We must bump the blog this week for a live special report. We take you to pre-trial motions at Media District Court, the Hon. Judge Alan Smithee presiding. Transcription by Lee Schneider.
photo credit: Valerie Everett via Flickr
Bailiff: Case number 1000256, the People of the World vs. Television.
Attorney for the People: Your honor, I represent the People in this action, but I find web media more useful than television and because of that bias I would like to excuse myself from the case.
Judge: That’s ok. I’m down with bias. Proceed.
Attorney for the People: Well, all right. Let’s start with a website called 8 Billion Lives. It’s an online platform for films that focus on the world’s non-famous population. I ask your honor to rule on who is more worthwhile: Sharon Osbourne on Celebrity Apprentice or a video about an 82-year-old Japanese guy in a t-shirt talking about gratitude.
Judge: Sharon Osbourne is annoying. I rule for the guy in the t-shirt.
Attorney for Television: (jumping to his feet) Your honor, we introduce Gov. Rob Blagojevich on Celebrity Apprentice.
Judge: Irrelevant. And immoral.
Attorney for Television: We would like to introduce Ellen Degeneres as a witness.
The People: Relevance? On her show she danced for 49 minutes and talked about her chair for 11 minutes. How is that deepening our understanding of ourselves?
Attorney for Television: Objection! Ellen is on American Idol now, a meaningless show that is nevertheless universally beloved. She is important to everyone who cares about nothing.
Judge: I will allow Ellen’s testimony into evidence, even if her comedy sucks.
The People: We introduce a movie called Skiing Everest. It’s an independent film and will have to work hard to find an audience amid the media clutter. The makers will need to promote it with blogs, Facebook and Twitter.
Judge: I’ll allow it.
Attorney for Television: But — but — your honor, we have strayed from the mainstream! The point of mass media is that everybody has to like it all the time. The short films on 8 Billion Lives, for example, are boring and experimental.
The People: Your honor, if you’re doing a website about eight billion different lives by its very nature it has to have something for everyone. The technical expertise of the film is not as important as the material. I cite the lower cost of production that allows more voices, and simplified approaches to storytelling that make for good journalism, such as the audio slideshows cited by the Neiman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard. Or the wisdom-of-the-everyman you get from videos on KamaTube and go inspire go. Or the reporting you find on the SHELTER blog.
Attorney for Television: Objection! The SHELTER blog is edited by the owner of this blog.
Judge: Sustained. Let’s move on, please.
Attorney for Television: Can’t we at least introduce Glenn Beck into evidence?
Judge: Only if he’s in a caged death match with Naomi Campbell. (Raps gavel.) Court is adjourned until the next blog.
Larry Gelbart, writer of “M*A*S*H,” and “Tootsie,” wrote an HBO movie called “Weapons of Mass Distraction.” The title is one of the best things about it.
Mass distractions distract everyone from thinking about war, help us stop thinking about Dick Cheney or the share price of AT&T. Mass distractions help keep us focused on which guy with sticky hair will win “American Idol” and encourage us to become hypnotized by Britney Spears, a mentally unstable hillbilly.
I’m not coming at this from a cultural mountaintop. I’m a veteran of E! Entertainment Television, have produced bio-docs on Arnold Schwarzenegger and Warren Beatty and have been doing pop culture movie segments for ReelzChannel. I’m in this pop culture thing really deep, ok? Lots of my colleagues in cable are doing great things melding pop culture with science. Exciting pop media is on the horizon with iPhone and Motorola phone aps. I get that pop culture is a powerful engine. But who’s driving?
Diane Keaton: It’s so clean out here [in Los Angeles.]
Woody Allen: That’s because they don’t throw their garbage away, they turn it into television shows.
– “Annie Hall.”
It’s relaxing to watch garbage on TV, more relaxing than taking out the real garbage. (“Is that starting to smell bad, or is it the television?”) People say mass media is dead, but nearly 29 million people watched the finale of American Idol. The most popular video on YouTube has been viewed about 56 million times. The pop audience is big and it’s a cultural powerhouse.
“We need better shows.”
- Jeff Zucker, chief executive of NBC Universal, quoted in the New York Times.
Zucker’s network is struggling in the ratings so making better shows seems an admirable directive. But what does better mean? I’m willing to bet that for Zucker and his product placement guru Ben Silverman, better means servicing the advertisers who pay for the shows. Judging by the garbage NBC puts on they haven’t been thinking much about the viewers.
Why do they put garbage on TV, anyway? Because people will watch it. If people will watch singers singing off key, that’s what goes on. Network TV programming, like banking these days, is a remarkably morality-free occupation. There is no cabal determining what goes on. (Sorry, Dan Brown, no Illuminati.) It’s all market driven. So who’s driving the culture train? Nobody, really. It’s kind of driving itself.
Here’s the thing: I believe in editors. As in Managing Editors, as in people who make a point of figuring out what might be visionary, necessary and important to know. I believe you can do this and cater to pop culture and mass culture.
Now that I have trashed the soldiers of television and maybe irritated some hard-working and dedicated others who could pay me good money, may I issue a few retractions? Britney Spears is a good entertainer who can draw and hold an audience. Naked celebrities are entertaining. Some of the people on “American Idol” can carry a tune. The dry humor of “The Office” is almost as funny as a real office. Tyra Banks might not be completely evil. Kittens are really cute. Kittenwar.com is an important website that has sucked down hours of my time. Just another weapon of mass distraction.
