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Super Drag!

Is the entertainment industry running out of ideas or are they just lazy like the rest of us? Perhaps they simply underestimate our ability to think. On the other hand, maybe Hollywood and Madison Avenue have pummeled us so much for so long with so many stupid jingles and so many cookie cutter movies that we really have become a nation of unsophisticated morons.

I know what you’re thinking, ‘Speak for yourself, doofus!’

However, let’s look at our so-called cultural wasteland for a moment, or as long as we can stand to.

Whenever anyone hits upon an idea that works, that people respond to, it gets used and reused and repackaged until someone finally says, “STOP!”

Ever since Superman leaped on to the big screen, comic book heroes have taken over the summer movie blockbuster. How many times can you watch the rise and fall of hero and villain mythology? When will someone realize that the same thing in different tights is the same thing?

This has also happened with TV shows. Eventually every sitcom from the 60s and beyond will make it to the multiplex. I guarantee they’re working out the kinks of “The Flying Nun” right now somewhere in L.A in a cheap bungalow. More often than not, the results are at least disappointing and usually excruciatingly painful to watch.

And speaking of TV, there’s another vast vacuum of mindlessness. Remember when there were no reality shows? Can you remember back that far? Remember when Donald Trump was just some rich creep with the world’s poofiest comb over? I long for those days. Unfortunately, things never go back to the way they were. They just get more obnoxious.

There was a time when you could watch a program on television without graphics popping up all along the bottom of the screen. Not any more. This new trend seems to be the combination of desperate advertisers trying to get their hooks into you combined with the boredom of a computer graphics geek with too much software and too much free time. Just let me watch my show, OK? It’s one of the few things I watch. I don’t want to be alerted to what’s on next. I know what’s on next. I don’t care. I stopped being a victim to TV timeslots with the invention of the remote.

Desperation is unattractive, even when it’s pixilated.

Still, the majority of the country loves to gawk at other people’s failings and blunders. If someone would have told me years ago that a channel called “E” would one day have a daily show that reenacted Michael Jackson’s trial for child molestation, I would have felt compelled to ask them if they were high. Great viewing? No, just bad TV.

I tuned into “The Anna Nicole Show” a few times only to be angered by her ignorance. The message of that car wreck was…Money doesn’t make you sophisticated. It only makes you rich. Now she’s lost weight. She’s beautiful again, but it’s still the same ugly trash on the inside.

I could go on like this endlessly (just ask my friends). Let me instead try to get to the point. Why are we being fed this junk over and over? Is it our own fault or should we blame the idiots who crank this stuff out? Has celebrity finally become the beast we feared it could be? Are we powerless to redirect the vast technological resources of this country towards something of significance and value? Should we just acquiesce to those millions of Americans who just want to be entertained?

So many questions like this float through my angry brain. I can’t help but think that the tendency to sit back and let mediocrity prevail is one of the worst characteristics of our culture. We are too proud of our redneck stupidity, our Neanderthal attitude towards high art. People would rather discuss the finer points of Nascar than talk about Cubism.

The fact is it has almost gotten to the point where there is a general distrust of anything esoteric. Being learned is now the equivalent of being subversive. I suppose this is nothing new to those who would rather read Dostoevsky than Tom Clancy. It’s just the pervasiveness of anti-intellectualism that festers among those who think education begins and ends with your GED.

The thought police may have been a literary invention of George Orwell, but the reality of social group think and pressure to conform under the guise of bland entertainment options is hardly conducive to personal growth. Maybe I’m just a troublemaker. I’m not about to dumb myself down or endure a mindless existence just to fit into society. That’s boring and stupid. I need a little more than a beer and a ballgame to make my workday seem worthwhile.

I guess a lot of people don’t want much more than that. I have a sneaking suspicion they might though if they were able to snap out their stupefied malaise. Who am I kidding? That ain’t gonna happen!