I’ve just watched a couple of episodes of "American Inventor". It doesn’t seem calculated to get a really good invention, but rather to make fun of people who (for the most part erroneously) believe that they have invented something good. It seems to me that there is a trend of recent shows which claim to be looking for talent or something, but which actually have a large component of trying to dig up over-earnest people with fragile egos and way too much investment in something and then humiliate and crush them on national TV.
This strikes me as a really sick way for us to get our kicks.
Am I being oversensitive?
Am I being oversensitive?
No.
And that’s been the case for much of what passes for entertainment for the last few years. It’s no coincidence that the highest rates episodes of American Idol are the first ones of the season, where the mockery is at the highest.
No. I think it’s awful.
Besides, it’s not as though making fun of people is the only way to be funny. I’m always struck by the way most of my favorite very funny people are funny and generous at the same time. (Think Garrison Keillor, or the Car Talk guys.)
But that takes actual imagination.
And it’s not just in the US. By now the few actually talented are kicked out of the (usually singing) talent shows over here because the humiliation of the others is more funny to the voters. That some of those candidates may realize in time that their vocation is not in vocals and get on with something useful is just a side effect (far outweighed by the negatives).
I’ll second the American Idol comment (Brian). I don’t follow it, but the times I’ve seen it the focus sure seemed to be more on humiliating people than unearthing new talent. I always wonder, where were this person’s family and friends that they made it on to national TV believing they could sing? I also wonder to what extent the shift in education and raising children plays a role: there are no winners or losers; everyone wins a ribbon, etc. Reinforcing self-esteem is more important then letting kids learn life’s lessons.
Then, like not being able to tear your eyes away from a car wreck, many of the rest of us get a perverse pleasure watching these people being crushed and humiliated.
Besides, it’s not as though making fun of people is the only way to be funny
I’m a big believer in the idea that it’s who you make fun of that’s key. Poking at the powerful is funny–it’s a time-honored format, and it’s something that, if done good naturedly, works no matter your political connection to the ones in power. I laughed pretty hard at a lot of Clinton jokes in the 90s. But picking on the powerless, or at those who are at your mercy, is mean-spirited, and that’s how I see those kinds of shows. It’s like kicking a homeless person and laughing when they cringe.
personally, i hate those early rounds of A.I., and i refuse to watch the Worst-Of episodes.
The vast majority of the reality TV genre is about trading in human misery for the entertainment of the home viewing audience. It’s a lot like this movie
This is why people watch Jerry Springer. What I wonder is why anyone goes on. Surely everyone knows by now: if your girlfried invites you to go on the show, she’s going to reveal that she’s a he. But only after Jerry gets you to talk about how feminine he/she is.
Besides, it’s not as though making fun of people is the only way to be funny. I’m always struck by the way most of my favorite very funny people are funny and generous at the same time. (Think Garrison Keillor, or the Car Talk guys.)
I don’t have a problem with the “making fun of people” part. I mean, I think even Keillor makes fun of people (although I find him to be galactically “unfunny.” Sorry) I think its the mean-spirited nature of it more than anything else. There seems to be a very large component of these shows and also the Judge Judy type shows that is really about judging people and finding them wanting in no uncertain terms. Its very important to the dynamic of all these shows that even if ultimately they are about resolving some issue (who is the best singer, who owes who money), that the people on the losing end be told just how badly they suck and just how awful they are. Its tremendous really.
I agree. I think it all started with “Family
Home Videos” where we get to laugh at people
hurting themselves.
No.
Imho, American culture has become more blatantly nasty in the past decade or so.
I’m inclined to think that Rosseau and/or other romantics bought the dynamite and Limbaugh lit the fuse.
The problem (and I think it’s a very real problem) is that the classic ideal of a good life is one of restraining a lot of impulses. If you accept the romantic idea that there’s a lot of truth and value in those repressed impulses (and I agree that there is), you’re eventually thrown up against the fact that not all of those impulses are anything you really want to live with.
In effect, it’s ok to come out of the closet about wanting to humiliate people. We have smug, unshameable bullies. In public. I don’t think the US used to be like this.
I don’t know what the way out is. I believe that some of the repressed impulses (frex, for gay sex) were actually better allowed out in public, so it’s not just a matter of going back to some past set of standards.
