I Am This Woman

Today is the first day of the major network TV season, marked last night by the (sycophantic) Emmys.

While I admire the accomplishments of people who are funny, awesome and talented, and have watched TV regularly since I was about five, I am dumping my cable box today.

Blasphemy! Anathema! It’s the FIRST day of the season!! Some shows have already premiered! House! Fringe! “You can’t live without them! You gotta have your stories!” says the little voice in my head.

Little voice in my head, there is Netflix, Hulu, YouTube, network websites… these TV moguls are not stupid. They can see that Web 2.0 (whatever that is today) has changed ‘appointment television.’ If you can time shift with TiVo, then why bother to catch the show as it airs, interrupted with all those pesky commercials? No, I’ll see it online, say the legions of folks who are challenging the paradigm and being much more selective in their viewing.

More power to you! More power to me! More time for me, that is. I have things to do, esp. between 7 and 10 pm.

And there is a huge backlog of paper-based entertainment systems that I need to catch up on. Gone are the days when the baby grabs the book, when the baby requires following around and monitoring to the point that keeping a train of thought is impossible.

Plus I plan to transition to some kind of computer-driven TV/viewing system. Apple TV isn’t there yet, but TVs are now available so you can plug a computer into them. So I’ll be migrating my tech in that direction. But not for several months. (Fiber optics is in the neighborhood, so I might try that for a while. But good god, I want to escape commercials! I want to watch the show, not the solipsistic stream of crap promoting other shows.)

As I listen to Jennifer Hudson sing “And I Am Telling You,” from Dream Girls, I am reminded of the Theory of Strawberry Flavoring in Media, posited by my dear friend Uncle Bellfoot, perhaps based on the wisdom of Frank Zappa.

This theory is based on the way artificial strawberry flavoring is made. A food company gets tons of strawberries and mashes them up, and feeds them to focus groups. Then they start adding chemicals and stuff together to taste just like strawberries. Focus groups come in and say, “oooh, that’s too tart, that’s too sweet, that’s yukky, that’s moldy.” More chemicals are added, things are removed and tasted again… and pretty soon, you have a strawberry-flavored syrup that is LEAST offensive to the MOST people. And that’s never been introduced to an actual strawberry. That, folks, is how television works too.

You get the least offensive, formulaic package that the suits think will be a HUGE hit. It has to play to a broad specturm of America (hence the term “broadcast”). Otherwise, there is no money in it. Actors cost too much. HBO figured this out a long time ago, and charges a premium for their superior programming. It’s good. (It’s also available on DVD because they can make money that way too.)

But it has to have mass appeal, just like strawberry flavoring. Even the sexiness is subject to this. There are good shows that flaunt the model, reinvent it – these shows are good. BUT THEY ARE STILL SURROUNDED with strawberry flavoring, in the form of endless promotion of other crappy shows and the advertisements that drives the machine. Yes, there are good things to watch, but how is the consumer taste driving the decision making of the producers? That’s an easy analysis.

Listening to Hudson, and watching her in that scene, belt out that amazing R&B ballad with such skill, verve and sheer energy calls to mind her appearance on American Idol. Keep in mind that this show requires the consensus/popularity vote – the strawberry syrup vote. Jennifer Hudson has talent, but perhaps she is not as popular as one of the other folks, with perhaps less verve and talent, but lots more popularity. Likeability. Can’t be too tart, too black, too pink, too big, too small, too toothy.

I happen to like singers with an edge. With something there – in body, voice, spirit. There has to be a there there. Sometimes the sheer lack of there comes together in such a delicious way that strawberry flavoring is indeed tasty.

So, when I listen to Jennifer Hudson, I think that perhaps the best thing to happen to her is to get voted off. Ok, leave Idol, get some connections and experience, and go be Jennifer Hudson-flavored! Sassy, smouldering, grounded, regal and ocean-deep. Oscar winning virtuosity like that cannot be contained by the American Idol brand of strawberry syrup.

By dumping cable and network, I am skipping past the strawberry syrup and upping our intake of actual strawberries. And chocolate, jalapenos, pickles, mustard and all the other flavors the entertainment/creative world has to offer. Books, movies, selected shows (House, Lost, Heroes online), etc.

This all precludes the idea of “turning it off.” I am weak. I love my stories. I will be watching movies, you can be sure. But I’m making it harder to get my strawberry flavoring, and seeing if wasabi tamari suits me today. Or Dickens. Or painting while Coldplay or Mozart cycle somewhere on shuffle.

I’m sure I’ll be jonesing in two or three days, so stay tuned for my rationalizations, justifications and coping strategies.