GHETTOCRACY

A few quick shots...

BET has a show hosted by Charlie Murphy called "Hot Ghetto Mess". It is apparently based on a website featuring viral videos of Black people making fools of themselves and generally behaving stereotypically. Hot on the heels of corporate sibling VH1, which can proudly claim such masterpieces as "Flavor of Love", "I Love New York" and "Charm School" (not to mention "Being Bonaduce"), the CBS empire continues to mine ratings gold by featuring everyday people--and in particular, every day, lower class Black people--acting and being their very worst. Such is mass media in 2007.

Fortunately, an Internet-generated boycott and oodles of bad publicity have scared away a couple of sponsors from the six episode run of "Hot Ghetto Mess." BET continues to promote the show heavily and the show business axiom, "there's no such thing as bad publicity" certainly holds true, so it's unlikely the network will cancel the show, but at least they're a little red faced over it. Too bad they couldn't have been a little more circumspect when they came up with the damn idea in the first place.

Unfortunately, its unlikely that TV will stop dumbing down. Even worse, the Web feeds dumber and dumber things into television and conversely, bad TV finds a whole new life on the Internet, resulting in an endless loop of stupidity that threatens overwhelm our culture and turn us into slightly smarter version of the society satired in Mike Judge's 2006 cult film IDIOCRACY. (I've written about this film previously.) The only hope is turn off your TV's, computers, stop going to the movies and to read more books--the thick ones, not the supermarket paperbacks.

Yeah, right...

Pope Says Churches Can Start Conducting Services in Old Latin

R says: how appropriate, a dead language for a dying religion.

The Movie of the Summer

RATATOUILLE (A) is the best movie of the summer, and the only movie I've seen so far this year that lives up to all the hype (although A MIGHTY HEART comes pretty close). I don't have time for a full review right now, but maybe I'll get to it later. My favorite things about it are the splendid animation (including some amazing sequences featuring Remy the Rat while underneath a chef's hat), a strong story that appeals to both children and adults (imagine that!) and a great voice-over supporting role by Peter O'Toole, who helps provide the movie's most touching moment and adds to his already considerable legend. Writer/director Brad Bird continues to add to his reputation as a true animation auteur. Go see this movie!

Peace...