Here’s a little secret about Springer: most of the “guests” are actors. Springer got in some trouble over the nature of his show a few years back with the City of Chicago. Authorities were wondering why the producers weren’t reporting incidents of battery to the police. The producers said it was because it wasn’t real fighting – just actors pretending to be white trash gerontophiles or whatever. So then the city said the show needed a cabaret license.
No, you are not being oversensitive in the least. “Reality” television is no way is an exposure to realism or a narrative for grave truth, but has always been a cheap, crass, mean and grossly immature mechanism for humans to laugh at those committing mistakes, a perverse voyeurism to the ill and poorly adjusted/performing souls among us.
It dismays me to no end. It is part of the explanation the United States of America butchers a quarter million Iraqis with hardly a thought–refugees? What are they? Let the motherfuckers die in Syria, they’ll just get on food stamps here. COPS is on tonight, right?
Our time here is so short. I don’t understand why everyone denies that being laughed at can’t hurt that much–it’s always very bad. As one watches one directly contributes to the witnessed regression. Nauseating with the potential for enormous harm.
I am not a regular here, but rather a infrequent lurker who tries to chisel time in to read because frequent links from Anonymous Liberal merit attention. I am rarely shocked, but I am by this author: Sebastian Holsclaw.
Sebastian–this is the Sebastian of Calpundit threads? The defender and proponent the Republican party? The guy who has this huge post list from Republicans and Conservatives?
I am paradox, Mr. Holsclaw. Is this the same soul I remember from those Calpundit threads long gone? You may not remember me, but I know who you are. You are truly here, in this place and time?
What in the name of holy Jesus are you doing here? Not only do you dare to think to you’re American, but you have the incredible gall and arrogance to think you can share a blog helm with writers like Hilzoy and Publius?
How many times did you vote for Bush & Cheney, Sebastian? Once, twice?
You have some perceived redemming qualities, I presume? Some value as a “conservative” token of balance? I dare say you are like a Reality Blogger, Sebastian, watch the “conservative” flop and smash face for 17 months as the Republicans crush what’s left of the democracy, see the intellectual pervert writhe and rationalize, it’s your turn for the American voyeurism burn, Mr. Holsclaw.
There are many tasks I have denied but ultimately made myself do in this life. Accepting you as a human and an American as we somehow move forward, if we can move forward, if this “American” can somehow be Sebastian Holsclaw, well, know that impossible feat will never, ever be attempted by this puny human. Only lying, evil regression would ever be on that path.
To quote Robert A. Heinlein in Stranger in a Strange Land
“I’ve found out why people laugh. They laugh because it hurts… because it’s the only thing that’ll make it stop hurting… The goodness is in the laughing. I grok it is a bravery…and a sharing…against pain and sorrow and defeat.”
I think perhaps society has gotten to the point where the evoke pain just for the pleasure of release. We are addicted to feeling good.
paradox: Two points. Making the phenomena a US phenomena that explains other actions is a stretch as many of these shows originated across the sea and were imported here after proven popularity “over there”.
Second: You are way over the line in your remarks to Sebastian. If you turn around and squint hard, you won’t even see the line.
Second OCsteve’s second comment to paradox.
Also, no, you are not being to sensitive Sebastian.
However, follwoing the logic that is out there so often, Americans must want this type of show or the media moguls would not be presenting them to us. So any comment about their nature must be about the viewing public, not those that create and air them.
And yes, as pointed out above, AI’s biggest ratings are the very early shows and then again at the very end. The first shows are all about humiliation.
The Roman circuses have entered this land.
“However, follwoing the logic that is out there so often, Americans must want this type of show or the media moguls would not be presenting them to us. So any comment about their nature must be about the viewing public, not those that create and air them.”
I fully believe that their popularity is an unflattering comment about the nature of the viewing public.
Paradox, my watchblog posts were normally written for obsidianwings and merely cross-posted there. So it is odd to raise them as if they were a mystery to readers here.
I have to admit to having watched the very earliest episodes in the season of AI, and none of the later episodes. And I did laugh at times. But, as one of the guilty, I have to concur that it is a sick form of entertainment. At some point, after being amused by the goofiness of some contestants and awestruck by the level of delusion of others, I was struck by the fact that I was witnessing the dysfunction of a number of people with very real mental and emotional problems. It starts off being funny, goes into being a bit frightening at times, and finally becomes sad, interspersed with performances by some fairly talented people. (But I don’t really like the kind of singing/music that’s successful on AI, which is why I never watched the later episodes. And I doubt I would have ever watched any of it if left solely to my own devices. Talent shows in general, even the non-exploitive, annoy me.)
