Not Your Grandfather's Television

For this week’s blog post, I watched an English 103 multimedia video that focused on the way television has changed in the past decade. The creators of this composition chose to pair the changes in television content with a music that also displays a changing of the times. The video begins with a series of stills from the shows that aired in the infancy stage of television. A song selection of the 1950’s that reminds the viewer of a simpler time as it is paired with jovial scenes of indicative of the era at hand. As the group transitions into their interpretation of modern day television, the music makes a similar shift to the more popular music of the decade. Through these pairings, the group seems to suggest a comparable loss of substance within the music and the content of television in the current day and age and by extension the current generation.

            They attempted to incorporate a humor into their parodies of various reality shows that can only be classified by weak at best. And while it adds nothing to the entertainment aspect that they were no doubt aiming for, it does manage to serve a significant purpose. Their claim that there has been a drastic change in modern television when compared to its wholesome counterparts is actually more easily identifiable because of the jokes that are otherwise lacking. Where over dramatizations and dressing in drag fail to convey the high caliber of mockery that accompanies these travesties, poorly crafted plot lines and one-liners do more than over compensate.

            Overall they are able to convey their message to the viewer, albeit halfheartedly. They are able to show the audience just how television has changed for the worse, becoming a source of mindless stimulation that simultaneously suggests that drama is necessary for one’s life to be interesting or valuable. Whether or not they are advocates of this new reality television lifestyle is still unclear but they are able to somewhat chronicle the changes that have occurred in recent years.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sV6UN1HR8TQ