This stuff:
quoted 10 lines On 18-Mar-97, Ben Coffer scribbled something about Re: (idm) Re: idm V1 #1020:> On 18-Mar-97, Ben Coffer scribbled something about Re: (idm) Re: idm V1 #1020:
> >Believe it....we've got four channels in the UK, and the fourth
> >(supposedly most innovative) channel beams out Ricki Lake everyday at
> >5:00......presumably *this* is what we're supposed to think the average
> >american people are like.......well, until "Friends" got shown of
> >course. :)
>
> heh.. NOT! american people always ask "where the **** do they find these
> ppl?" when they see it, in fact it's the slogan to one of the talk shows
> here in the US. :)
...But it sells. There's not so much of a difference between being the
one who habitually gawks at Lashonda screaming down Phoenicia for having
taken her man away and being either Lashonda or Phoenicia. The customers
of the product find themselves reflected in it.
"Ricki Lake" represents *exactly* both what Americans like and what they
*are* like. Crass, doltish, and given to toothless scandal.
And as for 'Friends', well, that inane show, if the people I know who
watch it are any indication, it represents exactly what most young
Americans *want* to be like. Or what they are already, given a minor
adjustment of sociological demographics from the case of 'Ricki Lake' -
and in which case the high ratings can be accounted for by the most base
gen-x narcissism.
'Friends', 'Ricki Lake', 'We the People' - not so much difference in
the end. It's all about 'what is mine?', not 'what is mind?'.
Hating America, where it's all Sub-Culture,
sr
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sd