I’m not sure that I’m horrified by the ultimate revelation that you aren’t very good. That has to hit sometime, though national TV is an ugly place for it. I’m more horrified by how mean-spirited the judges tend to be about. It is bad enough to find out in public that you aren’t as good as you thought/hoped and that one of your dreams isn’t ever going to be realized. It is another thing to be called an idiot for even having the dream. I’m honestly surprised there haven’t been suicides over it.
I just remembered something. This is hardly a new phenomenon. Does anybody other than me remember “The Gong Show”?
Thing about holsclaw you have to remember is this:
He is always and only a shill for republicans, corporate power, and anti-abortion fanatics.
Not that he doesn’t have priorities.
It’s all about the blessed fetuses, except when that might get in the way of pleasing his corporate masters or the republican party. Then they come first.
Not only did he vote for bush and cheney every time, he actually is content that he did the right thing. It’s all worth it for their SCOTUS picks–he said so himself.
This new piece? It’s just classic deflection and misdirection.
On a day when every decent American, concerned about the rule of law, should be calling for impeachment, sebastian holsclaw, servant of power and paid corporate shill, is distracting our attention with trivia.
Paradox is completely right.
You are not being over sensitive. Is it possible there could be something constructed for this kind of thing like labor unions have? Because that kind of entertainment likely wont die.
Everything that’s funny is at least a little bit mean.
John Miller,
“This is hardly a new phenomenon. Does anybody other than me remember “The Gong Show”?”
Yes, and the $1.98 Beauty Contest (which shared the same producer, who we referred to as teenagers as Chuck Em-Barras). For that matter, insulting the earnestness and naivity of the contestants on TV shows goes at least as far back as Groucho Marx’s “You Bet Your Life”. One of my favorites:
Contestant with 13 kids: I love my husband!
Groucho: I love my cigar, but I take it out of my mouth every now and then.
edfor,
I need a diversion.
Holsclaw,
Most of these competitions and reality shows are emotional pornography.
However, the Bravo shows: Project Runway, Top Chef, Top Design and Shear Genius, seem pretty legit.
I just remembered something. This is hardly a new phenomenon. Does anybody other than me remember “The Gong Show”?
I loved The Gong Show when I was a young kid. But on The Gong Show there was never really the promise of the kind of fortune and fame that AI offers, it was a total goof from the start, and the overwhelming majority of contestants knew it. And the judges were never as personally and bitingly mean to the contestants. It was far more good-natured, if still somewhat exploitive.
edfor and paradox,
This site neither is nor wants to be an echo chamber, where only persons on one side of the aisle need apply. If that is what you are looking for, there are plenty of them out there.
Or in other words, what OCSteve said above.
edfor and paradox: one of the posting rules here is: do not vilify people who comment on the site. If you fail to respect those rules in the future, you will be banned.
One other thought about this: How many people do you suppose are fully aware that they are going to be humiliated, but just don’t care for the chance to be on TV? I mean who doesn’t know Simon Cowell’s shtick by now, even if they don’t follow the show?
distracting our attention with trivia
Sebastian, you sneaky devil you. I hope I didn’t blow your cover. I mean here you had most of the commenters here completely distracted with this and they had all but forgotten about pardons and Plame and Iraq and Bushco… Clue me in in advance the next time and I’ll work out how to tie the Clintons to the evolution of the original Candid Camera or something.
OCSteve
“Second: You are way over the line in your remarks to Sebastian. If you turn around and squint hard, you won’t even see the line.”
Yup. And Sebastian has shown a sharp learning curve since early days as a Calpundit commenter. Either the rough’n’tumble of the blogsphere hardened him, or his excellent legal education.
On topic: Is it really a surprise that the purpose of a reality TV show is the humiliation of its participants? Like, as far back as the Greeks and the Orpheus myth we knew that what we really wanted to do with those who dared to display talent is rip ’em to shreds.
It is strange, I would think that if you wanted to make it politically connected non-trivia, it would be easy to suggest a parallel between unhealthy preoccupation with mean spirited humiliation on “American Inventor” and “Rush Limbaugh”.
Sebastian, or other commenters on this thread:
Have you seen season 1 of “American Inventor”? If so, was it your impression that season 1 was also about mockery, or are you sensing this as a change?
