Spring Break
Check it out, vol. X: As seen on TV, not you!
Ruben Casas
Issue date: 2/6/09 Section: Diversions
I have to ask: What happened to the average, run-of-the-mill, nothing-special televised American?
It used to be that the people we saw on TV were recognizable; there were shoe salesmen (Al Bundy in "Married with Children"), police officers (Carl Winslow in "Family Matters") and loud, unabashedly-dysfunctional housewives (Roseanne Barr in "Roseanne"). At most, members of the middle-class families of 90s sitcoms were tangentially famous - Danny Tanner was co-host of "Wake Up, San Francisco," Tim Taylor was co-host of "Tool Time" - so their roles where less about being on TV and more about being middle-class Americans.
Reality programming aside, a passing glance at current television listings will show us that those people have been replaced with super-famous, supernatural or super-special Americans: Vincent Chase, the A-list celebrity "star" of HBO's Entourage, all the characters in NBC's "Heroes" and FOX's "House," to name only a few. Heck, even a throw-away show like NBC's "Chuck," which I thought was nothing more than watered-down comedy about a retail geek is actually more extraordinary because (as my roommate informs me) about a secret agent. A retail secret agent!
In case you were feeling crappy about having to work at Ross over the summer, now you can feel even crappier because the one relatable television character you thought you had something in common is actually the government's top secret agent. In essence, you suck.
Interestingly, all these shows have audiences in the millions, and if I'm any indicator on what the majority of these audience members look like, most of us aren't famous, we don't posses super abilities and we aren't egotistical maniacs with an uncanny ability to diagnose rare medical disorders.
If I'm wrong I apologize - most of the people that I work, live and commiserate with, while brilliant in mind, are no more special than you.
Someone with more time and better pay might actually take my observations about the disparity between television subjects and television audiences a little bit further and attach it to Lou Dobbs' (never mind what you think of his political affiliations) premise in "War on the Middle Class: How the Government, Big Business, and Special Interest Groups Are Waging War on the American Dream and How to Fight Back" (2006) in which he argues that Clinton and Bush policies, which resulted in the elimination and outsourcing of manufacturing jobs, combined with the evangelical right's continued hounding of social issues such as abortion, gay rights and the Pledge of Allegiance in schools - a triad that, Dobbs argues, takes us further away from the issues truly affecting the common good, namely education and health care - represent outright warfare on "working men and women."
It used to be that the people we saw on TV were recognizable; there were shoe salesmen (Al Bundy in "Married with Children"), police officers (Carl Winslow in "Family Matters") and loud, unabashedly-dysfunctional housewives (Roseanne Barr in "Roseanne"). At most, members of the middle-class families of 90s sitcoms were tangentially famous - Danny Tanner was co-host of "Wake Up, San Francisco," Tim Taylor was co-host of "Tool Time" - so their roles where less about being on TV and more about being middle-class Americans.
Reality programming aside, a passing glance at current television listings will show us that those people have been replaced with super-famous, supernatural or super-special Americans: Vincent Chase, the A-list celebrity "star" of HBO's Entourage, all the characters in NBC's "Heroes" and FOX's "House," to name only a few. Heck, even a throw-away show like NBC's "Chuck," which I thought was nothing more than watered-down comedy about a retail geek is actually more extraordinary because (as my roommate informs me) about a secret agent. A retail secret agent!
In case you were feeling crappy about having to work at Ross over the summer, now you can feel even crappier because the one relatable television character you thought you had something in common is actually the government's top secret agent. In essence, you suck.
Interestingly, all these shows have audiences in the millions, and if I'm any indicator on what the majority of these audience members look like, most of us aren't famous, we don't posses super abilities and we aren't egotistical maniacs with an uncanny ability to diagnose rare medical disorders.
If I'm wrong I apologize - most of the people that I work, live and commiserate with, while brilliant in mind, are no more special than you.
Someone with more time and better pay might actually take my observations about the disparity between television subjects and television audiences a little bit further and attach it to Lou Dobbs' (never mind what you think of his political affiliations) premise in "War on the Middle Class: How the Government, Big Business, and Special Interest Groups Are Waging War on the American Dream and How to Fight Back" (2006) in which he argues that Clinton and Bush policies, which resulted in the elimination and outsourcing of manufacturing jobs, combined with the evangelical right's continued hounding of social issues such as abortion, gay rights and the Pledge of Allegiance in schools - a triad that, Dobbs argues, takes us further away from the issues truly affecting the common good, namely education and health care - represent outright warfare on "working men and women."
Note: writers will not reply to comments.
Be the first to comment on this story
Comments by registered users are approved by default.