The decline of MTV
Ubiquitous
their programming.
Let's address the evidence.
It all began innocently enough, twenty years ago with the original Real
World. However, during its run, the show has gone from young people with
lives that actually get to go out and live them (work, school, volunteer
work, etc.), to a sort of prizeless Big Brother. The show now focuses on
"drama" of alcohol, fighting and random sex with people who barely know
one another. This begat Road Rules, which initially followed the same
principle as Original Real World, only in an RV. RR, however,
bastardized itself into a sort of Fear Factor on wheels. No wonder it
was cancelled.
These two shows had a lot of people craving their appearance time (and
fees), so Bunim-Murray created the Challenges (Battle of the Sexes,
Gauntlet, Inferno, now the Island). This took all the worst elements of
RW (drinking, sex, fighting) and combined them with the worst elements
of RR (the disgusting stuff people will do for money).
In recent years, the programming has steadily gone downhill, into an
abyss of whorish behavior (A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila, Domenico's
show that slips my mind because I only saw the first episode, Next,
Exposed), the promotion of potentially illegal behavior (the recent
premiere of Busted, High School Stories senior prank stories [some
stories are actually inspirational, but I digress], Juvies, any and all
combination of the "whorish" shows' behavior), and the moronic
tendencies of their "rich, but not famous" shows (My Super Sweet
Sixteen, MSSS Exiled).
What makes this particularly disturbing is not the almost complete
elimination of music videos from the grid. That's old news. My problem
is that it takes away from more worthwhile programming. Shows that
actually show people with purpose, like The Paper, ABDC, and even G's to
Gents, are superceded by shows like Paris Hilton's upcoming reality show
and the antics of drunken idiots and often criminals. More disturbing to
me is that the programming actually seems to ask for sympathy for the
stupid things these people do. Am I seriously supposed to feel badly for
Tila Tequila because some of her suitors are bashing each others' brains
in or dumping her because they figured out it's only a show? Should I
feel badly for some idiot kid who jumped into the DONATED school
anniversary cake who goes to jail for a couple of hours? And I never did
feel comfortable with the implied idea that I'm supposed to laugh at
vandalism or other such criminal behavior.
In short, MTV needs to clean up its act and either bring back the music,
or else put on something worth watching.
--
It is simply breathtaking to watch the glee and abandon with which
the liberal media and the Angry Left have been attempting to turn
our military victory in Iraq into a second Vietnam quagmire. Too bad
for them, it's failing.
WQ
> In short, MTV needs to clean up its act and either bring back the music,
> or else put on something worth watching.
--- The problem is that there isn't any music to bring back. Just as
video killed the radio star, downloading has killed music and videos
for MTV. No, MTV will continue with the dumb and stupid stuff
because, after all, this is the Age of Dumb and Stupid.
Michael O'Connor
Butthead and Jackass.
Michael Black
But the non-music stuff preceeded the rise of MP3s.
Michael
Mason Barge
wrote:
>I completely believe that MTV is trying to promote stupidity through
>their programming.
>
[...]
>
>In short, MTV needs to clean up its act and either bring back the music,
>or else put on something worth watching.
You've got MY vote.
hobb...@yahoo.com
TV, IMPO, has long since jumped the shark, but no one dares to admit
it. Like, come on!! Do we really need to extend the 15:00 of fame of
Paris Hilton, P. Dorky, et al? Hmmmm, welllllllll.......OF COURSE
NOT!!!!
J. C. Gilbert
erilar
--
Mary Loomer Oliver (aka Erilar)
You can't reason with someone whose first line of argument is
that reason doesn't count. --Isaac Asimov
Erilar's Cave Annex: http://www.chibardun.net/~erilarlo
Andy P. Jung
news:2ad2e1b5-f95c-4944...@n33g2000pri.googlegroups.com...
Well, they do have a huge library of music videos since 1981 just collecting
dust that they could air out every once in a while on the regular MTV
channel. If not, they should just change the name to MTV Reality. Keeping
the MTV name makes as much sense as keeping The Nashville Network name with
Spike programming.
--
Andy P. Jung
Metairie, Louisiana U.S.A.
(on the Western side of the now infamous 17th Street Canal)
http://www.JungWorld.com/
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