gambitch - now available in blue
Our constant efforts to reinvent ourselves reveal how much we fear our own images.

Thursday, November 06, 2003

Quick! Anyone remembers the following things? (Note: They have been buzzing through my head for the past few days.)

Iambic pentameter
Avogadro constant
Alimentary canal
Dolly and Daisy
Oh Para Paradise
Belinda Carlisle
Entrepot trade
Point of inflexion
Centroid, orthocentre, circumcentre and incentre

Sufferance is the badge of all our tribe.

gambitch [ 12:54 PM]

Wednesday, November 05, 2003

The Battle of Britain resumes tonight at Old Trafford. The first leg was interesting enough, with the only goal coming from - of all people - Phil Neville. That's great enough for me because it means three points. Tonight I wish for three more.

The telly was just showing this American B-grade crocodile flick. Rather brainless stuff, actually, and I was just watching it because there was nothing else on that was particularly worth watching. This particular movie's not all too interesting either. Essentially it's about this giant crocodile that really loves to eat people, and a bunch of young people, including an arrogant, lazy scumbag who gets eaten, and a decently-built hunk and a girl with a strong British (or is it Australian?) accent. Typical crap.

Two things about the girl briefly drew my attention. Firstly, the girl was really curvy - which seems to be the standard when it comes to B-grade flicks, or for that matter most Western shows. The second thing was that it looks like the girl didn't wear a bra during filming. The reason I could say something like that? Two prominent points poking out on her bright orange spaghetti top; too obvious to miss, really. Both seem to be something rather commonsight in entertainment circles in America.

But America is not alone - just the other day, I was watching this local drama serial when I realized one of the actresses (a local) also had a peek-a-boo under her army green top in the show. You could say that this isn't really too much of a big deal, and I'm probably paying more attention to trivial details than I should. You could, really, even go to the extent of believing that I'm some sex-crazed creep who pays attention to all the wrong things on TV. But mind! Asian society is a place where we set for ourselves some tough standards with regards to morality. Jacky Wu of Taiwan has been criticized for his free flow of overt sexual references when hosting various programmes, and the Singaporean newspapers are going on and on about this photo taken in the dressing room after a team won the league. Apart from religiously-motivated conservatism aimed at Malaysian artistes, this part of the world is still very sensitive to these things.

I don't really want to go into a mini-thesis on this subject. All I want to say is that there has been a visible increase in exposure (pardon the pun) when it comes to shows that have sexy content. Reality shows are getting a real hijack in particular. One episode of Survivor had some people performing their challenges while showing off, erm, certain body parts (not that they were asked to). Sexual tensions among teammates are often used as hype for The Amazing Race. And then there's the all-too-obvious Temptation Island and The Bachelor. I mean, come on! Now there's the ultimate in reality television which somehow makes it to prime time on a technicality - Are You Hot?. They don't get much more brazen than that.

There's another international supermodel contest coming to our fair shores very soon. I'm giving it a miss, as usual, but lots of people won't. It's these people that are feeding that great commercial machine that runs on the old maxim that sex sells. You can't run away from this truth. But that doesn't mean you therefore necessarily have to like it either.

gambitch [ 1:21 AM]

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