DescentBB

CBS has shown pics of princess Diana moments before she was declared dead. Since this was 7 years after the fact, the only reason this was done was for crass commercialism. Are any of you as offended as I at the total lack of respect for the last moments of a persons life that CBS exhibited last night. The big question now is...will this episode spawn a whole new genre of "ghoul" photographers who traverse the world exhibiting the ultimate in slime reporting by zooming in on a persons last moments in the hope of capturing their essence of life as it slowly fades from sight. Even more troubling will be all those who will flock to view this.
And no, I did not watch CBS last night.

Arseholes.

Inexcuseable.

That said, I'll add one observation. During the last decade or so American media has seen a steady shift to British-style media. This isn't just style, many, many Brits now work and own media companies here and it's really starting to show. Not meaning any disrespect to the Royals, Americans, for the most part, never gave much thought to Diana or Charles, that's always been a British obsession. Even with the ghoulish exploitation, I'd be surprised if the program got much of a viewership simply because we still don't care about Diana or Charles. The other things I've seen lately that are out of place are calling Michael Jackson *Jacko* (wtf? why are Brits and Aussies determined to add nicknames with *o* and *y* at the end of everything?) and details of David Beckham's sex life. Now, I understand that elsewhere in the world Beckham is a celebrity soccer player but any second string lineman in the NFL could stomp his azz and we still don't care about soccer in the USA except Little League. It's the freaking British Invasion all over again and it's boring the crap out of me.

Bash...you remember the first british invasion??? You old git.

Yes, and it was beautiful but this one I can live without. A friend of mine is still obsessed. His has one hell of a library (growing daily) of all the old Brit bands (many most Americans have never heard of). The Small Faces is his favorite. Get him started and he'll talk for hours about the smallest bass riff of Ian McLagan.

On a serious note, i did a few searches on the American media (i've got the flu, i'm bored) and i can't find any references to british heads of media outlets over there. There's an ex-aussie which runs half the world, but thats as close as it gets. Or were you refering to the style of reporting, rather than policy making decisions from the top.

The obsession with the royals especially Charles and Di was shared all over the world, including the US, maybe you wern't interested but your countrymen were. David Beckham is a sporting icon, which sells papers. I hate basketball like most of the british, but Michael Jordan was front page news for years in Europe.

FC

Yawn. CBS is getting exactly what they wanted. People are talking about them. Kill your TV and the problem goes away.

So where's the FCC?

Didnt the FCC recently rule that you could say f*ck on TV depending on the context?

Flabby, perhaps I was thinking of Murdock (you know us yanks can't tell the difference between Brits/Aussies/Kiwis/Small Rodents ) but it's more with the tone than anything. So many new magazines are very British-racey (Maxim and it's ilk comes to mind) and several newspapers I've seen have taken on a British Sun *look&feel*. Anyway, for what it's worth I'm probably exhibiting roid-ish kneejerk rejection of the Brit-isms that have invaded our *culture* (or lack of as you so insightfully noticed). We truly are the borg regarding assimilating so many other cultures and turning them into a mishmash and calling it *American culture*. The *Jacko* thing, for some reason, really irks me, probably because it's a nickname no American would use for endearment (it's too close to jack-off). But that's another story, Americans, imo, ceased to care about Michael Jackson, the artist, about 20 years ago but the Brits still give him much too much celebrity in that regard. Of course, now that it's Michael Jackson, the pedophile, he gets headlines again. Oh, well, maybe I'm just ranting against pop culture since it really only exists in the imaginations of the media. Out here in the fields, we fight for our meals.

That's ignorant, bash, don't be ignorant!

btw its from last night's Southpark about Michael Jackson...nevermind...

bash wrote: Oh, well, maybe I'm just ranting against pop culture since it really only exists in the imaginations of the media. Out here in the fields, we fight for our meals.

Aren't The Who pop culture?

BTW, I think cBS was just trying to see what it could get away with.

bash wrote:(or lack of as you so insightfully noticed).

If you were refering to what i said in the other thread, i meant that America has no local culture because it's so big and varied that there's millions of mini-cultures. When i was in the States it was hard to believe i was in the same country as i travelled around. It was great.

FC
...i knew i didn't explain that well before. I'm just too lazy to correct it.

Well, that's sorta what I meant too. Indeed we are not homogeneous at all. No melting pot; just a tossed salad.

i don't get it, what was so ignorant about bash's post beo?