C
Crescentinus
Guest
Should I compare shows from the coasts (New York and Hollywood) to ones from out here in the Far East?
- Status
P
prodigalson2011
Guest
Don’t depress us.
L
Lost_Sheep
Guest
Actually, it was Ozzie and Harriet. The producers felt that since Ozzie and Harriet were married in real life, then it was OK to show them in bed.
C
Crescentinus
Guest
Hooray!Don’t depress us.
Before anyone says that I demonize the West, let it be known that I am not doing so nor do I even try to intend that I do so. It’s just that, mainstream Western media these days is highly lacking in entertainment value and actual moral examples.
Let’s compare sitcoms first.
American sitcoms are hardly hilarious due to the fact that it’s more about indoctrination into behaving badly and sexual perversion than anything else.
Asian sitcoms on the other hand, are a lot saner. I’ll give an example of an Asian sitcom since most of us are familiar with Western ones.
The famous American sitcom “Two and a Half Men” tends to treat the child as a tool for very weak comedy and that the “men” in the sitcom are manchildren.
Korea’s first youth sitcom, “3 Guys and 3 Girls”, is about 6 college students/boarders and their lives. It does not contain tons of sexual innuendo, it is hardly boring and it gives a very good understanding of life (and a funny one at that) in late 1990’s South Korea. The comedy in it is not a very desperate one nor a forced one, since it flows naturally. This is also because the characters have their own strengths and flaws.
Now, we go into animation. I’m very excited for this one.
One of the most famous Western cartoons these days is “The Amazing World of Gumball”. The way it treats fathers is hardly a decent one, since it’s the mothers who are looked upon as the coolest characters. If anything, it teaches children, teens and young adults that fathers are idiots and that mothers should be listened to more.
Back when I was growing up, I did not see such types of cartoons from the West. The American cartoon “Rocko’s Modern Life” is not just funny, it also does not denigrate parenthood.
The Japanese anime “Atashin’chi” (roughly translates to “my family”) tends to show a very good understanding of family life in Japan. All of the characters have their own strengths and weaknesses no less, but they are not dysfunctional wrecks.
As for the animation category, more will follow.
I’ll do some more later. Just show me some more mainstream Western examples.
E
edwest2
Guest
In the past, people didn’t become disillusioned; a few deviant, pervert, “pushing the envelope” types caused it. The average person did not write TV shows, the average person did not produce TV shows. And TV does not reflect reality today, with the evidence being the garbage that’s on it. How many of you reading this are actually - in real life - as dysfunctional as the fantasy people you see on TV?The frog/boiling water analogy comes to mind. Retrospectively, one can see the fine gradient by which TV programming has little by little, word by word, lewd joke by lewd joke, from innuendo to blunt talk to full out sex scene, become more and more base and animalistic. Compare Three’s Company to Friends, Friends to Two and a Half Men. Two and a Half Men being all the more despicable in involving a child in its crass excuse for comedy which is little more than a paean to decadence and promiscuity (even Alan, the “good one”, seems to be ever on the search for a “booty call.”)
The most disheartening thing is that shows of that sort have not only become the norm, but the overwhelming majority. Even networks like ABC Family, Disney and Nickelodeon push sexual and political agendas; it’s no longer children’s entertainment, it’s broadcast indoctrination.
One need look no further than the world around them to see the results. I agree somewhat with Bradski. Upon its advent, television depicted ideals; “fantasy worlds” if you will. With the massive cultural “revolution” of the 60s, people became “disillusioned” and wanted more realistic representations of life in their entertainment. But if art imitates life, so too does life imitate art. I think the cycle is pretty obvious to the careful observer. We feed our reality into the media, where it becomes exaggerated and overblown; this exaggeration, after so much overexposure to and immersion within it (consider the amount of time the average person spends watching TV), then begins to manifest itself in the lives of the viewing public. This new mutation is then fed into the media machine and the cycle begins anew. It seems like, unless people wake up, this process will continue until our society completely decays.
That’s one cynic’s opinion anyway.
After Walt Disney died, his brother couldn’t take up the slack, so the company was purchased by an outsider who cared only about power and money.
Our society just needs to throw their TVs in the trash and not listen to the propaganda. It’s not art. Definitely not.
There was no cultural revolution, there was a Sex WITHOUT LOVE Revolution.
Peace,
Ed
L
LightBound
Guest
I get what you are saying about Hollywood, but in all charity, the Far East is not the promised land…don’t even get me started on the amount of human trafficking and underage prostitution and depravity that goes on there. Not to mention the dire “third world poverty”.
E
edwest2
Guest
Was that last part really necessary? Seriously? Instead of addressing the topic, you’re derailing it by pointing out things that have nothing to do with the topic.
Peace,
Ed
C
Crescentinus
Guest
I am perfectly aware of that.
I am simply comparing the entertainment values produced by the two lands. The Far East is not perfect, that is true. Hence I ask, what’s your point? You tried to derail a perfectly valid comparison.
