Of monsters and men

Monsters and Bogeymen have been in the collective unconscious since civilisation began. Trolls, Vampires, Werewolves, Zombies, Witches, and so on have been the anti-heroes in myths and stories for generations. At the moment there is a plethora of TV shows based on monsters showing in prime time viewing slots. Only nowadays the monsters are sometimes the heroes.

Among the current shows of this genre are Grimm, Supernatural, Fringe, V, The Walking Dead and Lost Girl. The monster shows seem to be of two types: the monsters  among us that the people around them don’t know about and represent danger, and the monsters who are “misunderstood” and shown to have the same desires, hopes and dreams as people; sometimes they are hidden, sometimes in the open. 

Supernatural and the Walking Dead revolve around a plot based on humans hunting/being hunted by monsters. The plight of the human population lies in the hands of our hunters. In some shows they have specialized techniques, equipment and ancient knowledge. The monsters are normally in the guise of people and only the hunters can usually see/identify them. Other shows, such as Lost Girl and Heroes make the monster the lead character. In this scenario the audience are invited to share the problems of being different: the angst and pain as the characters try to fit in to a world in which they don’t belong. In both types of show the viewer is introduced to the idea that beneath the everyday world there is a supernatural world full of beings different from us. These beings live amongst people and mostly go unrecognized. The general impression given is that it is not just a few isolated monsters in the human population, their number is legion.

I mentioned Heroes in the previous paragraph. It comprises a storyline about “superhumans” who develop abilities beyond the norm. The 4400 and No Ordinary Family fall in to this category also. The main characters suddenly, through a freak accident or some such thing, find themselves with amazing abilities: abilities that they conclude they need to use for the good of everyone. They usually have to keep their identity hidden from the authorities for their own safety. They are always portrayed by law enforcement as a danger to society. They are imposters, people who are not what they seem; people we should be afraid of.

There is a monsters hierarchy. Some make it to the top of the ladder owning corporate businesses  and they have at their disposal lower monsters to be their goons. Just like organised crime and the illuminati in real life these monsters infiltrate everything: church, politics, business, media and either run everything already or are in the process of gaining control over everything. In most episodes of any of these shows a monster will inadvertently give themselves away and will therefore have to deal with the people who could expose them. Then the paranormal experts turn up to do some sleuthing and slaying before travelling on, continuing their quest to save humanity from horrors unknown. 

Is the idea behind these type of shows to keep the population scared? To make them worry about their neighbours? Their work colleagues? Does Big Brother hope that it makes people stay at home and trust no one? Perhaps it is just harmless entertainment, then again it could be that mind control methods are behind it. That would suggest collusion between studio owners, producers, directors and writers. 

I think I’ll look into that. Blog you later!

Sausage roll or Pasty, What’s your sexist preference?

BAD-VERTS

Snack Wars

For a while now there has been an advertisment running for Walls sausages featuring a dog rapping to the accompaniment of some garage music. It starts with a young chav going to the garage kiosk (hence the garage music, clever, eh?) and buying a sausage roll. He turns to go but then turns back, placing a little case on the counter. The case looks like a ring case and we are supposed to get the idea that he is proposing to the middle aged lady, but he’s not: inside the box is a mini boxer dog (a dog in a box, another great visual pun), the assistant asks the customer if he is alright then opens the box and the dog starts to do his little rap, something like:

“thank you, thank you for selling walls

thank you, thank you for the sausage roll

you’re the loveliest garage lady in the land

but, obviously he can’t express himself, ‘cos he’s only a bloke, really”

Yeah! On behalf of the nation: thanks for the ground up pig testicles and gristle.

This ad has been followed by a new one set in a council house and featuring a married couple. Mrs Average serves Mr Average his dinner: sausages. Mr Average looks up lovingly and slides a ring case across the table towards the love of his life and then lights a candle. Some smoochy R’n’B music comes on and the little doggy does his thing:

“Thank you, thank you, for the meaty sausages

Thanks for all the walls

You’re so very wonderful

You’re the best wife in the whole world, mummy bear

But he can’t really tell you that cos he’s just a bloke, really”

So not to be outdone, the people over at Ginsters, the pasty makers must have become worried about these adverts and got in touch with their advertising people and said something like: “Walls are selling more sausage rolls by being sexist so we need our own sexist advert.” Lo, and behold the magic men did their thing and an ad was born.

