Americas Dumbing Down Via Talent Shows...

[madamesilverspurs]

18. Talent shows are fine. But.

I remember the Ted Mack amateur hour way back when, and Arthur Godfrey used to do something similar, I think. That said, their constestants weren't usually the subject under endless, breathless discussion on newscasts. Entertainment was entertainment, news was news. My, how times have changed.

In the months following 9-11 there was some reluctance on the part of producers to invest in the costly processes of developing shows that might get pre-empted by another terror event; that prudence was understandable, but the gap created was readily filled, it seems, by those who saw an opportunity for easier profit from less creative endeavor. Survivor and American Idol spawned knock-offs. Then came other "reality" shows, with remarkable clonings of pawn shops and storage auctions, often supplanting programming that had some measure of instructive value. Parking? Towing? And there's one show that's likely to give historians and archaeologists heart failure as the crew rips up the countryside in search of artifacts to sell; that one, especially, earns a boo-hiss on the old applause meter.

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