Viewer Indiscretion

I’ll come clean. Though I produce my own small bit of pop culture, I am not a big fan of the stuff, particularly not movies. On average, I see about three movies a year. I watch about two hours of television a week. And most of that is accidental viewing. My channel surfing is akin to driving past a ghastly, five-car pile up on Interstate 494. It leaves me powerless to do anything but slow down and gape at the carcass of American entertainment. It’s enough to make you turn on the radio, listen to Garrison Keillor, and think “Guy Noir” is funny.

If only I could lose a few more brain cells and get with it, perhaps, my life would be a lot more interesting. I would be more informed, part of the Matrix, with my finger on the pulse of humanity. It would be so easy to open my eyes and ears wide and take it all in. The snap and crackle of pop-culture references and imagery boiling down my consciousness until my inner monologue becomes a thick, greasy roux of prurient joy juice. A serotonin/Prozac cocktail party, nonstop diversion as colorless, and as easy to digest, as the Wonder-Bread goodness of a Jim Belushi sitcom one-liner. It’s tempting to join this uncomplicated world, where the most common exercise of free speech is a prime-time half hour of nubile Red Lobster waitresses in thong bikinis, cantering in front of Lorenzo Lamas on the prospect that he will decree them, by the power infested in him, as a bona fide, blow-dried son of Fernando, once and for all, HOT. (What happens after this? Do the girls get diplomas? Lifetime backstage passes to Whitesnake concerts? Is it like transferable life-experience credits that you can apply to your major? What they deserve is just a swift kick in the glutes, a souvenir wet T-shirt, and their name on the short list for fluff girls on the next Snoop Dogg video.)

You’ve come this far, so gather ’round and I’ll tell you what put the quarter here in old Grandma. Last week, heading out to the Cineplex to indulge in a couple hours of air-conditioned distraction, I settled into the lazy back row with a magnum of Sprite in one paw, and a five-gallon refillable grocery bag of popcorn in the other. (I can never finish either, but I am incapable of buying the smaller size for a dollar less when you get so much more for your money the other way. That’s either the retail sucker in me, or the Lutheran—you decide.) The theater darkened, and after a half-hour of commercials, the Coming Attractions began. The trailers, in most cases, eliminate the desire to see the film at all, as they typically contain the movie’s best three jokes, the entire plot-line, including the surprise twist ending, and the best cut on the soundtrack, blasted at air-raid-warning-siren levels.

After the commercials, I reached the zenith of the phenomenon of pre-ejaculate movie trailers. Freddy Versus Jason. My eyes bugged and glazed. I tried to lift myself out of the plush chair, but the popcorn had me pinned in place. Graceful arcs of blood spouted from sexy victims whose anguished, terrified screams rose in operatic unison to the techno back-beat. Beloved monsters wielding Sears Craftsman chainsaws and Flo-jo miracle-blade manicures guffawed in butchersome glee.

Later, my ironic friends laughed at my stunned response to the gorefest. They explained that it’s simply a mass-media reaction to our brutal, insecure world. A safe, pleasurable, R-rated way of mirroring and digesting real violence, making it more palatable and, therefore, less nerve-racking. By combining that pair of consumer-tested mass-murderers, the studio is merely treading a profitable path of least resistance. Call it the regurgistory.

Still, that last trip to the movie-house was enough for me for awhile. I probably won’t get lured back until after Thanksgiving, probably won’t turn the TV on until the new crop of network shows comes out. Maybe someone in development at ABC will decide to put real homeless people in the Big Brother house. Give ’em a wet bar and let America choose whom to vote back onto the streets each week. You know, kick it up a notch—Bam!