Groundhogging
Please sir, can I have literally anything new?
Hello Rotters,
Apologies for the absence - I’ve been mega busy with work stuff, weddings and life admin over the last couple of weeks, to the point where any free time I have had has been spent barely moving, talking or thinking!
This piece is one I’ve been cooking up for literal months, and which I left trapped in my Notes app as I did important things/watched old episodes of Made In Chelsea in a knackered stupor. As a result, some of the references may feel a little bit old, but I’ve got some annual leave coming up so should be back to scheduled programming and fresh takes (lol) soon.
Groundhog Day seems like a fairly nice concept in comparison to the media landscape of the moment.
Barbie - a movie about a doll invented in 1959 - and Oppenheimer - a movie about a man who invented the atomic bomb in 1945 - may have reimagined the tales they told, but are retellings nonetheless. Mattel has since commissioned a series of 14 films based on their toys (including the Uno movie), adding to the many titles currently in cinemas (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem. The Meg 2, and My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3 to name a few) that cover the same old, familiar ground.
Completely new concepts are few and far between on both the big and small screens, and have been for a while now. Off the top of my head there have been Elton John, Freddie Mercury, Amy Winehouse, Etta James, Marilyn Monroe and Pamela Anderson biopics in the last few years. Then we’ve had Cruella DeVil’s origin story, Buzz Lightyear’s origin story, Wednesday, new The Little Mermaid, new Gossip Girl, new Hocus Pocus and a spin-off for every superhero side character in every cinematic universe. In the pipeline is re-upped Poirot, Willy Wonka’s origin story, new Fantastic Four, Blade and Alien films, live-action Moana, as well as Hunger Games, Avatar and Despicable Me sequels. I’ve watched and enjoyed many of these and will probably do the same with some that follow, but the point still stands: we’re oversaturated with characters and storylines we already know.
It’s not just the world of film either. The current top podcasts are a who’s who of panel show regulars and pre-existing household names: The Osbournes, Gary Lineker, Louis Theroux, James Acaster, Robert Peston, and of course the inescapable Steven Bartlett.
Sometimes I wonder if execs play ‘pin the topic on the big list of names we already know’. Stanley Johnson on… K Pop? Fuck it, why not! Gemma and Micheal Owen in Love MyLand, a new podcast about English geology? Of course. Roman Kemp on Gangs: The Rekempening? Sold to the highest bidder.
Alastair Campbell and Rory Stewart share two charting podcasts at the moment, claiming their Tory/New Labour union, where they essentially discuss how everything except centrism is pointless, is ‘bringing back the lost art of disagreeing agreeably.’ Then there’s the upcoming ‘Frenemies’ from Ed Balls and George Osborne, which presumably has designs on the same faux-chummy fence-sitting. It’s all so boring and #VeryBritishProblems, from pretending we can deal with our country’s glaring issues with humility and a cup of tea to glossing over the fact that they had a hand in causing them.
Then, because of the way this lot all move in the same circles and impart their social cachet to their offspring, we have to contend with the likes of Grace Campbell, Flora Gill, Will Hislop and Emily Clarkson wherever we look.
Although nepo babies are nothing new, I can handle the beautiful children of models and actors getting into the industry. What I can’t handle is mediocre ‘banter’ from rich kids who mistakenly believe they’re relatable invading my TikTok FYP. Go enjoy the many benefits afforded to you by birth rather than making weak jokes about Tinder dates when everyone knows you’ll end up marrying some baron in Tuscany. We’re not the same and that’s fine. Wearing a cloak of normality and pretending you’d have got just as far without your parents’ connections does us all a disservice - especially since I now have to Google NAME+parents at least once a day.
The reasons for the media homogeneity we’re seeing are likely an amalgamation of the cost of living crisis stopping many young people from entering the creative industries, certain organisations’ obsessions with social media followings (and thus reluctance to spend money on new talent without a guaranteed audience) and the success of familiar characters/franchises.
It amounts to everybody playing it safe, nobody taking a chance, and me being hella bored whenever I scroll or watch or listen. So, like many, I go back to ‘comfort show’ boxsets and playlists of stuff I’ve heard hundreds of times. They’re not new to me, but they were once - and even repetition is better than starting something when I know the ending before it’s begun.
The odd state-educated TV personality or not-based-on-a-true-story storyline that rises to the forefront is always breath of fresh air. I just wish the overall atmosphere was a little less stale.