A new look! …and a rant on mediocrity.

As you can see, I’m currently in the process of revamping the look and feel of the blog.  Over the course of the next week I’m going to be attempting to optimize the general layout of everything.  Thanks in advance for bearing with me while I get the kinks ironed out!

An issue that I’ve been rolling around in my brain for a little while now is our collective cultural love of mediocrity.

Don’t get me wrong.  There are still many things in which we expect and recognize greatness.  In academia, we see largely a general strive for greatness.  Those who excel in the various fields of science can find themselves publishing papers and receiving prizes for their discoveries and insights.  In competitive enterprises, such as sports, we place great value on success and view failure as an undesirable outcome, so much so that fans and players may burst into tears when the game ends and victory was ultimately out of reach.  So there are indeed things in our society that reject the mediocre or anything less than the best.

I suppose specifically my observation about the sub-par being lauded as “good” is more geared towards what I see in popular culture.  Think about the content you see in most of the successful books, movies, TV shows, and music.  While we do seem to be able to usually recognize good cinema and television (thanks to a group of “elites” that hand out awards… and of course, they miss the boat on some good stuff too), it’s painfully obvious that good cinema does not make the kind of money that mediocre cinema does.  Take, for example, the travesty that was Transformers, and even worse, Transformers 2.  Transformers 2 did very well at the box office.  And, in my opinion, it showcased everything that is wrong with mainstream American movies.  Overdone CG that became boring.  Poor acting.  Poor dialogue.  Poor plot.  Stupid humor.  Megan Fox.  And yet, the average movie-goer ate it up.  Why?  When did we begin to crave things which have no substance?

Another example of mediocrity, this time staining the reputation of the written word – Twilight.  How did such a poorly written, vapid, miserable excuse of a series make its creator millions of dollars?  Why did this book series become even moderately successful, let alone wildly so?  I really wish someone would explain why these books are appealing.  I find them to be a shame to writing as a legitimate form of entertainment or thought-provocation.  A sparkling vampire and a Native American werewolf vie for the affection of a plain, ordinary, mediocre high school girl.  Really? That premise seems plausible to you?

And music?  The music industry systematically selects and produces generalized, simple, shallow songs and blankets every single radio station with them.  People suddenly begin to think “artists” such as Ke$ha are talented.  Or that bands like Hinder or Theory of a Dead Man make real music.  These corporate monkeys dance for your dollar, and the average person seems content in being manipulated by generic, uninteresting, and worst of all, inartistic expression.

Of course, as much as I complain, I think I do know the answer.

Entertainment makes money.  And the corporations that produce this content have to attempt to appeal to the lowest common denominator in order to appeal to as many people as possible, to ensure that they maximize profit.  It all seems to come back to money.  I suppose if movie studios and publishing companies and record labels weren’t finding money in vacuous endeavors, they wouldn’t pursue them.  And I think that’s what frustrates me most of all: at the pinnacle of our society we crave the simple, the blasé, the basal, the dull.  Funny comedies find themselves cancelled after only two seasons due to low ratings because they didn’t feature enough slapstick and fart jokes.  Engaging dramatic masterpieces flop at the theaters because the average member of the public didn’t care to watch something of substance.  The most talented musicians of our time are largely unheard of because no one will play their music on the radio.

I suppose it isn’t all hopeless, though.  The internet seems to be shifting the balance of power in entertainment – music, web series, blogs, and art can be found here, alive and well.  I suppose all that truly matters is that the spirit of art will live on, in spite of everything else.  But my disappointment persists, and my hope is that one day we will tire of the same regurgitated music and movies and rise up as a culture to demand better.  Hey, a guy can dream, right?