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TV shows are going way too far to attract viewers

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March 27, 2024, 12:55:24 pm Mark says: Shocked Shocked Shocked Shocked  When Hamas spokesman Abu Ubaida began a speech marking the 100th day of the war in Gaza, one confounding yet eye-opening proclamation escaped the headlines. Listing the motives for the Palestinian militant group's Oct. 7 massacre in Israel, he accused Jews of "bringing red cows" to the Holy Land.
December 31, 2022, 10:08:58 am NilsFor1611 says: blessings
August 08, 2018, 02:38:10 am suzytr says: Hello, any good churches in the Sacto, CA area, also looking in Reno NV, thanks in advance and God Bless you Smiley
January 29, 2018, 01:21:57 am Christian40 says: It will be interesting to see what happens this year Israel being 70 years as a modern nation may 14 2018
October 17, 2017, 01:25:20 am Christian40 says: It is good to type Mark is here again!  Smiley
October 16, 2017, 03:28:18 am Christian40 says: anyone else thinking that time is accelerating now? it seems im doing days in shorter time now is time being affected in some way?
September 24, 2017, 10:45:16 pm Psalm 51:17 says: The specific rule pertaining to the national anthem is found on pages A62-63 of the league rulebook. It states: “The National Anthem must be played prior to every NFL game, and all players must be on the sideline for the National Anthem. “During the National Anthem, players on the field and bench area should stand at attention, face the flag, hold helmets in their left hand, and refrain from talking. The home team should ensure that the American flag is in good condition. It should be pointed out to players and coaches that we continue to be judged by the public in this area of respect for the flag and our country. Failure to be on the field by the start of the National Anthem may result in discipline, such as fines, suspensions, and/or the forfeiture of draft choice(s) for violations of the above, including first offenses.”
September 20, 2017, 04:32:32 am Christian40 says: "The most popular Hepatitis B vaccine is nothing short of a witch’s brew including aluminum, formaldehyde, yeast, amino acids, and soy. Aluminum is a known neurotoxin that destroys cellular metabolism and function. Hundreds of studies link to the ravaging effects of aluminum. The other proteins and formaldehyde serve to activate the immune system and open up the blood-brain barrier. This is NOT a good thing."
http://www.naturalnews.com/2017-08-11-new-fda-approved-hepatitis-b-vaccine-found-to-increase-heart-attack-risk-by-700.html
September 19, 2017, 03:59:21 am Christian40 says: bbc international did a video about there street preaching they are good witnesses
September 14, 2017, 08:06:04 am Psalm 51:17 says: bro Mark Hunter on YT has some good, edifying stuff too.
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Author Topic: TV shows are going way too far to attract viewers  (Read 879 times)
Mark
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« on: April 10, 2016, 10:01:06 pm »

TV shows are going way too far to attract viewers

For nearly two decades, we’ve been told that this is the Golden Age of Television: the smartest, deepest storytelling, the most nuanced and morally complex characters, are found here.
Perhaps it’s time for a reconsideration.

Thursday night, on ABC’s “Scandal,” Olivia Pope, the protagonist — long established in the show’s vernacular as a “white hat,” or good guy — beat a wheelchair-bound stroke victim to death by pulping his face with an aluminum chair.

It was a lengthy scene, and even for a Shonda Rhimes soap that bills itself weekly on “OMG twists” — gruesome scenes of torture and dismemberment, politically expedient murders and illegitimate war, ****, kidnapping, blackmail, and one interminable scene where an imprisoned terrorist chewed through her own wrist to escape — this one was morally and artistically bankrupt.

“One of the worst things I’ve ever seen on television,” said the Onion’s AV Club.

“Making Liv an outright murderer? Come on,” wrote a commenter on Vulture. “Although knowing this show, in about three episodes it will be as if this never happened.”

Today, the Golden Age is in the throes of an arms race, with show runners attempting to out-shock their audiences week-to-week, churning out melodrama without consequence.

Last week, on HBO’s “Girls,” Lena Dunham’s Hannah, teaching at a junior high school, responded to her principal’s warnings about unprofessional behavior by exposing her **** — to him and the audience. Outlandishly, it saved her job.

On “Mr. Robot,” a highly-acclaimed USA program, one character strangles another to death during a rooftop tryst, for no discernable reason. His pregnant wife then stabs herself in the uterus, with a fondue fork, to induce labor when the cops arrive.

The sophisticated spy thriller “The Americans” features a plotline about a grown man seducing a 15-year-old girl. Carrie Mathison, anti-heroine of “Homeland,” fell in love with a terrorist, had his baby, then tried to kill the infant. She kept custody and continued, of course, to work with the US government.

On the most recent season of “House of Cards,” First Lady Claire Underwood — who we’re meant to find more sympathetic than her amoral, homicidal husband Frank — kills her mother, via lethal injection, during an election cycle for voter sympathy.

There is no camp here; the scene is played straight, somber, all amber hues and meaningful looks. We are meant to infer guilt and regret, as if that makes everything OK.

