Okay,
I’ve been to sea. I’ve experienced
seasickness, or if you prefer, the more pleasant French term, mal de mer. I’ve been in and around the flu and
drunkenness, and I’ve held her hair. In
other words, I’ve seen it. And by it
I mean emesis…you know, barfing, throwing up, making a Cosby sweater, blowing
chunks, airing out a Jackson Pollack, going to sea by rail, the Technicolor
yawn, sowing Dodgers*, paging Wyatt Erp, or selling Buicks.
I was
watching the TV when a commercial came on for some other show. I’m not sure what the other show was about,
maybe building choppers, or hunting Bigfoot, or growing beards, but from what I
could tell it involved plenty of the aforementioned facial hair along with
camouflage clothes, being outside in the woods, being inside a garage, and
shoulder punching. Some older gentlemen
were making fun of a younger gentleman for reasons I never figured out, when to
everyone’s surprise he…well he compromised his camouflage if you will. In living color in my living room.
It used
to be that when it was necessary for someone to perform this action on TV, in
comedies for instance, he would throw one hand over his mouth and bolt from the
room. He had to “act” as if he were
going to throw up. Sort of how like
making funny euphemisms for that particular expulsatory function is cleverer**
than just showing it, and less gross. Now
they just, I suppose, hold a pint or so of some special effect semi-liquid, or
Beef-A-Roni, in their mouths until it’s time to spill it on the couch, the
floor, or the person in the scene to whom it would be most embarrassing. On reality shows they needn’t pretend at all,
thus making the special effects guy unnecessary and taking food from his
children’s mouths. Irony fully intended.
“But
Mark, just don’t watch those shows if you don’t like it.”
I
don’t, but it’s hard to tell if you’ll have to endure this activity until it’s
on the screen. Then there is the bearded
Bigfoot hunter or chopper builder from the commercial. How am I to not watch him and his cronies
dirtying up the forest floor when I’m not watching their show? I’m like that Clockwork Orange guy with his
eyes clamped open but without the need of nausea inducing medicine for him to
associate what he is watching with sickness.
Clockwork Orange Guy eventually made that association, so I suppose,
perhaps, the people who insist on showing nausea inducing programming are
conditioning us not to watch their shows.
Maybe I’m over thinking this.
Maybe they’re under thinking it.
But are people clamoring for
this? Are e-mails shooting across the
Internets to the makers of these programs demanding more vomit, more bile, more of
whatever you can take from inside the body and put outside? Are there angry letter writers submitting the
following?:
Dear
Masterpiece Theatre***,
It is with a heavy hand and
great sadness that I pen this letter. I
have watched your exemplary programming for a number of years, but I cannot in
good conscience continue to both be a viewer and supporter public broadcasting.
This is in response to the gross lack of
vomit and other body fluids displayed on screen during your programming. I can no longer ignore your mindboggling
refusal to show a single person evacuating their wafer-thin mints upon the
local vicar or Victorian villain. It shows
me that it is as if you think dialog and plot are superior to gratuitous shots
of pavement pizza.
Sincerely,
Former
viewer who has switched to The Real Housewives of Broadbottom****
If the producers of these shows are
only responding to viewer demands, I suppose I’ll have to monitor whatever is
shown during the commercial breaks of the programs I’m watching, with my finger
hovering over the remote control, so I can switch to another channel or even
turn the thing off when I detect an imminent evacuation. Thanks The History Channel.
*I made this one up.
** I’m not comfortable with this word, but spellcheck is.
*** I switched the “r” and the “e” because it’s classier.
**** Real town in England.
Perfect.
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