Madonna And The Whore

So I was watching a network "news" program, which admittedly was my problem, and it got me to loudly and aggressively ponder some things.

And I was feeling good, I'd gone out and gotten some beer and tots, I was cuddled up on a couch. But apparently, my bullshit acceptance valve has been broken by the lack of television watching.

First there was Madonna. She was doing an interview in response to the ghastly media attacks in regards to her adoption. Shhhh, did you hear that? That was the exploding sound of me giving a fuck. There was a brief teaser trailer for the upcoming chat with Madonna that the grave voiced announcer promised would be coming right up. Commercials quickly followed, and one of them was for the network's showing of Madonna's concert.

Coincidence? I think not.

I'm sure Madonna is a great lady, I'm sure she loves her children and I certainly hope that she has the best intentions with raising what I'm sure was an expensive African child, but using this non-fascinating hoopla to pimp her show is a little tasteless. "No! You're wrong! Madge would never do that!" I can hear legions of her fans saying. No, she has certainly never been a publicity whore before.

See, stars have publicists who earn their paychecks making sure their client's names are kept in the public consciousness. And then there are celebrities that don't use a publicist, or don't use it to the extent that the Jessica Simpsons and Paris Hiltons do. How often do hear about Robert Deniro's kids? Is the name of Johnny Depp's child more of a household name than some of our best writers?

So avoiding Madonna's oddly disturbing British affectation, the channel was turned to the local news. One of the news stories, I shit you not, was telling us that if you rent Blockbuster movies online, you can return those movies at a store.

How the fuck is that news? That my friends, is a commercial for perks to having an account with Blockbuster online. Did Blockbuster have to pay money to get that onto the local 10 O'clock news? Viacom owned Blockbuster, Blockbuster which bowed to the Religious Right and refused to carry The Last Temptation of Christ and carries edited versions of other films for their "family" demographic, had a commercial in the guise of a news report.

It's 7 degrees of awesome that Blockbuster is righteously indignant at the thought of carrying a film rated NC-17, but has no problem turning the "news" into a whore for their services.