I ask because my mom was a huge fan of season 1 (she’s not able to watch it this season), and took it as a completely sincere tribute to/ search for inventors. She’s a very smart woman, so I’m curious about the differing perspectives.
Sebastian wrote:”It is another thing to be called an idiot for even having the dream. ”
This has more resonance in the first season of a show, when it’s all new.
After that, anyone who auditions has to know what they’re in for, unless the producers crank up the bile mid-season.
I’ve only seen two episodes from this season. My Tivo thought I’d like it.
I had observed that the Jerry Springer show was obviously staged and concluded the situations were normally about as real as those on a situation comedy. I figured, though, that the “actors” were amateurs – basically people who wanted to be on TV badly enough to pretend to be total trailer trash. It’s a bad gig for a professional as they’d never be able to perform without *somebody* in the audience remembering them as the guy who stole his friend’s car radio to by meth or whatever. It *is* a national TV show with a big audience. For an amateur without a stage career faking it on Jerry Springer could be a real hoot.
I don’t think it’s just Jerry Springer where the reality performers are hamming it up. Do you think Sanjaya really changes his hair to a new wild style every week? Just in case you weren’t clear it was a joke he made a surreal performance art video a few weeks later (check the second video) http://defamer.com/hollywood/sanjaya-malakar/ Likewise I suspect most of the truly awful singers AI makes fun of are deliberately putting on a bad performance for yuks.
This doesn’t change Sebastian’s observation of nastiness in America because not too many people realize these things are usually just hammy acting. Plus, sometimes they’re real too.
Agree with all the comments, yes, it’s the trainwreck-watching impulse, yes, its awful, yes, we suck, all agreed.
That said, the christmas-tree fire extinguisher invention is bloody genius. If you didn’t see it, it’s a tree-topping angel with hidden nozzles that connects to a hose that is connected to a powerful fire extinguisher in a gift-wrapped box that is placed innocuously under the tree. An on-board smoke and heat detector senses if the tree catches fire, and sets off the fire extinguisher, which sprays nonconductive fire supression foam downward to cover the tree. The whole thing is pretty much invisible.
Nationwide, it’s not such an enormous problem (maybe 300 fires a year, 15 deaths), but if you were going to have a live tree, wouldn’t you buy something like that, if it really was innocuous and only a bit more than a regular fire extinguisher ($40-$70, plus ten or twenty bucks for the apparatus)?
Presuming it works, someone should make that product, because (a) it’s the kind of thing people would feel irresponsible not buying, so it would probably be a success, and (b) well, people actually do die in those fires.
But, yes, the show sucks.
Have you ever spent any time poking around in the patent archives? Most awarded patents–ones have passed the examination, are non-trivial, and have had thousands of dollars of preparation lavished upon them–most of them are for useless junk. Items that nobody needs, wants, or will ever produce.
That being said, there’s no reason to be rude about it. The invisible hand will deliver the bad news to would-be inventors soon enough.
“Sebastian wrote:”It is another thing to be called an idiot for even having the dream. ”
It’s also unrealistic. My very limited exposure to the world of start-ups and Venture Capitalists was that more than technical or finance skills, the most important skills for a VC were social [like, duh].
Specifically, being able to smell BS, being able to identify a good idea that might be wrapped in BS because its founders thought BS might be needed.
But the most important thing seemed to be able to tolerate being mobbed by people who want to bend your ear about their particular idea. And respond in a firm way but not one that offended. ‘Cos one seeming nutball might have a good idea a few years from now, or might have a friend or contact who’s got a good idea, and reputation is everything to a VC.
The job’s more like being a Hollywood producer or a state or federal level politician than a typical financial VP.
Everyone thinks they could be a VC, but 99% couldn’t. Like me.
I once met a founder of an internet firm in late 2001 at a social mixer, a dorky kind of guy, no much charisma. He explained his idea to me, and I thought it was the frickin’ dumbest idea I’d heard and was somewhat disappointed that the dot-bomb hadn’t killed it off so this guy could go back to productive employment.
His startup? Hotornot.com.
The move towards reality TV is more than simply following a public demand. It’s also about not having to pay writers or actors. Most reality shows are non-union productions (though Creative unions are lining up to take a shot at reality shows). Why take a chance on a show with union screenwriters and actors when you can get one that has “contestants” and “segment editors?”
Idiocracy is in full force.
