Of rough riders and Roughback Mountains

The Economist ‘World in 2007’ anthology has kvetched a little about internet media (that’s us, folks) and the damage sustained by the stodgy, old TV stations, and especially the advertisers that profit from them, from these new Huns at the gates of Rome. Here’s what it had to say:

Indeed, the only thing keeping TV programmers off the sills of their skyscrapers is the fact that the source of their income, marketers, have not embraced web video as quickly as have the viewers. Each year advertisers collectively pay more and more for a smaller and smaller audience. This phenomenon has defied economic gravity for so many years now that few even comment on the absurdity of the whole thing (to say nothing of the risible model of interruption-based TV advertising itself: annoying 90% of the audience for the sake of reaching 10% who might care about your product makes sense only when you’ve got a captive audience, which is no longer true).

Of course, the recent plaints about the adman’s slightly too intrusive hold on the latest James Bond film are all examples of the last point made. The reason we resent adverts is that they are ultimately nothing beyond commercial propaganda, an attempt to make us believe, via psychological tricks rather than rational arguments, that we need some fadish gimmick or other. The principle is the same as election posters or grandiose military rallies.

Even more obviously, at least for those of us who choose to use this new found cyber freedom to swim in decidedly unconventional political waters, commercial propaganda isn’t the only sort bedevilling us at every turn of our MSM watching, reading and listening to lives. Brokeback Mountain*, Save The Last Dance For Me**, and Bend It Like Beckham*** are all just as surely selling a notion at best peripheral to the storyline as James Bond and his decidedly stylish and affordable watch.

The hope in each case is that people are interested enough in the film to tolerate the irrelevant baggage, whilst nonetheless being subtly influenced by it and indeed coming to associate it with the pleasure derived form the film itself. As the Economist article points out, such toleration can only be assumed with a captive audience, something which, thanks to the dispersion of the necessary technology to your techie geek in the street, neither the TV stations nor Hollywood can any longer assume. And that means they can either let a large part of the 90% who get annoyed go away, or stop annoying them. So far, they’ve chosen to do the former.

The obtrusive commercial advertising to be found in James Bond has generated a vocal outcry, but no noticeable loss of revenue. On the other hand, the kulturkampf snuck into all those ‘ground-breaking’ movies that all seem alike has created no outcry - for no outcry is permissible under the rules of pc and ‘hate speech’ - but has bitten the execs’ pockets. The one success of the past year has been Night Watch, conceived, filmed and produced in Russia, the white and straight cast of which bore a considerably greater resemblance to the population of a typical Mid-Western town than those of any number of Hollywood flicks.

*Two homosexual cowboys, living it rough out on the prairie.
**Outcast white girl gets saved by kind black with a rough background.
***A somewhat strained amalgamation of the previous two themes, including as it does a homosexual Indian, who is The Only One Who Understands our heroine, to be watched with a hankie handy in case you start crying from the laughter. Has probably created more WNs than any other film ever conceived.

Posted by Alex Zeka on Wednesday, January 3, 2007 at 11:27 AM in Popular Culture, Science & Technology
Comments (3) | Tell a friend

Comments:

Posted by James Bowery on January 03, 2007, 01:39 PM | #

Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of Christ”, taking in huge profits over the objections of Jewish movie moguls, exemplifies the indifference the MSM has to profits compared to propaganda.

Like Germany’s economic miracle, occurring during the imposition of laws banning Jews from public trust and authority, it exposes the Big Lie and is therefore the most “virulently evil” of phenomena.

Posted by Alex Zeka on January 03, 2007, 02:48 PM | #

James, Have you seen Gibson’s latest, about late Mesoamerican civilisation, and purpoting to be a metaphor for the modern Washington war machine? I’d love to hear your opinions about it.

Posted by Lurker on January 03, 2007, 10:19 PM | #

There was over Christmas/NY a cheap program (on UK TV): ‘Most annoying celebs of 2006’ something like that.

Obvious subjects - trash like Paris Hilton etc But bizarrely Mel Gibson was included for the obvious reason. Odd as I dont think this prog was really aimed at people who would ever concern themselves about such things. There he was shoehorned into the list and we were invited to be outraged.

But then even more oddly a talking head (a British journalist I think) commented about how stupid he was to have said such a thing in Hollywood of all places. In other words what Gibson was saying was true! There was also someone saying that of course he would be reprieved, after all he makes money for these people, the old ‘no sentiment in busness line’. So totally neglecting the financial facts concerning his last movie but, like the other commenter, implicitly concurring with some of Gibson’s rant!

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