The holiday season is always an interesting one for me. In addition to visiting family, in-laws, food, and fun, it’s one of the few times I am exposed to modern television. I’m not normally exposed to television at all (except football on Saturday’s at the bar), as I simply don’t watch it. I also don’t miss it. I find reading articles on the internet, or reading books far more entertaining. The holidays usually serve to remind me why I don’t watch TV, as I am bombarded by the mindless shows, ridiculous commercials, and 24/7 celebrity infotainment. This time around, however, I was exposed to a particularly disgusting modern show, which is so revolting it deserves its own rant.
I’m talking about TLC’s “What Not To Wear“.
I’m not quite sure how a show this awful and vapid managed to work its way onto a network known as “The Learning Channel”, but then again looking at the rest of the lineup, with many “interestingly” named “gems” like:
- A Makeover Story
- American Hotrod
- Little People, Big World
I have to question what people are learning. Just in those three shows, the channel is selling shallow judgmental culture, NASCAR, and “Let’s laugh at the midgets”. Bravo, way to teach people good values and interesting lessons. I can only imagine the depths of tacky tasteless crap that these shows manage to plumb, as “What Not To Wear” dredges up some Grade A Sewage, and masquerades it as entertainment. Not having experienced the other shows on The Loser Channel, I’ll have to focus on “What Not To Wear”, and why shows like this are an affront to America, Freedom, and just plain old good taste and tact.
The premise of “What Not To Wear” is simple, since Rich Northeasterners are Vapid, Shallow and Soulless, they assume this to be the condition of Americans everywhere, and thus appearance is the sole quality by which people should be judged. As such, the show implores its viewers to send in their friends and family to be ridiculed on national television for having tastes which are independent of what Paris Hilton or Tom Cruise are currently wearing. The hosts (both of which are poster children for Coastie Callous Consumerism) then make the participants an offer, they can waste $5,000 on clothes from stores which are paying the show for massive product placement, if they throw all of their current clothes into the trash (and of course buy clothes that the celebrity zombies agree are “in fashion”). This of course leads me to two large questions:
- Who needs to spend $5,000 on clothes, especially when we live in a world full of hunger and illiteracy?
- If you’re going to toss out someone’s wardrobe, would it kill you to have a heart and donate it to the Salvation Army or Goodwill?
The rest of the show is simply an exercise is tearing down someone’s individuality and rebuilding them as a celebrity zombie, decked out in the latest brands that are paying the show for promotion (with long panning shots over store names), repeat ad nauseum, which doesn’t take long at all. I’m sure with our modern infotainment, celebrity, consumerism obsessed culture that this is but one in a long list of disgusting shallow shows on TV. What bothers me is that this trash is on television in the first place, and what’s more, that a lot of people seem to be watching it.
Personally, if I had $5,000 to give away every episode of a TV show, I can think of millions of better ways to spend it that actually contribute to the world. Like perhaps finding a needy elementary classroom, introducing people to the town and children, and then donating 25 Laptops from the One Laptop per Child project to the class. Or maybe they could have people write in with charities to donate the money too, and spend the episode show casing needy causes. Another great idea would be to find soup kitchens around the country, and visit them, using the $5,000 to outfit them with better equipment to help feed the homeless.
Note that these sort of uses of the money don’t mean that the show can’t make income from product placement. If a company wants to donate something to a charitable cause, by all means give them some screen time! That sort of generosity deserves to be rewarded, and if a company really wants my business, that is the way to convince me to give it to them, not by supporting shallow behavior and wasteful spending. Unfortunately I have little hope that anything will change. Shows like “What Not To Wear” embody a disturbing and sick slice of modern American culture, a slice that is nothing more than a gussied up version of the blue collar obsession with Wal-mart style consumerism. It’s a sickness we need to face as a culture and cure before we let it destroy the values we, as Americans, are supposed to treasure and strive for.
-Angry Midwesterner
The 12 Angry Men Blog 
November 21, 2007 at 4:05 pm
Weak argument. Picking out the *worst* TV has to offer and saying that invalidates *all* TV is absurd. Now if you picked out the *best* that TV has to offer, and showed that it was still garbage, you’d have a point. But since you never watch TV, I certainly wouldn’t trust your opinion on what’s best.
Also, claming anything is “unamerican” is a red herring. It gets people so tangled up in defining “American” that they never get around to examining the main point. So I’m just going to skip to the end: There’s no question this show is crap, but it’s definitely American.
As for your $5000 per episode claim, I’d love to see it. Since you don’t watch TV, you have no idea what “good TV” is. But if you paired up with a known good TV producer, you could let him take care of the show, while you focus on “doing good”.
So the question is, how much good can you do for $5000? Maybe you can make that question itself into a show – Give people $4500, and ask them to “do good”. If the outcome is actually an improvement, they get the remaining $500 as a prize.
Or you could go for broke, and try overthrowing a corrupt national government live on TV. Use the money to expose a single instance of corruption, and gradually work your way up the org chart. Try to feed some people, and show how the government leaches away the money, leaving nothing for food.
