Media Rant

It's funny the way I watch TV. If it's a show, say a mystery, I never try to figure it out. I probably could, but I'd rather see it unfold before me, and amaze me. I want to be entertained, and thinking critically about it gets in the way. Of course, sometimes there are plot holes (using the term ever so broadly) that simply cannot be ignored, but those are much more common in commericals, which I judge much more harshly.
      For example, there's one for a household cleaner in which a mom is happy to see her young son mopping the bathroom floor - until she sees him dip the mop in the toilet, at which point she "realizes" she needs to bleach the bathroom floor. Really? Really? Did the kid pee and not flush before he started? Do we think the water that refills the bowl after a flush is - sewer water? I asked Husband-man if people can possibly think so, and he answered me with a wordless "duuuh" look.
      There's one for an alt-milk product that says, "Before you let something new into your house, you want to know who they are." What? I guess it's a writer thing: sure, I lapse into very casual vernacular sometimes (okay, fairly often) and unconventional constructions can show up in my conversation and my characters' conversations. But I think ad scripts (and news copy, for that matter), should apply grammatical principles. Somethings are not whos; if we try to understand it by the rules of grammar, that commercial's first sentence is a non-sequitor! And while I'm at it, what the heck does Werewolves of London have to do with either fishing or bran cereals with raisins?
      We learn as writers not to, oh, change tenses mid-sentence, use unreferenced pronouns, or overuse adverbs. We learn about character development and theme and continuity of setting, plot, theme .... And the reason we learn and follow those guidelines is that ignoring them jars the reader. We do our best to make our stories clear and to reflect the truth - and if our characters' perspectives on the truth are wrong-headed, to let them suffer the consequences. In these respects, a lot of commercials (and news presentations) disappoint.  (As do many books, but that's a different rant. ;-) )
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