Prince George & Princess Boo Boo

            We live in a world in which contains not only a show called Toddlers and Tiaras—but also a spin-off of that show, called Here Comes Honey Boo Boo. I’ve never seen it, but I read about it in Entertainment Weekly the other day. It turns out this show is subtitled. The “cast” members speak English. And yet.

         Now, the thing is, I’m not an entertainment snob. As previously mentioned here, I unabashedly enjoy several of ABC Family’s shows, including one that features Denise Richards as a cast member. Her acting is not the best, but her part on Twisted as a trophy widow is at least less of a stretch than her role in that James Bond film in which she was cast as some sort of nuclear scientist. But then again, I’m just being silly. That movie was a long time ago, when Denise was much younger, and everyone knows that nuclear scientists are almost always hot girls in their twenties. But now, alas, it’s mom roles for Denise.

 I was really thinking about a career as a nuclear physicist, but I just wasn't sure about the belly shirts and short shorts. 

         But back to the Boo-Boo, the idea of subtitling our mother tongue disturbs me on a number of levels. I feel strongly that we should all agree on a language and speak it intelligibly enough so that at least native speakers can make sense of the words. The fact that these folks need subtitles is also evidence that the primary goal of this program is to make fun of this family.

One of the many benefits of fame: being immortalized on South Park. 

I realize they are willing participants. For a lot of people today, fame (or infamy) and money are sufficient incentives to trade in their dignity. And their children’s dignity (and normalcy, and privacy—the list goes on). Adults, though, can make an informed decision about whether or not to televise their lives. How could a little kid understand what they were signing up for—or giving up?

        

         There are those who would blame the audience, the old “if no one watched it they wouldn’t make it” routine. And maybe they’re right. But the very fact that we feel the need to assign blame for a show like this tells us just how bad it probably is.

         We live a media-saturated world, so it probably shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that some families are choosing to embrace the saturation to the fullest by living on TV. This past week the Royal Baby was born and a good chunk of Americans devoted a good chunk of their time to watching and waiting for it, and commenting after. I wonder what our forefathers would think. We did fight pretty hard to not have a prince or a king. A high percentage of folks in the UK don’t want one anymore either, yet the entire country nearly ground to a halt waiting to find out the gender and name of their next little prince. The fact is, baby princes make a good story. And, apparently, so do tiara-wearing former toddlers who mumble.

         In a less crazy world, leaders would be selected based on merit—and so would television stars. And nuclear scientists. But it’s a wacky world out there. Better redneckonize.

Extra Cheese

This time of year, most of us are full of shiny new resolutions. The fridge has been cleaned out—the leftover Christmas candy purged, the gym bag has been excavated from the back of the closet. Promises to keep, and all that.

But in the interest of keeping up my iconoclast rep, I choose this first week of the year to extol instead the virtues of the completely non-nutritional. I could write an ode to French fries or cupcakes (and I have). But I’m actually thinking more about cheese of the intellectual variety right now.

There are some tomes that one can make one’s ponderous way through, and at the end, wow does one feel smarter. One might even begin to refer to oneself as oneself. James Joyce’s Ulysses comes to mind. I fully intend to read that freaking book someday. But I can darn well promise that when I do I’ll be retired from at least two of my jobs. My senior thesis advisor said that Joyce has to be read with a map of Dublin, a bible, and a comprehensive reference book on classical myth all at the ready. That’s not reading: that’s a full-time job. I’m not putting anything that difficult on my TBR list this year. Besides, I have to re-read Paradise Lost for AP Lit this term, so that’ll cover my intellectual enrichment for awhile.

I suppose there are also shows and movies that one can feel sort of proud of having watched. Anything on the BBC is bound to inspire a smug feeling of viewing superiority. I think it’s those damned accents. I’ve had a few Brit students over the years, and even when they gave the wrong answers in class, they sounded damned cool saying them. I watched the first season and part of the second of the BBC’s Sherlock over the break. I enjoyed the show very much, but I don't feel smug about it: I can’t shake the feeling that it’s really just a fancified version of CSI. I also got Downton Abby season 1 as a gift, so I plan to watch it at some point. Just as soon as I finish catching up on The Big Bang Theory. What can I say, I am American.

Movies are much the same case. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve added a highbrow Oscar winner to the Netflix queue. These films arrive (some examples from the past year: The Artist, Coriolanus, The Tempest) and then they decorate the table in the hall for a couple of weeks until they get sent back. In contrast, the turnaround time on Real Steel was a couple of days. I mean, fighting robots. Also, Hugh Jackman. But, really: fighting robots.

Am I just a lowbrow culture consumer? I can rationalize that at the end of a long day trying to explain grammar or, God forbid, the dreaded concept of theme, to teenagers who only read Tumblr or the game instructions on Call of Duty, the last thing I usually want to do is wade through something complicated. Sometimes, though, I really believe, Art with a capital A is complicated, dark, or gritty just for the sake of being complicated, dark, and gritty. One of my favorite movies of the past year was Pitch Perfect. And those people solved their problems by having some sort of sing-fight.

That’s the world I want to live in: one in which problems can be solved with singing. So in 2013, I plan to unapologetically enjoy as much lowbrow cheesy goodness as possible. If you need me, I’ll be watching ABC Family in a non-ironic way. And possibly eating a cupcake.