COPS vs. cartoons

An open letter to the TV industry:

I'm a sucker for a good story. It doesn't matter much what it's about as long as it can pique my curiosity and/or my imagination. Stories about heroes following through on their duties to protect the innocent could have decent potential to accomplish that goal. Still, there's enjoyable ways to tell those stories and then there are ways that irritate me to no end.

I'll take those in reverse order. COPS, which I blame for mutating the concept of cinéma vérité into the steaming pile of poop that is the "reality TV" genre, is a perfect example of a television show about good people doing work I respect. That doesn't mean I wouldn't need to be physically restrained, drugged, and then have someone nail my eyelids to my forehead in order to watch it. I can read the fucking newspaper, thank you very much. What's next? Cops taking a crap? Cops doing 60 hours of paperwork because they had to touch a suspect to restrain him?

I understand the propaganda value of police shows in general (and COPS in specific), both domestically and internationally. Thanks to the miracle of syndication, criminals all over the US can see how the police always catch and punish you if you do something wrong (and, as a corollary, "regular" citizens can be made to feel safe). One noticeable exception: Miami Vice, which showed you that as a drug dealer, you would have the finest material possessions and countless beautiful women to tend to your every whim up until the time your life was abruptly ended by more bullets than were fired in the Spanish-American War - or possibly via helicopter rotor-induced decapitation. And internationally - well, you've got to love it when people in other countries are asking why they aren't being Mirandized or allowed to make a phone call/see a lawyer after they get arrested. [Note to conspiracy theorists: THAT is the impact of a globally dominant American pop culture.] Yes, I'll even concede that there are people who watch COPS as some kind of twisted ego boost - "now I can feel better about myself because at least I'm not a wifebeating crackhead!"

Despite all that, depicting actual, disconnected, random events in mind-numbing detail isn't storytelling - it isn't even entertainment. It's simply arbitrary. What the hell happened to narrative structure?

In contrast, this past weekend's episode of the Justice League animated series (another TV show about dispensing justice) was pretty far out there - a Lovecraft-ian homage of the "Ow, you're stepping on my pineal gland" variety (the episode was even entitled The Terror Beyond) and featured a tentacled Elder God named Cthulhu (oops, I mean Icthultu) and his many bizarre, nightmarish minions. And truly, who else could give voice to the not-so-subtly-named Icthultu other than Rob Zombie? That was some damn inspired casting, if you ask me. Throw in Dr. Fate and Solomon Grundy and you have a really strange and interesting trip - one with (gasp!) a beginning, middle, and end. Even Superman - not too far from an Elder God himself - had a well-written part; he didn't forget that his eyes can shoot lasers, for starters. It wasn't original - not to mention that the underlying treatise on faith was a bit strained - but damn, it was good fun.

Cartoons, fantasy, science fiction - these formats and genres are appealing to my desire for well-crafted stories. Adding elements of the unreal to a story (or at least not artificially constraining it with the burden of realism) increases the chance that it will intrigue and engage me. It's a hint that there's been some thought given to the telling and to the value of the story itself instead of an uninspired cycle of alternately lurid and boring facts. Reality is full of the mundane and unnecessary - what in the world would make you think those things are essential ingredients in the overall recipe for a good story?

Posted by Dan on November 17, 2003 at 11:45 AM | TrackBack