid questions like "How do they the peanuts out of the shells without destroying the peanut", they are instantly answered with a Google search.

When I was growing up, questions like that always bugged me because there was no easy way to find answers to things before the Internet. What a tremendous resource is the Internet!

Also, I am a big music fan and it always aggravated me when a radio "DJ" would play a song that I liked but would not mention the title or artist. So now I have to listen to the radio for hours to try to hear it again and hope that it is mentioned next time. Often, I would never find out what the song was and it would never get played again.

Now it is no problem. All I have to do is remember a few words from the lyrics, type them into Google, and bingo, you get the name, artist and where to buy the album. For instance, on one of my old Christmas tapes, there was a Christmas song that had the words "Merry Christmas...I hope it won't be your last." It bothered me for years that I never could figure out who did the song. Well just a few nights ago (because I am converting my Christmas tapes to CD), I punched those words into Google and instantly it was revealed that it was a song called "Christmas Tree Carol" by a band named Orbit. I zoomed over to one of the CD sites and sampled the song to make sure it was the one. And it was. And I found the artists and titles to just about every song that I had on tape that I never before found out. Years worth of tapes.

I get all my news and information from the Internet. I have not watched a regular "news show" on TV, local or national, in several years. Are Dan Rather, Tom Brokaw and that other guy that's weird even on TV anymore?

[A_perfect_lady]

I disconnected my cable about 4 years ago and never went back. TV is useless, other than news shows. I always loved movies but now I can see the anti-American propaganda that they almost always sneak in, the socialist values they promote, and it makes me sick. I have an ever-lengthening list of celebrities I can't stand to look at (Woody, Sean, Susan & Tim, Danny, Tom, Johnny, Angelina, Alec, Julia... I live in dread that Nicole Kidman will say something nasty about the US and then I won't even be able to watch Moulin Rouge anymore... my favorite!) Even Gosford Park's been ruined for me by Altman's comments. I'm doing my best to just peel myself away from movies altogether, other than watching BBCs Middlemarch and Pride & Prejudice, I don't watch much of anything anymore. I'm always online anyway.

[Jimmy Valentine]

Nice existential rant, Mr. Sartre!

You do have basis in your argument. Just like video games that become boring to children who play them after a short period of time television and movies continue to move downward in content, substituting thrills and titillation of the senses for quality plot lines.

This in turn degenerates our society, and coarsens our interpersonal communications.

Can anything be done to stem this? Only if you cut the plug off the power cord on your television.

Camus Regards,

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the heads up, maestro!

Seems to me that TV, Movies and even Music have become all about special effects. Music used to be "sound on sound" and the movies were about the scripts. It seems that technology blurs the performers these days. Sigh...

[Sir Francis Dashwood]

Television - - the new religion...

Consider the words of Thomas Hobbes’ in 1668 from Leviathan:

Part IV. Of the Kingdom of Darkness

Chap. xlv. Of Demonology and other Relics of the Religion of the Gentiles.

[14] An image, in the most strict signification of the word, is the resemblance of something visible: in which sense the fantastical forms, apparitions, or seemings of visible bodies to the sight, are only images; such as are the show of a man or other thing in the water, by reflection or refraction; or of the sun or stars by direct vision in the air; which are nothing real in the things seen, nor in the place where they seem to be; nor are their magnitudes and figures the same with that of the object, but changeable, by the variation of the organs of sight, or by glasses; and are present oftentimes in our imagination, and in our dreams, when the object is absent; or changed into other colours, and shapes, as things that depend only upon the fancy. And these are the images which are originally and most properly called ideas and idols, and derived from the language of the Grecians, with whom the word eido signifieth to see. They are also called phantasms, which is in the same language, apparitions. And from these images it is that one of the faculties of man's nature is called the imagination. And from hence it is manifest that there neither is, nor can be, any image made of a thing invisible.

[15] It is also evident that there can be no image of a thing infinite: for all the images and phantasms that are made by the impression of things visible are figured. But figure is quantity every way determined, and therefore there can be no image of God, nor of the soul of man, nor of spirits; but only of bodies visible, that is, bodies that have light in themselves, or are by such enlightened.

