Originally published on Facebook, 4/19/10
What the hell happened to MTV? Does anyone remember when MTV actually played these strange things called music videos? They revolutionized an industry, changed pop culture in this country as we know it and now, I can't think of the last time I saw a music video on MTV. Instead, it seems to have degenerated into an endless series of laughable dating shows, occasionally interesting shows (Pimp My Ride) and excremental reality shows designed to show what idiots rich people are and to glam up teen pregnancy a bit.
Yeah, MTV is really starting to piss me off. I think it was a physicist of some variety that pointed out that the very act of observing a phenomenon, fundamentally changes it- but in the case of 'My Super Sweet 16' and '16 and Pregnant', I think the very presence of cameras undermines the message they're trying to send. Well, at least in the latter case. I just like to hate on 'My Super Sweet 16' primarily because it's guaranteed to reduce me to something resembling incoherent rage. Rich people are idiots! Unbelievable idiots and the kids on that show are worse... I swore on a stack of Bibles and every sacred text I could find that if the Missus and I ever had that much money and our kids wanted us to drop $35K on entertainment for their birthday party, we'd be the ones picking the music, not them. And all this shit about getting top of the line Range Rovers? Come on now- money or no money, kids are still 16- buy 'em a brand new car and it's bound to end up dinged up, in a ditch somewhere.
'My Super Sweet 16' is like a walking, talking ad for the most rage-inducing elements of the Republican Party's hard right wing. The collapse of anything resembling parenting, the glorification of materialism and it's utterly and totally horrible. Shit like this is the gas that keeps the ever so tiresome 'Culture Wars' in this country going on and on and on and on, with no discernable end in sight. If MTV wants to do something, they'd end this crap and put some actually music back on what is, supposed to be, after all- MUSIC TV. At least, I think that's what the 'M' stands for.
Second in line for my ire is '16 and Pregnant.' I think this could go both ways, in many respects. Every girl they feature regrets their decision and talks about how hard it is. Which is good- they shouldn't be sugar-coating things like teen pregnancy, but my main problem with this show is that there's this shiny, sugary sheen to the whole thing that obfuscates some of the painful, hard choices (or what I'd imagine would be painful and hard choices) of the issue of teen pregnancy. Every episode is a happy little story about girl meeting boy, boy getting girl pregnant, parents fighting, etc, etc. It even has the happy little font from 'Juno' floating around the place. Are there happy ending when it comes to teen pregnancy? Sure there are- but I think MTV pulls its punches with this show. Everyone pretty much keeps their babies- a few give them up for adoption, but the big ugly question looming above this show: no one exercises their right to choose? No one at all? And again- we come back to that question about observing phenomenon fundamentally changing them- and it's hard not to notice the occasional preen and careful outfit choices made for the camera. It can feel more than a little scripted sometimes and I think with something like teen pregnancy, a documentary style 'fly on the wall' type of thing would work better. (You know, like True Life. Which is AWESOME. And should be lauded for sticking to that hardcore documentary style in the face of crap like this.)
Then, of course, there are 'The Hills' and 'The City' or whatever they're called. Whatever devil spawn television shows sprang from the belly of the 'Laguna Beach' thing. I don't know why any of those people are famous- first of all, and I hate, hate, HATE that the new 'in thing' apparently is to be randomly famous for no discernable reason whatsoever. Second of all, I have a buddy who lives in the OC and vouchsafed to me when we stopped in the infamous Laguna Beach for awhile, that the town itself hated the show with a passion. Despite being a rich, plastic beachside community in SoCal, I actually warmed a little to the town of Laguna Beach when I heard that. The whole 'famous for no reason' thing aside, these shows represent the most dangerous and deplorable trend in reality television- the fictionalization of reality. Reality, however much we desperately want it to be, is not like a television show and shouldn't be treated as such and these twin peaks of cultural excrement represent the idea that people can escape into a reality that's totally fake. Um, I'm not an expert, but I can't help but think that that's not a good thing. But maybe that's just me.
But over all, I miss music videos. I miss TRL, even though they never showed the entire video, just a good chunk of it. I get that at the end of the day, television networks produce shows that people watch- and if people didn't watch crap like 'The Hills', then it wouldn't get made. The bottom line drives everything, like always in this capitalist paradise we live in, but I look at MTV and I wonder what happened to what was truly a revolutionary network, once upon a time. And I worry about the messages and trends that are emerging from MTV these days... whether they are a good thing or a bad thing I don't know- but it certainly leaves me wondering:
What happened to MTV?
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