Inevitablity

I'm tired of television. Since the writer's strike started I've really come to loath it. Now that many of the programs that I used to watch are coming back, I'm not that interested in watching them. With all the re-runs that were on the last few months I realized how much TV I actually watch.

This feeling was brought into sharper focus last night when I watched the John Frankenheimer's classic Grand Prix. It was beautiful. It was art. And despite Eva Saint Marie, a lot mediocre dramatic scenes and the fact that the film is 40 plus years old it’s one of the best films I’ve ever seen. It was a thoughtfully made thing. After watching this movie, which is quite long, and viewing all the special features which confirmed the directors devotion to authenticity, I shut off the DVD player and flipped through the channels. I was so put off by the offerings I just shut it off. It just felt so shoddy and mediocre. I was done.

One example of the shoddy product I'm talking about is "Reality TV". Thanks in large part to the writer’s strike TV is inundated with“Reality TV”. The whole concept of this genre is a farce. It has writers, producers and editors. Real life has none of those things. At no point in my life have I been asked to eat a bug, sing a song, or live on an island with 12 people for money, let alone fall in love with a rock star or live in a house with a bunch of washed up celebrities. Even the late night “news” programs repulse me. If I see one more 48 hours “mystery” about some perfect family, in some perfect town who were torn apart by a homicidal, sociopath, kleptomanical husband, wife, child neighbor, grand parent or garbage man I’m going to scream.

I’m done. Perhaps I’ll watch baseball this summer and a few of the show I like on-line. I knowthis whole piece is silly. Me and TV are in an abusive realtionship. I know I’ll pick up the remote and watch more mediocre, meaningless crap as soon as I get over this mood.