Working on the theme of women’s chief role being to feed men, this ad has a man down on one knee, reciting what sounds like a proposal, but is actually a request to have his pasty heated up for him.  

What a load of twoddle! If I wrote my wife a song telling her I loved her because she cooks me sausages she would ask “Are you trying to be funny?” ... and would then proceed to teach me a new use for sausages!

I mean sexist or what? I presume the ad is aimed at the kind of Neanderthal male that sees a woman’s place as being in the kitchen, cooking for him. I thought we had progressed as a nation. In most households I know the cooking duties are dependent on shift patterns, who’s at home and when. Given that most people don’t actually cook meals from scratch these days, putting reconstituted crap in to a microwave is a job either sex can do.

So thank you, Walls and Ginsters for showing us males to be a bunch of club wielding cave men. 

I’m going now, to see what my wife can do with a vege-banger.

CONFUSED.COM : THE BETTY BOOP METHOD

BADVERTS: CONFUSED.COM

I saw a documentary a few years ago about Max Fleischer, the creator of Betty Boop who confirmed that he had used subliminal nudity in some Betty Boop cartoons. Having watched the Confused.com adverts it has made me wonder if the creators of this campaign took inspiration from him. The first thing I noticed is that as the singer bobs up and down so do her boobs. So I looked around the screen and, yep, the women in the background also have bouncing boobies! For goodness sake! This is an advert for an insurance comparison site featuring cartoon characters. Is it necessary to make it so graphic? In the most recent advert a rather large lady flashes her pink knickers several times just to relieve us of the boredom of boob overload. I dread to think of what they have planned for future adverts.

So what is the purpose behind this? What do they think that they will gain?  I can’t believe it is an accident. It also seems unlikely that it is done for “realism”, because it isn’t necessary to have that level of realism in a cartoon about a comparison site. Is it an in-joke by the “graphic” artists? Perhaps their brief was along the lines of: “We want to hold the attention of male viewers so put the women in hooped shirts and have them jump up and down a lot bouncing their bits and bobs”. On a more sinister note, perhaps it is a chauvinistic attempt to demean women through visual and unconscious means to lure potential male customers to their site.

Titillation aside, the aim of the ad seems to be to convince viewers that sitting at their PC searching through lists of providers of insurance is fun. I don’t know about anyone else but I have a lot better things to do with my time. I did a sum the other day. I was offered insurance for my washing machine after the one year free guarantee runs out. It would cost fifteen pounds a week, which is £180 a year. The machine cost £220. Thirty years of purchasing washing machines has taught me two things: if they go wrong it is often in the first year and is due to a faulty part. The second thing I have learned is that we get at least three years life out of a washing machine. That means that I would pay £360 for two years insurance: more than the price of a new machine. Wouldn’t I be better off by putting £15 a week in a savings account? Then if it is two years before I need another not only do I have the money for a new one I have also earned interest. Of course if it breaks down in thirteen months I lose out, but it’s a risk I am willing to take.

Maybe confused.com thinks that if a lot of other men think like I do they had better  appeal to us on a base, unconscious level and invite us into their fun filled boob watching world where we can spend hours trying to save ourselves money that we needn’t spend in the first place.

TELEVISION SCHEDULES: REPEATS! REPEATS! REPEATS!

For the last two years or so I have found myself housebound quite a lot. I therefore have the flexibility to take my leisure time when I want. I love surfing the internet, reading books and watching television. I’m in the UK and have satellite TV so there is plenty of choice – or so you would think. Not only are repeats more common, the same programs are now repeated several times in the same day then again later in the week. I thought it was bad enough when I was growing up if something was repeated within a year. In fact certain channels are based almost entirely on repeats: Dave, Watch and Gold amongst others. Old BBC programs are trotted out at an alarming rate on stations that use advertising: More money for the BBC, more of the same for the customer.

