On the day after the Nobel committee gives a Frenchman the prize, lets say what's true about the Emperor's new clothes. US TV series like Lost are hyped up entertainment products with little or no lasting cultural relevance - especially outside the USA.
There is a place called planet USA where J.J. Abrams and his colleagues exist. I think it must be a little like secondlife. There, human reality is the product of a lot of fictionalisation. Artificial values are manufactured and sustained in the face of Imperial wars. Stories of the American dream belie the reality of lives lived under the thumb of the US corporates, banking mafias and olygarchies.
In the 1930s and 40s there were a group of people who made intelligent and thoughtful films. This progressive group was later extirpated from US cultural life by McCarthyism. And since then there has been very little of real value produced in the mainstream.
What is subversive or interesting about Lost then? We can conclude, however, that there is definitely no Dennis Potter at work here.
Lost is escapist. In the first place they are all on a desert island. That's a bit of a giveaway, isn't it? And then J.J. Abrams and co. ransack all the literary references they are familiar with in order to make the plot a little more dense and believable, and they succeed. They make it as "dense" and believable as an expensive TV advertisement.
The most irritating thing is the characterisation in Lost. It is pure American schmaltz. I haven't met people like that. I doubt many Americans have met suchlike either. They represent archetypes, composites wannabee humans. But they are not real characters. They have no corollaries except in some superficial smear of US society called TV land.
Furthermore, the assumptions made in Lost about character motivation and personality are puerile. If the characters did reflect something then it is provincialism. American provincialism. We shouldn't be deceived that because the programme is marketed around the world it isn't provincial. It is narrow minded shlock.
Nothing is interesting in the characterisation at all there are just one hundred standard techniques put to use to help you identify with a character before something painful happens to that character. The character arcs are unedifying and teach us absolutely nothing either. Which is a shame, because there isn't much plot so you need good characterisation.
To sum up. Lost is an American cultural imposition, leeching nutrients from the world cultural soil. It occupies spaces that other artistic products should occupy - It's like Starbucks.
Basically, I don't believe the creator of Lost or any of your other current US hit series are well intentioned. I believe you and they are cynical and exploitative purveyors of cultural garbage.
There is a place called planet USA where J.J. Abrams and his colleagues exist. I think it must be a little like secondlife. There, human reality is the product of a lot of fictionalisation. Artificial values are manufactured and sustained in the face of Imperial wars. Stories of the American dream belie the reality of lives lived under the thumb of the US corporates, banking mafias and olygarchies.
In the 1930s and 40s there were a group of people who made intelligent and thoughtful films. This progressive group was later extirpated from US cultural life by McCarthyism. And since then there has been very little of real value produced in the mainstream.
What is subversive or interesting about Lost then? We can conclude, however, that there is definitely no Dennis Potter at work here.
Lost is escapist. In the first place they are all on a desert island. That's a bit of a giveaway, isn't it? And then J.J. Abrams and co. ransack all the literary references they are familiar with in order to make the plot a little more dense and believable, and they succeed. They make it as "dense" and believable as an expensive TV advertisement.
The most irritating thing is the characterisation in Lost. It is pure American schmaltz. I haven't met people like that. I doubt many Americans have met suchlike either. They represent archetypes, composites wannabee humans. But they are not real characters. They have no corollaries except in some superficial smear of US society called TV land.
Furthermore, the assumptions made in Lost about character motivation and personality are puerile. If the characters did reflect something then it is provincialism. American provincialism. We shouldn't be deceived that because the programme is marketed around the world it isn't provincial. It is narrow minded shlock.
Nothing is interesting in the characterisation at all there are just one hundred standard techniques put to use to help you identify with a character before something painful happens to that character. The character arcs are unedifying and teach us absolutely nothing either. Which is a shame, because there isn't much plot so you need good characterisation.
To sum up. Lost is an American cultural imposition, leeching nutrients from the world cultural soil. It occupies spaces that other artistic products should occupy - It's like Starbucks.
Basically, I don't believe the creator of Lost or any of your other current US hit series are well intentioned. I believe you and they are cynical and exploitative purveyors of cultural garbage.
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