Electron Blue 17: How to resist the Turnip
He’s here to stay, I’m sorry to say, our world and its media currently seem to orbit the misshapen roundish vegetable and all its satellites and its every perturbation. He and his antics get ratings, and ratings get money and clicks, so it will keep happening with nothing to stop it - except two things: Boredom and cuteness. Have you ever gotten bored with a “reality” TV show? Have you ever turned off a show because its storyline got dumber and dumber? Have you hoped in vain that something interesting would happen so that it would be worth watching again? I’m not saying it couldn’t happen, but the media universe is full of irresistible things which lost their inspiration, or their capacity to generate outrage, and ran aground on the stolid rocks of boredom and the channel switcher. I’d rather watch a pitcher rub a baseball against his butt than listen to political speeches telling me how great it is going to be. OK, it was great for the Cubs. Not so great for the rest of us, maybe.
If you’re bored with baseball, try this strategy to resist the Turnip. This is something which happens constantly even if people don’t consciously promote it. You can trivialize the monster. I’ll give you some examples. When the first “Star Wars” film came out, the one now known as number 4, Darth Vader was a genuine villain. He was terrifying! Not only that, he committed genocide on a planetary level, when his “Death Star” reduced the entire planet of Alderaan, along with everyone on it, to space rubble. This was one evil character. He stayed evil until the very end of film number 3, when the film makers started giving him more sympathy, as long as he was dead.
During the decade following the Star Wars films, people started to see Darth Vader in a comic way, including parodies, comedy skits, costumes, games, collectibles, and a world wide wash of Darth Vaderiana. Even more, there were Darth Vader kiddie toys, lunch boxes, Halloween costumes, plushies, you name it. Here was the killer of millions, destroyer of planets, asking for candy at someone’s door.
And nobody blinked.
The same thing has happened with the eldritch horrors of H.P. Lovecraft, where the dread Cthulhu has been turned into a toy for babies and their parents. Cthulhu is soft and green, with tentacles and big eyes! And what of the toys made in the image of plague germs? Do you really want to take Ebola Virus to bed with you? I guess that some of this must be considered “avertence” behavior, trivializing and making it cute so that it will not kill you. But can you see the terror through the plushie?
Then why not try it with the Turnip? I saw toys made from Hillary, with hideous “Hello Kitty” style oversize heads that looked like embryos. Did they do it with Turnip? Comedians are working overtime so let’s see the Donald Toys. They will be drooled on by babies, chewed by dogs, and kicked around the house by rambunctious kids. Can we make him funny so he will not hurt us?
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