TV Guided



FCC chairman Newton Minow said in 1961 said that TV programming was a vast wasteland. He hadn't even had a chance to see "Fear Factor"



Reality Television and Rupert Murdock have laid waste to the television landscape. This is true and I am always right, this is my blog and it is all me all the time. This is me ranting.

I have learned things in the wasteland. I watched the first man walk on the moon, I watched the Watergate Hearings, I watched the Shuttle blow up. Twice. I watched tragedy. I also saw the little girl get pulled from that well, I watched the Berlin Wall come down. I watched Lady Diana marry Prince Charles. I watched a little gymnast get a gold medal on a hurt foot. Though TV, I have shared cultural mile stones with not just those around me but everyone, everywhere with a TV. I am grateful for this.

This has given me shared experiences to talk about with people from all over the world. I can go to a forum and ask what folks remember about a given event and get responses from regions I would not have guessed would have even heard about the incident.


Part of it I am sure is the reach of our media and the sweep of our glitzy, Made for TV culture that has been cultivated by The Powers That Be for foreign consumption. We’re richer, stronger, taller and better dressed. At the same time we’re not as educated, literate, or politically involved as our European brethren. It Doesn’t Matter, we are over paid, over sexed and over there. We are always going to be the prettiest girl at the party and everyone is always going to want to dance with us.


The media has done such a good job at spreading the word about our fabulous – ness, why are they always wrong?


Why is it that in portraying the huge cultural diversity that is our nation for public consumption that we have been whittled down to a few wildly offensive “types”.



On the East Coast, usually portrayed by New York City, everyone is either 1.) Irish Catholic or 2.) Jewish. There are no Protestants on the City. You are either a cop or a lawyer. You are a drunk/ an addict, or you where in the past a/n drunk/addict or well on your way to being a/n drunk/addict in the future. You followed in your fathers foot steps even if you really didn’t want to, or your Old Man swept the lobby of the building you now own. Rich people are intrinsically evil unless they were once poor in which case while Rich they are now really good at heart. Everyone regardless of their wealth, is educated. Even the street
people quote Shakespeare .



If you have the bad luck to be in the South you are 1.) Dirt poor, with three teeth between you and your common law wife/cousin, you either work yourself to death in the fields or are chronically unemployed, you are a racist and probably handle snakes at church, you are Protestant There are no Jews or Catholics south of the Mason Dixon Line. You are still fighting the Civil War. Everyone no matter what region of the South that they live in talk like Elly Mae Clampett . You are poor but you really are not good at heart. Or 2.) Your Daddy is in oil or has never worked a day in his life and your Mother drinks and mean and has awful taste in clothing and home furnishings. You are just as stupid as your dirt poor
neighbors but your bad taste and self absorption have pulled you up out of the muck. You are racist and evil.



If you live in the Midwest you are good and pure . There is no choice one or two. You work from dawn to dusk in the fields or with the cows. You have flawless intentions. You live in a tiny town and rarely make it to the big city. You are not really well educated or curious about the world Podunk, Iowa. You are Protestant unless you are Catholic and there are no Jews in the Midwest. You go to Las Vegas to embarrass yourself and lose the egg money. You are the archetypal tourist . Even if you are evil, you are still good of heart.


And thanks to the cultural fire bombing that is Reality Television, these wildly inaccurate and insulting stereotypes are being given flesh and made real. But ultimately, it is not Rupert Murdock's fault, it is not the fault of the Reality TV producers and participants or even the Media Powers that Be - it is our fault for rewarding them for doing it. They are as responsible for the proliferation of these shows as Pavlov's dogs were for their mouths watering when the bell rang. We give them the ratings and they give us the slobber.