It is outrageous, really. In the UK we are forced to buy a TV license in order to own a TV. That costs nearly 120 pounds a year (190 US dollars). Then there is the satellite or cable bill, typically costing 480 pounds a year (760 USD). That’s a lot of money to pay out to watch an overload of repeats. At first I liked the idea of marathons and would sit down with my snacks and enjoy an evening of Red Dwarf, or Lost, whatever, but the same episodes and the same shows are put on time and again. I’m sure there must be some great stuff archived somewhere that hasn’t seen the light of day for decades.

Another annoying habit of modern TV scheduling is the mass saturation of some shows. It used to be the norm that a drama or comedy would show one episode per week. It was actually quite exiting waiting for a favorite program to come on. Some shows are still done this way, like Fringe, a personal favorite, and I still get that feeling of exitement waiting for the next week’s episode. Some shows however run day after day. I don’t mean soap operas, of course, they are supposed to follow that format. Others, though, say Man Vs. Food for example was shown twice daily in blocks of two on the Dave channel five days a week. I like the program but I think it’s a cheek to put it on for an hour in the evening then show the same shows the next morning, with different evening shows. It’s easy to grow bored of a show if it is on so often.  Going to the other extreme I have noticed that some shows, like Supernatural seem to be on for two or three consecutive weeks then disappears for weeks. It seems to be broadcast in “dribs and drabs” and I’m never sure when it will be on next.

I know that there is a recession going on but surely TV companies aren’t all broke? Is there no good writing talent about? I was particularly annoyed one morning this week (Wednesday I think). It was nine A.M. the TV was switched on to the “Watch” channel and two episodes of a police drama called “The Bill” were about to begin. I was scrolling through news feeds on the PC at the same time and after about five minutes I thought to myself “that dialogue seems familiar” so I turned my attention to the TV and realized that the episode showing had been on the previous day. On Tuesday it was shown between 10.00 A.M. and 11.00 A.M. and on Wednesday it was shown from 9.00 A.M. to 10.00 A.M. Talk about giving the viewer a catch-up. They get a whole episode.

The schedules need sorting out, and companies that make money not only from subscriptions but from advertising as well should give better value for money.

WHY BUY A TV LICENSE?

Is my Television dangerous? I don’t mean ideologically, that’s debateable, I mean in what way can it hurt people physically?

You need to have a license if you have a gun. Guns can kill and they should not be easy to get so I understand why a license is required. Likewise a license is needed for a dog because it can be trained to attack and in addition it is a way of helping to minimize the amount of unsuitable owners who mistreat animals. The same can be said for exotic pets, if they are dangerous then ownership should be licensed. In the UK a license is required to fish, this prevents fishing in the breeding season and thus maintains the stock of fish in rivers, lakes and reservoirs.

This is all common sense but I can’t see why I need a license to watch TV. We are supposed to be in a free market economy – that’s a joke, I know, because the U.S. and UK govt’s now own banks thanks to the rescue packages a couple of years ago. That aside, don’t the BBC have an unfair advantage over others because viewers are forced to buy a license to fund it? Not only that, but the public pay for it and have no say in the programming. The BBC is supposed to be apolitical and unbiased, but it has come to light in recent years that they are receiving money from the EU to promote EU policies. In addition to this the BBC has also borrowed heavily from The European Investment Bank. link here The loans have been done with favorable terms that are not available commercially. As this older post shows Scotland Yard have been asked to investigate BBC funding. here

People who claim that the license fee provides money to create programming of quality not only miss the fact that this is unfair on the rest who have to find their own funding for their content, it is a purely a matter of taste. I find I very rarely watch BBC programs, and although I’m no big fan of Sky because it is trying to monopolize the industry and is run by a three way schizophrenic who doesn’t know if he is Australian, British or American, and if the land of Amazon women existed he would probably chop off his gonads and change his name to “Ruperta” in order to gain control of the media there, too, I have to admit that all the TV I like is on the sky network, which I pay for through choice. Why should I be made to buy a license for a set of channels I rarely watch? The definition of “quality” as applied to program making is not really about quality, it is about what is perceived as high culture: Opera, The Proms, Jane Austin and so on. These are not to my taste so why should I pay for them to be produced. Why do the rest of us have to buy a license to fund crap that snobs want to watch?

There is a petition running to get the BBC to account for its funding. The link is at the end of this blog.

http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/30343