10 December 2005

It's a conspiracy, I tells ya!

I love the Sci-Fi channel and reside in one of it's major demographics. It got more originality than any other channel, yet there's a pattern in everything it makes. Every show, made-for-tv film, or mini-series that is made for the Sci-Fi channel has a conspiracy/cover-up at it's heart. It's an annoyance that is spreading to sci-fi productions on other networks. Invasion, Threshhold, and Surface all have a conspiracy or cover-up. It's not just a cover-up for bad plotting, it is the plot. Our society is so obsessed with everything we individually disapprove of being forced on us by a vast conspiracy and that proof of our beliefs is deliberately covered up that the lack of a conspiracy or cover-up is less believable to us. Aren't man-eating aliens enough to make a sci-fi show interesting without the whole 'our greatest enemy is ourselves' message being thrown at us every few scenes?

This almost superstitious belief in grand conspiracies and the religious fervor with which our society claims that every individual is persecuted and threatened by these conspiracies are a greater threat to our lives, health, and happiness than any real conspiracy could aspire to, short of socialist totalitarianism (which, oddly enough, is NEVER the driving force behind any conspiracy on television, even in historial dramas).

Goe, thirsty now.

3 comments:

Jim said...

I liked Triangle too,and yes I groaned when they blamed the whole thing on the Navy.

Rach - cause the Devil and his minions are out to get you.

Goemagog said...

given the vast number of theories and stories of the bermuda triangle, they still could not resist making it all a conspiracy. I know people who really think that way, that if the price of gas goes up, there's a conspiracy, if it goes down, it's a conspiracy, if it doesn't change, it's a conspiracy. they just can't conceive of anything out of their control not being run by a conspiracy.

i think this paranoia is strengthened by our culture rewarding people for seeing themselves as victims.

Goe, would rather be a victor than a victim.

Sanctimonious Hypocrite said...

Part of it has to be a desire for adult leadership; if the Bilderburgers are running everything behind the scenes, at least there is someone is in charge of it all; Even if the people in charge are not very nice, people find that less ubearable than the alternative, that we are responsible for ourselves.

Or maybe that's what they want me to think.