E
edwest2
Guest
Your last question has an easy answer, TV does not reflect real society in any way, shape or form. It has gradually turned into the Propaganda machine in your living room - or wherever you watch TV. There’s nothing to question.
TV writers and producers - not you and me - carefully plan what they called “pushing the envelope,” The full phrase being “Pushing the envelope of what most people find acceptable.” Which people? Mostly Christian people.
Peace,
Ed
D
Debora123
Guest
LOL ain’t that the truth…
L
lerapt78
Guest
This brings up an interesting question: Does TV reflect our culture, or is our culture more influenced by what we see?
I think of the example I offered “Housewives of Orange County”. Would it be honest to presume that prior to this show, women didn’t gossip or form psychological sneak attacks on other women behind their backs? As much as I would like to think so, I believe the answer is no. I think being catty and manipulative are mostly negative feminine traits that have always been around (even if I can’t go back in time to prove it, and even though I realize that yes, there are exceptions to this generalization). My issue with popular programming is that instead of pushing us by influence to frown upon our negative attributes, it exploits them for entertainment purposes.
E
edwest2
Guest
Then what we are watching is not entertainment, it’s bad behavior packaged into all kinds of different shows. A lot of bad examples of how bad people can be. And the young, some of them are going to assume that some of this behavior is average or OK or normal.
Kids and adults need good role models, not Gossip Girl.
Peace,
Ed
L
lerapt78
Guest
Agreed. And I think the majority of my opposition stems from the fact that these “role models” are presented to young, ultra-impressionable teenagers.
L
LightBound
Guest
I’m sorry if you feel offended or that I was derailing. I have noticed that whenever a controversial topic comes up, you have on more than a couple of occasions stated that you don’t have that problem in the Far East. Those comments seem to imply (at least to me) that you felt the West was the root of all evil. I did see that you kindly posted you weren’t trying to demonize the West and I apologize if I have offended you.
L
LightBound
Guest
Ed, I am sorry if I derailed your thread and offended you. You are quite passionate about these things and I can see that you are upset. And yes, I did feel my last comment was necessary because I felt the person I was replying to seems to be under the impression that his land of the Far East is without any problems. I have since addressed his reply to me an apologized for offending him.
E
edwest2
Guest
C
Crescentinus
Guest
Well, I was telling the truth that at least some of the problems the West has is not found here in the Far East. I did say earlier that I’m not demonizing the West.
I forgive you.
Note: When I say the Far East, I am referring not just to China, Taiwan, North Korea, South Korea, Japan and Mongolia. I am also referring the Philippines, Brunei, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam and Myanmar.
Back to the discussion.
The media shown here in the Far East is far from perfect. I’ll give you an example from Taiwan.
The Taiwanese drama “Meteor Garden” is a drama remake of the famous Japanese manga/anime “Hana Yori Dango” (translation: Boys Over Flowers).
“Meteor Garden” was lacking in character development, the plot went over the top so as to compensate for weaknesses within the plot, it overcompensated with how good-looking the male protagonists are, it did not do justice to “Hana Yori Dango” and it was ultimately a drama to promote the Taiwanese boyband F4 (now called JVKV). And yes, all 4 members of F4 did act in “Meteor Garden” as the male protagonists.
When it was shown here in the Far East (mostly in Taiwan, mainland China and parts of Southeast Asia), I’ve seen HORDES of fangirls and fangays (yes, a lot of gay men loved it) went gaga over it. They did not like the story, the female protagonist nor any level of character development. Most of the did not even know that it was a remake of “Hana Yori Dango” nor even knew what “Hana Yori Dango” was in the first place. They ONLY liked the good-looking male protagonists. That was why F4 became famous for around a year (mid 2003 - early 2005) before fading into insignificance.
M
misterelm
Guest
Innuendo is by no means new, and by no means any more apparent in the last four decades than it has been in the last four centuries or more.
Take a look at art, poetry, music of the Enlightenment period, take it back even to the Renaissance. Catch songs and other secular minstrel works and troubadoria are the worst offenders, but you will find shocking things in even the most sacred works of Handel etc.
Here’s an example for you, a Catch tune composed I want to say in 1816, possibly earlier, sometimes even credited to Josquin Des Prez!
“My man John had a thing that was long, my maid Mary had a thing that was hairy.”
It tells the tale of a Maid with a broken broom (she only had the bristle end), and a Man who had a pole with which to fix it. A completely innocent story and subject, but written in such horrible ambiguity, hundreds of years ago.
Bring it a little closer to home, look at any Art songs that use the phrases “bring me to death”, or “ultimate death”, close inspection of the lyrics reveals a clear and direct association with sexual climax.
This isn’t new at all, we’re just getting more brazen about it.
Beatles “Cecilia”
The TV show “Three’s Company”
There are hundreds of example from every era, not just the last 40 years. What’s more interesting about the past is the same person who composed The Messiah or the person who composed Historia De Jephte or any number of Passions, who was employed by the Catholic church, also composed this music where if the lyrics were modernized, they would be just as Vulgar.
