Turn Your Brain Off
by: Dr. Boogie
My brother loves The OC.
When I learned this, I was stunned. Here's a man who graduated with honors from one of the most prestigious universities in the US, a man who can read the business section of the paper and not get so bored that I have to scan the page until I find the latest Dilbert comic, and when he wants to be entertained, his first choice is the OC. When he first told me about his interest in the show, I had never seen an entire episode, so I decided to watch one with him so we could bond, I guess.
Not since Melrose Place has the plight of rich white people been so graphically portrayed!
After the episode, I had a few questions for him. My first question was about Kevin Sorbo's cameo. I'm so used to seeing him battling hydras and such in the hills of New Zealand that it was a bit jarring to see him making a special appearance as the father of some moody kid on The OC. My brother was just as confused as I was, so I moved onto question #2: Why do you like this show? I usually ask that question of my sister. Well, my brother got pretty mad. He didn't have any defense for the crappy dialogue and unlikable characters, but all the same, he did have an explanation for what I should do in order to enjoy The OC as much as he does: Turn your brain off.
A scene from Transformers: The Movie. Not pictured: Transformers.
A few years ago, a feature film was made about the Transformers. I missed seeing it in theaters, but I did see it when it came out on DVD. Once again, I was confused. Certainly, there were Transformers in the movie, and many of them looked somewhat similar to how they originally appeared in their TV show/action figures/breakfast cereal. The problem was in the details of the film. Details such as the script. Also, Shia Lebeouf was present. Nevertheless, fans of the film eschew criticisms leveled at the film and its director, instead claiming that in order to enjoy Transformers: The Movie, there is but one thing you must do: Turn your brain off.
Indiana Jones and the Botched Series Resurrection.
More recently, a new Indiana Jones film came out in which Harrison Ford tackles aliens with magnetic skulls and survives an atomic blast by hiding in a refrigerator. Before the movie was even over, I could hear the defenders' cry: Turn your brain off.
I've always had difficulty turning my brain off. When I got to sleep, I sometimes lay awake thinking about all the stuff I'll need to get done the next day. When I see attractive people saying stupid, boring things in hour-long blocks with commercial breaks every five minutes, I wonder if I shouldn't be doing some vacuuming instead. When I see a CG robot urinating on John Turturro, I start thinking that maybe human evolution is just a myth after all.
The problem with turning off your brain is that once your brain is turned off, it is almost impossible to turn it back on again. Before watching an episode of 24, a man may choose to turn off his brain so that he won't notice that the plot from the previous season has once again been recycled and repackaged so that this time, Jack is angrily whispering about an assassination instead of a nuke. Once the episode is over, the man thinks to himself, I'll just turn my brain back on. As the last precious seconds of his hour with Jack Bauer beep away, the man's fate is sealed. He wanted to turn his brain back on, but it's too late for him. Now, all he can think about is how explosions are cool, and how he can't wait to see that new Dane Cook movie.
"Many of the things I say are almost like jokes!"
You see, your brain is like a garbage disposal: during normal use, you insert all manner of organic waste (new ideas, funny advertisements, etc) so that it will be chopped up and moved to your septic tank (your memory). However, if you fill your disposal with a lot of grease and potato skins (movies in the "____ Movie" genre, most of what MTV has produced in the last ten years, etc), your septic tank will quickly overflow and sewage will begin to seep into your yard (verbal diarrhea coupled with an earnest interest in what celebrities are doing/adopting).
These days, there seem to be more and more avenues of entertain that can only be enjoyed by turning off one's brain. Some view it as a new extreme sport, like a mental game of "chicken": the competitors face off, taking in one lobotomizing TV show, movie, book, and radio play after another until one of them can stand no more. The catch is that you have to pull yourself away after the other guy relents, but before these things begin to seem tolerable.
If this is "reality", consider entering a coma.
It's a terrific danger, especially to our younger readers. Peer pressure is a very dangerous thing, kids. Your friends may believe that the cast of The Hills are intelligent, hard-working individuals, but that is because the switch to deactivate their brains has already been thrown.
So beware whenever someone tells you to turn your brain off so that you can enjoy something. And be extra careful that you don't fall for any second-generation versions of "turn your brain off," like when someone tells you that something is an "acquired taste". When they say that something is an "acquired taste", what they mean is that the particular something is so awful that a person will not enjoy it unless they deprogram themselves by taking in massive quantities of the thing while telling themselves that it's actually good.
