Tuesday, February 18, 2003

Last night I waded crotch-deep

Last night I waded crotch-deep into the swamp of popular culture.  It was moist, clingy, and I found it almost impossible to extricate myself.  I pride myself on turning off bad television but this time I took the full dosage.  As a consequence, my mind generated a few troubled notions, which I am pleased to share with the world as a way to keep myself from thinking about them for much longer:

“Simulated Image” means a real image that someone made up to remind you of another image that they couldn’t show you, for some reason.  But the image is not simulated.  It’s a real image of a simulation.  These distinctions make a difference to people like me who don’t have better things to worry about.  A “simulated image” is something that pretends to be an image but really isn’t one.  Like a sound or a description.  Or, maybe, Michael Jackson - whose image is a simulation, though of what, science has yet to establish a convincing hypothesis.

The simulated image is a creature of advertising, especially automobile advertising.  Such an ad currently on television features a man driving backwards on an empty freeway, with the nearly-illegible subtitle, “Toyota does not recommend or endorse these driving practices.” That’s good to know, I guess.  When they show a man wracked with ecstacy, veritably howling with joy as he violates the vehicle code on national television, it’s not a “recommendation.” It’s more like a “suggestion.” “We aren’t telling you actually to do this, but this guy sure seems to be enjoying it so make up your own mind.” I appreciate advertisers giving that kind of affirmation to my own decisionmaking abilities.  However, I don’t know what they mean when they say they don’t “endorse” these practices.  Endorsement means to support a message by providing the means by which said message is promulgated.  Advertisers “endorse” programs that “endorse” their products.  So does this mean that Toyota didn’t have to pay for this ad?  “It’s not an endorsement, it’s just a simulated image,” I hear them hissing in my head.  Well I’m not buying it.  By which I mean, I don’t intend to patronize any manufacturer whose advertisements concentrate on behavior they disavow and can’t even actually show.  Well, maybe just for cars and food.  Some products I don’t expect to see demonstrated on television, simulated or not.  Maybe we can get them to start running “stimulated” images for some of the more potentially raunchy products.  It would make a nice change from most of the rest of the programming.

Bilingual only means that someone can speak two languages.  Don’t expect actual extra tongues, as provocative as that might be.  Similarly, head cheese is neither.  And organ meat, as commonly used in the marketplace, is a contradiction in terms. 

It may be European to kiss both cheeks but it’s still gauche here in the States to drop trou to get yours. 

Plant food is for plants.  Dog food is for dogs.  Vegetarian food is for vegetarians.  But seafood does not feed the oceans - quite the opposite, actually.  These little inconsistencies keep our country a cultural backwater.  But at least we’re a well-fed backwater. 

I was switching back and forth between the end of Joe Millionaire and the re-run of the Michael Jackson expose’ (or “expose”?).  With all the channel fanning I may have gotten a little confused.  Evan chose Tito?  After 10 pm I was able to concentrate on the Jackson story, the lovely and newly-pecunious couple having already, finally, been consigned to the scrapheap of television history.  The narrator of the Jackson show kept talking about Michael’s transition to being an Adult Superstar.  Now that would be creepy.  The idea of MJ as an adult superstar is a powerful libidinal disincentive. What else has he had surgery to reduce in size in order to help him resemble his sister or some fading actress?  Maybe I’m in the minority but I’d be happier if he just kept it under wraps.

And while I’m at it, they’re “corroborating” witnesses, not “cooperating” witnesses.  We’re not saying that they’re amenable to suggestion, they just back up someone else’s story.  After watching two hours of pabulum, I am more inclined to call them “crap rating” witnesses, who watch while people endure bad television.  I should know - I was one of them.  But I’m feeling much better now.