ESPN – A Derogatorial, V 1.1
Since my internet connection MYSTERIOUSLY, SUDDENLY, and COMPLETELY froze – even though I was running nothing else that would POSSIBLY make that happen – while I was trying to make this post about the selective allowing/”editing”/removal/etc of information (aka “Propaganda”…great Wikipedia article, check it out) the first time, I’ll try again, and this time I’ll make sure to use A LOT MORE words.
Basically, ESPN edited out Curt Schilling’s “bloody sock” game from its “Four Days In October” special (which I’ve seen several times).
Now, I don’t know much about Curt Schilling. But from what I GATHER (could be wrong) he’s very conservative. So would I like HIM, the person? Probably not. Would I agree with most of his views? Probably not.
But (in this context) I don’t give a fck if he’s, hypothetically speaking, the most terrible person in the history of the world IN THAT: for the purposes of that program, it MAKES NO DIFFERENCE.
“Four Days In October” is not a political commentary. It’s not a moral commentary. It’s not expressing ANY opinion (Unless you consider “I like the Sox” and/or “I like/hate the Yankees” and/or “I like watching exciting baseball plays” to be highly debatable, complex opinions).
It’s a FCKEN SPORTS DOCUMENTARY. And the opinions, WHATEVER they are, of ANYONE involved in said documentary about SPORTS – OUTSIDE OF SPORTS – have exactly NOTHING to do with the documentary, and hence absolutely NOTHING to do with whether they should be included or not.
What should be included in a documentary about the near-miraculous and first-ever-in-MLB-history postseason comeback from a 3-0 series deficit to win that series…hmmmmm…I mean, I’m not a qualified sportsologist, but I’d have to go with “things involved in the comeback from 3-0 to the series win”. So like…ummm…maybe, game 4? And then, I’d follow that…PROBABLY…with…hmmm…game 5, I think. And well, I’d probably include game six…and WTF, I guess I’d include game 7 too. And…I dunno, maybe get some commentary from the people involved on the most interesting parts. And I guess I’d have to not show EVERYTHING because, it being a one hour program and four baseball games taking say 12 hours or so, or whatever. So I’d have to edit out some stuff. And based on the exciting blueprint established above, I think I’d edit out the boring stuff and leave in the exciting, memorable, thrilling, series-altering, history-in-the-making-revisited stuff. Maybe, I dunno.
So for games 4-7, in terms of the info I’d include, I’d PROBABLY lean towards showing said exciting, thrilling, near-miraculous stuff as opposed to the relatively boring, unexciting, mundane stuff. So like, if I had to choose between showing the Dave Roberts stolen base that kept the entire series alive by the margin of maybe an inch (or just a TINY stumble), and showing footage of and commentary on a weak grounder to first or a shallow fly to center in the early innings, it’d be a tough choice, but I THINK I’d go with the Roberts stolen base. But hey…I don’t work at ESPN, what do I know.
A few things:
1) You have to separate the ARTIST from the ART.
– Ty Cobb was a vicious, disgusting, racist slimeball that TRIED TO injure people by bringing his (very real and quite sharp) spikes into their legs as he slid into second.
Should he be removed from the “Greatest Hitters Ever” discussion? Should his numbers be removed from Baseball History? Better yet, hey…since he was so nasty, why not LOWER his numbers, so he was a HORRIBLE hitter? I mean, he was a slimeball, so he didn’t DESERVE those high batting averages. So let’s just…hmmmm…there we go. Now he hit .237 – PERFECT. Now, excuse me while I go out and campaign against deception in political campaign ads.
*SATIRE…SATIRE…SATIRE*
(You see, I HATE propaganda as much as the next person, but the way to show you HATE propaganda is to POINT IT OUT and CRITICIZE it, not to USE IT YOURSELF!!! WTF is wrong with you people???)
I mean, these MORONS who HATE Curt Schilling for his POLITICS but then USE PROPAGANDA POLITICS as an excuse to edit something entirely a-political. I’m not saying they’re morons for hating Curt Schilling. I’m saying, that’s the equivalent of being so against violence that you’d just KILL anyone for even contemplating war. Or ABSOLUTELY DESPISING people that have any hate for anything. Or being ABSOLUTELY POSITIVE that an absolute is NEVER correct.
– If you removed every classic rock band from radio rotation and played based on how nice they were as opposed to how TALENTED they were, rock radio would be pretty FCKEN dull. (See “Hicks, Bill” on his music preferences).
– Never met Stanley Kubrick. Don’t know him, didn’t know him. But if a million people came up to me and told me he was a horrible person, I would not suddenly remove ‘The Shining’ and ‘A Clockwork Orange’ from my “A List”.
1a) HERE’S WHY: Propaganda is propaganda…there is no “good” propaganda.
