2020 Book log #2 - DAWN OF THE DUMB by Charlie Brooker
A gathering of his review columns from the mid Noughties, and a bit of a mixture. Broadly we clearly share similar opinions on TV, and a dim view of the masses who lap up lowest-common-denominator stuff, so I found myself nodding at a lot of his criticisms of reality tat, and glad to see his positive stuff about the likes of Dr Who - and even to be alerted to The Martians And Us, a BBC Four documentary about British SF which I probably saw but don’t remember, and so will have to look up on Youtube.
That said, his competition with himself to be imaginatively-swearily degrading towards the aforementioned lowest denomination actually gets pretty dull and tiresome when collected together in a book, and there’s something particularly vindictive about his categorisation of people who write in to Watchdog…. But generally I think it’s just a case of these reviews being meant to be taken in small, spaced-out doses rather than gobbled down as a mountain-sized unHappyMeal - and since I never watched any of the reality shows that make up about two-thirds of the subject matter, it comes across all foaming at the mouth about a bunch of incomprehensibly-worshipped nobodies I’ve never heard of and thus have no real interest in…
So, it works well in individual cases, but not as a book to be read in protracted sittings… For me, anyway.
That said, his competition with himself to be imaginatively-swearily degrading towards the aforementioned lowest denomination actually gets pretty dull and tiresome when collected together in a book, and there’s something particularly vindictive about his categorisation of people who write in to Watchdog…. But generally I think it’s just a case of these reviews being meant to be taken in small, spaced-out doses rather than gobbled down as a mountain-sized unHappyMeal - and since I never watched any of the reality shows that make up about two-thirds of the subject matter, it comes across all foaming at the mouth about a bunch of incomprehensibly-worshipped nobodies I’ve never heard of and thus have no real interest in…
So, it works well in individual cases, but not as a book to be read in protracted sittings… For me, anyway.