Beavis and Butthead: MTV Super-ego

I'm old enough to remember a time when Beavis and Butt-head was considered the most scandalous thing on air:

In October 1993 a two-year-old Ohio girl was killed in a fire lit by her five-year-old brother. The children's mother said that her son was inspired by the pyromaniac proclivities of Beavis and Butt-head. This real life event sparked the ire of media watchdog groups, who claimed that there was a direct link between the television show and the violent act of this impressionable child. One psychiatrist proclaimed Beavis an Butt-head a "Sesame Street for psychopaths."

Psychopaths! Really! Looking back from 2010 it's hard to imagine how something as tame as Beavis and Butt-head could compete with, say, The Family Guy or even South Park. So it's a little weird that MTV is bringing it back. So I submit to you, what are Beavis and Butt-head going to do? It's not like they can watch music videos. MTV ceased to be a music channel long ago. Would new viewers even know what to make of music video commentary? It could actually be awesome if MTV allowed them to watch other MTV shows; they could be like MTV's superego, blasting the vapidness of shows like The Hills and Jersey Shore. That actually might be worth watching.

Video Games: A Personal Hell

As someone who played endless hours of video games a kid, I have grown up to be someone who wishes I hadn't. No offense to people who like games, but it's just not my idea of fun anymore, especially in social settings (damn the Wii).

But I did get a little excited during when, during the Super Bowl, I saw an ad for a video game based on Dante's Inferno. Not that I really want to play it, or that I expect it satisfy my literary expectations. But, from my nerdy PhD standpoint, it seems cool nonetheless.

So I was a little disappointed by the NYT review of it:

It should be clear by now that the story in the game has almost nothing to do with the story of the poem. There is no reason this game could not be set in any of the hundreds or thousands of generic hells that have hosted video games over the years. What Electronic Arts has done, quite transparently, is appropriate Dante’s brand to use as a light marketing skin on top of the God of War clone the company so clearly wanted to make.

And so images of Virgil spout lines from the poem at you once in a while, and Dante’s ranged weapon appears as crosses of light, but there is no heavy religious imagery and never any real sense of horror or torment. There are, however, a lot of bare female breasts. There is even a giant Cleopatra demon who spurts knife-wielding unbaptized children out of her nipples.

I can't tell whether to be disappointed that the game takes little more than its name from Dante, or to be excited that it features Cleopatra shooting "knife-wielding unbaptized children out of her nipples."

"Master race" has such negative connotations

Colbert was ON FIRE with last night's Word.

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
The Word - You-Genics
www.colbertnation.com
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Mainstream Surrealism

I don't have a tv, so I don't normally have a sense of what commercials are on, but I have to assume that THIS THING is far from ordinary:



Walt Whitman + imagery of passion (animal, sexual, natural) + Jeans = The most surreal thing you are likely to see on television anytime soon.

At least this commercial has some jeans in it. This one hardly has any:



These things have a cinematic quality that make them almost seem like cinepoems. If only they weren't trying to sell me something.

I Know a Monkey That Needs a Tickle

Now, this might come as a surprise to those of you who know that I am studying to get a PhD in English, but I didn't read that much as a kid. Usually when the topic of favorite childhood books comes up, my friends list series after series of books that they loved. To this conversation, I can add only that I enjoyed the Matt Christopher series, and when I explain that these were sports books, everyone gives me a kind of irritated look before they return to comparing their adolescent tastes and fantasies.

Mostly I went in for picture books. And there's no beating The Little Mr. and Little Miss series. So when I mentioned them to Kendra the other day (she's Little Miss Impatient, I've determined), she did a little investigatory journalism and unearthed this startling website.

So they're making it into a show. I can't complain about that, because, after all, the only thing better than picture books is t.v. But what I don't understand is the marketing. The website suggests that the inteded age group is 4-7, but the humor seems more appropriate for, well, someone like me. Is it sad that I still laugh OUT LOUD when I hear cartoon characters say "poop"? I think that's all Mr. Bump says. And on the website, you can make seagulls shit on Mr. Grumpy's head. Hilarious! Oh, if only I had a t.v. In the meantime, enjoy the website. God that Mr. Grumpy's a bastard! Poop!

Update: I have seen two (TWO!) Little Ms. t-shirts in the last two days. I'm sensing a resurgence of the 1970s zeitgeist the birthed this series.

News Anchors of the World Unite

Not having a television, I miss (to some extent) the kind of nonsense shows up on cable news. Whenever I go back to Kansas, I am always surprised by home much of Fox's airtime (or CNN's, though my parents don't watch that channel) is devoted to celebrity gossip and missing baby stories. Especially in this season of war, when people are a little bored with bombings, it's appalling.

So it's nice to see a news anchor who feels my pain. Via Think Progress.

Do Cameras Makes Us Safer?

Of all the youtube videos I have seen in the last two years, the one that shook me the most was the one that captured UCLA police officers repeatedly tasering a student in their library last November. In part, my response to that video was conditioned by witnessing a similar scene of police brutality six months previous, when four friends of mine were pepper sprayed and arrested (one was tased twice) because they were verbally confrontational with a cop who had pinned a man down , handcuffed him, and then pepper sprayed him. Naturally, all four were acquitted of the piddly little crimes there were supposedly arrested for. At least in Albuquerque, such behavior by police is a form a crowd control since it is virtually impossible to hold an officer responsible for wrongful arrest, use of excessive force, or any other type of misconduct.

So when I saw this morning that skateboarders in Arkansas got photos of a cop strangling one of their friends, and video of the same cop brutalizing and arresting a few more, my heart beat immediately began to quicken. What were the skateboarders doing? Well, you know, skateboarding. And being a worried about their friend who had just been strangled by a law enforcement officer. That's a crime, you see.


This video is not nearly as brutal as the UCLA one, and I'm glad for that. But it's a good reminder for me about the potential good cell phone cameras contain. I have a general ambivalence about the proliferation of cameras in public and the extreme ease with which we are all potentially broadcast. Ambivalent because such a proliferation could portend an Orwellian surveillance state (it's not as hyperbolic as it may sound), and yet the power seems to swing both ways, since the ability to capture true acts of injustice can, and does, happen. I don't know, ultimately, whether we are better off with this technology, but I am glad that it helps keep people who brutalize others human beings in check.

Since the UCLA incident, I have been feeling the need to acquire a camera phone. I see it as a way to protect myself, and my friends, from the police, odd as that sounds. I wonder now how things would have been different if I had had one last year when my friends were arrested.

Watch out Islam: Pat Robertson's got your number

So I just began reading Media Matters a few weeks ago, mostly because I got curious after Bill O'Reilly criticized it again and again. And it's pretty good. They keep a close eye on what's happening on the television that I don't watch. It's a fabulous place for bitter laughter.

Here, for example, is Pat Robertson speaking on The 700 Club, indicting himself as the bigot he is.

Pat Robertson says, "Islam is not a religion. It is a worldwide political movement meant on domination." Fascinating. It's especially fascinating since he can at the same time indict Islam as being incapable of understanding "reasoned dialogue." Here's the link to the Media Matters video and article.

books + television

Literary TV Programs Yet to Be Produced, from McSweeny's

My favorites:

Everybody Loves Raymond Carver

Welcome Back, Kafka