“See You Fail & Laugh”
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.
I agree with you, Brig, and glad I don’t watch much TV (maybe 3 hours a week). I tune out negative people and focus on things I like and want in my life.
Joseph… and I am sure that you are a happier individual because of it! Cheers… and please share this post. I really am serious about starting a movement.
I honestly don’t understand this mocking culture. Maybe because I grew up being the one mocked up. I don’t have tv, and my only contact with ‘pop’ culture is the internet, where I choose my battles and the gossip rag a co worker bring every tuesday at work (we do the cross words, honest. Ok I also draw mustache on every picture, because mustache make everything better and look cute).
Didn’t see much of the show…point is even if it wasn’t good..ok, do the review–I guess that’s a person’s right and if it isn’t good don’t beat it to death..she is still a talented singer. Hoping for failure and ridiculing our fellow human beings doesn’t do anything positive…I agree. Everyone should try to be kinder…I know I am guilty at times for being the negative Nelly…I will try harder to be kinder….you are a good person, Brig!
Val… I love your mustache idea! ha ha! Let’s bring that back! …or in your case, keep it going!
Reg (hello!)… there is already Facebook mean-ness about Carrie Underwood’s portrayal of Maria. Quite frankly, you have to give her kudos for stepping into those BIG shoes. No matter who plays that role, they will never be Julie Andrews. It may just be the curse to that role. NO one CAN be Julie Andrews.
Believe me, I have had a sharp tongue with the judgmental-ness… I admit it, too. But things have gotten way out of whack here… Kindness and non-cynical-ness need to be more in practice! I am vowing to try harder to be the person that is kind, and offers help and has a kind word and tries to see the positive. I am tired of the down-putting. The Rotarians have a saying: Is it Good? Is it kind? Is it True? (or something like that)… if it isn’t, they hold their tongue.
… and thank you, I try to be a good person. I do try.
brig, the buddhist concept of right speech is very like your rotarian saying. one version is as follows:
“It is spoken at the right time.
It is spoken in truth.
It is spoken affectionately.
t is spoken beneficially.
It is spoken with a mind of good-will.”
there is a version that is quite close to the standard above:
“is it true?
is it kind?
is it necessary?
this is often attributed to the buddha, but it seems to in fact come from a victorian era book of poetry.
here’s a reference
i think that major causes of the problem is that the relative anonymity of the internet makes it easy for sadists, psychopaths, bullies, and people who want to convince themselves that they have power and equate “power” with “the ability to hurt and damage” and the sick hypercompetitive culture inflicted on us by imho the harvard business school, the chicago school of economics, and the disciples of ayn rand and finally by the fact that lazy media types and hollywood moguls under pressure to churn out copy before it’s old news find fake “controversies”, “let’s you and him fight”, and unchecked and uncritical publishing of slanders, crackpottery, propaganda, and opinions presented as facts is much easier than actually doing the homework. (run-on sentences? love ’em!)
Amen…so many miserable people out there, especially on my facebook that simply could not enjoy it for the sake of enjoyment. In my opinion, and since I’m the only one of my facebook “friends” who does theatre as a career… I’m only going to count my opinion….it wasn’t bad. She was a little stiff but her voice was good and she emoted well. People loveto berate and mock and hate because it makes them feel superior..a necessary thing when you are a wounded little person inside.
Anatman…yes, I like the Buddha statement…words to live by. And yes, the anonymity of the internet has made it easier to spit insults. Slander and such runs rampant. Sad.
Koly(hello!)… People DO like to berate those in the public eye… Let us see YOU stand up and sing, mockers…. Stand up and sing before an audience or camera… Sigh.
It’s always painful to see someone fail. I don’t understand anyone who might celebrate a person failing, unless perhaps the person’s succeeding would have harmed others–but then we’re talking about terrorists and such, not ordinary people.
I so agree with your sentiments. Another aspect is business. If a person invents something they have to run the gambit of companies stealing their inventions, and belittling their creation to keep the status quos. This is why we are not seeing the flood of invention in America that we have in the past. People are discouraged because it is so hard to create a product when you know that it will never be acknowledged or see fruition. The whole idea of creation is to find your heart and give something to the world. Critics have forgotten this as have big corporations and governments. We need to stand up for art, love, hope, light and creativity in all areas and honor past creativity as well. It is the life-blood of humanity.
A. Rat… mood terrorists… or something like that… you are onto something. Don’t kill the joy… Randie says> don’t steal my zhwah! (joi-joy in French). No zhwah-stomping… I love the word stomping. Spread zhwah.
Ty… Hello! …
“We need to stand up for art, love, hope, light and creativity in all areas and honor past creativity as well. It is the life-blood of humanity.” This is beautiful, Ty! May I quote you?
We need to pull people from these habits of finding the yucky and celebrating it (from Maya Angelou who said: Find the good and celebrate it.)
This is why a movement is in order. Art for Goodness Sake.
Thank you all for commenting here… I am glad I am not alone in this!
I think it’s not so much that people are anonymous on the web as that they feel anonymous;. Note the inclination toward abuse exists even when posting on social-media sites. There they are much less anonymous, but the sense of anonymity persists.