And the trend is always the same, my mom grows up and my minister grandfather and all of his minister friends and the entire religious community shuns Elvis and the Beatles, slaps my mom around when they get caught listening to it. My girlfriend’s dad, arrested and beaten in Vietnam for listening to the Beatles.
40 years later kids in Youth Groups are singing and dancing along, everyone seemingly ignorant of the fact that the song they are listening to is a direct condonement of pre-marital sex. Innocence is not something that just dropped off the map in the 80s, it really never existed in the first place.
People who work in entertainment, musicians, composers, writers, actors. They always will be pushing the social boundaries, they always will be seeing what they can get away with. Why? Because there was a very long time, not too long ago, where you could have been executed for doing so, where you weren’t allowed to try something completely crazy that you personally know is wrong or against your own morals, but publish it anyway because you know it will make someone double-take. Where if the music or stories you wrote did not please the dictator at the time, the church, the royalty, your life was ended then and there.
The beauty of most societies these days is you can choose. You can choose not to watch it, you can choose to flip to another of the 800+ channels that exists on American cable networks. I personally would not want to live in a world where creativity was censored, if I don’t like something I don’t watch it, plain and simple. The fact is the media brings to light more issues than anything else. Remember Racism? Civil Rights? Anti-German attitudes post WWII? Any number of social problems tackled by brazen TV shows and movies that were seen as vulgar or distasteful, take the movie Guess Who depicting an interracial relationship. When stuff like this comes out it means that more people will talk about it now than ever before, for better or for worse, that’s why we choose to live in a democratic society.
Take a look at art, poetry, music of the Enlightenment period, take it back even to the Renaissance. Catch songs and other secular minstrel works and troubadoria are the worst offenders, but you will find shocking things in even the most sacred works of Handel etc.
Here’s an example for you, a Catch tune composed I want to say in 1816, possibly earlier, sometimes even credited to Josquin Des Prez!
“My man John had a thing that was long, my maid Mary had a thing that was hairy.”
It tells the tale of a Maid with a broken broom (she only had the bristle end), and a Man who had a pole with which to fix it. A completely innocent story and subject, but written in such horrible ambiguity, hundreds of years ago.
Bring it a little closer to home, look at any Art songs that use the phrases “bring me to death”, or “ultimate death”, close inspection of the lyrics reveals a clear and direct association with sexual climax.
This isn’t new at all, we’re just getting more brazen about it.
Beatles “Cecilia”
The TV show “Three’s Company”
There are hundreds of example from every era, not just the last 40 years. What’s more interesting about the past is the same person who composed The Messiah or the person who composed Historia De Jephte or any number of Passions, who was employed by the Catholic church, also composed this music where if the lyrics were modernized, they would be just as Vulgar.
And the trend is always the same, my mom grows up and my minister grandfather and all of his minister friends and the entire religious community shuns Elvis and the Beatles, slaps my mom around when they get caught listening to it. My girlfriend’s dad, arrested and beaten in Vietnam for listening to the Beatles.
40 years later kids in Youth Groups are singing and dancing along, everyone seemingly ignorant of the fact that the song they are listening to is a direct condonement of pre-marital sex. Innocence is not something that just dropped off the map in the 80s, it really never existed in the first place.
People who work in entertainment, musicians, composers, writers, actors. They always will be pushing the social boundaries, they always will be seeing what they can get away with. Why? Because there was a very long time, not too long ago, where you could have been executed for doing so, where you weren’t allowed to try something completely crazy that you personally know is wrong or against your own morals, but publish it anyway because you know it will make someone double-take. Where if the music or stories you wrote did not please the dictator at the time, the church, the royalty, your life was ended then and there.
The beauty of most societies these days is you can choose. You can choose not to watch it, you can choose to flip to another of the 800+ channels that exists on American cable networks. I personally would not want to live in a world where creativity was censored, if I don’t like something I don’t watch it, plain and simple. The fact is the media brings to light more issues than anything else. Remember Racism? Civil Rights? Anti-German attitudes post WWII? Any number of social problems tackled by brazen TV shows and movies that were seen as vulgar or distasteful, take the movie Guess Who depicting an interracial relationship. When stuff like this comes out it means that more people will talk about it now than ever before, for better or for worse, that’s why we choose to live in a democratic society.
E
edwest2
Guest
Very, very strange that anyone would know a little ditty from 1816.
You’ve proved part of my point, the last 40 years have seen movies and TV shows turn into propaganda pieces. If you want real dialogue with real facts and real people then watch 60 Minutes or Meet the Press or a real investigative report.
The media is controlled by people whose first concern is making money, closely followed by making sure the TV stations, newspapers, magazines and radio stations they own publish articles and stories that promote their point of view. Period.
I am for censorship in the case of any TV show that damages the morals of those watching it, like Two and a Half Men.
And I will complain. fcc.gov/guides/obscenity-indecency-and-profanity
Peace,
Ed
S
Seeker1961
Guest
There are these two wonderful inventions that can solve that entire problem: the remote and the off switch. Nobody is holding a gun to anyone’s head and forcing them to consume what the media is producing.
- Status