Blue Sky Limousine

I was watching a movie the other day, a really well-made classic, although not that old, and the thought occurred to me that a lot of the stuff on television is crap.

Of course, I’ve been aware of that fact for quite some time now, but it hit me that some of the stuff I’ve voluntarily watched on TV is just of poor quality.

I know we live in a world where referencing other material is good, and useful. But it seems like technology has made it easy enough to parody anything that lots of what we’re seeing is recycled garbage. Or brilliance, put through the process of recycling, and resulting as garbage.

Say a brilliant director makes a masterpiece. It’s a hit. Ten years ago, it would have remained unique, not nearly as parodied as it can be today. Indeed, “300″ was almost instantaneously riffed on by thousands of fans worldwide, through the process of online collaboration.

That’s fine. But when a television program does it, and takes it too far, it can get depressing.

It’s like that SoBe commercial that uses lizards who dance to Thriller. I don’t get it. What’s the point? Thriller is brilliant in and of itself. Recycling it is not brilliant. But maybe they weren’t going for creative quality. Maybe they just needed a quick fix for amazing substance that was difficult to create on its own.

Is that the direction the country is headed? The world? Are we destined to live in a society where the greatest creations of the day are merely reinvented versions of previous triumphs? I guess it’s like how Hollywood was said to have been a few years ago. Remake city. Reality shows too. “Let’s copy Europe!”