13 year old boys to dictate culture, TV content
PBS is the vegetarianism of television. Although it’s a good idea, few of us have the discipline to commit to it. Tim Hadachek’s got a solution.
Like so many other government endeavors, PBS falls into the long list of programs that have outlived their usefulness. Public broadcasting was created in 1967 to provide diversity to television at a time when it was dominated by the three broadcast networks.
But in today’s world of 6,000-channel cable packages, there is little need for more diversity. Science, cooking and home improvement shows — at one time exclusive PBS undertakings — now have networks of their own. Slashing the budget for public broadcasting is a favorite pastime of Republicans in Congress and the White House.
Starting with Newt Gingrich in the 1990s and continuing to the current president, it is almost a yearly ritual for the proposed budget to greatly limit PBS funding. Yuppies everywhere protest loudly, and the $400 million or so is begrudgingly put back into the federal budget.
The problem is that those who protest cutting spending don’t seem to be actually watching. As the New York Times noted, “the highest-rated shows on PBS barely garner half the ratings of the wrestling show ‘Friday Night Smackdown.’”
I couldn’t have said it better, but I will anyway. American media and culture would do better off by pandering to teenage boys. Teenage boys don’t want Shakespeare, classical music, modern art. They want Smackdown. Also: fast-food ads. And Jerry Springer. And Girls Gone Wild. Yeah, lots of medieval-era patriarchy, except you can reach a lot more people with TV than with sonnets.
Public television is based on the assumption that such a thing as “high culture” can be defined. Based on the current programming of PBS, high culture means watching 10-year-old British sitcoms and rich people sell their junk.
Culture can’t be defined; it is whatever people choose it to be, based on their own interests. Shoving large amounts of Shakespearean adaptations down our throats is not going to change that.
In Hadachek’s world — a utopia of Ayn Rand-level dickitude — history and culture are replaced with cynical devotion to the bottom line. Marketablity is the be-all of everything. Instead of Barack, our next prez would be The Rock. Our VP would be Trish Stratus.
Maybe Hadachek is on to something after all.
