Simon Doonan at Slate.com pisses and moans on and on about how as a society we are all fetished up with the Kardashians. It isn't like in his day - or that of his parents or grandparents - when accomplishment and talent was truly respected, he says.
I've blogged so much about this type of thing, I doubt I even have to make most of arguments again. Doonan ignores two hugely important facts:
A) every society and culture and time period has had its "cupcakes." Way back when it was gladitorial fighting, then it was coming out parties and Queens and Kings and Barons and courts and then it became movie stars and comic books and on and on. Most if not all of those "cupcakes" are forgotten about 30 years on, so of course today's offerings appear worse. When you compare Bieber or Spears to only the best of what survived from decades ago, of course today is going to pale in comparison. But was Elvis really so much more accomplished? One of the few really insightful comments is from a reader of Victorian novels who notes that even in those works - written in the 1800s - people complain about the disrespectful youth and downfall of culture and society.
B) As more and more people learn to read and have access to television, of course the interests of those people are going to dominate the media more. This isn't a dumbing down of America or the world or a refutation of science, its just that people who 100 years ago would have gossiped in pubs can now read, and so they read People or US or watch the Kardashians or Real Housewives. To this extent, TV now more closely represents what the U.S. always was. When rich, educated people have 90 percent of all the televisions you would expect the fare to be tailored to them. It stands to reason that when they represent only 10 percent of the viewership, the programming is going to be less tailored to them.
And some of the commenters are the best. They run about 80 agreeing, 5 percent contradicting Doonan, and 15 percent saying "don't lump me in with 'those people'" This last group posts things like: "Kim who?" "Sports schmortz, we don't watch them." "When people ask what us about the game we say 'is there someone playing something'" - as if not knowing about pop culture somehow makes one smarter or superior. But its not as if one can't know both who S. Hawking or R. Dawkins are while at the same time knowing of K. Kardashian or Fletcher Cox (Eagles draft pick). I know of all four. I also know that - contrary to many of the commentors - there is plenty of good television programs. And lots of it doesn't appear on PBS. Channels like Science, Discovery and the like produce shows like "How Its Made" and shows featuring science giants like Hawking and Machu.
Some other comments I like: 80 of people are idiots (excepting, I'm guessing, the commentor and his friends, who probably don't follow such mundane things as sports and television stars)
As one of the commentors noted, there is an entire South Park episode dedicated to S. Hawking - how much more pop culture, Red Carpet, can you get?
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