..is being sold as cool in so much of the MSM.

Having had a holiday from TV for nearly a year, it is clear to me after catching a bit, just how "in" it is to be a complete shit to other people; your "friends", people you pay, people you are a customer to etc...

Spite, cruelty and ennui are not "funny" and it's nothing to be flippant about.

And yet that is how it is portrayed

Look at this ad: yey get a big car and dump your dirty clothes at the dry cleaners rudely and disrespectfully without a please or thankyou and dirty up his shop for a laugh.

Oh and how he envies your big motor!

2012 Land Rover LR4 Born Free Commercial Land Rover USA - YouTube

Rant over: anybody else see it this way?

It seems to say to me...if you're the sort of person who has been given a billion pounds in a will and you do fuck all work, come buy a land rover and donate unwanted worn once dirty clothes and spiders to the dry cleaners then rush out and buy some new clothes and repeat lol

Nice one Andy,

It is one example among many.

It does seem that modern culture celebrates cruelty.

In fact cruelty is exchanged for wit just as selfishness and greed is exchanged for ambition and determination.

It says to me look how wonderfully middle class they are and thus they're living a great adventurous life, unlike that dismal pleb in the cleaners who only exists to clean up the mess after their exciting escapades - he stares in awed wonder at their magnificent lifestyle and immensely more important life.
They achieved this marvellous status by buying an off-road vehicle they''ll actually use to take the kids to and from the school highest in the league tables fifteen miles from their home. Let's face it, they wouldn't in reality go near somewhere as common as a laundrette but it fits the advert; you need someone to be compared to their incredible life and the au pair wouldn't quite cut it. We can get to see - here you go chump! clean up our shit for us would you dahling! then whoosh! It's off to Channel 4 to appear on a new series called how awesome is my house?.
You too could be like these carefree middle class superbeings - by buying a monster truck very few people have a legitimate need for you fucking mug.

dogsmilk wrote:
Upper middle class

dogsmilk wrote:
Fucking amazing post.

It says to me that LR4 owners are mute dicks with no manners and the guy looking out the window as they drove off was realising just that

Loads of adverts portray the middle-middle and upper-middle classes as sniping, greedy and downright stupid. I'm thinking of one in particular with a well known comedian in a series of ads selling insurance to a line of truly dozy gits. And the insurance company it represents doesn't seem to realise or care that it seems to be saying, "Only the thick buy this".

Sitcoms, too, especially ones portraying middle class family life, are FULL of bitterness, resentment and spite - er, in fact, that's the joke usually: how much this family hates one another and still stays together.

I don't watch any of it any longer, though.

cantata wrote:
I know what you mean, those sort of sitcoms suck tbh.

Red Dwarf on the other hand will forever remain a classic. I suppose precisely because of the situation comedy it had which was totally unrelated to life on Earth so to speak.

Here you go, sort out the middle class snobs with this fella, lol.

andyh wrote:
Kudos for seemingly making Red Dwarf relevant to the thread!

cantata wrote:
It's not like the good old days.



Seriously - in The Good Life, Tom and Barbara reject capitalist consumerism and basically turn to a kind of green anarchism, while Margo is the comedy one. If you think about it, the premise is pretty subversive, but done in such a quaint, inoffensive, quintessentially English way.

Then the 'wacky, rebellious' Young Ones took the piss out of it



Ben Elton - Queen the pissing musical. Wickle Webel that turned into a smug money grubbing bastard.

oioioi wrote:
Heh, well I had to type something :p

I agree Mikey. I haven't watched for just over a year now too, but when I do see snippets at friends houses, my brain just shuts down. It's almost like I'm watching some weird, alien life-form some times.

As ever, they wouldn't make the crap if people didn't watch it.

cantata wrote:
No offense to anyone who enjoys this show, but wtf?!



Why was it on for so long when other actual 'funny' stuff was canned after one or two series? I am well pleased I don't pay a fee for this crap...

Clue: If they have to tell you when to laugh, it's not funny.
Turn it off!!

feather wrote:
"Canned" laughter is never a good sign, either.

Ab Origine wrote: It was really that I was referring to Ab.
It's the audience's audible cue sheet.

feather wrote:
Sorry feather, have not slept for several days and a bit slow.

Ab Origine wrote:
Why not?