Yes, the AI type shows can be cruel, really cruel, and horribly cruel — and then there’s THIS:
(you won’t believe it – he said, to entice you to look at it)
Am I being oversensitive?
No, they’re deeply exploitive. Don’t watch them.
I think pretty much all reality shows from the insipid COPS to Bravo’s high-brow fare pretty much make everyone into an emotional pornographer, waiting for the money shot where someone is utterly humiliated.
I agree with sidereal – don’t watch them.
However, I do worry about the long-term societal impact of these shows – will it be commonly accepted practice to watch someone getting mugged? I wonder how many of the soldiers at Abu Gharib probably thought this was another episode of cops in which the perps can be made to toe the line.
I know a VC who told me he was going to be a judge on this show, but he didn’t want to do it because the producers wanted him to be mean to the inventors. His feeling was that wasn’t right.
Let’s face it, the producers are trying to imitate the success of other reality shows and AI in particular. They want people to look dumb, and they want the judges (or at least one judge) to be mean in a scathing way. Until someone comes up with a successful, “kinder, gentler” reality show, that will be the model.
I think pretty much all reality shows from the insipid COPS to Bravo’s high-brow fare pretty much make everyone into an emotional pornographer
I have to admit to watching Miami Beach PD on (court tv?) when I flip by it. Shamelessly, it is very much COPS, but with hot chicks in thongs, and non of that blurring crap.
No apologies. Us old married but faithful men take what we can get.
A world without reality TV would be a world without “Since U Been Gone,” and that is not a world I care to live in.
I’m inclined to think that Rosseau … bought the dynamite and Limbaugh lit the fuse.
obLOST: Rosseau merely guided the Tailies to the dynamite, and it was Locke who lit the fuse. (Back when Lost was good.)
I don’t watch either AI (American Idol or Inventor) for this very reason. Making fun of Simon Cowell is funny, Cowell mocking the contestants is not.
(AInventor should have Ron Popeil, Dean Kamen and George Foreman as judges.)
Jackofalltirades,
But when I watch the Bravo stuff, I’m actually excited about the different creations that pop-up…I’m not there waiting for humiliation.
Am I being oversensitive?
No. Lots of TV these days gets its entertainment value from humiliating people
However, as pointed out upthread, this goes back to the Gong Show.
In fact, it goes back well beyond that, at least to geeks (real geeks, not computer nerds), blockheads, and other circus sideshow stalwarts.
People have, apparently, always gotten a kick out of ogling weirdo losers. Even when they’re really neither weirdos, or losers. Although common in human history, it’s not a good thing.
Finally, some props to Sebastian.
When nearly the entire conservative world, and much of the non-conservative world, was willing and, in fact, quite often eager to embrace torture as a way of “combatting terror” (contemplate that irony for a moment, if you will), Sebastian Holsclaw wrote a simple, eloquent, and frequently cited post, arguing that torture was wrong on its face.
I have no doubt that Sebastian and I will, now and forever, find ourselves on opposite sides of the left/right divide, as that is construed here in the US in the 21st Century. But there will never be a day when I am not interested in what he has to say, or when I suspect or assume that he is not speaking in good faith, or with good intention.
For whatever it is worth to him or anyone else, as far as I am concerned, Sebastian has made his bones.
Thanks –
But there will never be a day when I am not interested in what he has to say, or when I suspect or assume that he is not speaking in good faith, or with good intention.
I agree. He is usually wrong of course, specifically about international matters ;), but I believe he speaks in good faith.
paradox: You have some perceived redemming qualities, I presume?
Yes, he does.
Almost alone in the conservative blogosphere, Sebastian Holsclaw said: Republicans Must Not Support Torture, in September 2004: that is, he came out as opposing torture, and made clear he considered Republican support for the 9/11 Commission Bill an endorsement of torture, well over a month before the 2004 election.
All the other self-identified Republicans I can think of who came out against torture didn’t do so until Bush was safely in power again for another four years.
edfor: He is always and only a shill for republicans, corporate power, and anti-abortion fanatics.
No, he’s not. Well, except about the pro-life fanatics, yeah, though he’s no more “anti-abortion” than any of the pro-lifers who actively resist the notion that abortions can be prevented rather than criminalized. But no: even with regard to his pro-life politics, which I loathe to the end of the world and back, I’d never say that Sebastian Holsclaw was always and only a shill: a sadly-misguided fanatic on pro-life issues, but never a shill.
(And he’s right about reality TV shows, too.
Ugh.)