The State of Television

Wow, maybe I haven’t been paying attention, or maybe the media is making too much out of nothing: a possible Actors’ Strike?

“I don’t think the writers’ strike was good for anybody,” Teri Weinberg of NBC Entertainment told The New York Times. No, but it did allow crap like quarterlife and I Survived A Japanese Game Show! to get airtime ...

Even Boston Herald chimed in with an ace headline as, “Actors’ strikecould hurt Mass[achusetts] movie biz”: someone with the unfortunate surname of Paleologos was quotes as having said, “I honestly believe that even if there is a [strike], that we’re still going to be in business this summer with at least two pictures ... And I don’t think anyone, even the most pessimistic people, feel that if the actors’ strike happens, that it’ll be for a long time.” It’s sprinkled with other gems which Google uses as a pulled quote to attract eyes: “But Chris O’Donnell, business manager of Local 481 of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, Moving Picture Technicians, Artists and Allied Crafts ...” That’s enough. We get it. Boston would feel the brunt of this strike, duh.

Going back to I Survived A Japanese Game Show, I was returning to work from lunch when I saw the promo on the huge billboard in Times Square. I thought it was a failsafe fail from the moment I set my eyes on it. How do I feel about it now, after a whole, oh five minutes, of cringing? Not good, my friend, not good. What has our world come to? Are we not stooping as low as our Japanese television executive comrades are in sending our patriotic ones over to represent our country in a battle of scrambled eggs and ? And what spin did ABC put on this to get it past its unspoken “educational television” moniker? Cultural awakening? Breaking down racial barriers? It’s not just a Japanese thing, either, it’s an Asian thing.

By the way, I beg to differ – many Americans have “gone there” before. See: blonde teen pop idols who the Asian teen girls adore. (E.g. Jesse McCartney in Taiwan, at a “game show")


[Photo courtesy of YouTube user "jwwf11"]
Kawaii, no?

P.S. ABC, the ridiculous sound effects can be construed as propagating racial stereotypes, doncha know? And nice touch with the guy who thought Japanese looked like hieroglyphics. I feel ya, guy. Two years of college-level Mandarin classes. I feel ya.