Watching Sunday night TV
Its been a long time since I've watched TV of any kind, and I'd forgotten just how annoying the ads are. I find it especially frustrating when an ad runs multiple times in a single commercial break. One such ad was for a new Fox show "Are you smarter than a 5th grader" in which, Jeff Foxworthy asks questions to see if people can recall "what is a trapezoid."
I realize that its supposed to be tongue-in-cheek; precisely because the bar is set so low that we take pleasure in those who cannot even pass it. But still, its sad that we seem to be lowering rather than raising what we urge people to achieve, and I don't see how this could be a good thing.
Perhaps this is on my mind because, in a scary bit of synchronosity, I watched the movie Idiocracy this weekend. At the time of my watching, I kind of felt like the movie had about 15 mintues of funny stuff, but was unfortunately 90minuntes long. Now, I can kind of see some of the points it raised, and fear it might be a clarion-call for our collective mental decline. (It is just a little scary that Luke Wilson has to be harbinger of the dumb.)
Returning to the "Smarter than a 5th grader," the funny part its that my buddy Kevin has already figured out the next step in our cultural mental decline. He joked that he doesn't so much care if he's smarter than a 5th grader. What he wants to see is a show: "are you tougher than a 5th grader?" In which adults of various ages and physical fitness try to beat up a 5th grader...
I realize that its supposed to be tongue-in-cheek; precisely because the bar is set so low that we take pleasure in those who cannot even pass it. But still, its sad that we seem to be lowering rather than raising what we urge people to achieve, and I don't see how this could be a good thing.
Perhaps this is on my mind because, in a scary bit of synchronosity, I watched the movie Idiocracy this weekend. At the time of my watching, I kind of felt like the movie had about 15 mintues of funny stuff, but was unfortunately 90minuntes long. Now, I can kind of see some of the points it raised, and fear it might be a clarion-call for our collective mental decline. (It is just a little scary that Luke Wilson has to be harbinger of the dumb.)
Returning to the "Smarter than a 5th grader," the funny part its that my buddy Kevin has already figured out the next step in our cultural mental decline. He joked that he doesn't so much care if he's smarter than a 5th grader. What he wants to see is a show: "are you tougher than a 5th grader?" In which adults of various ages and physical fitness try to beat up a 5th grader...
posted by Linton at 10:05 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home