This movie promises to be a Treat!
But some of you will not be dissuaded from deactivating your thought processes so that you can enjoy a night out with friends. For those times, I recommend you abstain from a full brain deactivation, and opt instead for a partial brain deactivation. What does that involve? It involves the viewing of movies that are unintentionally hilarious. Movies like Blade Trinity, and the original Black Christmas, as well as any movie that casts Treat Williams as the hero. While viewing these films, most of your brain will still be active so that you can laugh at the comical dialogue, the scenes that make no sense, and the prevailing idea that someone thought that what you're watching deserved to be made into a feature-length film. Part of your brain, however, will be turned off so that your eyes don't roll completely out of your head during the whole affair.
My brother tells me that he is interested in seeing the new Kevin James movie. If the previews are to be believed, James will perform over an hour of pratfalls and slapstick while dressed as a mall cop. He claimed the movie would be funny because you "won't have to work while you watch it." Oh yes I will, dear brother. My brain isn't going to put itself in permanent shutdown mode.
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Reader Comments
Great article Boogie..sadly so true.
There's a big difference between "So dumb it's funny" and "So dumb it makes me dumb too."
As far as show like The Hills, OC, Real World (except the Puck season), 90210, etc. are just crimes against humanity.
Movies so dumb that they're unintentionally hilarious, though, I'm all for. Just so much pleasure to be gotten out of movies like Twilight (usually they're funnier than all those sitcoms you need to shut your brain off for in the first place).
I'm sick of being told to "turn my brain off" to enjoy some boring Hollywood trash. Since when is watching intelligent entertainment "work" anyway? You oughta bitch-slap that brother of yours, Boogie.
Though, there is nothing wrong with a "so bad it's funny" movie. And, I might see "Mall Cop" to see if it's at least funny.
To Icculus:
I liked Indy 4, too. It wasn't any more ridiculous than any other Indy movie.
...everything except the cat that was miaowing outside my window all night that is...
...DAMN YOU I HAVE NO FOOD FOR YOU!
I think part of the problem is, we settle, and that lowers the standards. They keep making the shows like that because people settle for them. They let their brains be turned off when they shouldn't even be watching it in the first place. In theory, the only way to stop the crap is to stand against the crap, but like I said, it's just a theory.
And...going to stop babbling now. I'll end with two thoughts:
1. I absolutely positively *refuse* to watch the new Transformers movie. My reason: It's not historically accuate, heh.
2. In the immortal words of Bowling for Soup: When did reality become T.V.? What ever happened to sitcoms, game shows, (on the radio) Springsteen, Madonna, way before Nirvana, there was U2 and Blondie and music still on MTV!
One thing I disagree on though is the blatent hate over the transformers movie and the new indy movie. While I'll agree that they aren't up to par with previous attempts, you need to understand that the source material isn't THAT great to begin with. Go back and watch the original transformers cartoon... go ahead, I'll wait. Now go back and watch the Indiana jones movies... not the good ones, the bad ones. (I'll leave it up to you and decide which is which.) The new ones aren't that far off from the source material.
See the thing is your mind is playing tricks with you. Over the years you have evolved and demand a more sophistiacted film than when you were younger, your belived franchises, however haven't. When they do these "re-boots" they have to dumb down the level of comprehension back to the original source material, in other words you have to be able to understand what is going on even if you've never heard of a transformer, or never seen indy crack a whip.
I honestly think remakes are directly responsible for all of this "stupid cinema". Personally, I think it is the viewers responsibility to do their research before watching a film. Never seen Star Trek? Well maybe a star trek film isn't for you as you'd have to have been in a cave never to have seen the second longest running sci-fi franchise of all time. Producers and directors who wish to get people, that after 30+ years STILL haven't experienced star trek to watch a new film by "rebooting" the franchise is equally foolish.
Reboots happen because talented, but often short-sighted directors write themselves into corners. Maybe, just maybe when tim burton decided to kill-off the most famous villian in batman's history in his first film somebody should have taken him to the side and told him that in comic books the villians NEVER die unless they are supernatural and there is a way to resurrect them. If they had then we wouldn't have to suffer through this craptacular new film franchise in which batman drives a tank, has a guy that sounds like he should work for mary poppins as a butler, and sounds like he ate gravel and steroids for breakfast just because he dons a rubber suit!
