I was just watching the history channel a while ago, a fairly interesting documentary about the rise of power of French kings and the building of Notre Dame cathedral, and then the ads came on. Well, fair enough, they’ve got to make their money somehow. One thing that I really don’t
Making the Police Look Good
get, though, is the huge number of ads TV channels give to themselves. First, it’s pretty much a concession that they can’t sell the ad space. Which is a solution I’m sure they could remedy by lowering their rates. Secondly, it is preaching to the choir. If you are seeing that ad, you are already watching that channel.
But it was the ad itself that bothered me. As they ran down the list of programs: Axe Men(about lumberjacks), Ice Road Truckers (about people driving trucks in the Arctic), Pawn Stars, Pickers and American Restorations (about junk), and one about an archaeologist looking for mummies, I realized that only the last one had anything to do with history at all.
It’s like MTV. They started off as an all music channel, in fact THE all music channel, but they’ve surrendered that niche and now a majority of their programming, probably, is reality shows. If you want to watch music videos, there are plenty of other channels.
I suppose ratings have something to do with it, because that means advertising dollars and money talks, bullshit walks, as they say, but in today’s fragmented market, I would think a channel which calls itself Music Television would want to appeal to people interested in music and a channel which actually goes to the trouble of naming itself The History Channel would want to appeal to people interested in history, because it’s probably a big enough market to go after, but no. Which makes me think there’s some market force I haven’t taken into consideration.
That brings me to the cop shows. They are absolutely non-stop, all the time, on every commercial network. NCIS, CSI, Criminal Minds (two or three versions of all of those), The Sentinel, Rookie Blue, Justified, Midsommer Murders (I rather like that one, the Brits are so polite about their murders), Rush Hour (Australian, not quite as sensationalized as the American shows, but not very good either), that really lame re-make of Hawaii 5-0 (why bother remaking that, when it’s just a cop show like every other cop show- really, how much would it cost them to write a new goddamned theme song?)and many, many more.
It is just not possible that that huge a percentage of the viewing audience wants to watch people getting killed all the time. So, there’s some other force demanding cop shows all the time, and I think I have figured it out.
They are propaganda; an advertisement, if you will, for the police. They legitimize brutality. They make the cops out to be heroes.
With all it’s faults, I’ll still take the History Channel.
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Well I disagree with your point on American restoration and pawn stars. I think those shows deal with allot of history. Bout the cop shows though there hateful. Theres maybe 2 shows in the entire genre worth calling television. I agree propoganda and propoganda makes me angry. Worst is that when there is something original on it gets canceled and replaced
+1
Thats because the general American tv audience is lazy and easily attracted to stupid totally fantasyland polcie shows. If cops got shot at as much as tv shows each episode you would not be able to find anyone willing to do the job because the odds are you would not duck them very long. Writers are very lazy too. Throw in several shootouts per episode and a few car chases and then write the script around that. I highly doubt cops have joking sexual tension banter back and forth before going into a hostile dangerous situation like on NCIS etc. You like Midsomer Murders because unlike US shows they dont have car chases, guns or weak lazy scripts. You really need to pay attention to the characters to follow many of the plots in shows like Lewis, Inspector Morse, Insp Frost etc. So the answer is a lazy easily bored audience and a lazy group of writers. PS The new Hawaii 5-0 kept me interested for less than half of the first episode before I bailed. Jack Lord would cry if he saw the new version.
You are correct. The only explanation that makes sense is these shows are propaganda. Never cared for most of them though I used to watch the forensic shows. Joseph Goebbels would have loved how this programming is used to manipulate the sheeple.
Its a two sided assault on our minds. The 90% sheep class of humanity that does not self-determine watches whatever is served to them, and swallow the propaganda whole. The 10% sovereign class of humanity is already recognized as a threat to the soft slavery the aforementioned 90%, and if just a tiny sliver of those 10% ever loose grip and lash out at cops violently, then the entire campaign is justified. Cops need something to justify their existence, be it mindless worship (or the perception of), or actual threats to society.
The US justice system is now a complete joke,they’ve turned it into a business because money does indeed bring the best people to corruption.Then you have control freak psycho power monkeys that have nothing better to offer society than their management of someone else’s time on earth,in America
Example,what happens to all the people who have been arrested for pot when marijuana becomes legal in the US?Pardons,paroles,early release?Doubtful if anyone already popped for pot will benefit it’s new found legal status in the future…