Saturday, January 17, 2009
MTV - A rant
I think I'm in the process of becoming a complete stick in the mud. Let me relay the events of this morning that led me to this realization.
So some how I ended up watching a "special" episode of MTV's Made. Which if you haven't watched this show before, they take high school kids and help them to reach their "dreams" (those are mocking quotes"). And I have watched more episodes of this show than I would like to admit, but usually I haven't had a problem with it. It's mostly benign, kids want to be on the basketball team, or want to be popular, things that we all wanted when we were that age. And you know, they are exploiting these kids, but I never though there was anything nefarious about it. But this morning show they were having three kids compete to be hip hop dancers for $10,000. Which ... whatever, but the three contestants were basically following three teenage archetypes: cheerleader, nerd, tomboy. And really everything was pretty normal until the host was talking to the tomboy's father and said "Have you noticed a change in her? I see she's becoming a better woman and wearing more make up and high heels" and this is when it happened, I actually said out loud "Are you kidding me".
That poor little girl is like 16 years old. Why should she be wearing heels? At minimum she shouldn't feel insufficient for not wearing heels. And at first I thought it was just the host. I already don't like this guy, and really I could do a completely separate post about my dislike for this guy. But all day I've been kicking it around in my head, and I think I've realized I just don't care for MTV. All of their teenage reality shows promote a materialistic and unrealistic ideals for teenagers. And I feel like that wasn't there when I used to watch it after high school. I mean it has always been devoid of meaning or anything good, but I feel as if it wasn't harmful. But after this morning I'm pretty sure when The little one gets old enough to watch tv I am totally going to block that channel.
And then once I decided this all in my head I realized that I am definitely a stick in the mud. Or at least old ... so sweet.
So some how I ended up watching a "special" episode of MTV's Made. Which if you haven't watched this show before, they take high school kids and help them to reach their "dreams" (those are mocking quotes"). And I have watched more episodes of this show than I would like to admit, but usually I haven't had a problem with it. It's mostly benign, kids want to be on the basketball team, or want to be popular, things that we all wanted when we were that age. And you know, they are exploiting these kids, but I never though there was anything nefarious about it. But this morning show they were having three kids compete to be hip hop dancers for $10,000. Which ... whatever, but the three contestants were basically following three teenage archetypes: cheerleader, nerd, tomboy. And really everything was pretty normal until the host was talking to the tomboy's father and said "Have you noticed a change in her? I see she's becoming a better woman and wearing more make up and high heels" and this is when it happened, I actually said out loud "Are you kidding me".
That poor little girl is like 16 years old. Why should she be wearing heels? At minimum she shouldn't feel insufficient for not wearing heels. And at first I thought it was just the host. I already don't like this guy, and really I could do a completely separate post about my dislike for this guy. But all day I've been kicking it around in my head, and I think I've realized I just don't care for MTV. All of their teenage reality shows promote a materialistic and unrealistic ideals for teenagers. And I feel like that wasn't there when I used to watch it after high school. I mean it has always been devoid of meaning or anything good, but I feel as if it wasn't harmful. But after this morning I'm pretty sure when The little one gets old enough to watch tv I am totally going to block that channel.
And then once I decided this all in my head I realized that I am definitely a stick in the mud. Or at least old ... so sweet.
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1 comment:
Mature, honey. You're mature, not old. :) I also hate MTV and it's "richer is better" mentality. But you already knew that, didn't you?
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