So I think the dumbing down of media has a lot more to do with all the ideas already been taken than society being stupider. Perhaps peope are so starved for new media that they are willing to watch a sub-par form of entertainment so long as it is something new.
What university did you attend?
I love to make sarcastic remarks while watching horrible things, even if I can only do it in my head ^_^
For Indiana Jones, I'm not sure which ones are the bad ones in your mind, but for your last comment about the new one being not that different than the old ones, the new one is different enough that people don't like it.
Icculus said earlier that unbelievable things happened in the earlier movies, like Indiana Jones using a raft as a parachute. The difference between something like that and the fridge nuking part is that you could imagine a big raft being somewhat useful as a parachute because when flipped upside down, you could see how something that big might potentially work to slow his fall enough that he could survive it. Suspension of disbelief then kicks in for how he slid down the mountain without injury.
Now consider the fridge scene from the new movie: Indiana realizes he's at a nuclear test site, so he climbs in a refrigerator. The camera then pans to show you that the fridge is "lead-lined". Suspension of disbelief might let you believe that the lead lining in a refrigerator might protect Indy from the radiation, and you might further believe that Indy could survive being hurled miles across the desert in said fridge without breaking any bones (after all, the man slid down a mountain on an inflatable raft and was fine). However, it takes more than a stretching of one's imagination to believe that a couple lead panels could protect the fridge from pressure greater than half a million tons of dynamite, and temperatures hotter than the surface of the sun.
Then you've got scenes like the one of Mutt learning from monkeys how to swing on vines to get through the jungle in a hurry. The entire idea is just silly, and it looks incredibly fake thanks to all the CG. Things like that make it seem as though the movie was made for 8-year-olds, rather than fans of the series.
Also, Icculus mentioned Mola Ram removing a guy's heart as being another weird thing. The reason we let things like that, and the Ark of the Covenant melting faces, go by is because Indiana Jones dealing with the occult has always been present in the series. By comparison, the new film had him dealing with aliens, and as we learned from Stargate, aliens are sci fi even when they interact with ancient civilizations. The things that happen with these aliens maybe similar to occult phenomenon, but it's different enough to seem out of place to those familiar with the previous movies in the series.
And all that is to say nothing about the flip-flopping magnetism of the titular skull.
Beyond that little tirade, I agree with most of what Boogie has to say, but he missed a hugely annoying example of this, Napoleon Dynamite, the single worst movie I've ever seen, far worse then the previous title holder, Last Samurai. The entire point and punchline of the movie is that the lead character is mildly retarded, or at very least, severely autistic, but to this day, this fanatical worship continues for this unadmonished crap. My brother's wife's vote for McCain wasn't counted because she wrote "Pedro" in the write-in slot, and that very well may be the only good that movie has ever and will ever contribute to the world.
Actually, I think "Blade Trinity" was horrible. To me, it just seemed like a rehash of the other two Blade films, combined with various vampire clichés, and saturated with that whole "trying too hard to be cool" aura that was painful to watch.
Also, I think "Napoleon Dynamite" was awesome. I don't think the main character was supposed to be retarded or autistic, at all. He was just a nerdy oddball.
All the characters are basically exaggerated versions of people one meets in real life, and it's the blend of real and unreal, combined with the slow, quiet tone (which is conducive to cracking up with random laughter), and goofy moments (like his douchebag uncle trying to film himself throwing a football, and the "time machine" scene)that make me enjoy that movie so much.
On the other hand, I totally agree about "Last Samurai", and I'd like to add "Live Free Or Die Hard" to the crap-list. That whole movie was two hours of "Young people are evil, and we gotta stop them from using their magic computers to take over the world!", ugh.
And, to Dr. Boogie: Well said about Indy and the suspension of disbelief. I think it was you or Proto that said it: In that one scene, the Indy as Everyman was shattered. If he could survive that, then anything they threw at him later would be a cakewalk. Granted some of the earlier stuff required suspension of disbelief, too, but, as you pointed out, there was still some part of it that made sense. There has to be some small amount of believability for the illusion to seem real, otherwise you fail in your attempt at fooling the viewer.
