Shows Dealing with Curious News
Dariela Aquique
HAVANA TIMES — What happened in Santiago de Cuba some days ago is worthy of an episode of Puerto Rican host Maria Celeste’s sensationalist show Al Rojo Vivo (“Red Hot”).
A Western Union locale in the Jose Marti urban center was robbed in broad daylight. According to some versions of the incident, a man dressed as a woman entered the locale, apparently to collect some money sent to him, and, holding a pistol, made the employee open the safe and give him all of the cash there.
A short while later the place was surrounded by all types of police officers. To date there has been no news about the robber’s arrest.
Another story suited for the Celeste’s show was the robbery of a butcher’s shop in the municipality of San Luis, where the assailants took all of the chicken allotted to the population on their ration booklets.
If we consider that the only contact many people have with any type of meat is that time of the month when they get their 17-ounce allotment at the butcher’s, we can see how hard a blow to the stomach this must have been for many of the locals.
As I’ve written on previous occasions, I am no fan of Spanish-language game shows, news programs and talk shows aired in the United States by broadcasters such as Univision, Telemundo, Mega TV and others.
Most of these programs are typically trivial and anything but serious (I am thinking of shows like El gordo y la flaca, Suelta la sopa, Sal y pimiento and many others, which not only encroach on the private lives of public figures, but also tend to be prejudiced and racist.
According to the Spanish agency EFE and Diario de las Americas, some days ago the Miami network Univision aired a racist comment directed at First Lady Michelle Obama. The verbal attack was made by host Rodner Figueroa during a conversation with makeup artist Paolo Ballesteros. He said: “ (…) as you know, Michelle Obama seems part of the cast of Planet of the Apes (…)”
This “gentleman” tends to be very offensive when referring to others, making tasteless jokes and hateful statements.
Despite these reservations, I do believe there are shows, like this Puerto Rican one, that, though often too sensationalist for my taste, divulge interesting, hilarious, controversial, tragic, curious and sometimes even incredible news about what goes on in the United States and other parts of the world.
It would be good to have a similar space here to bring people these kinds of news items. Cuba is not the exception, and we see things on a daily basis that could prove interesting, hilarious, controversial, tragic, curious and sometimes even incredible.
Newton Minnow was quoted years ago as saying that television was a ” vast wasteland ” .
In the USA we have hundreds of TV channels from which to choose but things haven’t changed since the early days of television.
In the USA the central purpose of all corporate/sponsored media is TO SELL PRODUCT.
The best way to attract viewers to a given show is to make that show more entertaining than anything else on another channel at the same time .
This is done in a great many cases by making the show more sensational , more horrific, more racy than whatever else is on and thereby entertaining and holding the viewers who then watch the corporate sponsor’s advertisement.
Most people do not want television to inform them .
They want it to entertain them and especially for it to not deal with serious subject matter which makes their eyes glaze over .
So 90% of the programming like 90% of film, literature and many other facets of our lives is just junk .
Each of us must discriminate against the trash and seek out that which is worthy and uplifting
Sadly, it’s where we are as a species at this moment in time.
We’ll get much better in a relatively short few decade when smarter-than-human artificial intelligence and the end of capitalism enables a world-wide and excellent general education.
This will change how we see things and it will greatly rearrange our priorities.
IMO
Luego vuelvo.
Y que quede claro,la verdadera historia de Cuba,no es esa tal historia…del 59 en adelante.
Ahora mi mama murio hace anos en Bayamo,dos tios una hermana de 28 anos,mi padre,y nunca pude verlos ,desde el 80 no voy a Cuba,pero al final,para mi todos los cubanos son mis hermanos.
La mayor virtud del ser humano es ser noble.
Y les quiro decir,Soy bayamess y con orgullo soy gusano.
Todas las cosas malas que Cuba tiene,existen en todos los rincones del planeta.
Hay quienes les sobra la comida,mientras tienen hambre de dignidad.
Don’t call that a litle asshole a gentlements. Eso me recuerda como los boricuas llaman a los otros hispanos :extranjeros.A la ves me da pena ajena,cuando viviendo en su mayoria del sudor americano se la pasan hablando mal de los americanos.