![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
A TV rant and Author's Leitmotives
Dec. 10th, 2003 02:27 pmGerman and Austrian TV certainly is way behind American productions--don't know what they're throwing at the unsuspecting public in the US of A now. Maybe the show format of "Tausche Familie" (i.e. Swapping Families) isn't even an American invention, although I doubt it. Anyway, Austria's only private TV station ATV has seen fit to introduce this totally fuckwitted show into its programme.
Janine and I watched it last night, just for fun, but at some point we stopped grinning and merely stared at each other incredulously.
The basic idea is this: take two families, their socio-cultural backgrounds as different as possible, and send Mrs. A to family B, and Mrs. B. to family A., where they have to stay for a week. Then switch on the cameras and let the public have their fun.
Last night's families were: a traditional (not to say philistine) couple of maybe 40, with two children aged 12 and 14, and an ex-prostitute living with the owner of Vienna's most prosperous swinger club (that the right word? It's a place for promiscuous sex) and two other women. So they sent the ex-prostitute to the suburban petit bourgois household, and the prissy litte Mrs. Touch-Me-Not to the pimp.
Of course, all the participants are consenting adults who know what they're getting themselves into. The children, though, are NOT consenting adults and have to participate all the same. Something I really disapprove of.
What makes this show so very disgusting, though, is the fact that you really see into the abyss of stupidity and hypocrisy, and all their side effects. Facades crumble and naked fear stares you in the face. Very instructive, really, but I don't think I want to watch it again.
I think I saw this on![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ajhalluk's LJ (not sure though), i.e. authors answering the question "Which story do you basically write?"
So what do all my stories boil down to?
I think loss is one of my ever-recurring themes. Loss of innocence, loss of love, loss of trust. Because I think that what ultimately shapes every human being is loss, and I don't even attach a negative meaning to the word. But being born means losing that warmth and darkness and comfort you've been enjoying for nine months. It means losing the total closeness with another human being. Step by step and loss by loss, we grow up. For everything we lose we gain something, true. But first comes the pain, then the reward. And in the end, it's our life that we lose.
So yes, that's certainly a leitmotiv in my stories.
Closely linked to it--especially when it comes to losing a beloved person--is another fascinating theme I don't think I'll ever grow tired of: that one precious moment you didn't have, or didn't realize you had. The moment you would have needed, to say 'I love you,' had you only known you were going to lose that person. Or to say 'I forgive you'. I remember how totally struck I was by that thought after the first time I read "La Dame aux Camélias". And 'Othello'. Marguerite who dies only minutes before her lover returns to her side. Othello who kills his wife only seconds before Emilia shows up. The terrible, terrible 'If only'-moment.
And now, I think it's time for Orpheus 32 :)
( Orpheus 32 )
Janine and I watched it last night, just for fun, but at some point we stopped grinning and merely stared at each other incredulously.
The basic idea is this: take two families, their socio-cultural backgrounds as different as possible, and send Mrs. A to family B, and Mrs. B. to family A., where they have to stay for a week. Then switch on the cameras and let the public have their fun.
Last night's families were: a traditional (not to say philistine) couple of maybe 40, with two children aged 12 and 14, and an ex-prostitute living with the owner of Vienna's most prosperous swinger club (that the right word? It's a place for promiscuous sex) and two other women. So they sent the ex-prostitute to the suburban petit bourgois household, and the prissy litte Mrs. Touch-Me-Not to the pimp.
Of course, all the participants are consenting adults who know what they're getting themselves into. The children, though, are NOT consenting adults and have to participate all the same. Something I really disapprove of.
What makes this show so very disgusting, though, is the fact that you really see into the abyss of stupidity and hypocrisy, and all their side effects. Facades crumble and naked fear stares you in the face. Very instructive, really, but I don't think I want to watch it again.
I think I saw this on
ajhalluk's LJ (not sure though), i.e. authors answering the question "Which story do you basically write?"So what do all my stories boil down to?
I think loss is one of my ever-recurring themes. Loss of innocence, loss of love, loss of trust. Because I think that what ultimately shapes every human being is loss, and I don't even attach a negative meaning to the word. But being born means losing that warmth and darkness and comfort you've been enjoying for nine months. It means losing the total closeness with another human being. Step by step and loss by loss, we grow up. For everything we lose we gain something, true. But first comes the pain, then the reward. And in the end, it's our life that we lose.
So yes, that's certainly a leitmotiv in my stories.
Closely linked to it--especially when it comes to losing a beloved person--is another fascinating theme I don't think I'll ever grow tired of: that one precious moment you didn't have, or didn't realize you had. The moment you would have needed, to say 'I love you,' had you only known you were going to lose that person. Or to say 'I forgive you'. I remember how totally struck I was by that thought after the first time I read "La Dame aux Camélias". And 'Othello'. Marguerite who dies only minutes before her lover returns to her side. Othello who kills his wife only seconds before Emilia shows up. The terrible, terrible 'If only'-moment.
And now, I think it's time for Orpheus 32 :)
( Orpheus 32 )
