At MaineToday.com, a little knee-jerk pop-culture recommendation and vituperation, respectively, of Greeks and Romans:
Have you asked yourself, as Albee and many thoughtful people have, what’s it all about? Life, death, loss, longing, desire, loneliness, agedness, etc. You want family entertainment? Try Greek tragedy or Shakespeare or O’Neil or Miller, Williams, even Albee. Does the term ‘family entertainment’ mean bland, unrealistic, simplistic, avoidance of anything that might engender some controversy or diverse opinions--thought? It need not. Or do we need the heavy handed ‘reality’ shows that are carefully staged to create the illusion of reality? For now, apparently so. Such bad theater on TV and in films typically numbs us to quality writing and acting. Now and then the movies bravely present films with serious subject matter, treated seriously and literarily such as Brokeback Mountain; Good Night, Good Luck; Capote, Crash for current examples. These are the rare exceptions. Just think of the great financial successes of recent years, the action films with their mindless, testosterone-guided theatricality, their improbabilities, their essential pointlessness. Violence and vulgarity in speech, dress and manner, technical tricks do not a drama make: its bread and circuses, those wonderful spectacles put on by depraved Roman Emperors for the entertainment of the peasants and oppressed minorities that typically involved feeding unarmed, starving Christians (or other enemies of the state) to hungry lions or to powerful gladiators. What redeeming value did such activities have? What do most movies and TV shows have that respect your intelligence? You can count them on one hand, with two fingers omitted.
Maybe I can find an occasion to use that: "Violence and vulgarity...the bread and circuses of the entertainment industry"...Hmm...
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