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David Harcourt
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| Joined: | 31 Dec 1969 |
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| Posts: | 1127 |
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Posted: 25 Sep 2006 09:26 pm |
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I was watching a television programme last night in which an extremely interesting situation arose.
A teenaged person was talking to her or his parents. (I was so absorbed in the medium, rather than the message, that I could not tell you whether it was a male or female child who was involved and nor can I tell you - though it was crtically important to the story being told - what the particular issue was. The point was that it was pretty damned important. The future happiness of the child hung in the balance; or, at least, that's what the child felt about it.)
At the concludion of the child's petition, the mother responded with a short statement of assent to the child's proposal, clothed in some reasonable statements of concern about peripheral issues.
There was a pause, and then the camera turned to the father, who stated his agreement with what the mother had said.
I have been waiting since 1963, which is I think when the first television programmes were broadcast in New Zealand, to see this scene end differently.
In my version, the mother makes her short and entirely reasonable speech and the husband says:
"That is certainly one point of view, and it may well be the position we arrive at when we have discussed the matter. Which we will now do."
And he takes his wife by the arm and leads her away.
In short, the husband asserts his right to participate in decision-making about the upbringing of the child, and insists that any decisions of real importance to the family be made jointly.
As I say, I have been waiting for the entire history of television broadcasting in New Zealand to see this astonishing turn of events depicted in a television programme originating from America, and I have been waiting in vain.
So often have I seen the role of men in child-raising depicted as a nullity in American television programmes that I begin to suspect that there must be some truth in the alternative reality which is being depicted. But what concerns me more is that - with most of the best programmes being broadcast here being of American origin - this very strange view of how adults should manage their lives may begin to influence New Zealand society.
Is this possible, do you think? After all, we follow the Americans in so many trivial things. Might these have a cumulative effect? After the seven hundredth, or nine hundredth, cup of latte supped with a spoon will each urban New Zealand male abruptly transmogrify into one of the geldings who prance about on Friends, emoting about sauce bernaise?
Or will rugby save us?
I think I should be told.
An American male, telephoning for a latte:
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David Harcourt
Administrator
| Joined: | 31 Dec 1969 |
| Location: | |
| Posts: | 1127 |
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Posted: 25 Sep 2006 10:18 pm |
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A postscript about Friends:
The pilot programme for this series was negatively received by NBC, which rated it "weak" and gave it a grading of 41 out of 100. While Courteney Cox's Monica fared best with test audience members, her appeal was "well below desirable levels for a lead." The characters portrayed by Lisa Kudrow and Matthew Perry had "marginal appeal," and "Rachel, Ross, and Joey scored even lower." A particularly stinging rebuke was delivered by adults 35 and over, who felt "this group did not really care about each other the way real friends would. They found the characters smug, superficial, and self-absorbed."
So, did the audience change, or the programme, or both?
I believe that the programme changed over its overly-long life, with most of the characters conforming more and more closely to the stereotypes established in the pilot. Friends thus followed the familiar path of so many American series before it: it started well only to slide into a gloop of sentimentality, pulled punches and terminal cuteness, all of it predicated on the belief that the audience loves the characters depicted more than life itself.
This phenomenon - which has happened to M*A*S*H*, The Simpsons and Six Feet Under to name just three of hundreds of examples - is called "jumping the shark". See:
http://www.jumptheshark.com/
for more information about this intriguing phenomenon. The makers of the best British television programmes of the past 30-40 years - Blackadder, Yes Minister, Fawlty Towers, The Office and so on - have sought to avoid the decline in quality which characterises virtually every long-running series (the only exception I can think of is Seinfeld) by limiting their runs to as few as a dozen programmes.Attached Image (viewed 66 times):
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