Pet peeves on the boob tube

TV being the most dominant medium of entertainment and communication this decade, some of its practitioners’ errant, excessive or insufficient behavior is inordinately rubbing viewers the wrong way, and should thus be immediately corrected.

A testy turn-off these days is some teleserye talents’ “profitably cynical” way of blurring the lines between entertainment and advertising: The characters they play on TV drama series have become so popular that advertisers have gotten them to do product commercials as those characters. Even worse, the commercials are placed in the very drama shows that the characters inhabit!

Thus, they confuse and confound viewers, while profiting twice over from their exposure on their hit shows. That’s foul!

Also a no-no is some cynically exploitative TV program hosts and comics who apparently believe it’s OK to get laughs at all costs, even if it means finding “humor” in their interviewees’ private pains and traumas.

For instance, a woman made the mistake of revealing that she had just become a widow, and the comedian who was talking to her pounced on that bit of “emotional” information, and callously asked her how she felt and what she said to her husband at the morgue!

Naturally, the widow’s awkward self-quotes generated titters, and with “most sympathy,” the unfunny and thick-skinned comic went on to ask her other embarrassingly private questions that exacerbated the exploitation.

Don’t these callous TV talents have directors or studio bosses who are supposed to know better and can rein in the exploitative and sensitive talents under them?

Similarly “nix-able” is the wanton way that some TV news programs misuse CCTV-generated footage of crimes, car crashes and altercations.

Aside from CCTV cameras, cell phones generate a lot of news and “reality” footage these days, and the situation has gotten out of hand because some news shows don’t know how to edit their admittedly dramatic and exciting images.

The governing rule is the “GP” nature of TV content, meaning that production people should always remind themselves that children are watching, so shots of violence, blood and other graphic and potentially disturbing images should not be shown, or need to be blurred.

In addition, TV people have to respect the privacy of the individuals involved, particularly when they’re victims.

Even TV coverage of police raids and other crime-busting action needs to be stringently vetted, like raids on brothels showing the faces of unclad bodies of sex workers “caught in the act.”

Some TV news people swear that they’re only being objective in showing such “realistic” and “factual” details, but everybody else knows only too well that other factors like “sexy shock” or viewer titillation are also in winking play.

Finally, don’t you get turned off when stars and starlets plug and rave about their or their celebrity friends’ new movies, shows and other projects on so-called “show biz news” portions in newscasts?

These celebrity endorsers profess to be objective in their giddy and gaga raves, but why  should we take them at their word?

Most of the time, their own starrers leave a lot to be desired, so their standards are obviously not all that high and reliable. So we should take their rah-rah raves for the shameless, subjective “friendly plugs” they merely are.