Posted on 12/21/2013 7:26:47 AM PST by steelhead_trout
Enter Duck Dynasty, a magically lucrative institution that simultaneously 1) is a reality show and 2) features conservative Christians. It was a money-printing machine for A&E until — who could have predicted? — one of its redneck stars did something one may have expected a redneck to do and our nation faced its greatest peril since, say, the Cold War. Has Western civilization ever confronted such an existential imperilment as the suspension of man-on-man-sex-eschewing Phil Robertson? A pretty big sector of the Internet submits that it has not.
There are perfectly understandable reasons to be upset about Robertson’s suspension. But I, for one, am thrilled about it. I only wish A&E had gone further and suspended everyone on that stupid show, and also suspended everyone on all their other reality shows, and that all the other channels on TV that have reality shows had suspended all their stars too. Barring that, I wish great success to the Liberty Patriots who are boycotting A&E over Robertson’s suspension, and I hope all other Americans, regardless of their patriot status, will join the A&E boycott, and that the A&E boycott will spread to include all the other channels that show this kind of nonsense, and that we can finally just get rid of it all for good, forever and ever amen. I want everyone suspended. I want every channel boycotted. I want every show shuttered, and permanently. I want to watch it burn.
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...
The lesbian kiss and mixed-race couple are almost obligatory on any scripted TV program any more.
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If you compare, you will find that most like-type shows follow basically the same scripting, with characters and plots.
Some 80-85% of the time in drama programs, I can pick out the ‘he/she did it’ person in the first 15 minutes.
Most of these CSI/NCIS/Bones type programs have the quirky lab person and each episode tries to be more gross and spectacular in how the death was committed.
Recall the image of the first page of the movie script for Avatar. It is a marked up script from Pocahontas.
==
The one thing that gets me is in the previews for an episode: the announcer exclaims to watch the twist, or the program will have a twist you won’t see coming, etc.
That sort of defeats the intent.
Several years ago CBS’s Big Brother reality had several ‘twists’ involving the contestants. Most times, the contestants figured out the ‘twist’ before it even got broadcast to the TV audiences.
Cheap to produce. Started after the writers strike years ago. Simple business math.
The decline of Western Civilization on full display. The Celebration of the Dregs of Society.
....and completely scripted.
Reality?
well when did reality become scripted?
which is the reason I pretty much stopped watching “reality
“ shows.
When opinions like the writer's (and mine) become orthodox, though, you start to get contrarians saying that reality TV tells us more about the real world we live in -- maybe a lot more than we want to know. There are flaws in that argument as well -- a lot of reality television is scripted and much is vapid and vacuous -- but the contrarian point of view is more provocative than simple put-downs.
"... And there was a time in this country, a long time ago, when reading wasn't just for fags and neither was writing. People wrote books and movies, movies that had stories so you cared whose ass it was and why it was farting, and I believe that time can come again!"
I will go to the mat for the right of Phil Robertson and his "Duck Dynasty" family to espouse their religious views that the Bible is implicit that homosexuality and homosexual acts are sinful. That the Bible says that is a fact, no ands, ifs or butts!
That I myself believe homosexuality is not natural is beside the point. Two men or two women in bliss together will not populate the Earth. If we all went to same sex route, the human race would die out in a hundred years or so--
However, I have never watched an episode of "Duck Dynasty" nor of any other reality programing that seems to have overcome the both broadcast and cable television industry.
When in the mid-1990s through the early 2000s "The Real World, Survivor" and "Big Brother" came along, I did not watch any of them. People are free to watch what they wish, but I find them not worth my time. And I am amazed that people know watch them believing they are real--
They are not real. The are scripted in the sense that if a director, script supervisor and a full camera crew is there, it is not a real situation. When television cameras happen to catch the second plane hitting the World Trade Towers, that was real. When cameras catch the latest gossip or conspiracies among constants on "Survivor, Big Brother" or "The Amazing Race," that is not reality. That is show business.
I find it a sad situation that so many folks are hooked on these 'reality' gigs like dope fiends on crack or Mary Jane. They are, IMHO, the same folks who elected our current leadership and keep turning blind eyes to their high crimes and misdemeanors.
So, "Go, Phil. Give em hell!"
But don't expect me to watch your show. If I want to watch people pray and have good Christian lives, I'll stick with my family. They are the ones who brung me--
Cheap to produce and borrow old ideas, like.
ABC’s What Would You Do where they set
up a hidden camera to see how people act...something
Allen Funt did decades ago.
Next up I suppose is put beards on the Roloff family
and show a four foot tall man as part of
a Dwarf Dynasty.
I always find it quirkily amusing to think about Minow’s 1961 “vast wasteland” statement. Compared to the depths the culture has sunk to nowadays, 1961-television looks like aesthetic nirvana.
As for reality-shows, I’ve never quite cottoned to the contrived nature of the genre. It’s been a barrier for me to really get into any of them, even “Duck Dynasty” to a certain extent. Nonetheless, I’ve gotten genuine laughs from watching “Duck Dynasty”... something that no sitcom or network variety show has given me in well over ten years.
And although the reality show genre presents some of the absolute worst that television offers, it’s also one of the only venues on television (besides reruns of old-time shows like westerns and such) that serves up a little “americana.” Anyway, rather telling that during this whole DD hubbub, NRO sees fit to take the story and springboard it in the direction of a reality-show condemnation, off all things (rolling my eyes).
From reading the first two paragraphs only I conclude this idiot woman has NEVER actual seen an episode of DD. She is a city dweller probably from the north east corridor and has NO CLUE about anything duckenese
WTF? There’s a channel selector and off switch. Use it.
You and your leftist comrades are sooooo smart, and I just want to be like, totally cool, just like you Betsy!
So please tell me right now what you watch Betsy -- I have the remote in hand, ready to switch over to what you elites are watching!
And that is why they are the stupid party. Whatever you think about reality shows (I have never watched one FWIW), coming out with this comment does nothing but blur the issue. NRO is really turning into a conservative Laodicea.
Merry Christmas to you and yours!
Bender's Entire Friggin' Post!
I wouldn’t call NR leftist elites but I do think reality shows are very dull and would probably not hang out with someone who was a fan. I turned on DD once to see what all the fuss was about. In it one of the guys was persuaded by his wife to take yoga. So he puts on yoga pants and starts stretching out on a mat. I turned it off. Really? This is what folks find entertaining? A fat, bearded swamp rat posing in yoga pants? No thanks. Give me The Wire or Breaking Bad any day. Those are elite programs.
This.
Nonetheless, I’ve gotten genuine laughs from watching “Duck Dynasty”... something that no sitcom or network variety show has given me in well over ten years.
And although the reality show genre presents some of the absolute worst that television offers, it’s also one of the only venues on television (besides reruns of old-time shows like westerns and such) that serves up a little “americana.” Anyway, rather telling that during this whole DD hubbub, NRO sees fit to take the story and springboard it in the direction of a reality-show condemnation, off all things (rolling my eyes).
Lets cancel; all prime time ABC, CBS and NBC shows as well since they’re pathetic at best. Only thing I watch on those networks is if my NFL team is playing.
What I’d actually like to see is someone like Direct TV let you buy only the channels you want. Out of 225+ channels available I’ve got it down to about 50.
I really do not watch the fag shows or any show that pushes their agenda..if others did the same sickie’s would go back in the closet..I do not watch much on TV but I can tell you I do not watch the in your face crap..It is getting pretty sad when a person cannot be entertained with out being attack for being Christian or even Jew..We now know somewhat what the Jews went through..I do not mean being put in concentration camps but I wonder if that has been though of with the Communist Muslim in the white house..
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