In a post-“Sopranos” landscape, moral transgression automatically signifies high art. Infanticide, incest, pedophilia, matricide, torture, ****, castration, cannibalism, mass murder — all are now commonly employed tropes meant to signify quality.

“It’s almost hard to fathom how far we’ve come in such a short time,” says Brett Martin, author of “Difficult Men: Behind the Scenes of a Creative Revolution.” Martin agrees that “The Sopranos,” which premiered on HBO in 1999, is responsible for the programming we see today. Before Tony Soprano, American TV audiences had never been so consistently exposed to a charming psychopath, one who so nimbly evoked fear, revulsion, sympathy, affection, horror.

“The degree to which ‘The Sopranos’ and its kind were a shock is incredible,” Martin says. “We’re still in the grips of that.”

“The Sopranos” spawned a hunger for antiheroes: “The Shield,” “Damages,” “Dexter,” “Rescue Me,” “Mad Men,” “Breaking Bad,” “Sons of Anarchy,” “The Walking Dead,” “Homeland,” “House of Cards,” “The Americans,” “Girls,” “unREAL,” “Mr. Robot,” and, of course, “Game of Thrones” — these are just some of its direct descendants.

Each of these shows are peopled with characters that range from sinister to sociopathic. Anyone remotely sympathetic in these worlds is always the stooge, the too-trusting idiot who elicits contempt from the audience.

In November, The Atlantic ran a bracket “to find the most terrible person on television.” There were 32 contestants, ranging from cannibalistic serial killer Hannibal Lecter to the 20-something narcissists of HBO’s “Girls.”

Winner of that bracket, by the way: “Game of Thrones’” Ramsay Bolton, who, as one editor wrote, “has spent the majority of his screen time torturing people, feeding women to dogs, and sexually assaulting the teenaged Sansa Stark on the night of their (forced) marriage. He does almost all of this with an impish grin on his face.”

Until last season, “Game of Thrones,” with its literary pedigree and HBO halo, was unassailable: there was no level of degeneracy or debasement the audience wouldn’t stomach. This was the highest art premium cable had to offer.

Then came two scenes that were not in the books: First, the **** of Sansa Stark, which caused thousands of fans, including a member of Congress, to erupt on Twitter.

“OK, I’m done with ‘Game of Thrones,’ ” tweeted Sen. Claire McCaskill. “Gratuitous **** scene disgusting and unacceptable.”

Then came the burning of a child, alive at the stake, by her own father.

“A little girl burned alive? Seriously? I honestly didn’t think they’d go there,” tweeted another viewer.

“Game of Thrones: the show that made dragons, ****, and child prostitution fashionable,” wrote another. “You go, HBO.”

    ‘At a certain point, as always happens in Hollywood or culture in general, a set of superficial things come to stand in for quality: sex, violence, moral complication.’
     - Brett Martin, author of 'Difficult Men: Behind the Scenes of a Creative Revolution'

Last December, “GoT” director Jeremy Podeswa, who directed the **** scene, said the show’s creators “were responsive to the discussion, and there were a couple of things changed as a result.”

Podeswa himself said that he found value in the audience challenging the “use of violence as a narrative tool . . . and the questionable nature of that.”

Other show runners are questioning their own motivations. Joe Weisberg, creator of FX’s critically-acclaimed “The Americans,” recently said he and the show’s writers grapple with what’s true to the characters.

“It may be that our sense of bad is changing,” he told critic Alan Sepinwall. “When they poisoned that kid, we couldn’t believe we were having those guys do that. We have become somewhat inured ourselves, so maybe we have to up the ante for us to feel it ourselves. We have to have them kill and old lady with her own pills to make it feel so bad.”

Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised that it takes so much to shock us now. Like any art form, television is as much a reflection of the culture as a mover.

Look at the election cycle: Donald Trump, the GOP front-runner, is the first presidential nominee to come out of reality TV. Boasting about his **** size — totally in character.

The revival of the wholesome 1970s game show “Family Feud,” hosted by Steve Harvey, has recently been criticized for sexually explicit Q&As.

In two clips posted last September, Harvey asked a contestant to recall “the last thing you stuck your finger in.”

“My wife.”

“My favorite answer of all time,” Harvey said.

“Name the first part of a woman you touch to get her in the mood,” Harvey asked another panel.

“Um, that would be the lower part of the ****,” said one contestant, whom Harvey high-fived.

According to a survey released last week by Ipsos Public Affairs, 78% of Americans said they often heard people cursing in public, up 35% from ten years ago. It underscores the popularity of Donald Trump, who mouthed the word “f—ing” at a rally in New Hampshire and called Ted Cruz a “p—y.”

“It marks a huge shift in how we view politicians,” Ipsos senior research manager Kaitlyn McAuliffe said, “and what can work in a presidential campaign.”

Daniel Fienberg, television critic for the Hollywood Reporter, sees the connective tissue between pop culture and the presidential election cycle.

