COMMERCIALS SUCK
When Junk Interrupts Junk

An essay by left-wing media critic Norman Solomon from ZNet:

Confronting present-day television would also require addressing other key points. Here are two: The content of commercials is routinely corrosive if not toxic. And the programs being interrupted are, themselves, commonly junk that rots people's minds.

Are such descriptions too polemical? I don't think so.

Seen out of corners of our eyes, TV commercials maintain much of their power because we don't think about them very much, even while we absorb them. However, if we set out to consciously scrutinize a random sample of commercials for a while, we're liable to be jolted by just how awful they are. A wide range of netherworld adjectives apply. For instance: nauseating, insulting, degrading, idiotic, insipid, asinine, numbing, mind-warping, stultifying...

And how about the programs that the commercials interrupt? The other night, I clicked from the celebrity-and-crime fare now dominating CNN's prime-time lineup to an episode of the much-hyped ABC show "The Bachelorette." With breathtaking acculturated stupidity, the show was so painfully dehumanizing that any interruption from a barrage of mindless commercials was actually a relief.

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Of course it's no surprise that the vast majority of television programming is utter crap. The one thing that people don't seem to realize is that TV shows aren't made in order to entertain us; rather, they're made in order to entice people to watch commercials. In other words, TV shows are commercials for commercials--entertainment is simply an ancillary goal. That probably explains why shows that don't have to deal with commercials, HBO's The Sopranos, or the majority of PBS programming, aren't so bad.

In addition to the constant cathode spray of cultural excrement, TV shows present other dangers. But the biggest danger of all is the commercials. They're particularly dangerous because most people feel unaffected by them: that must be why corporations spend billions of dollars on them, because they don't affect us. Right. Our culture is awash in a sea of advertising, and we live out our entire lives under its constant barrage. Philosopher Douglas Kellner speaks of how we subconsciously construct what he calls the "consumer self." That is, we all have an aspect of our minds that is devoted to relating oneself to what one sees in advertisements. Like it or not, we measure our lives by these ads. We ponder and muse about what we see. Corporate logos are embedded in our brains as surely as our mothers' faces. Commercials affect us whether we admit it or not, and I think it's safe to say that this is not to the benefit of individual citizens.

Television is a drug, and like heroin or cocaine, there are long term problems with its use. I really would like to kick the habit, but it feels so good...

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