The most cameras

Alfred Hitchcock maintained that in a thriller the audience’s sympathies had more to do with where you placed the camera than they did with accepted notions of morality. Take an everyday burglary, for example. Film it from the victim’s points of view, following him as he walks nervously down the stairs because he’s heard an intruder, and you are obviously on the homeowner’s side. But if the camera had followed that burglar through the window and then suddenly he’d heard someone coming down the stairs, you’d think, ‘Oh no, quick, get out!’ And in this war it’s the intruders who have got the most cameras. The American understand the Hitchcock Priniciple all too well, which is why they built an enormous media centre in the middle of the desert almost before they did anything else.
More problematic Hollywood rules also apply, of course. The attention span of the modern audience is nowhere near as long as it used to be. In centuries gone by not only were the plays and epic poems much longer, but the wars were too. But there’s no way that a modern scheduler could tolerate a six-year war today, not with all the competition from the movie channels and reality TV shows. That’s why these days we only go to war against really easy opponents, to make sure it’s all over before we start reaching for the remote control. (...)
As it is, the new concept of twenty-four-hour slaughtertainment that’s hit the airwaves is still compulsive television. The Oscars have had their lowest audience for years, because viewers want to catch the ending of the action adventure movie happening over on CNN. Perhaps this branch of showbiz should have its own awards ceremony. Best Supporting Actor: Tony Blair. Best Special Effects: the American Air Force. Best Editing: award to be shared between all the American channels. George W. Bush would go up to the podium to collect his special award: ‘I would like to thank my dad, without whom this war would not have been possible.’

That's slaughtertainment! [fragment]
uit: I blame the scapegoats : Guardian columns : the final sequel (part one) - John O’Farrell


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