Who We Are: Older Avengers or 'Bozos in Heat'?

2 years ago

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Popular culture must reflect who we are. If it didn't, it wouldn't be popular. Right?

Here are three views of who we are right now as reflected by the small screen, two from the West Coast and one from the East.

The first was from the Los Angeles Times and was headlined "Update: Trust anyone over 30."

It begins: "Conan O'Brien lost out to Jay Leno, Diane Sawyer has more viewers than Katie Couric, Brett Favre drew millions to the NFC championship and Meryl Streep is burning up the box office.

"Is youth culture, like, you know, dead?"

Television critic Mary McNamara goes on to opine that these hard times are causing us to look toward older characters for wisdom and security.

L.A. Times writer David Kronke looks at TV land and finds the little guy going against the system and winning. He cites "Nurse Jackie," "Breaking Bad," "Leverage" and a host of popular shows.

"The system is broken, the average citizen is victimized, and if the most powerful among us won't play by the rules, then why should we?" he asks. "And viewers, wearied by the economic and political pratfalls of recent years, and watching in dismay as Wall Street receives government assistance while the middle class withers and unemployment rates escalate, can only revel in vicarious forms of justice."

Both opinions are food for thought, but the most entertaining version of our pop personas comes from the New York Times, headlined "Damsels in Distress, Bozos in Heat." After writer Neil Genzlenger compares programming on guys' channel Spike to programming on women's channel Lifetime, he constructs a perfect day as imagined by a Lifetime gal and a Spike guy.

"In the gal's perfect day she is kidnapped on the way back from putting the kids on the school bus but vanquishes the kidnappers in time to go for a fattening lunch with her single-mom pals, at which they lament their lack of dates before donning designer gowns to go to a school board meeting where they successfully address all major educational problems.

"In the guy's perfect day he awakes and, still sleepy, sticks his hand down a running garbage disposal trying to retrieve the bottle opener he has dropped in it; an ambulance crew made up entirely of strippers rushes him to the Hospital for Advanced Trauma Care and Stripping, where naked but highly trained female surgeons sew his hand back on, then take him home and wash his entire house as well as his car with their breasts while answering questions like: Does being spanked make a woman want to have sex?"

Filed Under: Woman Up

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