So, I’m about to settle down and watch the real Hunger Games—Survivor. I know, I know. Bad choice, bread and circuses, and so on.
I haven’t read the Hunger Games, but I have read the basic outline of how the Hunger Games world works. Survivor is obviously preferable, because the people on it don’t die, but still scary in its realistic little way. In this world, people aren’t forced to compete for their life. Rather, they volunteer to undergo deprivation and humiliation in front of the cameras. It’s all for that cash prize, the chance to change their life. The message that I’ve seen communicated over the years of Survivor has been very clear: you have to be willing to do anything, and that’s *anything*, for that money. Whether that means playing so hard in a physical challenge that you injure yourself, voting your best friend off the island, whatever.
In fact, that has been one of the most interesting and puzzling things to me about shows like Survivor. They are supposedly meant to promote individuality and competition. But what I see emphasized instead is complete and utter obedience. Whatever the show producers want you to do, you do. This is also true for the less bloodthirsty shows. On America’s Next Top Model, the models are told to always do whatever will please the client. Any contestant who happens to have too strong of a personality or a different opinion about a project gets rebuked or kicked off.
So yeah, I get it. I’m being brainwashed by TV shows which tell us to do anything, to fight each other and demean ourselves, all for the chance at financial security. But of course, I’m going to go back to watch it. Because it’s just so easy to watch. It goes down so smooth, brain candy full of artificial flavoring and color.
Anyway, I hope Colton goes down in flames tonight. I hate that guy.
Spoiler P.S.: But I wasn’t wishing appendicitis on him!! Seriously.
eurobrat 
03/22/2012 at 1:05 pm
I see couch potatoes.
03/22/2012 at 9:58 pm
Yeah, yeah, I know. And I’m one of them. Although to be fair, I did work out before I watched Survivor 😉
03/22/2012 at 9:24 pm
Hunger Games? Never heard of it till a few weeks ago. TV? Don’t got one. However, your point of view – obedience – that’s a good one. It makes a shitload of sense, like we’re training ourselves to enjoy the whips of our masters. They’re human video games whose characters navigate a predetermined set of obstacles that generally involve the destruction of someone/thing else in order to win the prize, or princess, or whatever the hell motivates us. Money, as you said, is probably better than a princess because you can buy 2 for the price of 1 if needed. Or 6 in a down economy.
There was a Visa commercial about 3 years ago that I was fortunate to watch. A gaggle of hipsters were all shopping for clothing. The store was swanky, colorful, enticing. The music was throbbing. Everyone was beautiful with skin in a multitude of shades. In short, perfect universal harmony. Until the most attractive of them all, a young white male with a nice hat attempted to pay for his new clothing with a check. Then everything stopped. The hipsters froze. Time stood still. One of them had arms swinging back and forth like a broken clock. Then the young man had an epiphany. He understood that what he really needed to do was pay for his clothing with a Visa card and once that happened the music started up again, hipsters began smiling and cultural nirvana was achieved.
In any event, money. And fame. There’s a guy at the Rose Garden known as The Free Throw guy. Every time an opposing basketball player lines up for a free throw he stands and begins making crazy herky-jerky motions hoping to distract the player and make him miss. He does this even with the Blazers are up by 30 points to a team doomed to ignominious failure. The guy wears a headband and a t-shirt that says “Free Throw Guy”. I have at times seen him featured on the massive jumbotron above the court. I don’t know if he gets paid or laid but I do know that he’s sunk to the very bottom of the harmless fame barrel, the one that says “Look at me! Look at me!” And he’s achieved this how? Because he’s willing to be an asshole.
He should go on one of these reality shows and try that stupid free throw trick. They’d vote him off the island and eat him in Hunger Games then shed him in Biggest Loser then re-eat him on Fear Factor. And we’d pay for our cable subscription to watch all this nonsense with our Visa.
Perfect universal harmony.
03/22/2012 at 10:01 pm
Don’t know if I’ve said this already–I may be like a broken record here–but I walk past the Nines Hotel downtown all the time, and every time a basketball team from another city comes to play the Blazers, there is always a gaggle of pathetic fans lined up, holding signs that say “we love you Kobe!” and such. The celebrity athletes never even give them a glance, just brush past…but yes, these are the new gods we worship.
03/23/2012 at 10:56 am
Yeah, but these gods are human versus the ethereal which are interpreted to fit into and damn bowl you’ve got on hand. The player’s greatness and failures are measurable. Quantitative yet still arguable, like most of us. The fawning aspect isn’t healthy, a lot of it is probably trying to snag an autograph to sell on eBay, but we’re a worshiping species. Me: I’m not one to stand at a hotel with the opportunity to touch the cape of a Timberwolves 3nd string power forward, that doesn’t jibe with me, but I do understand the relative worship of human excellence. In this case it’s writers and artists and single mothers raising children through sheer willpower dime to dime while the dogs of brutality are just outside their door – against which I think jesus had it easy. He knew he was the son of god, so what’s a few days up on the cross when you’re immortal and knew the game ahead of time? Frankly that strikes me of some kind of massive after-the-fact collective delusional psychosis, that he gave his life for the rest of us. Living through our lives, by my way of thinking, is much much much harder. He chose a public form of attention-grabbing suicide which isn’t much more than the bozos on reality tv shows. Again I’d rather worship the greatness of Picasso, Jimmy Page, Malcolm X, Patti Smith and fill in the blank than I would of some non-existent phantasmal floating orgasm.
Word up.
03/25/2012 at 7:29 pm
I guess my problem is that in the case of these athletes I find the excellence questionable…or at least not worth that degree of star worship. I hope that if people worship anything, be it human or divine, they know *why* they worship it so much.