Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Virtually Free
I grew up with the TV on. I remember hiding in the couch cushions when I was afraid of the Incredible Hulk and spinning around like Wonder Woman.
Maybe less like other little kids, my impersonation of Steve Austin as the 6 Million Dollar Man included the raising of a single eyebrow, playing along whenever he ran in slow motion and the sound effects went buh-nuh na na na na.... That eyebrow was his determined look.
Vivian Leigh did a dramatic eyebrow when showing Scarlett O’Hara’s defiance or fear. Single-eyebrow action from Joey Tribbiani, playing Dr. Drake Ramore on the soap opera Days of Our Lives, is that character’s “I smell something bad” method acting.
If a commercial came on television while I was spinning around or building forts with couch cushions, my mother would walk by and sniff. (The word “scoff” always made sense to me, because it was so close to the way she’d sniff).
She wasn’t a mom who would sit and watch TV. This woman was no-nonsense. You could tell by her panty hose.
“Yeah right,” she’d say. “Virtually streak-free. Remember they always have to use words like virtually or nearly or practically because it’s not one hundred percent true. The message is always ‘important’ but it’s just garbage.”
It must have been annoying that I’d walk around singing jingles I didn’t understand: “Mazola’s got no! Cholesterol at all!”
Sometimes though, she’d put on General Hospital while she folded laundry or did paperwork, glancing up occasionally. We’d both pay more attention towards the end of the show, and it didn’t take me long to figure out that it would always end with a cliffhanger that would never, ever resolve anything between Luke and Laura.
By nature children like repetition and formulas. Good guy fights bad guy, love becomes marriage, happily ever after, amen the end. Soap operas on the other hand, dragging out plot, and rationing action like food pellets, just infuriated me.
“That’s how they get ya,” she explained. “They’re called ‘soaps’ because they were invented by companies that sell soap just so they could make people watch their commercials. They only want to show you enough to keep you watching the show and the commercials.”
All good parents should speak to their six-year-olds this way when explaining the ways of things. Spades should be labeled as such.
Talk shows and game shows, judge shows (negligible differences) were invented because they’re cheaper than paying writers and actors of soaps, even when they give away cars and prizes. A ridiculously outfitted house on the Real World or flying people to China is still less expensive than paying quality writers, actors, and production crews, even better from the standpoint of the advertiser and networks. A reality show makes itself with a cheap, reliable formula of baking soda and peroxide.
Many shows I like are practically (there’s that word!) night-time soaps. Lost, Heroes, I forget what I’ve been watching. But I love 30 Rock (worship Tina Fey and Alec Baldwin) because they’re good. They’re funny because they’re well-written. Many of the best shows are/were on the movie channels: The Wire, Californication, Sopranos and the like. Funded solely by subscriptions it’s a different formula with a better outcome (not one I would argue for say, the internet in general. information should be free). Shows on movie channels aren’t created for the same purposes as “soap” television, and the difference shows.
It’s about the content, stupid.
I’m going to try to forget that Ugly Betty/Wicked tie-in. That was atrocity in an otherwise lovable show. It begged questions about who owned and was paying for what. Were they trying to sell tickets or call attention to shame the broadway stagehand strike?
Remember when cable was commercial-free? (when is 32 old? how soon is now?)
Once upon a time, bunnies, cable TV had no commercials. The whole point of paying for cable was that you didn’t have to watch commercials. Cable was still an experiment when it was installed for free in our building in 1982 or 1983 (High rise condos like ours meant tricky television reception. Originally cable went where “broadcast” networks literally couldn’t reach). HBO was actually launched in 1972 and only had a few hundred viewers it’s first night. Cable didn’t really take off until 1984 when deregulation allowed for the digging and planting of more cable. (ok now i’m just being a huge dork) Suddenly there was Music Television and Nickelodeon and “Home Box Office”. And for the TV watcher it was good, for a while.
Now I understand why my favorite shows as a kid were imports of Canadian sketch comedy and European cartoons (usage rights & cost factor largely i’m sure). This was the best television I’d ever seen. Lassie made me barf, but Belle and Sebastian made me cry. I loved Mr. Wizard (ask my mom who found me elbow deep in the toilet, kept dry by a thin film of baby powder. try it!) It’s a shame, but Nickelodeon went downhill when they started making game shows (did YCDTOT get paid for the slime idea?).
But it’s all about the money, honey*. If they can get advertisers and make people pay, and that’s the way it was and they liked it**. Meatwad make the money, see.*** Networks and media corporations are making more with new outlets like DVD and internet. As you might have seen, make commercials describing how pirate downloading hurts the creators and production crews, when in reality hardly any money from legally bought or downloaded media doesn’t go to them anyway.
a sidenote via boingboing on the nature of the beast: “in the first ten years of the US DMCA, 20,000 American music fans were sued and not one penny was paid to artists as a result, nor did file sharing decrease”.
*Axl Rose singing Welcome to the Jungle
**Mike Meyers as the grumpy old man on Saturday Night Live
***Theme song from Aqua Teen Hunger Force, I haven’t eaten yet today and I’m very hungry
***
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