Across A Digital Divide
Sep. 13th, 2002 02:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sdelmonteThis Sunday is what is without exaggeration the most eagerly anticipated season premiere of Fall 2002. The Sopranos returns. And I can't say I care. Yet in a way I do.
I have never seen The Sopranos. The few friends I have who watch it more or less love it, though a couple have said it's not worth the hype. One friend - who is ok with the language and violence and is no prude - hates the nudity. My mother watched it once and shrugged it off. I suspect that I would not care much for it, being a prude about foul language, and being the kind of person who might not like seeing a mob boss as even an anti-hero. (I liked the second Godfather film more than the first because we had no noble Vito Corleone dying an old man after playing with his gradson.)
But this not why I am here today. I am here to lament that I cannot afford to watch The Sopranos. I do not have cable. If I did, I couldn't afford the extra fee for HBO. And I suspect there are many like me.
There are many "digital divides," and compared to the one that separates those with computers or net access from those without, it's less important. You don't need Steve Irwin or Bill O'Reilly to get ahead in life. You even do better without them. But a divide has opened in our pop culture world.
I cannot discuss last week's Farscape - I'm still catching up on tapes that a good and diligent friend is making us. I have never seen the original Iron Chef or Croc Hunter. I had to read second-hand accounts of Judd Winick's appearance on Phil Donahue to discuss Winick's anti-gay bashing story in Green Lantern. Next spring, I will be able to see almost no hockey or basketball playoff games - almost all will be cable. If I were a Yankee fan, I'd be able watch only 20 games when 100 used to be on free TV. None of this is essential. But as a pop culutre maven, I know I'm missing something. And I wonder if my existence is being declared null and void by the television industry.
Now, it's true that I can't blame HBO for being HBO. The Sopranos and Stargate and Farscape and Jeremiah could just as easily have been on free TV with little changes. (No foul language from Tony Soprano, but there's tons of violence and sex already.) And I could turn to the networks and yell at them for being so repetitve. (Anyone notice how many cop shows are on CBS this fall?) But there is more.
I think that the mass media outlets have decided that everyone has cable. I think that about 100 million Americans don't. But we're a mere minority and don't matter. So we can be shut out. For some reason, this has begun to bother me. I think because we are not poor and yet cannot afford cable. I honestly don't know how many people can afford it, especially in New York, where it would cost about $55 or so get HBO and everything. (OK, in Manhattan, you need cable to get any reception at all, but I still don't get it.)
Am I being a bit sensitive? I'ts not like HBO and SciFi and ESPN sought to cut me out. But I just get the feeling that something is happening to pop culture. It used to be cheap. TV was free. Movies had matinees. Radio stations played everything. You could buy tapes instead of albums. Not anymore. You want TV, you have to pay. You want music, you spend $14 for a 10 cent piece of plastic, and you have to go online to get any kind of musical variety. (Fact: New York has no country music station anymore.) And movies? In NYC $8 is cheap.
I suspect that to some degree, this is a rant. I'm just jealous of all those who can afford cable with the frills. But I also think I'm not the only one who sees the huge bus ad with the cast of The Sopranos and knows who they are but wonders why anyone should care. I think I'm not the only sports fan who feels that we are being fleeced by the tems we love.
Sadly, I think that until broadband makes cable obsolete and makes unlimited access to selcted programming chepa and easy, we are stuck with this new divide. At which point we have to address the old one.
But, as always, I could merely be delusional.
I have never seen The Sopranos. The few friends I have who watch it more or less love it, though a couple have said it's not worth the hype. One friend - who is ok with the language and violence and is no prude - hates the nudity. My mother watched it once and shrugged it off. I suspect that I would not care much for it, being a prude about foul language, and being the kind of person who might not like seeing a mob boss as even an anti-hero. (I liked the second Godfather film more than the first because we had no noble Vito Corleone dying an old man after playing with his gradson.)
But this not why I am here today. I am here to lament that I cannot afford to watch The Sopranos. I do not have cable. If I did, I couldn't afford the extra fee for HBO. And I suspect there are many like me.
There are many "digital divides," and compared to the one that separates those with computers or net access from those without, it's less important. You don't need Steve Irwin or Bill O'Reilly to get ahead in life. You even do better without them. But a divide has opened in our pop culture world.