Or to be really nuts, try that on the American government.
November 21, 2007 at 5:40 pm
Well given that I did not in fact say it invalidated all TV… your comment says more about your critical reading skills than anything else.
There are definitely some good TV shows. I watch Heroes from the NBC web cast weekly.
Also, claming anything is “unamerican” is a red herring. It gets people so tangled up in defining “American” that they never get around to examining the main point. So I’m just going to skip to the end: There’s no question this show is crap, but it’s definitely American.
What is and isn’t American was defined by our founding fathers and the founding documents of this country. If people get tangled up in defining it, they just need to do some reading. Much like Walmart, this show is unamerican.
As for your $5000 per episode claim, I’d love to see it. Since you don’t watch TV, you have no idea what “good TV” is. But if you paired up with a known good TV producer, you could let him take care of the show, while you focus on “doing good”.
I don’t watch TV, because the offerings suck. I do know what makes good TV, because I know how TV used to be.
What Not To Wear goes through $210,000 per season, which could do a LOT of good for the world as a whole.
November 21, 2007 at 6:36 pm
Bill wrote:
###Also, claming anything is “unamerican” is a red herring. It gets people so tangled up in defining “American” that they never get around to examining the main point.###
Bill’s Corollary to Godwin’s Law: Any argument that invokes the term “Un-American” is automatically invalid? 🙂
AM wrote:
###What is and isn’t American was defined by our founding fathers and the founding documents of this country. If people get tangled up in defining it, they just need to do some reading. Much like Walmart, this show is unamerican.###
Dude, what kind of fundamentalist bullshit ARE you smoking these days back in the land of corn? Taking hits of Scalia’s crack pipe are you? 🙂 I don’t think he believes “What is and isn’t American was defined by our founding fathers and the founding documents of this country.” I certainly don’t believe that the likes of George Washington, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin or James Madison were a bunch of fundamentalists. That’s why they (a) wrote primarily procedural rules, (b) left procedures for its lawful alteration, (c) didn’t attempt to answer every question that could be posed and (d) for the most part stayed out of positive allocations of moral worth.
###What Not To Wear goes through $210,000 per season, which could do a LOT of good for the world as a whole.###
No doubt, but there are a whole lot of other things higher on the list that I’d be attacking first that do way more damage. No doubt this show is easy to attack because it’s a particularly pathetic example of it, but you are on really thin ice here because I have little doubt that there are things YOU enjoy for which exactly the same argument can be made of frivolity, waste, and Unamerican-ness that cost a big pile of money. In short, it is very, very important to keep matters of taste and matters of morality distinct. Else, that way lies madness….
November 21, 2007 at 7:22 pm
Dude, what kind of fundamentalist bullshit ARE you smoking these days back in the land of corn?
It’s not fundamentalist, it’s jingoistic nationalistic 🙂 Fundies are Unamerican, as is bombing poor brown people.
I certainly don’t believe that the likes of George Washington, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin or James Madison were a bunch of fundamentalists.
No, but I like to think that they would be disgusted by folks who judge others by what they wear and encourage keeping up with the Joneses.
That’s why they (a) wrote primarily procedural rules, (b) left procedures for its lawful alteration, (c) didn’t attempt to answer every question that could be posed and (d) for the most part stayed out of positive allocations of moral worth.
Um, no they didn’t. Moralistic statements permeate their writings. Hell, our own Constitution BEGINS with them.
No doubt, but there are a whole lot of other things higher on the list that I’d be attacking first that do way more damage. No doubt this show is easy to attack because it’s a particularly pathetic example of it,
Actually I’m attacking it specifically because a lot of people I know are obsessed with it, which brings it squarely into my cross hairs.
but you are on really thin ice here because I have little doubt that there are things YOU enjoy for which exactly the same argument can be made of frivolity, waste, and Unamerican-ness that cost a big pile of money.
I would doubt it, you might find one or two, but the problem is, I spend very little time on things which cost money, or spend it. Most of my entertainment comes from user-created media, like the AMB.
November 21, 2007 at 10:27 pm
Comedian Fred Allen quotes on media, including this good one:
Imitation is the sincerest form of television.
And this one:
Television is a device that permits people who haven’t anything to do to watch people who can’t do anything.
And this:
Television is a medium because anything well done is rare.
Note that Allen died in 1956.
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/f/fred_allen.html
November 22, 2007 at 9:51 am
AM wrote:
###
It’s not fundamentalist, it’s jingoistic nationalistic 🙂 ###
One fundamentalism for another.
###Um, no they didn’t. Moralistic statements permeate their writings. Hell, our own Constitution BEGINS with them.###
I just reread the Preamble to the Constitution, which can be found here, among other places:
http://www.usconstitution.net/const.html#Preamble
This is about as non-moralistic as it gets.
