Wednesday, August 30, 2006

857 Irritations

Wednesday, August 30, 2006

Some people are upset and demanded an apology for the Emmy skit spoofing the "Lost" plane crash, which aired within hours of a fatal crash in Kentucky.

That bugs me.

If the Kentucky crash had not occurred, would anyone have been so upset by the skit? Probably not. At least not loudly and publicly. But there have been other fatal crashes in the past. So it must be the timing, right? Apparently a few hours isn't enough. How about a few days? A few weeks? How long? There must be some safe length of time. Maybe it isn't solely the timing. Maybe it's the people involved, too. There are small plane crashes all the time, but nobody would have been upset (except the immediate relatives, probably privately) if the skit had aired right after a few small plane crashes. I guess a few immediate relatives don't deserve apologies? Or consideration?

In fairness, we must never ever spoof or make light of another plane crash on TV or in movies. Somebody might have lost a loved one in a plane crash, somewhere, sometime, and it would be "of questionable taste" to remind them of it in a way they might find tasteless. Not to mention survivors of crashes. And you never know when a plane will happen to go down as you are about to air the piece. Wait a minute - more people die in car crashes! We should never make light of car crashes in any public medium! Oops - even more people die of diseases and old age! We should never make light of diseases or old age!!

This "I deserve an apology" thing has gone too far. I'm sorry for your loss, and you have a right to be offended or hurt if you saw the skit, but NBC has done nothing to be asked to apologize for. That skit was not making fun of the Kentucky accident. There was no intent to hurt anyone. The timing was unfortunate, that's all. Shit happens. Deal with real issues.

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There's a local used car dealer who is famous for their "did-it-myself" commercials. They even have a late-night one-hour show about their bloopers and out-takes. Since we know they do cut, edit, and retake, their latest commercial worries me. Rough quote "...and of course it comes with our 10 mile 10 year warranty!"

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I just bought some pillar candles. I looked at some trays for under the candles. They all had stickers on the bottom that said "Do not use near combustible materials". (Yeah, I know what they mean, but that's not what they said.)

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Speaking of candles, there's a late-night "infomercial" for a supplier of junk that you can sell on the internet, and they'll mail the junk directly to your customers. To illustrate how much money you can make, they show a pillar candle, which they claim you can sell for more than $30, and the cost to you is only $9-something (or whatever, I'm pretty sure the actual retail "value" given was higher). Well, I saw those exact same candles in Wal-Mart yesterday for $6 and less. I bought a package of nine for $7 (on sale, regularly $10. And they're good candles, too, long-burning, nice scent, no smoke, no drip).

I think anyone who signs up for this company's services is going to generate more ticked-off customers than profits.

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For any of you grammar hounds out there, I have a puzzle. In a commercial for a technical school, a graduate says "Who I am today is whom I've always wanted to be." Now, "whom" is not a word used lightly, particularly by a tech school grad (he might want to, and know how to, but his buddies would laugh him off the block for putting on airs, right?) So, I conclude that somebody put a bit of thought into that bit of script. "Whom" was carefully selected.

But is it correct? I'm going back and forth on it. Don't go by what sounds right, by what is common usage - I'm interested in the correct application of the rules here. The reflective property of "is", and how it gets applied in this case.

3 comments:

Ally said...

the emmy skit was just in poor taste and not because of the kentucky crash. people have real phobias flying. even though i don't have a fear of flying, everytime i hear about a plane crash, my mind reverts to 9/11. however, i do agree that the "i deserve an apology" has gone too far. if the viewers had an issue, they could've switched channels like an internet reader can click the red x.

my mom (okay, me, too) are drawn to infomercials. however, we don't go buy. we sit around and say hey that's a great idea but it must be a crappy machine because they don't sell it in stores.

Chris said...

Is that the same supplier that has Tom Bosley aka Mr. Cunningham in their infomercial? I agree, any of these "Start your own business and make $15,000 a month from your own home" commercials fall under the "If it sounds too good to be true...." category.

Chris
My Blog

~~Silk said...

I'm not sure enough that it's the Bosley one to say yes. The other thing that bugs me about that commercial is the guy who says he put the figurines in an antiques mall. Sheesh! Misrepresentation on two levels! Suckers going after suckers.