BobHarris.com - Why I love Oz: "South Park" comes after the news in 12 languages

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Books I'm Getting

Who Hates Whom:
Well-Armed Fanatics, Intractable Conflicts,
and Various Things Blowing Up —
A Woefully Incomplete Guide™

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Why I love Oz: "South Park" comes after the news in 12 languages

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Tuesday, 03 January 2006

I'm pressed for time, so for a while, instead of a carefully-edited bit of prose, you'll be getting a raw feed from my notebook, entries arranged by topic. So this will leap about a bit. Bear with me.

In the hotel, flipping on the TV for the last ten days or so:

In the commercial broadcast world, the influence of media barons seems as obvious here as at home. Kerry Packer (imagine an Australian equivalent of Ted Turner with a dash of Montgomery Burns) just died. No one I've met on the ground here seems to care, to be honest. Not even slightly. But the media mourned deeply, with roughly the same sort of coverage you'd expect for the death of a president or king. (It was hard not to laugh, actually, seeing Packer's former employees -- many of whom now work for Packer's son -- struggle desperately for words of praise. "Really, um, sometimes he wasn't that big a prick, sometimes" seemed to be pretty much the subtext.)

But that doesn't mean the media culture strongly resembles the U.S. in every respect. Nope.

In addition to the ABC (think BBC, but Australian), there's also the SBS, a national free-to-air service at least as ubiquitous here as PBS in the U.S. This morning, according to the listings in the newspaper, the SBS aired news broadcasts from around the world in Japanese, Mandarin, Italian, German, Spanish, French, Russian, Greek, Arabic, Indonesian, Polish, and of course English. Then in prime time they show "South Park."

This may, all by itself, explain why I love this country so.

"The Simpsons" seems to be on 24/7. Seriously. Obviously, that can't be true. But it sure seems like it.

During the lullaby hush of cricket matches, commercial interruptions invariably involve some voiceover guy shrieking about cheap furniture as if it's crammed up his own ass. One minute, you're listening to the articulate purr of Richie Benaud, who could make Armageddon sound like a fine day with a good cup of tea, and the next minute, a soulless drone having a pre-orgasmic spasm is urging you to buy an end table:

Pollack delivers, and there's a nice little cut shot off past the man at point. That'll go for two, bringing Hayden closer to his half-century. Marvelous. One for ninety-three. I'VE GOT END TABLES! DESK SETS! CHILDREN'S BEDDING! ALL JAMMED FOUR FEET INTO MY RECTUM, AND THERE'S ONLY ONE WEEK LEFT TO BUY THEM ALL!

This is the audio equivalent of a sudden convulsive shock to the groin.

Incidentally, I want Richie Benaud to do the commentary on my funeral someday. He'd make everyone feel just splendid by the end, ready for a glass of something chilled. And never mind that he's 75 years old. I'm sure he'll outlive me, even if I live to 100.

"The Corporation", a documentary which compares the behavior of the companies controllling the world to sociopaths, is being broadcast nationally on SBS tonight. To my knowledge, this is the first national free-to-air broadcast of the film in the world.

While cable is ubiquitous, there are only three broadcast commercial networks here, just like the States had for decades. One of them, Channel Ten, is showing the questioning-the-official-version documentary "911: In Plane Site" tonight. (Incidentally, in my opinion, the video is a deeply mixed bag -- containing a few provocative questions which remain unanswered and some truly dopey stuff which makes it hard to take any of it seriously -- but that's not the point.)

Think about this: Australia is one of America's key allies in the War on Tara, and a major broadcast network here is about to show a video questioning the entire story of 9-11, and -- get this -- it's not even controversial. There's no outcry, at least none that I've seen. Nobody's hollering about it in the paper or accusing anyone of treason. Nobody's scared of dangerous ideas, or the public thinking for themselves.

Try to imagine NBC airing a 90-minute documentary questioning the official version of 9-11. This is impossible, of course, but just try. And then try to imagine the whirlwind if they did.

So much for the "free marketplace of ideas" you hear hacks in the U.S. media trumpeting all the time.

UPDATE: I'm informed by several readers that "The Corporation" aired a few weeks ago in the UK. This is excellent news, and thanks for that. And btw, it's really worth a see.

UPDATE again: "The Corporation" also aired in Canada, where it was originally financed. So when I say "to my knowledge," please be aware that those words have significance, and it's entirely possible I don't know squat. I'm sure we'll shortly find out that the film was projected on the full moon when I wasn't looking, and everyone knows this but me.