The Declaration is much broader, but nowhere in either document do I get a sense of the founders defining “UnAmerican” in as broad a strokes as you do. The project I get is, essentially, “Let’s set up a framework in which you can pursue your life’s work, and make sure others can too.”
###Actually I’m attacking it specifically because a lot of people I know are obsessed with it, which brings it squarely into my cross hairs.###
Oh, well the truth will out… it’s good old fashioned bile. THAT I understand. 🙂
But I think you’re very close to falling over the edge of “things I don’t like are wrong for X,Y and Z” while “things I like are morally justified, etc.” This is an easy edge to fall over but that way lies madness. It’s very much like trying to define out of the world of art paintings you don’t like or out of the world of music compositions you don’t like.
###I would doubt it, you might find one or two, but the problem is, I spend very little time on things which cost money, or spend it. Most of my entertainment comes from user-created media, like the AMB.###
I know you watch the occasional mainstream movie. I know you play computer games. I know you drink high end beer at times. I could pick further but I think your own counter-argument shows the weakness of your position. (I also think you don’t do a lot of the other things because of current lack of opportunity. I remember a lot of “straight edge” kids back in the day who were all about “I don’t drink”… turned 21 and that all changed.)
It’s simply unwise to moralize decisions of taste. (See Fundamental Attribution Error: http://changingminds.org/explanations/theories/fundamental_attribution_error.htm)
Sometimes that has to be done, but this doesn’t strike me as one of them. Do I think that What Not To Wear is a stupid show? Yup. I don’t even need to watch it to believe it’s stupid. But I find the principles “it’s your money” and “there’s no accounting for taste” to be an important to bear in mind.
November 22, 2007 at 11:40 am
I think you are getting worked up over nothing. I think that What Not to Wear is actually (albeit only marginally) educational. No matter what you think, the first impression you make on meeting a person is what they look like (rare exceptions, e.g. – you are blind). The show is about changing how a person presents themselves. So, while I am FAR away from being a fashion person (very very far), it is at worst is a harmless show. I really don’t understand why the vitriol. I think that The Next Supermodel (or whatever that Tyra Banks show it) is much worse.
But hey, that’s my opinion.
November 22, 2007 at 7:44 pm
One fundamentalism for another.
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Besides, nationalism is a core value all Americans should care. America isn’t just a country, its an ideal. People should be proud of what America is supposed to be, and willing to push for it.
I just reread the Preamble to the Constitution, this is about as non-moralistic as it gets.
I don’t know about that, it sets up some specific notions of America, which it goes on to define, and which are added to in the Bill of Rights.
The Declaration is much broader, but nowhere in either document do I get a sense of the founders defining “UnAmerican” in as broad a strokes as you do.
Well that’s a difference between us then. I don’t see my strokes as being broad. I’m defining certain activities as unamerican, specially rampant consumeristic greed, and shallow behavior.
But I think you’re very close to falling over the edge of “things I don’t like are wrong for X,Y and Z” while “things I like are morally justified, etc.”
Attacks at consumeristic culture and the notion of keeping up with the Jones is hardly something I’ve invented, it’s also hardly a rare belief. There is mounting disgust at this portion of the population.
I know you watch the occasional mainstream movie. I know you play computer games. I know you drink high end beer at times.
But there are a few points which need to be made here. How much do I spend per month on such things? (Very, very little). How does it compare to the amount of time and money I contribute to charity? (I spend sunday mornings making food for the homeless, and quite a bit of time organizing charity donations for Schools in needy areas).
What Not To Wear could go a long way by simply donating the old clothes to charity, and making a big deal out of it, rather than promoting a disposable society and rampant consumerism.
(I also think you don’t do a lot of the other things because of current lack of opportunity. I remember a lot of “straight edge” kids back in the day who were all about “I don’t drink”… turned 21 and that all changed.)
I don’t do the other things out of religious obligation and an outright disgust for wasteful consumerism. I don’t like owning physical objects, or spending money on random crap. I’m far happier reading and writing on the internet. About the only thing I’d buy given the opportunity and cash flow would be a printer for my computer.
It’s simply unwise to moralize decisions of taste.
But it’s not an issue of taste. Consumerism is one of the largest environmental, economic, and social problem that exists. You have to remember here, I spent a large part of my undergrad studying Environmental Science, a large part of which is Environmental Social Justice. Modern consumerism drives some of the greatest societal evils of our times.
November 26, 2007 at 1:54 pm
AM wrote:
###One fundamentalism for another.
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.###
Capital F-fundamentalism is a reference to an early 20th Century movement in Protestant theology. However, the word has a small-f meaning, which I believe is quite apropos.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/fundamentalism
(This is kind of the flipside of a debate we had over email about the term “fascism.” I still disagree about the China as fascist, but feel it’s relevant to point out the parallel.)
### [big snip] But it’s not an issue of taste. ###
If you’re making an anti-consumerism argument, I guess it would be best to make that more directly rather than moralize about one particular show which, in the big scheme of things, is pretty small potatoes.
I get a sense you’re having an argument with someone else.