Propaganda is the selective “bending” (or breaking) of information and/or truth to achieve a desired result.
‘1984’ is about a society controlled by propaganda, where The State decides everything that is true, “always has been” true, and will be true and totally controls every aspect of everyone’s life.
Now, they happen to be vicious, cruel, and evil about it…
However, it’s not any more “ok” when they’re relatively “nice” about it (‘Brave New World’) or less TOTALLY controlling about it (‘Gattaca’) or it works REALLY well and it’s not COMPLETELY controlling…(‘The Return Of The Archons’).
Propaganda is propaganda. Either (PREFERABLY) don’t use it, or get off your fcken moral high horse when other people do. Idiots.
It’s LAUGHABLE that ESPN – which routinely criticizes “excuses” for things by professional athletes that are quite obviously…ummm, well, nudge nudge wink wink grin grin snap snap SAY NO MORE! – edits out UNARGUABLY (unless you’re insane or you enjoy tedium) one of the MOST memorable parts of the series and then pretends they did so for “logistics” or “time constraint” reasons.
I mean, talk about hypocritical. It’s your d@mn documentary, so edit it if you want. Hey, even change the outcome if you want, to get Yankee fans! Have TWO versions!!! Make a SERIES out of it!
But if you’re GOING to edit it because you don’t LIKE Curt Schilling, have the GUTS to say “Yeah, well, we don’t really like Curt Schilling so we cut his bit out” or have a brief graphic at the beginning like “There Now Follows A Documentary Edited By People That Don’t Like Curt Schilling”.
NOTE: This is a post containing SUBJECTIVE OPINIONS. Your subjective opinions may or may not be the same or similar. Everything you read should be subjected to something called “thought” and given something called “consideration”, if you even care about it, which of course you don’t have to. Individual results may vary. Verify all “facts” before accepting them as so. Shake well before serving. Does not include certain models. On the bottom of the box after Monosodium Glutamate. Eat at Joe’s. In small print so as not to affect the sales. Close cover before striking. This post may be a fire hazard if you light on fire the thing you’re looking at it with. Hot coffee may be hot. You love it. HOTSEX MUCH better than ‘Cats’. HOTSEX You’re going to read it again and again. HOTSEX.
5/3/16: “Whose harmony? Yours? Plato wanted Truth, and Beauty; and above all, Justice.”
If propaganda is a tool of nasty, horrible people, what does that make someone who uses propaganda to exaggerate actual facts about how someone else used propaganda? (“Hmm…this is HORRIBLE…but in order to get people involved we NEED to show it’s even MORE horrible…so, here…ok. Now, all references to the North Korean leader’s ex-girlfriend actually still being alive are gone. Minitru!)
Nasty, horrible people don’t require propaganda to attack.
I can say “Kim Jong-Un is an incredibly dorky evil scumbag” without having to remove any actual facts that diminish HOW MUCH of an incredibly dorky evil scumbag he is. Like, the fact that, since his ex-girlfriend is ALIVE (according to several articles I’ve read, check for yourself), he PROBABLY didn’t have her executed by firing squad, as had been reported.
10/16/16: Hey, someone actually read this. Which made me look for how high I was in the search results (not very). BUT, it also made me read other articles related.
So when you get past all the BS on all sides, it comes down to two things:
– Are you stupid enough to believe that, given a number of less important parts, ESPN edited this out for “time constraints”, AND
– As I said, it’s a sports documentary. Sports has nothing to do with politics. Or opinions (outside sports). So a SPORTS network should probably do its best to show SPORTS programming, as best it can. I mean, I know that it would be a great tragedy not to be able to see the quarterfinals of the All-Essex Badminton Championship, but game six of the ALCS is PROBABLY more important…and more interesting. It doesn’t MATTER who Curt Schilling is outside of baseball. Not on a SPORTS network.
The other argument I read is that people are only upset because they’re Red Sox fans, and also the same people are upset about ESPN’s reporting vis Tom Brady.
May I direct you to the MANY other posts I’ve made pointing out bullsh1t and denouncing propaganda. I don’t think Tom Brady is a choir boy, nor do I think that God himself reaches his omnipotent hands toward Gillette Stadium on Sundays to guarantee a Pats victory, cuz he’s a fan.
How important is cutting Schilling’s part in the grand scheme of the universe? Not very. But NOTHING on ESPN is vital to the grand scheme of the universe. It’s SPORTS. They’re GAMES. If you’re going to make a network that’s dedicated to being the “Worldwide Leader In Games-People-Get-Paid-Huge-Amounts-Of-Money-For”, you should PROBABLY show the most important (and most important parts, given time constraints) of such games. Which would be the most popular, and the most “significant” in regard to such games and the history of such games in general.
Phew…now, to get ready for the game. Om… *Divine Light* GO PATS!