Commercial Television is commercials
House on Red Corner · 2007-08-22
One of the reasons I have removed the television from our household is to place a limit as to how many commercials our little girl can be exposed to as she grows up. Its pretty much an impossibility to prevent her from ever seeing a commercial the first X number of years. Another reason is that it annoys me when there are ’stories’ on the television which are just vehicles for product placement.
As a person who has worked in the Film/Television Industry for a number of years, I understand teh inherent cost to produce a segment/story/show/movie, in fact I still sit and watch movies by calculating how much it cost to make the scene, sequence and movie. It’s just something I do, it has basically ruined my ability to watch a bad movie; I get way too involved with the cost to pay that terrible actor flubbing his lines or the lighting that is showing unnaturally in the background.
Morning News Shows were the first thing to go out of my viewing diet. After a couple days of working on one here in New York, way back in the beginning of my career I realized just what they were doing was a more official infomercial. So when I read last night that CBS was having a segment about Fatherhood and the way that it was changing, I certainly did not get my hopes up enough to believe that the network had come to terms with a necessary shift in social attitudes about men and fatherhood.
Then Rebel Dad confirmed it for me today, CBS is as CBS is, the snake oil salesman is still working.
NOTE: I do not believe CBS is any worse that the other networks- I hold them all on equal ground, and that ground is as far away from my house as conceivably possible.
21 Aug 07
Nathan drops our EJ off with me at work sometimes, so he can do something in the city of an evening. She plays with everyone at work, they gush over her, she waves goodbye and we get on the subway. That’s when the horror starts.
She screams bloody murder, squirms out of the stroller straps, climbs over the back of it and into my lap where she throws herself around and grabs under my clothes until I agree to nurse her. (I am trying to wean her, but she is dead against it.)
The subway is crowded - it’s rush hour - I don’t always have a seat. If I have a seat, everyone in the train goes from looking horrified to pretending to be asleep. If I don’t have a seat, she just thrashes violently on the filthy floor and everyone pretends not to notice (no one gives me a seat but they tend to step back) in between giving me dirty looks or tut tutting to one another. Once, a woman offered to pick her up and of course, EJ stopped screaming immediately, especially as there was an iPod to look at.
Meanwhile, I sweat with embarrassment and over compensate with affection so no one thinks I am in the habit of torturing my beloved child!
sigh.