Jesus did not have some sort of lock on the parable.

Jesus did not have some sort of lock on the parable.


Now, before certain of you get all kinds of furious at me for bringing name up, I did not have an intention to make this a religious discussion. Some of you believe that Jesus Christ was the son of God. Personally, I think we start to take a dodgy path when we start assigning specific names other than simply "God", but that is MY personal belief, not yours, and let’s all just leave it at that for today, what do you say?

Almost all of human communication takes place in the form of storytelling, in one shape or another. Unless we are doing something real basic like the weather outside, some form of storytelling takes place. It is how we convey ideas, events, and predictions to one another. It is the manner in which we establish our right or ability to speak on a given topic. It goes so far beyond just simple bragging and becomes the way we actually interact.

Think about this for just a moment: over the years, people have come to me for advice on a wide variety of topics. Now, I do not claim for even a minute to be any great wise sage or anything like that, but I have walked the Earth for a while now, and learned some things. And so, if you were to come to me for advice, here is how it would go: you tell me what is on your mind, I listen, think on it a bit, and tell you a story. The story will be one of two things: a story of when the same thing happened to me or someone I knew, or the story will be about something similar enough to your problem to hopefully make sense. Because advice comes from experience, right? And by my showing my own experience to you, then the potential solution I might offer will make more sense, and be more credible, right?

Ideas are communicated via stories. New thoughts and concepts are put into story form. It is easier to grasp a story where we see the idea in play than simple raw data. In short, it is a big part of the way we communicate, regardless of what language(s) you speak.

Television used to be a story telling medium.
Something, however, has gone horrifically wrong.

Now, I am going to speak exclusively about American TV. Other nations do far better things, ballsier things than we will: in America, the openly gay or bisexual character would be played for either heartrending angst or over the top minstrel-type flamboyance. We would never have the balls for a Captain Jack Harkness, where he is unabashed about his leanings, yet also a leader and an action-type hero. We just wouldn’t.

While American TV has never shied away from the lowest common denominators (jiggly boobs, violence for no reason, and Baywatch), we have often achieved something special. Through stories, the TV could make us think. Remember All In The Family? It would have been enough to paint Archie as a horrid racist, and made America face that, but even as he was, you couldn’t help but feel for the guy, just a blue collar joe seeing his family, his neighborhood, and his world changing, and knowing that he is being left behind. You were shocked at what he said, but still couldn’t help but to sympathize with the guy a little.

M*A*S*H* did the same, made us think through their stories, and so did many others. NYPD Blue, way back when, was like nothing else on earth, and to this day it still isn’t. Rescue Me often comes close to that level of brilliance, largely due to the writing and acting of Denis Leary, who finally gets to show us what he was always capable of.

And there are the ones who do not make it. Firefly, for a perfect example. You cared about these people, characters were well drawn and multi-dimensional, action and sex were not over the top, and they made you feel. It never had a chance. Like a lot of others. Jericho will end up following this same path, a story about the aftermath of nuclear war that to me is really about redemption and strength of family. But you have to stay with Jericho, and follow it, and that requires an attention span, something missing in this country.

Look, too much cleverness has always been a lead sinker for a lot of shows, but what is replacing them is the thing that frightens me so much.

Welcome to the reality show, where Americans can thrill at watching ordinary folk stripped down to their very basest impulses, and turn as vicious and cut throat as we could ask for. People get to screw each other out of anything they can, and we watch it with breathless anticipation, and the advertisers flock to by space on the program. We delight in watching that asshole chef torture his protégés (seeing one of them just say the hell with it and taking a big old Michael Myers-type butcher knife to him, now THAT would be some great TV!), and get o on seeing the almighty Donald say "You’re fired". Ozzy Osbourne, the prince of frigging darkness, became a zoo exhibit. It is all just so sad.

But more than sad, it is an indication of what I feel is our not-too-distant future. Survivor is the modern gladiator game, where we all try to out-fuck one another, as opposed to open bloodshed. But is gladiatorial nonetheless.

The Romans enjoyed a good gladiator show.
Look what happened to them.

Now, I am surely not so arrogant as to honestly believe that my take on the truth is really how it is. I think I am smart enough to know better than that. But when one person tell you his or her frank opinion (and I do tend to be pretty frank), then hopefully someone else will step up and do the very same. And it goes from there, a free exchange of ideas.