Trapped at Berkeley

I checked Spoofee this morning and noticed that AOL was hosting a free stream of William Hung’s new CD. Since I had some spare minutes, I decided to see if some crack producers were able to turn him into a singing genius. I guess my hopes were too high, but then again, even they couldn’t make Hilary Duff sound good.

Being a UC Berkeley student, I do feel a sense of pride when one of my fellow students or a member of the faculty does something notable. However, in the case of William Hung, I feel utter shame: an engineering student goes on national television and knowingly makes a complete fool of himself. And if that wasn’t enough, he keeps on doing it. Either he’s mentally challenged or is so desperate for fame he’ll do anything. But, let’s not blame the person. I’m sure most of us would love to get our 15 minutes of fame.

If the problem doesn’t lie with the person, then it most certainly lies with the American public that made them famous.

What has happened to American entertainment? When I returned home for spring break, I had lots of time to watch television. Every night I would flip through the channels trying to find something interesting to watch. What I realized was that practically all the shows on television were this senseless reality shows. Senseless and highly rated!

Where have all the old shows gone? Many have been discontinued. Some have even been replaced by these reality shows. With rumors that the Simpsons have only another couple of seasons to go, I think there’s going to be nothing left for me to watch on television soon; well, besides the Discovery and History Channels, but I get always get that from a long-lost American institution: the library. Besides, television has too many advertisements. Not only are ad agencies losing their touch, I have come to the conclusion that televisions ads are many magnitudes more intrusive than web ads, as entertaining as some may be. Consequently, I end up getting most of my media intake through the Internet.

Movies aren’t getting any better either. Even though I’m a major movie fanatic, I’m finding less and less reason to go out and watch the latest movies. Seriously, have all the great screenwriters been abducted by aliens? I don’t think movie plots can go any lower than Walking Tall and Scooby-Doo 2. In the end, I have to satisfy my movie cravings by either re-watching classics or delving deeper into the independent movie pool. There’s a lot of talent in that later category, but sadly (well, maybe not sadly), most of them are coming from abroad.

So, what has happened to American media? I can’t quite say, but I know it’s not good. I might sound like an old-timer or someone who’s resisting a possibly inevitable change, but I think this general trend correlates with a much larger trend in American society: the dumbness factor. People would rather watch shows or movies that had simple, “realistic,” “life-like” plots than something that a little more intriguing, something that required a little brain work to understand (Stanley Kubrick films…) In much the same way, American children and teens these days don’t play with Legos or puzzles anymore; they just grab their PlayStation and pound buttons while watching a flashing screen. Let’s hope I’m wrong.