[16] And whereas a man can fancy shapes he never saw, making up a figure out of the parts of divers creatures, as the poets make their centaurs, chimeras and other monsters never seen, so can he also give matter to those shapes, and make them in wood, clay or metal. And these are also called images, not for the resemblance of any corporeal thing, but for the resemblance of some phantastical inhabitants of the brain of the maker. But in these idols, as they are originally in the brain, and as they are painted, carved moulded or molten in matter, there is a similitude of one to the other, for which the material body made by art may be said to be the image of the fantastical idol made by nature.

Another related thread of interest: Ethereal Explorations

[Mad Dawgg]

"TV is useless, other than news shows."

Actually I was in the same boat until this current season.

I am a rabid SciFi fan. Movies like Alien and Blade Runner are my Favs plus Glen Gary Glen Ross was one of the best acted movies I've ever had the pleasure to watch.

I am always lookout for TV shows which have the qualities of the above mentioned Movies. Used to be you could get some great acting and story writing on TV. Hill Street Blues, E.R.(The First few Seasons), STTNG (sans Wesley coming to the rescue), Northern Exposure, but the last few years have been a vast wasteland of useless crap.

That is until I discovered a couple of shows that were not on the Big Three this season.

First and My favorite is Firefly on Fox Fridays at 8PM Eastern.

This show is hard to explain but the dialogue slays me and the mix of characters is so interesting that I can't wait to watch. It is about as Un-PC as you can get. Check out the Following:

The show takes place 500 Years in the future.

The captain of the Firefly is an ex-patriot who faught against the oppresive central government when they took over the known habitable universe in a bloody war.

Inarra is a Companion who rents one of the shuttles on the Firefly to ply her trade. Her trade is best describe as a Space hooker but in the present time "Companions" are considered minor nobility almost treated with respect and awe. (I bet the N.O.W. gang hate this!)

Book is a man of the cloth! Yep folks a bonafide Religious figure on a Prime time series and the show even talks about (GASP) the bible.

Jayne is the most UN-PC of the lot. He (get this) is a Mercenary who Loves his guns so much he Names them!

There are many more Characters who have some great qualities and all of the dialogue is well written and witty. but alas it is on FOX on Friaday nights and the ratings are sliping. So I figure this show won't make it unless the Execs at FOX give it a chance. Baseball has hurt it so far because of Pre-emptions and most of the TV watching Public are not going to "Get" the show. It just may be too hip for the General Public.

The Other show is on WB or UPN (I can never keep these two straight) it is Called Everwood.

It is about a world famous Surgeon who loses his wife in an accident and moves his family (Son and Daughter)to Everwood Colorado because of the promise his made his wife. He opens a general practice and does not charge his patients. Excellent writing and all the characters are well acted and the story lines have been very interesting. This show has been picked up and is even beating the Big three in it's time slot.

For all of you who still have cable give these shows a try. They are excellent and if you enjoy good storys and witty dialouge you won't be disappointed

[f.Christian]

I told this lady...

'You might think this is strange---

for years and years I won't watch a program with canned laughter in it".

Her answer I was surprised..."neither will my husband"!

Didn't feel so strange after all!

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the heads up!

[Mad Dawgg]

Hi Hair,

I thought you might enjoy this thread as well as ping any of the rest of the hobbit crew who may have something to add.

[HairOfTheDog]

I thought you might enjoy this thread as well as ping any of the rest of the hobbit crew who may have something to add.

Certainly Mad Dawgg!

Is it me that does not connect any more and everybody (or most) still enjoy these shows and does not feel that they are fake?.

For the rest of my life (a good number of years me thinks, barring accidents) i do no longer envision any pleasure from tv or movies at all.

So farewell then to the guys and gals on the screen, once my heroes.

That something is "fake", such as a movie, does not mean it cannot bring great pleasure. There are some stories out there that are wonderful.

Where I get up and walk out now are the stories that manipulate me from the start. Where I get the feeling that someone sat down and said, "OK... Now writing a story that will make people fall in love here, and make people cry here, here, and here." A drama written for the sake of being dramatic.

However, we still have some wonderful story tellers that tell a story that draws us in, and the tears come from the beauty of the story, not the design of the writer to make us cry on cue.

We have lost our Mr. Tolkien, but we still have a story teller in Mr. Jackson... who brought one great story to life for us... There is still magic to be found in movies.

And there are still heroes worthy of our hearts...

[YaYa123]

To each his own.

FOXNews Network, Television (with remote control), Movies...
these are a few of my favorite things.