I came home from a long day, tried to nap, couldn't, then
perused Netflix for something mediocre to fall asleep to on my couch. Since I've been on a stand
up kick the past week or two, I looked at those and realized I'd already seen pretty much everything (within reason) but Kathy Griffin. I thought, she can't be all bad, 'cause she loves the gays, I like her weird scratchy voice, and I have a vague memory of something she said making me laugh...sometime...in the past.
In short, I don't hate the woman, so I
started watching it and actually ended up mostly listening to the whole
thing. (It was only 45 minutes long.) I didn't laugh much and
she's kind of a tool and totally places importance on the wrong things
in life, but it was interesting. (I like to look at things from an
anthropological perspective and kind of just be awed rather than disgusted. As a recent professor at the University said,"I allow myself to enjoy things like that even though I morally disagree with some of their content and messages. Life is much more joyful that way.")
I watched that, passed out for half an hour, went to school till
nine, and came home still tired. While lazing, I sat on the
porch smoking a cigarette* and flipped through a Time
magazine sitting there. The full articles are disappointing so I read only the little four or five sentence sections with their tiny pictures. Those seem to be the only parts that are factual and not some biased fear-mongering or celebrity gossip shit.
There was a tiny editorial one from a woman commenting on how (a full month after South Sudan had become a country) she had Google, Yahoo, and Bing map searched for it online; none of them could locate it-- as if it still didn't exist.
Now here's where Kathy Griffin ties into this
and why I confessed listening to her stand up in the first place. She
was talking about being at the Emmy's and how she wore this dress which had
been designed specifically for her, how much she loved it, etc-- and
literally by the time she got home from the show, (still wearing
the dress) she went online and saw her picture from that night and a comment about her being one of the worst dressed celebrities.
So what the world wide web is telling us, is that what Kathy Griffin
wore to the Emmy's is more important to the entire internet than
the incredible struggle of millions of people that led to
triumphant freedom. Jesus. Think on that a minute and then consider that another three by one inch section of the magazine was
about all the cuts made to public education funding and the horrific
things schools have been forced to do just to teach kids the basics.
Parts of SD have switched to a four day school
week, Maryland is cutting back on buses, Wisconsin is considering working with less custodians, and one place in FL was allotted no
money at all for school supplies. I mean holy shit! A B-list celebrity's
clothing choice takes precedence over an entire country's liberation and
US schools don't even have enough money to be open five days a week or to pay people to clean them and transport kids to and from home?
I guess what was once just a given is now unimportant. But then maybe
that's all part of the master plan? Dumb down, sidetrack, and blind
everyone with reality TV, celebrity gossip, and right wing talking heads
then slowly take away education, reasonably priced healthcare, and piece of mind, and you've got an entire population of
wage slaves busting ass for the newest technological pop culture device
to scan their brain waves and send them to their friend's iPod 22.3 'cause
things are so "advanced" that you don't even have to use your
fingers anymore.
Alright that's an exaggeration, but we're headed that direction. And speaking of Emmy's, were you aware that Barack Obama (the president of the United States of America), won one for a spoken word album in 2008? That seemed so odd to me that I looked it up, and Bill Clinton has won like four. I guess that is expected in a country where entertainment and politics are one in the same. Wrestlers, actors, whatever-- it's unnerving. Condoleeza Rice was in 30 Rock, Al Gore frequently does cameos, as does John McCain, and Arnold Schwarzenegger was a governor! Politicians and people actually holding some sort of office make shitty little cameos in so many shows and movies. It's frequently hilarious, but also humanizes them when the majority aren't human at all but are actually corporate controlled drones with their minds on their money and their money on their minds. (Probably without the pocket full of rubbers and bitches gettin' it on, but certainly sipping on gin and juice and totally laid back.)
Allowing for the line between pop culture celebrity and politics to become as nebulous as it has is a mistake. It's made the prescribed dumb down even more slippery and innocuous to those who choose not to acknowledge its effects.
Speaking of the dumb down, what is it about human beings that makes us flock to sensationalism like moths to a streetlight? Cheap drama; mean people, stupid people, and the current trend-- southern people. Ooh, look at her, she's so fat because no one ever taught her how to eat right and she's always been poor so she buys what's affordable-- garbage food. We wouldn't even know what she's saying if it weren't for the subtitles! Boy, people down south are duuu-uumb! Those guys are making death booze in the forest and wrestling with reptiles in the mud, holy shit! They don't have any teeth! That guy just said "daggum," for real! Look how stupid a huge population of our country is!
And then there's Larry the Cable guy selling you heartburn medication so you don't have to suffer after you mainline 30 buffalo wings, and Jamie Lee Curtis bragging about her regularity while pushing yoghurt, and other commercials with people telling us we need things we don't need, we don't look how we should, and promoting gender and sexuality stereotypes and roles which should be considered archaic at this point.
Bringing it in-- our priorities as a country are all screwed up, and there's a reason for it. Technology; a blessing and a curse.
*Wrote some of this a couple years ago and thought I'd leave that in,
but I do not smoke anymore and you shouldn't either! Trust someone
who's experienced it, you don't ever want to be on a ventilator.
