I need you're help! I'm facing the biggest dilemma of my life, perhaps of all my lives... and yours too. I mean, when you get right down to it, where do your loyalties lie, to movies or television. I would suspect that at one time it was a clear cut decision, but nowadays with playing movies ad nauseum on Television and turning old TV shows into feature length films, the division is blurred. Add to that the increasing demand by the public voice on the industry for more originality but box office receipts showing that the general public doesn't care. And don't get me started on reality tv series.
So here's the deal with reality tv series. The corps like them because they're cheap to produce and allow them to have a lot of leverage against the writer's unions should they look to strike again (reality tv is what saved them the first time and showed the writer's union just how powerful they really aren't anymore). People like them because, well, people are almost all gossipy hens. They like not only to see people at their worst, but talk about it too. Reality shows appeal to the same side of people like vote based on mudslinging campaigns and watch the entertainment news on which actor has married which and what singer is doing what this off season. I don't give a crap about who wins the million bucks, the only reality show I ever really watched was Jeapordy!, and that wasn't to see how smart people were, but how smart I was in answering the questions.
Now to the main body of my topic to which I've been distracted from with these side-bars... trust. For more than fifteen years movies have been telling me that power lines cause cancer. I trusted those movies, and tv seemed to reenforce those arguments by playing those movies. For the last couple years, however, I have watched a show by magician/comedians Penn & Teller, called Bullshit, in which they do their best to make an argument for dispelling popular notions and fads. In one recent episode, they said that power lines do not cause cancer. Since then I have been thrown into a tailspin of doubt. I mean, why would Penn & Teller lie? Why would movies lie? I just don't know. One thing I will say though, is that I sure as hell am not going to do any independant research on the subject. I'm not gonna waste my time reading books or scouring the internet. No my friends, I'm just going to wait until TV and movies resolve this issue for me. After all, all TV and movies really are is a condensed version of books, made into a palletable form for the common man. If there is an answer, it may only be found in the encylopedia of our day, TV and movies. I just pray for the day when the two will be on the same side again, this conflict is tearing me apart.