Big Media Blahs

Anybody else feeling bored to death by the whole big-media scene?

By "big media scene", I mean the output of the whole mega-marketed product-driven cheap-story-expensive-frills entertainment machine.  You’ve noticed it, right?  It produces "Hollywood blockbusters" that trigger a tidal-wave of "product":  Video games, clothing, everything overpriced and almost always of questionable quality.  They create entire television shows to hook young children on their products; they put on Ice Capades.

Not that I’m a Methuselah when it comes to aesthetics.  Actually, it’s the fact that the focus is not on quality, art, or something –anything– of value that really bothers me.  Do we really need this riot of greed taking such a prominent place in our culture?

My father once told me that he doesn’t think America has a culture of its own, and I think The Scene and The Riot may be part of what makes some people say that.  Commercialism isn’t culture, though they certainly coexist.  However, something seems wrong about the proportions we’ve got going here.  I can’t prove that, other than to point to its output as proof that something’s amiss.  Why does what our culture produces have to be so flimsy and whorish?  Where’s the care and quality?  It’s not that our cultural output is largely "electric" that bothers me — in fact I think it’s pretty neat — but if you think about the characteristics, the proportion of commerce versus art, in America’s cultural scene versus that of others…well, am I wrong?

I cover it up in my own life with fringe and foreign stuff, and loads of classics (I like classics).  And that works, pretty much.  I enjoy plenty of things; no lack of entertainment here — well, when there’s time for it.  But it still nags me, sometimes.  I’m not much of a nationalist, but I’d rather be proud of my country and its culture than irritated and embarrassed by it. 

I haven’t thought on it enough yet to have ideas for what should change, really.  But I do always appreciate suggestions for fringe and foreign stuff that anyone thinks I should check out.  ;)

Actually…since I’ve been gone too long again (homework, work work and now buying a house this month too — bear with me plz!) and I still have a little time until The Long Nap (heh), here, as the cheapest sort of gift, is my short list of cool non-mega entertainment offerings.  (Excluding books — no way is there enough time to type *that* list!)

In no particular order…

Gojira
Serial Experiments Lain
Cowboy Bebop
Neon Genesis Evangelion
Shaolin Soccer
Monty Python (duh, all of it)
Once Upon A Time in China (and just about everything like it - don’t forget Iron Monkey)
Any and all French versions of "Cyrano de Bergerac"

…And there’s more, of course, but now I’ve run out of time.  ;)