The Buffalo News' Alan Pergament offers a fascinating look at TV, citing all the shows in which the characters themselves are in the media. The portrait of TV from these TV characters playing TV characters isn't very flattering. But of course, the TV executives making these programming decisions don't care. They have thick skins, and besides, they need the money. (Although NBC honcho Bob Wright, skewered by Tina Fey on his own network's new behind-the-scenes show, "30 Rock," might yet draw the line at the sort of abuse he is getting--even if the former plastics man utterly conforms to Fey's stereotype of the clueless suit pretendng to "get it," creatively.)
The larger story is that TV has changed over the years. Once upon a time, TV was the source of entertainment: People would watch a show in the same way that they would go to the theater. But now, thanks mostly to cable news, people turn on the TV to see life itself. Their lives, on the news, other people's lives on the news. Yes of course, life itself is spiced up and dramatized, even on reality TV, even on the news. And people know that.
They expect, for example, the over-acting of, say, Nancy Grace, whom MSNBC's Joe Scarborough cuttingly referred to as Nancy "Disgrace." They might like it, they might not, they might watch anyway--the ratings are the arbiter.
But in the meantime, it is clear that the spate of shows featuring behind-the-scenes looks at TV and media, such as "Live on the Sunset Strip," "Brothers and Sisters," and "Vanished."
A great piece by Pergament.
