April 09, 2004

• i hope he wins...
• I guess it's not a fifty-fifty, what with the zeroes, but taking essentially a coinflip to double your money isn't that bad a deal. I'd take it right now. It's just whether or not you trust your luck.
• I guess it's not a fifty-fifty, what with the zeroes, but taking essentially a coinflip to double your money isn't that bad a deal. I'd take it right now. It's just whether or not you trust your luck. What's stopping you? Go and do it if you feel that way. For most people I imagine what stops them is needing the
• Yeah.. it's not fifty-fifty. I believe the odds are somewhere closer to 47%. Still nice, but of course the house has the edge... God, now I want to gamble...
• Should he lose, does Nevada have laws on vagrancy that will cut in, and given that his tux is rented how about laws on public nudity? His chances are 47.4% ((18/38)*100), they might have been better if a casino in europe had been up for it.
• Wow, Max Headroom, that's a blast from the past.
• Having lost money all 3 times I've played roulette, I have to wonder what his motivation is - is there an ex-wife trying to claim alimony?
• He's a professional gambler - this is just the next step.
• some professional though... being a professional is all about money management. I'm sure this goes against everything... I guess the guy might want to step it up though because he's just got getting the same excitement out of gambling that he used to. What better way than betting everything? Especially considering I win *something* everytime I play roulette, I'm with him... though I don't lay down my entire net worth on a single colour
• the best commentary I've seen on reality television directed by a former fox exec.
• Get your own TV. oh... nevermind
• Flagpole - what exactly is your beef with reality TV? I hasten to stress that I'm not having a go at you here, but: have we become so jaded that unless it's real anguish, real tears, real desperation, real people subjected to suffering and humilliation, it just doesn't register? It doesn't excites us, otherwise? ...you're saying what? Because of recent trends in programming, entire populaces have lost their power to apreciate fiction? That whilst we are still able to create fiction, non-fiction programming shouldn't be allowed? What? I don't understand your argument. Drama has always been about tension; tension comes from the potential of bad things happening. Why should non-fiction be any different? (Disclaimer: as pretty much most MoFites who were around for the last census will know, I work for Britain's biggest producer of shows in the reality and factual entertainment fields. This doesn't mean I'm blindly sticking up for reality TV; most of it is shit, because it's a new, cheap, successful genre, and that will always lead to shit. And too much of it has ethical problems, which I wouldn't deny. I hold no brief for reality TV. However, working for the company has made me realise to what extent many of the criticisms of reality TV are knee-jerk, ill-considered and often just plain wrong; and that's what I'm talking about here.) This guy is an attention seeker. Attention seekers don't need attention to do dumb attention-seeking stuff - they'll do it regardless. I seriously doubt that he was solicited to do this by TV company (if he was, that's a different matter; it would be a horrifyingly immoral thing to do.) Now I have criticisms of this show - for a start, it sounds astoundingly dull (apart from the event itself, what is there to see?), and there are some worrying ethical issues. But to use it to damn an entire TV genre seems to stem more from gut reaction than from rational thought. Moreover, what exactly makes this "reality TV"? The key element of reality TV is that it shows people's unscriped, unpremeditated behaviour in producer-mediated situations (the early reality shows were largely inspired by the situationists) and they key element is the format; the blueprint for the series that describes how the producers will mediate the reality, and (crucially) allows the idea to be sold all around the world. This show does not sound like there is a single producer-mediated element in the set-up; the protagonist has planned his actions (at least his catalytic actions) in advance, and independently of the producers; and there is little or no formatted element. This isn't reality TV; this is a documentary. Would you use it to damn the whole genre of documentaries? (For example, a documentary was made about the British artist who destroyed eveything he owned. Different method, different kind of sensationalism, same outcome; and while many people have criticised that, they were at least allowed to debate it in a manner that wasn't from the start framed in pejorative terms.) Don't get me wrong; it is the producers and commisioners of much reality TV who are to blame for a lot of the knee-jerking that goes on about reality TV, because they persist in making cheap, shoddy, artless and tasteless shows which often seem to be seeking new common denominators lying at lower levels than we've ever discovered before. But its critics shouldn't indulge in blanket criticisms; nor should they allow their definition of the genre to sloppily include any non-fiction show they don't like; and nor should they merely resort to apocalyptic invective. None of this helps make TV better. Which should surely be the aim of criticism?...
• Stop being so intelligent, you big get. It's BAAAAD! False consciousness!
