What's Really Good

Remember when you were watching that episode of The Real World (insert any city) and you were all like, “Man the first season of Real World was so ground-breaking and innovative, and now it’s such formulaic sex and booze-driven garbage!” Then you proceeded to watch every episode with baited breath to see if big boobs McThinkslow would get hammered and start a fight with the flamboyant gay guy over who can use the hot tub’s moon roof? Yeah, I did it too.

We all know it’s not real and chastise those who like and watch what we personally deem as contrived drama. But we all have our show; ya know, the one that obviously is not contrived or stupid. Why? What do you mean, why? Because the characters are just so intriguing and who is going to get kicked off next? And if Howie blames one more person for his mistakes then I’m just going to…see what I mean. So what is my point you may ask, gentle reader; my point is that this marketing strategy creates an environment where despite our best defensive mechanisms we are rendered helpless to its overriding captivating powers. You can resist 98% of it but that other 2% can be like heroin (or meth or whatever the kids are doing); The Cosbys, The Banks, and even the fucking Tanners never did this to me.

Imagine you’re driving past a car crash, trying to act uninterested, self-righteously judging those who have the audacity to be looking and all the while slowing down to a comfortable speed for glancing, contributing to a stagnation in the flow which makes the system work. In a society that finds its arts expendable in public schools, its news resembling tabloids, and its brightest stars famous for rehab stints, we appear content in a dumbfounded captivated state and not nearly as inquisitive as the arts should inspire us to be. We are nearing rock bottom in our ability to recognize the way our entertainment standards are dangerously declining. Our passions run deep in the most shallow and passionless of venues; while talent and art are being replaced with controversy and loud noisiness, we become forgetful and numb to what arts provide for us as humans. Forgetful of our past and content with the gluttonous consumption of our present, the road being forged by entertainment is one of little integrity and little concern for the legacy it will lay as future inspiration.

My little cousin will not have music or theatre at his middle school this year. But, he has a myspace page, loves VH1’s “The Pick Up Artist,” and I’m taking him to see Pretty Ricky later this month. Can we solve these problems before that please?