Pop Culture Killing Classic Traditions
By Alicia Colon
For the first time in a bunch of decades, I didn't bother watching the ball drop in Times Square heralding the New Year 2011. The hoopla and faux cheer went out of this holiday for me several years ago when television networks decided that pop culture would replace the traditional celebrations. As a child growing up, New Year's Eve was the one night I was allowed to stay up till midnight and that meant watching Guy Lombardo and his Royal Canadians at the Waldorf Astoria. It was hokey to me then but boy, would I love to have that classy act back again.
Instead we now have Ryan Seacrest, Jenny McCarthy and an ailing Dick Clark overseeing the mob still showing up in Times Square to watch the year end with a million other strangers. I guess you have to be young and/or an out-of-towner to subject yourself to that punishment. As a native New Yorker I never had the urge to make that trek to midtown on December 31st but when I was 22 and dating a visitor to my hometown I was persuaded to do so. Madness, total madness and we couldn't even make it anywhere close to Times Square to see the ball drop at the stroke of midnight. We ended up watching the festivities on TV from a dimly-lit seedy bar on 46th Street. Different strokes for different folks, I guess, but for someone like me who hates crowds, I came away that night thinking never again.
Once again CNN has asked comedienne (?) Kathy Griffin to co-host the event with Anderson Cooper on New Year's Eve and she had promised not to throw the F-bomb that she threw last year on live TV. Was the once proud cable news network hoping to raise its ratings by hiring the volatile comic again? Was it playing to the basement choir? Fortunately I've read that Ms. Griffin managed to avoid spouting any vulgarity that would have caused her to be yanked from coverage.
Somewhere in the city, possibly the Waldorf or the Roosevelt Hotel, celebrants were enjoying ballroom dancing, champagne toasts and a big band orchestra playing Auld Lang Syne like Lombardo did but it's unlikely we'll ever catch this type of programming on the networks' holiday presentations. Why not? Because today's viewers are more likely to demand reality starlets wearing skanky clothing, foul-mouthed comediennes and hip hop, tone deaf musical acts.
Back in the sixties, a new phrase came into vogue- generation gap. It meant that my generation was so far removed from the previous one of our parents that there remained only a large fissure in our cultural styles. What it has actually come to mean is that my generation has a deficit of elegance and class and we've spawned a generation with lowbrow tastes.
How else to explain the celebrity of the denizens of cable programming such as The Jersey Shore or The Obnoxious Real Housewives of Various Cities? Are Bridezillas really that incredibly appalling and how did they ever get a man to propose?
If television is in the dumps and declining ratings indicates that it is, the movie industry is even worse in catering to our basest instincts. I used to be such a film buff and would buy the screen magazines with the glossy photos of beautiful stars. During my stay at the physical rehab center following my knee surgery I picked up a copy of In Style magazine and discovered that the word "star" was inappropriately applied to very, very minor players or reality show characters. Star Magazine and the National Enquirer repeatedly show the same near naked photos of exhibitionist movie stars who then routinely complain about their lack of privacy. The lowest common denominator seems to be the focus of their articles and the term "trailer trash" can describe just about every female celebrity gracing their pages.
Okay, I may be an old fogey but apparently I was one when I was only eleven because I loved the glamour of Hollywood film stars and was familiar with the same ones my mother loved. I have the same connection with my daughters who join me whenever I watch an old film on TCM or AMC. One day I asked my daughter Danielle why she liked them and she said, "They're clean. No bad language and no nudity."
According to Hollywood.com the total movie industry box office is down over $152M or 30% year-over-year. The top grossing films were either G or PG rated: Toy Story 3; Alice in Wonderland; Iron Man2; The Twilight Saga - Eclipse. The studio's market plan ought to be spearheading production of similar fare yet their modus operandi seem to be injecting graphic sex into poorly plotted story lines. Will the Academy Award be given to Natalie Portman for her acting chops or for her lesbian sex scene in Black Swan?
Now back to New Year's Eve on TV. Leave it to MTV to lower the standards of New Year's Eve celebration even further. They had scheduled to show the "star" of the Jersey Shore, Nicole "Snooki" Polizzi, drop down in a glass ball in Times Square. Fortunately cooler heads reigned and the dropped ball with Snooki inside was moved to the Jersey Shore.
So I spent New Year's Eve curled up on the couch with my love and spouse of forty years watching old movies via streaming Netflix TV. An old black and white film with Charlie Chan's Sidney Toler with Manton Moreland brought back happy memories when film was mindless and fun. We then watched the first season of Psych and before we knew it was almost midnight and on to bed. The calls came in from our children wishing us a happy and healthy New Year and it was only then that I realized we had missed the whole extravaganza and it felt wonderful.
What has been the most famous New Year's Eve tradition since 1907, the ball dropping in Times Square, has been reduced to a display of tackiness and bad taste. We need a touch of class back in our lives. We need the strains of times gone by:
Should auld acquaintance be forgot, And never brought to mind? Should auld acquaintance be forgot, And auld lang syne.
For auld lang syne, my dear, For auld lang syne, We'll take a cup of kindness yet, For auld lang syne!
Alicia Colon resides in New York City and can be reached at aliciav.colon@gmail.com and at www.aliciacolon.com</em>
|