Television in Kawaii, Warsaw, Prague, Barcelona: Part 1

Above are two shots from a television commercial that seemed to be on just about every time we turned on the television in the flat in Barcelona. The product consists of vibrating pads which will melt off the pounds even if you are absolutely sedentary. Another set of commercials, which I did not manage to get any pictures of, were for corsets for young women. This coupled with the lack of any visible exercisers in this town seemed to be a clue as to why the old people tended to look pretty run down, and an indicator that some of the many many hot young women around might in fact not be so much fit as fit to burst.

I’ve always liked watching television in countries not my own, and in languages I don’t understand. In Warsaw, there was a very strange voice over version of CSI (see here), and in Prague a dubbed soapy Western (see here), and I’ve already mentioned a little big about the mountain of psychics on Spanish television (see here).

A few years ago I was with my daughter in Kawaii.  It was just her and I so I was bound back at the place at nights and ended up watching more television than I would have expected. There were a few rerun channels which convinced me once again that most television shows should have had stakes punched through their artless hearts and forever silenced.  Now, thanks to digital technology, we will have to live with the low points of our culture forever.

The best thing though were the religious channels (not just shows but whole channels).  Watching the small brained make sense of existence is always amusing (I will admit that this shows Christians at their very worst) but saw something absolutely amazing…imagine a Jim Morrison of Christianity…free-form charismatic rock n roll type extorting to Jesus….not quite up to the Lizard King but pretty good. Watched that for almost an hour. And then ended up tuning into the channel every day…it was mesmerizing. Saw other preachers, sweat flying, rapping, speaking in tongues and laying hands, and all these people were quite aggressive…no platitudes here….the theme was taking it back, getting back control of the culture…it was like watching Martians but being a little scared that they might be invading some day.

These religious networks or channels have born again comics, religious extreme sports, game shows, the whole spectrum of typical channels. (To be continued…)