Aside from an occasional football game, I do not watch television at home. However, once a year I take a one day trip out of town and I use the time in my hotel room to monitor what the nation is watching.
Last year, I stumbled upon Keeping Up With the Kardashians, which I had never seen before. I watched about fifteen minutes of it, and I couldn’t believe the stupidity of it all, and how bad the acting was. Even worse, the actors weren’t playing characters, they were playing themselves. If someone can’t even play themselves realistically, then they really have no talent.
I also spent some time last year watching Disney and Nickelodium (spelling?), and I was appalled at the way almost all of their shows subtlety, or not so subtlety, present sexuality to their young viewers. I also noticed that 90% of the so-called humor on these shows is based on ridicule and humiliation. I shudder at the thought of how many young viewers are losing their innocence and their souls by watching these shows. And how millions of clueless parents are so quick to plop their kids down in front of anything Disney, thinking the brand stands for wholesome entertainment, innocence and purity, when the reality is anything but.
This year, I scanned through a wide swatch of so-called “reality” shows, and they were all awful. I switched to sitcoms and comedy and was amazed at how unfunny they all were. I’m not saying that as some kind of conservative cynic, but as someone who has studied and worked in comedy, and who knows how to make people laugh. None of these shows were funny at all. Not even a sliver. Without their canned laughter, they’re nothing.
All of which begs the question, who watches this crap? And what is going on in their minds?
Obviously, millions of Americans watch this drivel. Not just millions, but tens of millions, hundreds of millions. They can’t all be Obama voters.
And what about the people who make these horrid shows? Maybe I’m old-fashioned, but I remember when acting was an art, and there was something that existed called talent. Have you ever been to an acting class? I’ve been to plenty. Actors used to be taught by professionals who stressed the importance of the director and the actors working together to serve the script or play. The ultimate goal was to honor God and elevate man. Today that’s all gone. Now it’s all emotion for emotions sake, and acting has been turned into a narcissistic display of self-expression. “Look at me!” is all anyone seems to care about, from the writers and directors to the actors to everyone in between.
I’ve heard television called the “boob tube” and the “hypnotist in the corner.” Both are apt descriptions. Consider the word “program.” Television networks are obsessed with “programming.” Viewers tune into their favorite “programs.” Where else does the word “program” appear? Well, in mind control, for one. Mind control subjects are “programmed.”
Perhaps that is what television has become: an ingenious device to dumb down the masses by programming their minds into whatever their handlers want them to believe. Vigilant Citizen and Henry Makow have both written extensively about this. So have many others. Instead of a Roman circus, the public is given an endless parade of talentless driven and told what to think, how to behave, and who to vote for. God help us all.
