For a long time we all wondered why MTV still went by that name if it hasn't bothered to show any M's for a long time now. With the state of the music industry the way it is, perhaps it's better that any of those music videos are left without visual representation.
But this lead me to sit and watch some of their programing. What did they decide was more important or cheaper to broadcast than music videos? Oh my. The result made my brain hurt. I quickly had to turn the channel. No longer could I bare witness to the horrors that MTV was showing. Sadly I went out of the frying pan and into the fire with that bold move of the channel up button as I landed on SpikeTV.
It had been too long since Spike TV replaced whatever other channel was on before it. Being that I'm a television nut I should know this answer. Sadly I do not. A quick wiki search not only found the answer. TNN was what this once was. I can't remember a single program on it. What was on it now though was MANswers.
This leads to the ultimate question. Is unapologetic capitalism or unapologetic misogyny more offensive/counterrevolutionary?
In one corner is My Super Sweet 16: MTV's program about rich young girls and the parties that they have for their 16th birthday, which can reach into the six figures.
from Wikipedia:
My Super Sweet 16 is an MTV reality series documenting the lives of teenagers in the United States who usually have wealthy parents that throw huge parties for their coming of age. Parties include the quinceañera (a sweet 15), the sweet 16, and other birthdays including a My Super Sweet 21 (which was brodcasted during MTV's Spring Break party) and My Super Swag 18. The show premiered on January 18, 2005. The opening theme is "Sweet Sixteen" sung by Hilary Duff. The show, while popular, has also received its share of criticism for its portrayal of the girls as rich, spoiled brats.Though the teens are required to perform some acts that are not in their normal behavior, most of their actions are due to their personalities.
An episode in 4 parts, starts here:
http://www.dailymotion.com/relevanc...0s-r_shortfilms
VS.
MANswers: Spike TV answers questions that matter to guys. These are inevitably thin excuses to get background shots of scantily clad women. While I'm not opposed to scantily clad women and seem to have made my fair share of blog post regarding the subject in the last few weeks, I get that sex sells.
A sample segment about the key issue of the day, midget hookers: http://www.dailymotion.com/relevanc...kers_shortfilms
FIGHT!
Although MANswers is dumb and terrible in its aggressive progragation of sexist stereotypes, my super sweet sixteen actively attempts to humanize and celebrate people who live lives of utter entitlement, lifting them up as an exemplary role models. Furthermore, super sweet sixteen is aired on MTV, a channel which still has incalculable cultural clout both here and abroad, ensuring that it will have a much wider-spread impact. You can write a fucking dissertation on this shit.
If they did the show right it could inspire some amazing class hatred. I'm not sure you can actually read how much my blood boils when I hear a sixteen year old say the following:
Has anyone seen keys to the vip?When the revolution comes, she'll be first against the wall. MANswers just makes me roll my eyes and shut off either my brain or TV if the motor skills haven't already failed. I should note that MANswers is a bargain-basement show. It's really low budget. I'm guessing it cost something around $5,000 to produce one episode, while Super Sweet Sixteen clearly has that same amount spent on the fucking cake alone.
MANswers is actually hilarious in how absurdly macho it tries to be. If it was an actual person you would question if they don't like cock and taking it up the ass. It's the closet friend who pounds beers and acts all tough to cover up the fact that he loves show tunes.
There's also a terrible way the narrator of the show tends to emphasize random words in a sentence by saying them much louder and sounding like a complete idiot. Simple sentences like "WHATS inside your BALLS" just comes across as comical in that manner.
How WOULD a set of jugs behave on a girl who was BOUNCING on a trampoline on the moon?I did not make that one up.
How would they bounce in space?
MANswers is simply hilarious in its overcompensating ur-macho-ism, like 90% of what spike airs. It is basically a parody of itself. Naturally the objectification of women is prevalent and unwelcome, but the market base of the channel is its own fucking parody so the pull of a show like MANswers approaches nil, and can be viewed safely as the hilariously innocuous drivel it is, mocked thoroughly with each frame.
super sweet sixteen, done by anybody else but MTV, would be a scathing documentary of the insipid entitlement of the children upper-middle to upper-class bourgeois families, the product of two generations overexerting themselves to give their children "everything they deserve", resulting in the cultural decay and lavish opulence of the parties... but, since it's MTV, it is instead a glorification of materialism. and if you want the patriarchy angle covered, think of the color schemes, detail to dress and strict social coding, "daddy's little princess" (almost never mommy's), etc. etc.
