Lost in Celebrity: Jon and Kate Detonate

It’s clear: Jon and Kate shouldn’t procreate. The “grocery-aisle-reading” public know Jon and Kate Gosselin from the tabloid tsunami over the reality TV couple’s impending divorce and apparent infidelity. For the rest of the fortuitous one percent who don’t know who I’m talking about — “Jon and Kate Plus 8” is a program in its fifth season on cable channel TLC.  he show was originally intended to chronicle two stressed-out, but steadfast, parents who attempt to raise a pair adorable twins and a set of sextuplets in the ‘burbs. ”It might be a crazy life,” mommy Kate says in the opening credits, “but it’s our life” adds daddy Jon. But lately, ‘crazy’ means Kate discovering Jon sleeping with babysitters, tabloid reporters and a bevy of bar room broads. Meantime, Jon calls the cops on Kate to throw her off the property during daddy’s visiting hours. Yep — it’s just good ol’ American family fun on TLC — “The Learning Channel.”

Thankfully, these gory details aren’t directly addressed on the program – at least, not yet. Instead, the show attempts to behave as if viewers are still interested in mommy’s camping trip, or her recipe for Moose Munch, or dad’s go-kart race. Hard to believe just a year ago, Jon and Kate were featured giving marital tips, writing a book about touching family moments — even renewing wedding vows in Hawaii. This was actually when everyone might have become suspicious — since when did renewing vows half way around the world become so important to a family of eight kids? Since Mom caught Dad bedding the chick from the biker bar down the street.  (more…)

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Tags: divorce, Gosselin, infidelity, Jon and Kate Plus 8, reality
Posted Aug 20th 2009 at 6:55 am in Culture, Entertainment | 20700264 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jmeath/2009/08/20/jon-and-kate-separate/Lost+in+Celebrity%3A+Jon+and+Kate+Detonate2009-08-20+13%3A55%3A36Jason+Killian+Meath

Iran Is Not Film School

Okay Class, stop sniffing your Sharpies in a futile attempt to reach a state of intoxication and try to take notes using that writing instrument and what brain cells you have left. Remember, if you can, that information you believe to be useless is, indeed, of no value whatsoever if you are unable to apply it in real-life situations, or at the very least for pc gaming “cheats.” Otherwise your very existence is no better than a work of fiction and bears no resemblance to any human being, past or present, living or dead. (Or in your cases, “living dead” or zombie, if you prefer, or the more inclusive term “differently animated.”)

Aristotle, in Poetics, slops the pearl that “art” is a “representation of reality.” By this definition, presentations of the creative sort contain something, if only a je ne sais quois, that can be recognized as a reflection of the human condition and the historical present. Reach back in time to The Epic of Gilgamesh, and out of the cuneiform pressed in clay comes the tale of a king’s hubris, lust for immortality, and ultimate understanding of his place in the world. Fast forward and select at random. “The Counsels of the Bird” by Rumi, Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest,  Eliot’s “Quartets,” “The Short Happy Life Of Francis MacComber” by Hemingway.  Consider Andy Warhol’s body of work as a commentary on the superficiality of modern culture; look at the content of  films, popular songs and television programs, comic strips and “illustrated novels,” with their wide diversity of theme and thought.  All these arts, of varying degrees of cultural significance, may be seen to generally adhere to Aristotle’s commentary. (more…)

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Tags: Art, Film, iran, journalism, media
Posted Jun 23rd 2009 at 5:41 pm in Entertainment, News | 1425262 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/sgraves/2009/06/23/iran-is-not-film-school/Iran+Is+Not+Film+School2009-06-24+00%3A41%3A20Scott+Graves

Reality TV: The End of Shame

When the end of the world comes, the four horsemen of the Apocalypse won’t greet us; The Real Housewives of New Jersey’ll tear us to shreds.

Television long ago brought something to the world that should never have been mixed: entertainment and reality. Because the moment you stick a camera in the face of reality, the reality gets lost. What you end up with is the ability for a camera to be on while a human being sheds all traces of its shame. That place where one openly cowers in a passive emotion while being in a public place.
I love a good car crash, not the sort that involves a motor vehicle and some poor slob texting-in his fantasy baseball picks. I’m talking about the car crash that is “The Real Housewives of New Jersey.”  Like a rubbernecking commuter getting one last look at those pretty flashing lights, I can’t take my eyes off that show. Its complete lack of shame coupled by the site of human beings unconsciously relishing in their own self-destruction is thrilling to me.

Shame is the lost gesture in today’s ugly world of reality TV and we need it back. It’s what separates us from the animals. (more…)

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Tags: American Express Black card, Eminem, reality, shame, The Real Housewives of New Jersey
Posted Jun 23rd 2009 at 8:19 am in Entertainment | 166090One Commenthttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jlindsey/2009/06/23/the-end-of-shame/Reality+TV%3A+The+End+of+Shame2009-06-23+15%3A19%3A20Joseph+Lindsey

The Reality of Reality

It’s always fascinated me how people can believe something that’s not true, and then get angry if you challenge them on it. After all, we’re all deluded. Each and every one of us. Don’t believe me? OK, check this out. You are more than likely sitting down right now. On a chair, stool, couch, whatever. It’s resting on a floor. The floor is part of a building. The building is on the ground which is part of your city. None of those things, except you, are moving, correct?

Wrong.

The city is in a country, which is on a land mass which is moving. The land mass is on a planet which is spinning. At the equator the spin is 1,038 miles per hour. At the poles it’s barely spinning at all. And the planet on which we rest is circling the sun at 67,000 miles per hour (30 kilometers a second). Our solar system is moving in our galaxy at 490,000 miles per hour or 220 kilometers per second. So what we perceive as stillness isn’t anything of the kind. If you think you are sitting still, you are deluded. (more…)

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Tags: media, perception, POV, reality, truth
Posted Feb 23rd 2009 at 2:42 pm in Media Criticism | 5752696 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jhudnall/2009/02/23/the-reality-of-reality/The+Reality+of+Reality2009-02-23+22%3A42%3A32James+Hudnall