At the Movies Gets a Makeover
The Dumbing Down of Television and Our Culture
In the July 24th 2008 edition of the L.A. Times there was an article written by Patrick Goldstein entitled "The Big Picture" where Goldstein laments the news that Ebert and Roeper are officially being replaced by E! News reviewer Ben Lyons and Ben Mankiewicz - a host on Turner Classic Movies and host of a pop culture show on Syrius Satellite Radio.
While Disney and ABC insist that they are not intending to "dumb down" the television show that critiques movies weekly, they say that what they are trying to do is to bring relevancy to a show that was originally created by Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert - both reputable newsman. In other words, they are trying to make the show popular with young audiences.
Goldstein says, "the success of the original 'Siskel and Ebert at the Movies' was a fluke, owing more to the engaging personalities of the two critics than their actual opinion." He compares Siskel and Ebert to the great comedy teams of Matthau and Lemmon or Laurel and Hardy. What they did worked. It helped that Siskel and Ebert were incredibly passionate when it came to movies - and opinionated - but what made the show work was their onscreen chemistry. But that chemistry was gone when Siskel passed away in 1999. And now with Ebert left unable to speak due to throat cancer, it truly is the end of an era.
Dumbing Down of Television
Goldstein purports that none of these events should be that shocking. Everywhere we look we are bombarded with the idealization of youth and pop culture. So it makes sense that there should be two young(er) people critiquing today's films. After all, the majority of people who go to films these days is teenagers. With Ebert's failing health, doesn't it just make sense to kick out the grandpas?
But the recourse for this so-called "dumbing down of television", with the emphasis on all things youth, all things relevant and current, perhaps we are missing something. Pop culture becomes - simply - our culture.
It's hard to say who we Americans are as a culture outside of pop culture. We are known for fast-food, hip-hop music, and movies where we blow things up with robots. We're known for excess and gluttony. That is our culture.
What Siskel and Ebert set out to do was to create a show where they could speak their minds about an art medium that they loved. People responded to it. The show was a success. But now, it's a different time. It's a different culture than that of our parents' generation. We seem to be more interested in how people market themselves and how a young-minded culture perceives those people rather than in quality.
Some Consolation
Goldstein suggests in his article that television isn't where criticism belongs anyway. Where it belongs is in the written word; television is a performance medium. Even though Ebert is left without an audible voice, he is left with a voice nonetheless that can and will speak to audiences young and old worldwide thanks to the written word. Whether or not the new "At the Movies" is still on television within two years is debatable, but what is not debatable is that via the written word, Ebert's thoughts will still be read in newspapers and the on the Internet.
