OPINION

Poison of trash TV

The speed at which a certain pornographic movie flew off the shelves at kiosks says something about the people who bought it but also about the kinds of products that the media industry supplies to kiosks, the country’s quasi-libraries. The debate surrounding said porno flick speaks even louder about the subjects that much of society chooses to discuss, will discuss and can stand to discuss. Meanwhile, what does an interview with that same porno star, at midday, on a commercial television station with a predictable talk show hostess, before a live audience of teenagers looking on and clapping passionately, tell us? A lot more. It vividly illustrates the environment from which the porn star came: trash TV, the great stage of the crass and corrupt, a hatchery for gossipmongers, vapid Barbies, sluts and degenerate jesters playing to roaring crowds. This is trash TV, a business that fails to pay its pension contributions and its taxes, that celebrates its illegality. Trash TV, a grand celebration of «lifestyle.» It is this lifestyle that has, since the mid-1980s, brought about systematically, profoundly and uninterruptedly, the complete bankruptcy of Greece. This lifestyle, the schmoozing of publishers and high-rolling journalists, models/sluts/presenters and coke dealers, this lifestyle is churning out the country’s role models and its new code of ethics: extolling the biggest thieves of all, blindly worshipping inanity and embracing the irresistible relativism of «Don’t sweat it; they’re all the same. So what?» So what? This is what: At a time when we are talking about corruption the scale of which has brought a country to its knees, shattered dreams and sent entire generations hurtling toward a dark future, at a time when people are wondering what they did wrong, when they are made to feel guilty and at fault, at this time, trash TV – arrogant, unstoppable, tolerated – is bombarding our brains and souls with its poison. This is a big deal, and not everyone is the same. Let the degenerates and sluts go back where they belong: to the back room of the video store.

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