For all its faults, Hollywood succeeds in providing an important public service beyond simple, direct to consumer entertainment. This service in no way enhances the economy, nor does it unite the harried American citizenry with a common cultural thread. Rather, through catchphrases and clever dialog easily etched into the popular consciousness, it provides a general merchandise trove of pith and wit capable of propelling both the dull and feeble-minded to undeserved heights of social prominence.
Among the media, film is most responsible for this trend. Its products can be consumed in a single sitting, generally in less than two hours, and can be viewed again and again thanks to the butt-numbing wonders of home theater technology. The result is a populace awash in stolen words of encouragement, expressions of love, and, perhaps most frustratingly, laughter. More than ever, any lout with a decent memory and outsized ego can ingest hundreds of punchlines, verbatim, and with practice, casually spin them as products of his own wit. As if it wasn't bad enough, in the previous age, when people merely thought themselves hopelessly funny. Now, with their pilfered catalog in tow, they can regurgitate proven winners and claim it as evidence of their genius.
The result? A population funnier than ever before, but, corrected for inflation, still far less funny than the guys connected to anything featuring Ben Stiller. And as annoying as in epochs past. Thanks Hollywood...
No comments:
Post a Comment