Torn Apart By Hooks

I always felt that if I were to be sucked into a demonic netherworld where my flesh was torn off by hooks and biomechanical attachments were inserted all over my body (a la Hellraiser), I would want Nine Inch Nails to be playing. Nine Inch Nails is my favorite music for transcendental unhappiness. I don't mean, "Oh shucks, my baseball team lost last night." I mean existential angst, crushing despair that sits on your chest and presses you into the floor. If you were having withdrawals from heroin, and you got beaten and left for dead in a urine-soaked alley, AND you just got a Candygram that all of your family had been murdered, that would be Nine Inch Nails time.

NIN is basically one man, Trent Reznor, and I am not making fun of him. I think he is a phenomenal songwriter and lyricist. His latest album With Teeth is awesome. I like every song on it from start to finish. I just think his music fits my worst moods. Reznor can certainly write a catchy pop song, but some of his music is the audio equivalent of an H.R. Giger painting. I find it very interesting that Johnny Cash liked Reznor's work enough to cover "Hurt," the depressing NIN song that became an even more depressing Johnny Cash cover. Cash's video for "Hurt" makes me tear up every time I see it. It is the most depressing thing I have ever seen that wasn't Holocaust related.

Anyway, I thought I was being too negative in my blog, so I thought I would be positive about something, or as positive as I can be. Trent Reznor is a great American (and so is Johnny Cash).

New Blog

Be sure to visit my slightly more serious site linked to the right. All proceeds go to your favorite charity.

TV/Movie Rules For Interracial Dating

Film and TV producers might be unoriginal, but they are also desperate to please their shrinking viewership (the kids don't watch anymore, what with the Internets and the Nintendos and the hula hoops).

Their lack of backbone is evident in the formulaic casting of love interests. White people date white people, black people date black people, Asians date Asians. This is true on TV, in movies, and in commercials. Strangely, this interracial hooking-up rule even extends to same-sex couples.

There are some exceptions, which showbiz deems to be acceptable. Whites can date Latinos, and Latinos can date blacks. They are a sort of bridge minority. East Asian women can date white guys, but East Asian guys can't date non-Asian women of any color. Black guys can have East Asian girls dancing by the pool in rap videos but that's about it. Every other ethnic group I can think of - South Asians, Arabs, Persians, Native Americans - is issued a spouse of the same ethnicity. Correct that - Native Americans are never shown period.

Think of couples you see in commercials, or as extras in the background of a TV show. See any mixed couples there? For interracial dating to happen in TV, it has to be a "very special" episode. In movies, interracial dating only happens when the plot of the movie is about race relations: see Crash, Jungle Fever, and Zebrahead (the last two movies came out over 13 years ago!).

In a regular old movie movie, interracial dating is non-existent. For example, I Robot had Will Smith and Bridget Moynahan as the heroes, but there wasn't even a hint of sexual chemistry. The audience was denied the chance to see these good-looking people get it on, even in a PG sort of way. I felt ripped off.

The Matrix sequels, with a large multi-ethnic cast, still followed the rules. Well maybe during the interminable rave scene in Matrix Reloaded, an interracial couple is briefly shown, but I couldn't tell because I was in a boredom-induced coma by that point. If any movie series was going to have mixed-race romance, The Matrix series should have. That it didn't is just another of the many, many ways The Matrix sequels were disappointing.

When I was a teen, I imagined America would be a lot more integrated in 2005 than it really is. To build an inclusive multi-ethnic society, it would be helpful if film and television producers took some riskier casting decisions. In this regard, I do think entertainment can advance our society's attitudes. For example, I think Will & Grace probably helped mainstream homosexuality a little bit, to its producers' credit. Strangely enough, on-screen race relations have not progressed much since Different Strokes. We need Will Smith and Bridget Moynahan making out, pronto.

Taking This Blog To The Next Level

Anyone who watches American cinema and TV with regularity knows how dismally repetitive and unoriginal it is. If one police procedural succeeds, there will ten ripoffs just like it, like "CSI: Special Victims Unit" and "Law & Order: Dick Wolf Wants To Buy Algeria." As of August 2005, here were the one-hour police procedural shows that were aired by one of the four biggest broadcast networks:

Cold Case
Crossing Jordan
CSI
CSI: Miami
CSI: New York
Law & Order
Law & Order: Criminal Intent
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
Law & Order: Trial By Jury
NCIS
NUMB3RS (sorry that is how they write it)
The Inside
Without A Trace

Thirteen shows about cops or FBI agents! And I probably missed one or two. I'm not counting "Cops" and "America's Most Wanted" which aren't scripted and more comedies than dramas anyway (watch a reenactment on AMW and tell me that isn't a comedy).

If all the law-enforcement shows on my list were real, every third person in the United States would be murdered...in one season.

Not that the TV goons are morons, just unoriginal. Look at the top ten ratings for July 25-31:

1 - CSI, CBS, THUESDAY, 9 P.M.
2 - WITHOUT A TRACE, CBS, THURSDAY, 10:01 P.M.
3 - CSI: MIAMI, CBS, MONDAY, 10 P.M.
4 - TWO AND A HALF MEN, CBS, MONDAY, 9 P.M.
5 (tie) - LAW & ORDER: CRIMINAL INTENT, NBC, SUNDAY, 9 P.M.
- NCIS, CBS, TUESDAY. 8 P.M.
7 - BRAT CAMP, ABC, WEDNESDAY, 9 P.M.
8 - EVERYBODY LOVES RAYMOND, CBS, MONDAY, 8:30 P.M.
9 - COLD CASE, CBS, SUNDAY, 8 P.M.
10 - LAW & ORDER, NBC, WEDNESDAY, 10 P.M.

One reality show, two sitcoms, and seven shows from my cop show list above. So let me get this straight, Americans have a shit fit when a female nipple is exposed, but we can't get enough serial killers and autopsies? I'm glad the viewing public has its priorities right.

So what fresh ideas are coming up this fall:

* Bones - forensic show focusing on mastodons, oh just people bones? damn...
* Close To Home - lead character is a prosecutor (hot chick, natch) but this feels like a cop show, not "Boston Legal"
* Criminal Minds - profiler show
* Killer Instinct - show about San Fran's "Deviant Crime Unit" if there is such a thing - I'm sure the show will be tasteful
* The Evidence - duh, forensic show

Hey, I'd keep making 'em too. Bread and circuses. Whatever keeps you TV honchos in coke and fake tits.