Film & TV
Republican and Democratic Conventions Are Boring Television
I would rather watch Michael Phelps’s 0.01 second win frame by frame over and over again. I would rather watch stills from the latest Team USA basketball win (because actual video footage is idiotically not released for highlights).
I would rather listen to a lecture on the Oxford comma. I would rather watch grass grow and paint dry.
Yes, there are plenty of things that I would rather do instead of watching either the Democratic and Republican National Conventions. They are primarily television events now- drama-less, humorless, and inauthentic television events. In fact, I don’t think that I can call either party’s convention an “event” without adding the “television” adjective before it.
The Democratic National Convention will be broadcast from Denver, Colorado, for August 25th to the 28th. Barack Obama will be the nominee, we know. The Republican National Convention is in Minneapolis-Saint Paul, and will be televised from September 1st to the 4th. John McCain will “win” the nomination there.
There will be speeches. Musical guests. Probably some video montages. Lots of cheering, signs, confetti, analysis, and handshakes. We’ll wait for something wonderful to be said, we’ll ask the same questions that the talking heads are asking, we’ll marvel at all those balloons, think that we’re being informed, scratch our heads, blink a couple times, and die a little bit inside. Then we’ll see if Law & Order is on somewhere.
We know the end results already. The Democrats had a chance- albeit a slim one- to make their convention exciting: having Clinton and Obama come down to the wire. Imagine the excitement then. Nobody knows who will be standing at the podium triumphant. Each candidate’s supporters getting feisty with each other. Two final speeches. I know what you’re thinking: “That is SO American Idol.” And my response to you is, yes, it is.
I come from a school of thought where if something is on television it should be interesting. I don’t care if it is a documentary, a sports game, a comedy, a drama, a dramedy, or a reality show. Politics, very often, is actually interesting. But when it is maniacally calculated and predictable the way that campaign appearances generally are (save for the rare instance a heckler makes his way in) all of the “fun” is taken out of it. The decisions have already been made. There is nothing free or democratic about that, coincidentally.
The Democratic and Republican Conventions are no longer events in the sense that something is supposed to be happening there. Instead, they are attempts at spectacles, meant to be watched in awe. Minds aren’t too often changed there, or on the other side of the television. So what is so spectacular about it all?
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Interesting article, Mr. Grandone - one thought - Barack Obama’s speech at the 2004 Democratic convention is widely considered his moment of arrival, the first opportunity the country discovered this talented local state senator. His speech was a huge success, leading to his election to the U.S. Senate. These things might be boring and outmoded, but can they still matter.