And I still refuse to watch Transformers, awesome giant robots aside. There's just certain things that don't set well with me which will make the movie ultimately not enjoyable.
silver: thanks, worked like a treat
i personally dident like the transformers movie cos, as Dr boogie said, it centered around humans, which was really quite gay
graystreet: you are not alone in your hatred of napolean dynamite! i just cant see what people find funny in that annoying chunk of excrement, perhaps you should turn your brain off. Myself, i've always found that hard to do. so ill go on saying bland american junk shown on the commercial stations is crap and taunt my friends about enjoying lost.
Example 1: The Hills (uhhh) a bunch of actors pretending to be reality stars getting paid probably 30k each to "star" in this terrable show for an inch of MTV fame...now the ratings they get off this drab will draw investors (commercials) durring the god-awful show and don't forget the terrable after-show. like they are coparing it to an important sporting event ( i have reservations on the 2 hr pre-game and 5 hr post-game show there but thats another story for another time)
Example 2: any "guy film" these are characterized my slapstick humor, people getting hurt and it being "funny" or scantaly dressed woman who go out with the most unlikely men. they cost a studio like 9 Million (9.1 if a girl shows her boobs) to make this kind of movie and the profit off them is like 30 million...quick money.
People don't turn your brain off, By doing so you are teling the entertainment industry you like this trash...
See, I never got that feeling from it, I always thought they knew exactly what kind of movie they were making. I mean, the second quarter of the movie is the daughter from Seventh Heaven and half of the guys from Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place being better vampire hunters then Blade, and the villains were Parker Posey, a woman about imposing and sexy as Winston Churchill, and some big Wrestler type that worships a pomeranian.
Oh, and the woman that played the blind lady was arrested for threatening to rape a dog, which is just odd.
The fact is, mindless entertainment has been around for thousands of years. Freak Shows, Gladiator Battles, Animal Fighting... It's not like it's a new phenomenon that started with television. There's always gonna be an audience for that stuff that is more than willing to "turn their brain off" for a while and just watch things moving. It doesn't make them any more stupid than you and me; it's just a basic human need to take one's mind off of the cares of the day that actually DO require your brain. That's where dancing and sports come from.
Not that I'm saying it's healthy to watch those all the time. I have a sister who has watched a little too much MTV and it has kind of leaked into her personal life as she has a bit of an overdramatic outlook on relationships (though, of course, that might just be her personality). I've seen it happen.
I guess I'm collecting from Boogie's article that All movies should be intelligent and well-written. "Turning your brain off" is not necessarily a bad thing. Like chocolate and other sweet foods, it's fine for you to watch it along as you don't make it the center of your life. The fact that that kind of entertainment exists does not indicate any stupidity on the part of the watchers; it's just an indicator of what's happened for thousands of years.
For clarification, I think Dane Cook is a hack, that "The Hills" is the worst television show ever made, and that the writers of the "(genre) Movie" franchise should be arrested.
Also, that's a rather hefty assumption you're making about the origin of dancing and sports.
What I was getting at was that the best kind of entertainment is the kind that engages you. That requires a certain amount of thinking to appreciate. That's the kind of stuff that you're going to remember long after you've left the theater or turned off the TV.
Don't let it happen to you!
At least then I'd have something interesting to say, when people ask me what I did that day.
Man-Eating Chicken would work pretty well for Megan Fox as well...
The OC is a surprisingly well-written, geek-friendly, clever and funny television show that spends as much time satirizing the conventions of nighttime soap operas as it did exploiting them.
It embraced meta-comedy and self-referentialism to a degree unseen outside of animation, and apart from an incredibly dire 3rd season that no one should ever watch for any reason, it was a bright spot on television for its run.
Mentioning it in the same breath (or article, I suppose) as Dane Cook or the Transformers is an insult to everyone who worked long hours to create such an interesting and entertaining show.
I'm sure if you watched it from the beginning you'd find that it really was something special.
Just mute the television whenever Mischa Barton is onscreen, and you should be able to get through it with no problem.
Man-Eating Chicken would work pretty well for Megan Fox as well...
Though, I'd rather see Micheal Bay himself in the show as "The Director With No Brain".
I think that's what it was like in Kurt Cobain's head, and Courtney Love killed him so he wouldn't end up being attached to a Friday The 13th movie that features Jason dancing a jig.