Random Thoughts on Television Stuff

Recently it was announced that Beavis and Butthead would be returning to MTV.  Mike Judge has mentioned that one of the main reasons for this return was watching Jersey Shore. He stated that after becoming aware of the show it was like a “godsend”. He knew he had to bring back Beavis and Butthead for this. He would have them watch reality television instead of music videos (since music videos are essentially dead. At least on MTV they are.) On the surface this sounds like a great idea, but after having it roll around in my noggin for a while, I think he’s completely wrong. Beavis and Butthead was a big deal to me in my younger years. I enjoyed the hell out of that show. To me, it seemed that having Beavis and Butthead make fun of music videos was more because the videos had to be there. MTV didn’t show anything without having music videos in it. That’s why they were called Music Television. This started to change around the time that Beavis and Butthead was at its peak. The show didn’t simply watch bad videos. They watched any and all videos. Some they loved. Some they hated. Some they didn’t even talk about, instead going off on some non-sequitur or hitting each-other. The videos served a purpose of making fun of youths in general. Beavis and Butthead are supposed to be exaggerations on 1990s youths. I’m not so sure that relates to 2011.

Also, reality television is probably old-hat by now to make fun of, isn’t it? Especially making fun of Jersey Shore. Isn’t that the whole point of the show in the first place? I thought the show existed as a joke. No one watches it because they are seriously invested in it. They watch it to laugh at it. Do we really need Beavis and Butthead to show us how to laugh at it? Besides, isn’t that why Talk Soup, now called simply The Soup exists?  Beavis and Butthead are probably best left in the past.

On a separate note, I’ve been watching Fox’s Terra Nova. It’s a show about our possible future where we’ve destroyed our ecosystem, but luckily have found a way to go back in time. So, we follow a family back in time to the time when dinosaurs walked the earth. Humanity gets a new start. Luckily, to avoid any Butterfly Effect, we are told that this is an alternate timeline. This also opens the door for the show to make up their own dinosaurs. It’s apparent from the first episode that they are going to ignore most of science just to fit in made up monsters. They introduce us to a Brachiosaurus, a Carnotaurus, and a “slasher”. Wait, a what? Oh, you made it up… so stupid.  They live in a refugee camp of sorts, but it’s incredibly clean. It doesn’t look lived-in at all. Where’s the mud? Where is the dirt? Another complaint I have is the time-period. Is it 85 million years ago or is it 85 million b.c.? The show uses both interchangeably and I can’t help thinking that that can’t be right. The show had some promise, but quickly(second episode) became bad SyFy channel crap.  We have each episode being reminiscent of the 1990s Outer Limits mixed with ABC’s LOST. I will continue to watch it simply because it has dinosaurs, but I highly don’t recommend it. 

2nd verse different from the first

I wrote this a while ago and didn't know what to do with it until now.

I like Lady GaGa. I genuinely enjoy listening to her music and watching her music videos. I’m a near thirty-year-old man who owns a few GaGa t-shirts as well. I’m not afraid to admit it. However, since the album Born this Way was released and I’ve been reading the reviews I’ve been considering what Lady GaGa means to music. Is she merely a media spectacle? Is she just a talentless attention whore? Is she the second coming? Is she just a Madonna clone? Is she really a genius? What is Lady GaGa?

I, at first, was repulsed by Lady GaGa and her poker face. The teenage metalhead in me instinctively reviled the pop music she was spewing. The hipster in me hated how much everyone loved it. It’s something I’ve been doing for many years. I can remember a number of bands that I “discovered” and later totally abandoned once everyone else knew who the hell they were. I hated all the popular music. I hated it because it was popular. I’ve since calmed down and learned to accept what I responded to by its actual content rather than its popularity. I started listening to all kinds of music. Some of my friends didn’t understand. Some still don’t. My point here is that I, like a lot of people, can be very closed minded. I think it’s easy to dismiss Lady GaGa as some media whore without much talent. I think it’s easy for people to say that she just wants to be Madonna. This reminds me of a time in the 90s when Marilyn Manson started becoming popular. People at first thought that his…shtick, for lack of a better word, was an Alice Cooper rip-off. He was essentially a more bombastic version of Cooper; a 90s version, for those that might understand what that means. By the end of the 90s he had shown that he was a little bit more than that, or at the very least, something else entirely. He used MTV to the fullest extent to get his face and music out there. The controversy that surrounded him only fueled the fame he received. Marilyn Manson became, what can only be called, a Rock Star. He was perhaps the last one we will have, but that’s a different discussion. Lady GaGa has essentially done the same thing. Love it or hate it. Now, in 2011, MTV is essentially meaningless. GaGa has used the internet and mobile phone applications to get her face out there to the masses since her initial breaking onto the scene.

The other point I’d like to make about Lady GaGa is that I don’t really see her as a musician. She’s more like an Artist. I was going to say that she is a Performance Artist, but I don’t think that’s so much the truth as she IS the artwork. She uses herself as a canvas for numerous works of art. Her music is only one part of that artwork. The songs, taken alone, are catchy pop/disco tunes, but not much more than that. To take the music without the full package that is Lady GaGa and her stage show is missing the point.  She is silly. She is awkward. She can be beautiful, but most times chooses to the strange over the pretty. I commend her for this. It challenges people. A lot of people will rail against it. A lot of people will love it. Some people won’t know what to think about it, but it will make them uncomfortable. This is what any artist can truly hope for. I like Lady GaGa. She has come very close to achieving something I have always wanted to achieve. She has found a way to meld her artwork (or someone else’s) with music to present a complete work of art to which people really respond.