"wow wouldn't it be cool to be that rich some day? just look at all that cool shit!"
basically no different from medieval fairy tales about princesses in that respect.
Points go to Super Sweet Sixteen to being worse for humanity.
More video proof of how much total shit this show is.
I guess I should look at the other side of this coin here. While MANswers satirizes gender roles it doesn't do it well. The only show that effectively satirized gender roles was the Original Man Show. Maybe it's because I have a penis and I don't see any glass cieling when looking into a career that I can't judge MANswers as the total crap that it is. It certainly shouldn't dare use the name of Science for anything it does.
The show acts as if it's giving you facts based on science and studies. The science goes about as far as surveys, and pretty much anything other that is complete crap. In one of the early shows they had a "nutritionist" come on and say "The beer belly is a myth because beer doesn't contain fat"
What store will she buy out now?
My Super Sweet Sixteen is horrible for promoting a culture of consumerism and entitlement but MANswers directly follows TNA impact, combining like a Voltron of pure shit to form the dumbest 3 hours of television you're likely to ever find. If your clicker ends up on the channel, it's way too late. You'll were dead before the words "Can you freeze your farts and smell them later? watch MANswers to find out!" was ever spoken.
I watched five minutes of MANswers once because I think star trek was about to come on and the big question they were saving for the whole episode was "When is it legal to video tape yourself having SEX with hot chix!?!" and apparently the solution is go to Italy, there it is legal to video tape sex without consent. Up next: How many TITS can a VAGINA BEER in the length of a FOOTBALL GAME
It really is like viewing the world through 13 year old eyes again. Which still makes My Super Sweet Sixteen much much worse because no one watches spike TV.
Look at his eyes. They are dead and empty.. imagine how bad the 16th birthday will be for him
If my son/daughter ever reaches the point where s/he expects a Super Sweet 16th Birthday Party, it will be a surprise helicopter ride to a fabulous exotic pacific island jungle where s/he will be dropped with a canteen, machete, and topographical map to the drop zone 50 kilometers away where, if s/he is present three days later, extraction will be available.
They should reformat the show into "My Super Working Class Sweet 16". The kids would be depressed and upset that they didn't get a new pair of bootstraps with which to hike themselves to the prom. they'd find out when and where a My Super Sweet 16 party is going on and crash it. Would this be worse than the Hills? No. nothing is worse than The Hills. Actually the hills doesn't inspire hatred in me so much as sheer perplexity. It's so BORING. why on earth is it so popular?? If only because it's a spinoff that is in turn spinning off yet another show. It's like a plague of blonde hair, blank stares, and pointless banal drama
I suppose both of these are going to be neck and neck against each other. Maybe I'm missing the bigger picture. Something for the kids. I'm going to also toss in a vote for Toddlers in Tiaras, a show about child beauty pageants that of course shows how much the girls LOVE it even though every episode has some six year old having a break down or completely not giving a shit about the whole experience compared to their fat mother.
A sample of the horrors
Oh yes.. the horror.. the horror.
I've yet to see a Toddlers and Tiara's show that doesn't take place in the South. Are these pageants really that big down there? While on TLC, let's talk about Jon and Kate plus eight. If you want to feel like your balls were cut off, turn it on and see how Kate berates the poor guy. Kate is a horrible person and she sucks the life and soul out of him. This has nothing to do with her being a woman, she's just a terrible human being.
The whole show is basically a commercial. If Kate isn't insulting or berating Jon than she isn't being herself. If I was that guy I would have killed myself a long time ago. It's the only way out. Could you imagine child support on all those kids? She was the one tha thad serious trepidation about putting her kids on camera till the money started rolling in. The old saying of you can't buy happiness seems to be pretty accurate here.
Maybe it's better once you learn that Jon is allegedly melting down in real life and making out with wasted college girls at frat parties and living three hours away from Kate. I was honestly disappointed to not hear them declare separation at the end of the seasons finale. Next season may very well be called Jon-minus-Kate-and-8chat
Talking ironically, I sure can't wait for the real housewives of new jersey to premiere
She prides herself as one of the first female American Express Black card members in New Jersey.um... yeah... society is doomed.
To be honest I think society's fucked enough now that television's really not going to influence many people into behaviors they're not already keen on anyway. People are just on edge and greedy in general at the moment.
If you want quality TV look to The Wire, The Shield or many other shows that aren't total crap. Most of all, just try to avoid taking that Dump of death
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