Damn, the longer I go without posting, the harder it is to get back to posting…Good thing this isn’t my full-time job.
But here’s a thought that I did want to get out there: last night I watched the classic 1976 film Network, and the movie doesn’t seem like satire of the television industry so much as an uncanny prediction of where things are heading.
Network news divisions being driven by entertainment value? Already done. Laughable, undeniably biased newscasters? No problem. Crazy newscasters? Been there, done that.
And what about reality TV? In Network the network airs the “Mao Tse Tung Television Hour,” showing real-life footage of bank robberies, kidnappings, assassinations, and so on. How different is this from what we have now? America’s Most Dangerous Car Chases. When Animals Attacks. And the mother of them all: COPS.
Oddly, as John Langley, the creator and executive producer of COPS, admits in an interview on Court TV: Talk, he used to be an “academic.” Is this my future, I wonder?…