(I’m a bit late getting to this since WordPress didn’t notify me of the blog.)
Beetles… Agreed… It is that you can spout and walk away. There is no repercussion.
I didn’t watch the show, but only because I dropped cable some years back and hadn’t watched network TV for some years before that. If they continue offering live TV of things such as the Sound of Music, I might actually hook the TV converter boxes, or buy a new one. Live shows, with their unpredictable snafus, are something I hope happens more often. I remember some of the great shows on early TV (OK, so I’m old) and how the actors would have to work around problems.
As far as the newspapers, they shouldn’t laugh at things too much, their circulation is dropping. Perhaps they should worry about people mocking them?
The network gets a big cheer from me for having the event and the cast and crew do as well. Perhaps our culture has seen too much “reality” TV to know the difference between entertainment and train wrecks?
Sharknado exploded with positive social media. The movie doesn’t pretend to be anything more than a low budget horror film about sharks flying around and eating people. It is a daft concept, the acting isn’t great, the effects are not great, and the script isn’t great, but the darn thing is fun in a 1950s drive-in movie sort of a way. There is even a 2014 calendar out. If Sharknado can get good press, why can’t The Sound of Music?
Ying_Ko… Hello there… Sometimes, TV is a curse… it eats away at your time… it invades your space. I didn’t really miss TV when I was in France for a month over the summer. There were no time constraints, no “just sitting in front of the tv” in the evenings. It was pleasant, really… and since that time, I have given up watching the evening news… which I miss not. It was mostly bad news and covering events that are sensational.
I don’t understand the allure of movies like Sharknado. Violence for violence sake. The embracing of such a concept makes me sad… to be honest.
Funny, when I first saw this paragraph… I thought it said SNARKnado… which funnily enough, makes sense! … we are experiencing this! You could sum this whole thing up with “We are experiencing a SNARKnado.”
That’s how I feel about horror movies. Don’t care for ’em. Enough of that happens in reality already.
Well, perhaps I have a fondness for them because that is how my Father taught me a lot about science. When I was little we would watch the monster / science fiction movies from the 1930s on and play a game of spot the science error. Watching one of these Sci-Fi channel movies is different than watching something in the Halloween, or Nightmare on Elm Street, series where the violence is just for the sake of violence. At least in Sharknado, the sharks are just being sharks – albeit sharks flying in a tornado. It makes no claim to be high art.
Oh darn,
I forgot to add that Snarknado is a great idea. We are, indeed, living in a Snarknado!
Ying_Ko,
My favorite science flub in movies is the film Robinson Crusoe on
Mars. The trailer claimed everything in the film to be scientifically accurate; The opening sequence had a rocket ship in radio contact with Earth while orbiting Mars; there was NO time lag. Scientific accuracy went down from there.
Hi BeetlesBane,
Indeed, a classic of bad Science Fiction. I also liked that the Aliens used weapons that used the sound from War of the Worlds. Another great one is The Green Slime and its asteroid with flowing water. My Father taught me so much watching those films.
Joseph! ME-too-also-as well! Randie, of course, loves them… but we differ on the usefulness of such cinema.
Ying_Ko… I enjoy OLD monster movies… when suspense was more key… and there was an interesting story. I agree, violence for violence sake is pointless.
And thank you… SNARK-nado is spinning all around us… I dunno… what did they use in the movie to combat a Shark-nado? Would it work for SNARK-nado?
Beetle… I, um… missed that one.
Ying… I have on some cd, the audio trailer song for Green Slime… it sounds very late 60s-ish. Early 70’s?
Hi,
I suppose what they used for the Sharknado would work on Snarks as well. Bombs, shotguns, and chain saws. I can guarantee the SnarkNado would end, but the trial afterwards might prove problematic.
I’d love to find out what CD had the audio trailer song for The Green Slime and, spot on, it came out in 1968. The movie is one of those that makes no sense, but manages to be funny bad.
Hi,
Robinson Crusoe on Mars, it has Adam West (Batman) as one of the astronauts, but his role is very small.
Ying_Ko… I will go home and locate the cd and report back.
Okay, how to defeat SNARK-nado… Happy bombs, shots of kindness (via a shotgun), and sawing up snark with positive quotes … and the chainsaw. Hmmm. I tried.
Hi,
That would be grand! I look forward to finding out what the Cd is!
The chainsaw could be done in a setting such as that in a Japanese steak house, in order to make shark sushi, or stir fried shark. It would be rather interesting to watch the chief with a couple of chainsaws.
“Iron Chef” of course!
I always thought “Green Slime” probably got somewhat mangled during the English language re-dubbing.
For suspense instead of gore, go to Val Lewton. Great horror films but I think Ying_Ko’s father would have been hard pressed to extract much of a science lesson from them.
Ying_Ko… the name of the cd is… Monster Rock n Roll Show.
Hi,
BeetlesBane, you might be right, not all horror / science fiction films have a science base.
Brig,
Thanks for the heads up on the CD. I think I have a line on a copy.