I see disturbing trends in today’s popular culture. The glorification of self-abasement that is rampant in reality TV and the eroticizing of violence and gore in film leads me to wonder just what insane entertainment our society will come up with next.We seem to crave our fifteen minutes of fame and those of us that get it never seem to want to give it up. This need has evolved from incestuous siblings duking it out on the Jerry Springer Show to half dressed wannabe drag queens squalling on American Idol. We are plagued with shows like Fox’s More to Love and MTV's The Jersey Shore whose only claim to redemption is to allow viewers to see that their lives aren’t all that bad after all, somewhere out there is someone with less class, less talent and less pride than those watching. Paradoxically, this fuels the need, pushing thousands to try out for their chance to debase themselves in front of a camera.
This drive to be the center of attention fuels the nonsense of reality TV, leading to bizarre behavior from people who should know better, such as the parents of the now infamous balloon boy. In October of 2009 they claimed that their six year old son was trapped in a hot air balloon hoping to attract attention to their family and gain their own reality show. Their need to be famous led them to create a worldwide media hoax resulting in prison time, but I’m sure they’ll be on the next incarnation of Lockup.
As if this self-destructive drive for attention isn’t enough, TV shows and many films glorify and eroticize violence. The gore and blood fests of films such as Hannibal and The Hills have Eyes have become the new standard. With twisted minds such as Rob Zombie behind the camera we get to see everything from cannibalism to self –amputation, up close and personal, enhanced by Computer Generated effects so life like even the actors wonder if it’s real. In a culture that holds the natural intercourse between two people as a taboo subject our popular culture has replaced sex with the violence in its horror movies. With the advent of obscenly gory footage popularized by movies such as Saw, films increasingly use long panning and close up shots of bloodied victims to create a nearly pornographic sense of disgust in its audience. Cable TV shows have embraced this blood lust merrily with shows such as Starz’ Spartacus: Blood and Sand, which mixes vivid images of sex with an obscene splattering of bloody violence. This fusion of sex and violence only makes me wonder where entertainment media is going in the future.
I wonder at this future, when splatter-porn and reality TV merge to give us a reality show where two groups, one of men and one of women, battle to the death so the survivors can go on a date. Surprisingly, I don’t see this as too farfetched in a world where Jersey Shore and American Idol are considered good TV.
