Thanks a Lot

The first ep of Fox's new reality series On The Lot started off virtually indistinguishable from pilots of other competition reality shows - "confessional" interviews, meltdowns, triumphs, and tragedies. Things got a bit more interesting in the second episode. The format is true to the American/Pop Idol template, but its clear that there will be more controversial debates than the ones over song choice and pitchiness.

The first controversy: is this guy's film exploiting the mentally challenged? Hopefully the judges' comments (and the obvious discrepency between their perception and the will of the audience) will ignite the honest conversation we need to have about laughing at freaks (explored in depth in this earlier post). Its too simplistic to say that the Hollywood judges are too politically correct for the masses, but I can't help but wonder what the discrepancy between the judges' and the audience's opinions (not to mention that the judges harp on the fact that there aren't enough female directors in Hollywood, and the voting audience doesn't seem to care) says about who is really offended by anything on television.

Isn't there something vaguely paternalistic about the news media determining what is offensive and what isn't offensive? How many careers would've bit the dust over the past year if it had been put to a vote? The new visibility of the lives of the famous makes every little slip up a career-ender, but there are two things that might counter that: the ever-shrinking duration of the news cycle, and the democratizing effect on what is deemed offensive. There's an entire generation growing up thinking that they can get away with broadcasting racist rants online. We can keep them off TV, but when you can reach billions of people online, who needs TV? Is it any wonder that one of the most enduring TV comedies of the internet era is one of its most uniformly offensive? To quote Mr. Politically Correct himself (Kramer): "People, they want to watch freaks!"

Between the fact that the key demographic is an audience weened on YouTube video shorts that tend to be more sensational and offensive than anything on TV, and the fact that a vicious "vote for the worst" campaign could do serious damage in light of the low ratings, we might see films that give new meaning to the term "lowest common denominator." Would Spielberg have to give the Fred Durst of filmmaking a development deal at Dreamworks? Considering the fact that the real Fred Durst already has such a deal, it doesn't seem too far-fetched.

Somethings - television and music - seem ideally suited to the pseudo-democratic system that American Idol employs. Other endeavors - fashion and interior design - are not, and so we defer to a panel of experts. Where does film fit into this? On The Lot is taking place at a time where film, once a populist medium, is becoming a more and more elite medium, with internet taking the bottom rung on the ladder and TV moving up a notch. Filmmakers, like fashion designers, are the tastemakers. Its an expensive, top-down medium.

Speaking of beloved mentally challenged characters, this guy always seemed a little slow to me. And he's a professor!