I cannot discuss last week's Farscape - I'm still catching up on tapes that a good and diligent friend is making us. I have never seen the original Iron Chef or Croc Hunter. I had to read second-hand accounts of Judd Winick's appearance on Phil Donahue to discuss Winick's anti-gay bashing story in Green Lantern. Next spring, I will be able to see almost no hockey or basketball playoff games - almost all will be cable. If I were a Yankee fan, I'd be able watch only 20 games when 100 used to be on free TV. None of this is essential. But as a pop culutre maven, I know I'm missing something. And I wonder if my existence is being declared null and void by the television industry.
Now, it's true that I can't blame HBO for being HBO. The Sopranos and Stargate and Farscape and Jeremiah could just as easily have been on free TV with little changes. (No foul language from Tony Soprano, but there's tons of violence and sex already.) And I could turn to the networks and yell at them for being so repetitve. (Anyone notice how many cop shows are on CBS this fall?) But there is more.
I think that the mass media outlets have decided that everyone has cable. I think that about 100 million Americans don't. But we're a mere minority and don't matter. So we can be shut out. For some reason, this has begun to bother me. I think because we are not poor and yet cannot afford cable. I honestly don't know how many people can afford it, especially in New York, where it would cost about $55 or so get HBO and everything. (OK, in Manhattan, you need cable to get any reception at all, but I still don't get it.)
Am I being a bit sensitive? I'ts not like HBO and SciFi and ESPN sought to cut me out. But I just get the feeling that something is happening to pop culture. It used to be cheap. TV was free. Movies had matinees. Radio stations played everything. You could buy tapes instead of albums. Not anymore. You want TV, you have to pay. You want music, you spend $14 for a 10 cent piece of plastic, and you have to go online to get any kind of musical variety. (Fact: New York has no country music station anymore.) And movies? In NYC $8 is cheap.
I suspect that to some degree, this is a rant. I'm just jealous of all those who can afford cable with the frills. But I also think I'm not the only one who sees the huge bus ad with the cast of The Sopranos and knows who they are but wonders why anyone should care. I think I'm not the only sports fan who feels that we are being fleeced by the tems we love.
Sadly, I think that until broadband makes cable obsolete and makes unlimited access to selcted programming chepa and easy, we are stuck with this new divide. At which point we have to address the old one.
But, as always, I could merely be delusional.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
You know,
Date: Sep. 13th, 2002 12:04 pm (UTC)A'course, if it should happen that there's a corner of someone's apartment that they're willing to sublet in exchange for someone willing to cook, clean the dishes, pay a chunk of rent, and pay a chunk of cable - and it doesn't raise my insurance to obscene heights - I can be flexible. NB: I know enough people with dietary restrictions in one form or another that I will cheerfully accommodate almost any such requirements, including maintaining two separate sets of cooking instruments and hunting down substitutes for allergenic/treyf ingredients. It'll take me a while to learn halal, though.
*cough*
er. sorry.
(no subject)
Date: Sep. 13th, 2002 07:46 pm (UTC)What I really ought to do is cut my cable back to basic (and with the Farscape cancellation, maybe I will!) But once you have cable, it's hard to do without. And now high speed internet beckons and I really can't afford that. Talk about exclusionary--the internet's almost unusable on dialup these days.
I don't buy cd's new, ever. Sometimes I get 'em cheap on amazon.com. More often I go to the secondhand cd stores. $6 a cd. Woo hoo. I buy DVD's new because I don't watch scratches and stuff but I don't buy a lot of DVD's. I also don't rent movies anymore, because all my money is going to cable ;b
I do think everything entertainment is overpriced and I've cut way back as a result.
And I rented the Sopranos once and didn't like it.
(no subject)
Date: Sep. 15th, 2002 04:57 pm (UTC)I have caught a few HBO shows during their "free previews." I have cable precisely for the cultural literacy aspect; that's why it's tax deductible for me (I'm a news anchor).
Sometimes the stuff that's "popular" bores me stiff. The Sopranos is soooo not the kind of TV show I choose to watch. I like lightweight and educational programming. I figured out how to keep up with "Survivor" without having to sit through the show: Do other stuff, then either watch the last five minutes or read the web site. I do the same thing with "Big Brother."