We're a messed up country

[vraiblonde]

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/johnleo/jl20031013.shtml

Though still in prison, Joel Steinberg has a job lined up with a cable TV show in New York City. He qualified for this position--as field producer and perhaps as an on-camera interviewer--by committing a ghastly killing. He beat his illegally adopted 6-year-old daughter to death in 1987. The story hit the city hard. For almost a year, people placed flowers outside the brownstone where Lisa was killed. Soon they will be able to watch the killer try to parlay her death into a TV career.

*whew* - I was starting to think I'd imagined all this stuff or something. It just always amazes me when the media takes some criminal and erases their past.

Like Al Sharpton running for President - doesn't anyone remember the Tawana Brawley hoax? Yet he's got a good number of supporters. :shrug:

 

[vraiblonde]

Another one

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/michellemalkin/mm20030924.shtml

The celebrity pervert's name is Victor Salva. The scheming Salva wrote children's books, participated in the Big Brother program, and worked at a San Francisco-area daycare center where he met his prey. He molested the victim, Nathan Winters, from the time the boy was 7.

 

[Penn]

Reading through the short bios of these people and their misdeeds, makes one shake their head, wondering how these people even have the audacity to pursue the limelight - again!

It's an old adage to "forgive and forget", but some of these ogres have committed some pretty heinous acts. In many cases, it's as though they've received an award for their past crimes.

I'm afraid this is the state of things, where we've arrived - with "non-judgementalism".

 

[Bruzilla]

It's all about $$$$. The downside of the free enterprise system is that companies need to make money, and if people are willing to pay for crap from R. Kelly or watch Steinburg on TV, then there's no level too low for these companies to drop to.

 

[vraiblonde]

I agree wholeheartedly, Bru, that it's predominantly the fault of morons who buy the music, watch the shows, etc. But at some point, shouldn't we hold the media responsible?

It's just our whole degraded culture. Won't be long before we see out and out porn on prime time TV.

 

[Bruzilla]

Hold the media responsible for what? Giving the Public what it's asking for? Imagine if you released an Eminem CD back in the early 1900s (of course it would be a 78RPM wax disk and not a CD). What do you think would happen? There would be a types of moral outrage, the producers of the disk would be pillaried, and aside from a few fringe folks no one would buy the disk. And if no one's buying the disk, no more would be made.

Aside from NPR and public television and other subsidized media outlets, media companies won't stay for in business for long if they aren't making money. So I think the fact that these companies are not only staying in business, but are also making billions in profits, speaks volumes about what people will pay for. Until the public stands up and says "No" to this crap, the media folks will keep pumping it out.

Besides, how can't hold the media accountable. If you did, there would be no media. Imagine you pass a law that requires Death Row Records Inc. to quit making Rap CDs and start making Andy Williams' Greatest Hits Vol 16-25... Death Row would be on death row in a matter of weeks. Also, who's going to decide what's acceptable and what's not? Some half-a$$ed community board? A Federal commission? Do you really want someone like Pat Robertson or Nancy Pilosi deciding what you can watch or hear... I don't think so.

 

[vraiblonde]

Actually how it happens is that some band makes a CD, then the record companies promote it to the point it becomes "popular". So, in essence, the record companies and TV producers are telling you what to like.

It's not that people WANT that stuff. It's that they're trained to want it by the media. Most people, when confronted by Celebrity Boxing, would say, "That's absurd - I'm not watching that." Then they see endless promos for the show, making it look very exciting and fun. So they tune in and - BAM! - their intelligence gets sucked right down the drain, leaving them prone to more attacks by the relentless TV show makers.

 

[jlabsher]

Its the whole capitalist machine (don't get me wrong here...) Living in this part of the country I constantly see & hear car ads pushing the "status" quotient of certain cars. Didn't see that in the midwest. Here you have to "show them you've arrived" by driving a certain kind of car, etc.

I see it firsthand having kids. They have to have certain toys after seeing the ad on TV, when I ask them what the toy does, they have no idea, but the ad made them want it.

I'm guilty of it too, of course, but hopefully have enough brains not to get sucked in too much. I can tell I'm getting older when the commercials no longer make me want the stuff and I can't understand them, guess I'm not in the demographic group.

 

[Bruzilla]

Glad you mentioned Celebrity Boxing Vrai. That's an excellent example of what I'm talking about. It was stupid and pointless, boring and without merit. Now, how many times a week is it on TV? Answer: None. It was a gimmick show that wore out its welcome fast and disappeared quicker than the XFL. There were tons of commercials and advertisements for it, and yet its gone. Why? Because there was no market for it, and if there's no market there's no money, and if there's no money there's no celebrity boxing. Once again, and true to form, the public (not the media) determined what would live or die.