“I think it’s clear that we look at society and clearly don’t think it’s all white hats,” he says. “Presidential candidates used to be people you could look up to. Guess what? There are more antiheroes there, too.”

With few exceptions, there are scant, meaningful explorations of good and evil, action and consequence, to be found in our so-called Golden Age.

It’s worth remembering that David Chase, who created Tony Soprano, very artfully walked his audience up through the final season, in which he unmasked his antihero as an irredeemable psychopath. In doing so, he forced his audience to confront why we continued to overlook and excuse Tony’s most reprehensible actions, and what that says about our own susceptibilities to power, charm, wealth and fame.

“Breaking Bad” showrunner Vince Gilligan did a similar thing, making clear that his was a moral universe, and Walter White, no matter his or the audience’s justifications, had to be punished. He also admitted that he, too, once felt affection for his protagonist, but could no longer deny the evil Walter had done.

“I’ve lost sympathy for Walter White, personally,” he said in 2013, right before the final season aired. “My perceptions have changed . . . I didn’t think that was going to happen.”

Even then, Gilligan didn’t understand the unquenchable thirst for antiheroes. “Our viewing tastes are cyclical,” he told Vulture. “Five years from now, [people] might be asking, ‘You remember when everybody used to like antiheroes? People like the guy in the white hat again. How did that happen? What’s changed in America?’”

If the recent reactions to “GoT’ and “Scandal” are an indication, there may be a backlash to bad behavior — or at least bad storytelling.

“At a certain point, as always happens in Hollywood or culture in general, a set of superficial things come to stand in for quality: sex, violence, moral complication,” says Martin. “When done well, it’s the highest form of art. If it’s done poorly, and if that’s all you’ve got — the idea that quality is tied to immorality — you enter the realm of the absurd.”

http://nypost.com/2016/04/10/in-a-race-to-outshock-the-viewer-quality-shows-become-ever-more-immoral/
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« Reply #1 on: April 10, 2016, 11:05:38 pm »

A month ago, was at family's and they had some "sitcom" on CBS - I was shocked by all of the foul language they used - every sentence they were talking about fornicating and people's private parts. 20-30 years ago, even 10 years ago, these "family groups" would have expressed outraged (among others), now? You can hear a pin drip from 100s of miles away.

We're definitely living in a generation where the nations have forgotten God, and the bible has become an after-thought.
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« Reply #2 on: April 11, 2016, 02:26:59 pm »

The Devolution of Society: MTV Boasts 84 Curse Words and Multiple Profane References in 2 Hour Show
And this is why society will likely never become "more conservative."

Some might recall when MTV first launched in 1981 and actually played music videos. At the time, the concept seemed groundbreaking, and few realized the impact it would have on shaping a generation and our popular culture.

Over the last 35 years we've watched this once iconic television fall from grace, as music videos were systematically replaced by trashy reality shows and other mindless programming geared to the lowest common denominator.

A quick glance at MTV's recent 25th Annual Movie Awards perfectly illustrates what is wrong with society today, and why, as a nation, the political pendulum will likely only continue to swing leftward.

Newsbusters took a tally of the expletive-laden awards show and noted that no less than 84 expletives were uttered by show hosts and awards presenters. The profanity was not restricted to simply inappropriate words, however, as numerous other vulgar references were made throughout the program.

    In case you missed it (lucky you), MTV held its 25th Annual MTV Movie Awards hosted by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Chris Ro-- I mean, Kevin Hart. This dynamic duo managed to throw down no less than 18 curse words in the opening 9 minutes of the show. Johnson and Hart were so foul-mouthed even Amy Poehler joked that she would keep her acceptance speech clean in order to get more airtime.

    In total, the show amassed 84 inappropriate words including 32 F-bombs, and 11 Chinese toy dogs (shih tzu's...). All but one of those was caught by the censors. However, in MTV's opinion those were the only ones in need of bleeping. Ass (17), **** (12), Dick (6), and various blasphemies (5) were all available for your listening pleasure. Perhaps the worst compilation of cursing was an original song by Johnson and Hart....

    If you managed to get through the first half hour, it only got better. There was Zac Efron apologizing directly to Seth Rogan's testicles. Then there was a clip from a movie that showed a naked man's butt for several seconds. Perhaps Deadpool talking about touching himself is more to your liking and, if so, then the cast of “Suicide Squad” discussing semen, pubic hair and anal beads may have been the highlight of the show for you.

Funny, I recall a time seemingly not long ago when those "non-bleeped words" were verboten, too. Not anymore. Now those words are part of the lexicon on even network television. Some are even uttered by our president and vice president.

Today we may have access to an abundance -- an overload, even -- of information, but we do not become more intelligent. This is not to sound prudish, really, but there is something profoundly sad about how society has devolved.

To quote a colleague, we are in a state of "very, very low discourse."

http://www.truthrevolt.org/news/devolution-society-mtv-boasts-84-curse-words-and-multiple-profane-references-2-hour-show
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