Shallowland

This?

Or this?

I've been reading a lot lately about pop culture and it's rise in the past decade. There is particular interest in the fame of the non-famous--those that have no talent except for the ability to get publicity and fans and paparazzi followings. Also noted is the increase in ticket sales at the cineplex down the street and the popularity of vampire novels, TV shows and movies.

Is it any wonder? It doesn't seem a mystery to me that all this is happening in the decade of the Early Two-Thousands, as I'm going to call it, there being no other good alternative. Do we know history? Does anyone remember the incredible popularity of movies in the Thirties and Forties? People were going to see Clark Gable, Carole Lombard, Jimmie Cagney, Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Cary Grant, James Stewart in movies about gangsters, or "screwball" comedies, war movies or Busby Berkeley musicals that were famous for their kaleidoscopic dance numbers featuring hundreds, and showgirls stepping slowly down gigantic staircases with headdresses the size of Rhode Island. Why? Because people were so down in the dumps, perhaps unemployed, maybe having lost lots of money in the stock market, there was a World War going on, sons and husbands were dying--they needed escape. If there had been television then I'd bet there would have been some kind of reality TV to sooth the masses.

And that's exactly what's happening now. Take your pick. Would you rather watch what's new with Paris Hilton or watch replays of 9/11? How about Jessica Simpson or clips of the Iraq/Afghanistan wars and the count of the dead? Is there a question about watching Keeping Up with the Kardashians or the details of latest suicide bombing? Do you want to go see Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (the biggest movie grosses ever) or watch the nightly news and hear about the stock market crooks and their bonuses? How about John and Kate Plus Eight or H1N1? Or Housewives of New York versus the politics in Washington DC?

On a smaller, less national, less frantic scale is my grandson, who fathered triplets by accident this past year, who works two jobs and would rather, by god, play Modern Warfare 2 than think about how he is going to pay the child support which is now required of him. Or me--who plays Bejewled Blitz in order to squash the thoughts of greatgrandchild triplets I may never know and other family worries nagging to get in. The big world has gotten so messed up in the last decade, life so uncertain, flying so dangerous, food possibly infected with fatal germs, a cough in the room maybe a precursor of a pandemic, a job a lifeboat rather than a way to make money and a career, wars that have gone on for years, no one you know unaffected by some of this and your small world, your personal world, has it's own unique horrors--there is a yearning to escape. Yes, maybe playing a video game, or Tweeting, or burying yourself in Farmland is a form of turning off and turning your back on "real" life, but how much can any of us take without succumbing to some brain deadening behavior? In the sixties we didn't have all this stuff to distract us, so we smoked marijuana--how different is that from what is happening now? Not very, I'd say.

Now we have a guy from Yemen who was just barely prevented, partially due to his own mess-up, from blowing up an airplane and shortly we will be going through security lines in airports in flapping hospital gowns from now on (thanks to Maureen Dowd for that visual). There was talk on the Sunday news programs, which I still watch though I'm warning myself against them, that there might have to be "pre-emptive measures" taken against Yemen. Remember "pre-emption in Afghanistan? I'm so fatigued from it all, so weary of the Healthcare Reform that isn't, of Joe Leiberman, of David Gates, of Governor Gregoire, of H1N1, of Swiss banks, of making a big deal about Michelle Obama's arms, and on and on, that I can't wait to watch the new seasons of The Bachelor and American Idol and bury myself up to my neck in shallow, trivial, unimportant mass culture. Want to go see Avatar anyone?