Can the Media Sink Any Lower?

[Upsetter]

Due to the decision to censor and delete some of my posts on QQR I have reluctantly taken the decision to collect some of the flotsam and jetsam and throw the detritus together in the slender hope of it catcha fire!

I've got way too many balls in the air

Talking of balls here's a post that probably won't be censored but with a mad buffalo on the rampage who knows. Once the buffalo moves once its hard to stop it....

re. The wretched Big Brother


Not that I saw it..I wouldn't watch that tripe if you paid me.

I'm not sure that T.V. can sink any lower than sticking a camera on a bloke sat in the middle of a garden, masturbating with a beer bottle.

The fact that they kept the camera's on during the whole sordid scene shows the unlimited depths that the media will go nowadays.

And we used to laugh at people watching gladiators, being shown around Bedlam or watching public hangings. I can't see much, if any, progress - if anything the world's getting worse.

Read the only modern philosopher worth reading, Rene Guenon. His books suggesting that progress was a myth were, when I initially read them interesting, but not enough to be convincing. The more I think and read about the World the more I'm inclined to believe that he was right all along.

[moonbeam here]

Aw, with all this talk of Sink and Buffalo, I was expecting the joke about the difference between a Sink and a Bison?

I didn't see this, Ups. In fact, this is the first I've heard of it! (my interest being what it is in big Brother).

Well, boundaries are always being pushed on the media - soon it will be the real thing! Mind you, I'd rather witness that than a hanging.

I watched the rerun of Palin in the Sahara - I hadn't watched it the first time for some reason which escapes me. It's surprising how much there is to see in a desert region.

[Upsetter]

I remember Ginger Baker doing a documantary on the Desert - or african drumming to be more precise.

He was asked what he thought about the Sahara?

"Yeah Man...Sand, Sand and more Sand...nuthin but bloody Sand!"

David Attenborough still managed to hang onto his job - god knows how!

[moonbeam here]

upsetter said:

I remember Ginger Baker doing a documantary on the Desert - or african drumming to be more precise.

He was asked what he thought about the Sahara?

"Yeah Man...Sand, Sand and more Sand...nuthin but bloody Sand!"

David Attenborough still managed to hang onto his job - god knows how!

I remember.

Actually, only two things stick in my mind; one is Ginger's attempts to play the talking drum without hitting his fingers with the stick and his attempts at a poetic voice-over on the precious nature of water while showing film of him peeing up the tyre of his landrover.

[Captain Nudnick]

Why do you all watch this junk?

[Crusoe]

captainnudnick said:

Why do you all watch this junk?

Big Brother or Ginger Baker documentaries, Captain? I don’ think any of us do watch Big Brother.

The problem with Big Brother is that it suffers from a law of diminishing returns. Initially it was a new idea that was intriguing, if voyeuristic: stick a bunch of strangers in a house together and spy on them to see what happens. But once you’ve done it, you’ve done it. With each series, in order to try and generate interest, they’ve tried to find more and more freakish characters and put them in more and more extreme situations. But once you’ve gone down the route of looking to shock and titillate, once you’ve shocked or titillated it takes more to do it next time. How long before they have axe-murderer Big Brother, I wonder (at least it could have the benefit of being a mercifully short series).

As for whether we are progressing or not, I don’t think that you can really measure these things by TV pandering to the lowest common denominator.

[Upsetter]

I think the highlight was looking at Bakers car - he was competing in the Paris-Dacca rally - hanging in a tree over a clifftop with a treacherous cliff face. Completely bonkers.

He breeds Polo ponys in South Africa. Well someone has to.

[Upsetter]

The very first one was mildly interesting because of the class-divide between the upper-class twit from public school who'd do anything devious or underhand to actually win the game and the warm lovable scouser who was generous to a fault and gave all the winnings to a thalomide girl to get a heart and lung op.

That was about the sum of its interest - after that it was downhill all the way as GR says.

[Captain Nudnick]

webb said:

captainnudnick said:

Why do you all watch this junk?

Big Brother or Ginger Baker documentaries, Captain? I don’ think any of us do watch Big Brother.

The problem with Big Brother is that it suffers from a law of diminishing returns. Initially it was a new idea that was intriguing, if voyeuristic: stick a bunch of strangers in a house together and spy on them to see what happens. But once you’ve done it, you’ve done it.

I read about the format before they ever made a programme, and just knew it was going to be rotten... so never watched it, or any subsequent 'reality' programme.

[Upsetter]

Well 'Cathy Come Home' was a 'reality programme' of sorts.

Discuss.

[Crusoe]

The problem with what gets called “reality TV” is that it’s so unreal. In fact “Cathy Come Home” is probably the complete opposite, in that it featured actors portraying a real story, whilst “reality TV” involves non-actors in a completely false situation.

It’s not all as bad as “Big Brother” and it’s such a vague title that it applies to all manner of tacky gameshow type things, as well as, occasionally, more interesting programmes which have a documentary or educational edge (albeit not a particularly mentally stimulating one, as a whole). Do things like “Property Ladder” count as “reality TV”? There are some serious points made about property development but, since it is something that most people have no interested in, the majority of viewers just enjoy the voyeuristic pleasure of watching other people have their plans go wrong. .

[Captain Nudnick]

upsetter said:

Well 'Cathy Come Home' was a 'reality programme' of sorts.

Discuss.

It was drama, scripted, and performed by actors. 'Nuff said.

[Upsetter]

captainnudnick said:

upsetter said:

Well 'Cathy Come Home' was a 'reality programme' of sorts.

Discuss.

It was drama, scripted, and performed by actors. 'Nuff said.

Oh dear. So it was, Dirk.

When *was* the first 'reality programme and did anyone have the misfortune to watch it.

Actually wasn't there a programme called '7 Up' which was oddly compelling come to think of it. As for 'Cathy Come Home' it was pretty dire...lots of screaming kids and screaming mothers. A sort of precursor to 'Eastenders'.

Dear me, back to reading Rene Guenons 'We're All Going To Hell In A Handcart' .

[Upsetter]

I read a very interesting statistic the other day. Apparently people with a broadband connection PC watch 2 hours less T.V. a day.

With a dial-up its one and a half hours. I thought it was just me that was a bit over obsessed with the paraphernalia of the web. Hmm..

[Naberius]

I'll believe that statistic, Upsetter. I myself could live without television (and books... and even a radio, actually, as long as I have me mp3s) but not without my trusty broadband connection. This pirate of the internet settles only for those great hulking pipes of bandwidth for lootin' and plunderin'. Give me bandwidth or give me death.

I can scarcely hold a steady conversation about what's on television - I'll be darned if I have an inkling as to what you all are talking about on here. I do have a weakness for a few shows, and I do like the occasional movie...

(Rated ARRRRRrrrr, of course...)