Rantblings: Television

Hey Everyone! Welcome to the first rendition of a new type of blog entry for me (or at least, a new categorization): The Rantbling. Enjoy!

Ok, so I've never been a big proponent of television; until Marcelius left me his old TV, I've never had one of my own and until my ISP only offered package deals in my current apartment, I've never had cable. Now that I have it, I'm finding myself to be both more of a fan and more disgusted by it at the same time.

First, the things I like:

* Watching football games and shows like Southpark, King of the Hill, and The Simpsons while working on homework brings back fond memories of sophomore year in Centre Plaza. Marcelius and I would always hang out and watch that stuff while I did math homework. This isn't something I do regularly on my own, but I like it anyway.

* I can catch soccer games (and eventually, the World Cup) from home, which is pretty awesome, I watched 2.5 of them today, plus highlights! :-P

* I've caught several episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation, which I remember watching with mom as a kid. That, and I'm even more of a geek than I was then, so it's just plain entertaining.

* I get the Discovery Channel, the History Channel, and the Food Channel - all of which will likely supply me with fun facts over the course of my stay here in Highland Park.


Now for the things that piss me off:

* Primarily, this category can be summed up in a single word: Advertising. Granted, that's a pretty broad category, but the number of disgusting advertisements that aggressively support traditional gender roles and the ideas of masculinity/femininity is a bit appalling. Good examples abound, but recent ones have included Sears ads in which men, all aspiring to be like Brett Favre and sent on a grueling errand by their wives, are sent to look for various appliances, but they're saved by the convenience of Sears' price comparisons and get to hang out with a bunch of other guys playing ping pong and watching TV. First off, is this fucking stupid, because the whole point of shopping around is that you don't really trust a single salesperson/store to have or inform you of the best price.

Dating sites, dating phone services, and 'male enhancement' drugs are all at least peripherally connected to the gender-roles category of advertisement. They all prey upon people's insecurities and loneliness in a really pathetic way. I think the inundation of the media with these kinds of things is a major part of creating those insecurities, but more than that, I think it says really awful things about people's ability to interact socially and feel some semblance of self-respect/confidence.

Another sort of despicable advertisement is the universalizing of low intellectual and moral standards characterized by a certain Ford truck ad that's been airing recently. It talks about the engineers of the 'new' Ford F-150, referring to them as "The guys we all cheated off in science class." Now, I admit that the people designing these trucks should be smarter than the average person, particularly in science; however, as light-hearted as they may think the ad was, it still suggests a normalcy of cheating that not only undermines the moral of individual achievement that must be present in any independently successful person, but also is pretty damn insulting to the intelligence of any viewer. Fuck you, Ford; I'm glad you're finally getting your head out of your ass and producing vehicles that seem like they can compete, but do you really have to be so goddamn all-American that cheating is just part and parcel of getting through the education system? The last thing Americans, young or old, need right now is to be encouraged in their bad habits. This is why 23% of high school students in Oklahoma can't tell you the name of the first president of the United States. (Source: CNN) The masses apparently can't be troubled to figure out basic science, much less the most elementary facts from history or civics, but that's for another Rantbling, I think.