I will interrupt this Random Friday Foto for a bit of a rant. Please indulge me.
I don’t know if you watched any of the Sound of Music live theater production on NBC last night, but I tuned in for a spell. I was curious how a non-Julie Andrews could play and sing the iconic role. Like many, The Sound of Music is one of my favorite musicals… and Julie Andrews a favorite singing person (She is one class act).
While I wasn’t overly impressed with Carrie Underwood’s acting… her singing warn’t bad … but I thought the Rev. Mom was impressive and the opening scene was fun to watch. I stayed with the program just into the Doh-Ray-ME-FUH-SEW… number. Again, I wasn’t sold on the show, but didn’t feel it was unwatchable.
Upon seeing a review done up by The Washington Post this morning, I clenched my teeth and summoned all my energy in order to not yell at my iPad!
Hank Stuever writes (of the live production): Some viewers hoped it would be worse because that would have been more fun to mock on Twitter.
This is a disturbing sentiment I have noticed in the last few years… probably since social media and reality TV have tightened its grip on the public. I will boil this callous sentiment down to a nugget:
We want to see you fail so we can laugh at you.
You see this reverse aphorism more and more in our everyday life. It has been applied to politics, notably our current government’s attempt at healthcare. We want to see health care fail so we can say ‘we told you so!’
Twitter seems to be an avenue for instantaneous mockery and down-putting.
And of course, this “see you fail & laugh” has been applied to celebrities for years… example: Tom Cruise, Oprah, Kirsty Alley, etc.
Is anyone as annoyed by this growing sentiment as I am? When did we become a society of stand around and watch others fail… ? (and mock them while they fail). THIS is OUR failure. We FAIL when we contribute to this atmosphere and FAIL to act in helping one another.
Is this what we’ve become?
No. I refuse to be part of this “Mocking Culture”! I won’t stand for it! … as a human being… I will help others- not laugh at their failure! I will try to find the good and not the bad in people, situations and ideas. Stand with me in refusing to be part of the negative atmosphere that parts of the media is generating. Stand with me in MAKING an effort to do good in the world… and to not just sit idyll while others fail. Stand with me in turning off the hurtful language and jeering nay-sayers and turning to the positive. Let’s start a movement. I’m starting right now… in this comic strip, on this website. Art for goodness sake.
Let’s offer a kind word and a helping hand to others. This is the Sound of Music to my ears.