I assume that jlabsher's kids are still pretty young. I have a 17, 16, and 14 year old, and they are a lot more perceptive than the level he decribes his kids as being. As soon as something new comes out my kids are on the Internet checking it out, reading reviews, and reading magazines. They know pretty quick whether something lives up to the hype or not, especially with movies. When the previews start for a movie my kids will go "that looks good." Then in a few days I'll either hear "can we go see it this weekend?" or "I heard it sucks." Since I can't remember too many movie trailers that say "The must-see suckfest of the summer" I can only guess people are making up their own minds.

 

[vraiblonde]

Originally posted by Bruzilla
It was stupid and pointless, boring and without merit.

Then how do you explain Joe Millionaire being so successful that they're doing a second installment? :shrug: Or any of those other "I Want To Marry a Stranger For Money" shows? I mean, I can see some prurient interest in Jerry Springer or that one where they tried to get the couples to cheat on each other. At least American Idol is entertaining. But some of these shows that are wildly popular are just stupid.

Someone fess up to watching these shows and come tell us why you watched.

 

[Bruzilla]

You're mixing issues. The point is not trying to explain the popularity of Springer's show or Ludacris's music. The point is that if enough people are willing to shovel over enough money to make the release of these materials profitable, then the media companies will release them.

Like Celebrity Boxing, Joe Millionaire was such a potential trainwreck that people had to watch. The ratings on the sequel are in the basement, again - despite heavy media hyping, and there's little certainty that the show will even finish its run. No market, no money, no Joe... and that's a good thing. Speaking of relaity TV, what singer has ever been as heavilly hyped by the media than Kelly Clarkson, and where's her career now? My kids gag at the mention of her name.

 

[vraiblonde]

Bruzilla, which came first - the chicken or the egg? If promoting TV shows or CDs didn't get people to buy it, why would the entertainment industry spend so much money on advertising?

I just heard a promo for some new show that promised the steamiest sex scenes ever shown on TV. I think it's called Skin, or something like that? Anyway, why would they promote it that way if they weren't trying to sell you something?

Granted, there are tons of people who will watch specifically hoping to see steamy sex. But just because the viewing public wants that stuff, does it mean they should get it? What about live executions or that suicide thing that band was going to do on stage? Just because the public wants it and is willing to pay for it, does it mean they should get it?

Anyway, this stuff burns me up because it just makes my job as a parent that much harder. Call me lazy, but I'm tired of having to preview every CD, every TV show, every movie that my kids see hyped and advertised to them. Then they go to school and all the kids are saying that THEIR parents let them watch it, which makes the fight even harder.

 

[Hessian]

Hint of hope?

I heard yesterday the Millionaire show and Skin had very disappointing ratings despite their media blitz...
Male Viewers between 26-40 are fleeing prime-time TV for months now and some of the netwoorks are wringing their limp wrists.
We have been watching the gradual feminization of sports...soap operas recast for primetime, and shallow relationship reality TV creep in for years and....we aren't interested,...thus we don't see their new ads for the next line of trash and....we are costing them their sponsors.

Bring back Magnum PI,...SWAT...Inside the CIA and some of the male viewer might come back.

 

[Ken King]

Originally posted by vraiblonde
Bruzilla, which came first - the chicken or the egg?

It was the chicken according to what was in the joke section.

 

[Bruzilla]

"... which came first - the chicken or the egg?" Since I'm an agnostic who fully believes in the theory of evolution, I know that the egg came first. What layed the egg might not have been a chicken as we know it, but that's genetics for you.

"If promoting TV shows or CDs didn't get people to buy it, why would the entertainment industry spend so much money on advertising?" The entertainment industry spends gazillions of dollars advertising things that they think will sell. They base that on how similar items have sold or are selling. That's why they spend millions promoting Eminem and zero dollars promoting Andy Williams.

"I just heard a promo for some new show that promised the steamiest sex scenes ever shown on TV. I think it's called Skin, or something like that? Anyway, why would they promote it that way if they weren't trying to sell you something?" Why would they promote a tv show by teasing with "steamiest sex scenes ever?" If you don't know the answer to that question you don't as much about men as you think you do. Sex sells Vrai... rule number one of advertising, and it sells because we buy it!

"Granted, there are tons of people who will watch specifically hoping to see steamy sex. But just because the viewing public wants that stuff, does it mean they should get it? What about live executions or that suicide thing that band was going to do on stage? Just because the public wants it and is willing to pay for it, does it mean they should get it?" Once again, it's not a moral question, it's a matter of the free market economy. Personally, I don't think that The Suicide Channel would draw much of a crowd (too depressing) but I like the idea of The Execution Channel... great viewing for our prison population.

"Then they go to school and all the kids are saying that THEIR parents let them watch it, which makes the fight even harder." Vrai, were you one of those kids that when someone said "we'll split up... they can't get us all" you said okay and ran off by your lonesome to get stomped while everyone else stayed put? Whenever my kids hand me that line I just say "Great! Go on over to little Johnnie's house and watch the movie/play the game/listen to the CD over there."