• I personally can't stand them because it feels like voyeurism -- maybe I'm too conditioned to minding my own business. It's a cultural thing, too, where people prefer to turn away from someone else's shame or pain. That isn't to say we don't have our own slew of reality shows here in NZ, but they pale in comparison to some of the US-made shows. That's probably as much budget as anything else, though. Our version of Fear Factor was utter crap, and that's putting it nicely. I admit I've watched a couple of episodes of Survivor but the drama on that particular show seems far too contrived to be real. And of course there are the stories from ex-survivor cast members (or whatever you call them) about the crew setting up the action by encouraging them to confront a certain person, or by telling them something another person had said behind their back. It comes across to me as tacky, more so than the Jerry Springer-like talk shows because you know half the guests on Springer's show are wannabe actors who want to get their faces or bodies on TV and will say anything to get their fifteen minutes. Overall, reality TV makes me igry. Boy, I love that word.
• Laziness biffa, pure and simple laziness on my part. If the bet came to me, I'd take it. As it hasn't, I won't. It just doesn't seem like something to get worked up about. He's doing everything of his own free will, none of it's illegal, and he was going to do it whether they recorded it or not. I guess to me, that makes it okay. Not particularly great or anything, but it's his life.
• Ah. Xcuse me, this should disable tracicle's small tag. Weird. Didn't know it carried on from comment to comment.
• I can't damn reality tv - I love decorating shows. Though I guess that is a lot less schadenfreude than vicarious happy redocorating. Except when Debbie Travis screws up - and she sometimes does. Then it's vicarious shouting "that's a dumb colour!". Or maybe not so vicarious. What were we talking about?
• I thought the whole point of decorating shows was laughing at the poor suckers crying when they saw what the insane tv designers had done to their houses? Also, I like it when flashboy gets angry.
• Sweeping generalization; OK, I'll accept that. What irks me of the genre is that, instead of acting, scripting, setting up a scene and such, this genre preys on poor saps reacting to situations prodded on them. Big rats on a lab. Documentaries are something else altogether, and even them have some editing and levels of 'staging' to make them more palatable. But the fact that the lowest common denominator is getting accustomed with the 'real' thing, in a twisted voyeuristic way, that's the danger point. If the guy wasn't betting it all, it wouldn't be news, right? Obviously can't say how the framing, the style the program will have, but I doubt it will be more of a doc than some hyped event; "Tonight! Will he get black, red, or thrown out? See it live..!" I don't take much offense on the level of skin, or profanity on such shows. It's deeper than that. The public is getting the idea that surveillance is 'normal'. That it's OK to feel amused, to laugh over somebody's plight. That is the point here. Options? Well, I hope this paranoid tirade can help people like you, within the industry, to analyze the work being done and guide it to better alternatives.
• What irks me of the genre is that, instead of acting, scripting, setting up a scene and such, this genre preys on poor saps reacting to situations prodded on them. So this is a big fiction vs. non-fiction thing? Documentaries are something else altogether, and even them have some editing and levels of 'staging' to make them more palatable. So your complaint is that it's more real than documentaries? Okay, I'm getting really snarky now, sorry - posted before when I was a little tipsy, doing so again now, Easter weekend and all... And I'm pleased to note david's keeping track of my rants :-) I hope this paranoid tirade can help people like you, within the industry, to analyze the work being done and guide it to better alternatives. We're trying, dude, we're trying, sweet lord we're trying. We spend our entire working lives analyzing, and worrying, and despairing. That image you've got of the hand-rubbing vultures out to squeeze every last drop of entertaining human misery from the bedraggled soul of our fetid culture? Sorry, man. Unfact.
• And I'm pleased to note david's keeping track of my rants :-) I'm sure there's a few more around, but damn are they entertaining. And when are you going to get round to updating your weblog, Noam? (I'm desperate to post that to the front page, you do realise, but it needs a few more updates really. So chop chop, and all that, old boy)
• I know, I know - you do realise I have to actually research Chomsky every time I post there, don't you?... Just been a little busy lately, but hopefully more soon (and the cheque really is in the post, honest... and I'll have that report on your desk by this afternoon... and we'll have your daughter out of the mine in no time...) Itz sooo that bee-atch suZiEz fault, OMG, o-kay?
• Wow, he won.
• Wow, he won. Did anyone see this? I was round at my friends house and where the Sky selection thing said this was supposed to be on they had repeats of some other crap.
• And the same day, a blackout puts another major casino in a standstill. Coincidence? Of course not. :) /flagpole dons tinfoil, starts flinging bananas at passerby, shouts "It's the vultures, the vultures!"