file under: (market) penetration in the centerfold
while flipping past jeopardy earlier tonight, we were shocked to slowly realize that every category on the screen was named after a rock band (plus one category possibly just named "bands", although we didn't see it clearly enough to verify that). i guess that's better than seeing "bruce willis" as a category, which i did see on a previous occassion....
the contestants were a bald man in military uniform, a female "foreign affairs officer" stationed in canberra, and a rather bland looking (by way of over-martha stewartization) tv news producer.
their categories?
"the replacements"
"big star"
"the fall"
"husker do" [sic]
"the english beat"
holy shit. are we that old now? has the world turned so much that bands we once had to slowly discover from hanging out in record stores and reading rockist specialty rags are now fodder for throwaway "general knowledge" gameshow punchlines? and all for the benefit of dinnertime tv audiences everywhere, no less?
what exactly is that, anyway? a co-optation of bygone heroes? would "commodification" be more accurate, or more inflammatory? how about "collaboration"? it all sounds so juvenile, so lacking in nuance.
this must be the way our youth will be encoded into the 21st century, registering as not much more than an opportunity for nostalgic parents to revel in tv's backgrounded bon mots, all to the embarrassment of their disinterested teenage children.
the contestants were a bald man in military uniform, a female "foreign affairs officer" stationed in canberra, and a rather bland looking (by way of over-martha stewartization) tv news producer.
their categories?
"the replacements"
"big star"
"the fall"
"husker do" [sic]
"the english beat"
holy shit. are we that old now? has the world turned so much that bands we once had to slowly discover from hanging out in record stores and reading rockist specialty rags are now fodder for throwaway "general knowledge" gameshow punchlines? and all for the benefit of dinnertime tv audiences everywhere, no less?
what exactly is that, anyway? a co-optation of bygone heroes? would "commodification" be more accurate, or more inflammatory? how about "collaboration"? it all sounds so juvenile, so lacking in nuance.
this must be the way our youth will be encoded into the 21st century, registering as not much more than an opportunity for nostalgic parents to revel in tv's backgrounded bon mots, all to the embarrassment of their disinterested teenage children.
posted by pf at
10:10 PM
2 Comments:
I sat in slack-jawed amazement as the man in uniform selected the 'Husker Do category, having just spent my drive home listening to Zen Arcade. If there's a consolation, it might lie in the fact that I think the references were lost on the contestents. I chalked it up to a post-slacker researcher/writer putting one over on his cottonhead employers and the majority of the viewing public.
we suspected the same thing - that a younger person must've enjoyed sneaking some references past the stuffed shirts.
but coupled with that car commercial featuring the fall's song "blindness" (among others, for sure), i couldn't help but feel that this is how those indies of yore will be passed along to our children. predictable, i guess, but it's odd to see it happening.
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home