"Edward Mills" <spam@hotmail.com> wrote in message 
news:63fum0nflb6g$.1iq6ayyz6xqhe.dlg@40tude.net...
> On Sun, 13 Feb 2005 22:43:58 +0900, Danny Wilde wrote:
>
>> I don't know why people here want to insult Japanese TV so much and say 
>> how
>> stupid the people on Japanese TV are.
>
> They do make more money than I do, so if they're stupid, at least they are
> getting well-paid for it.

So it's jealousy?

I agree that most of the programmes are trivial, and I don't know exactly 
why Japanese people like them so much, but even highly educated and very 
intelligent Japanese people like those programmes. The trivial "geinoujin" 
TV shows in Japan are made under cutthroat competition for ratings by 
commercial television stations and the performers are very highly paid. I 
don't particularly agree that the people or the programmes are "stupid". In 
fact my guess is that the people who produce and appear on the shows are 
actually very intelligent and able. What they're doing is satisfying the 
audience demand for trivial programming. I don't think any of the people 
here complaining about the shows being stupid would be able to easily make 
such a TV show themselves. Also I wonder if they really understand 
everything that is said, or what Japanese people enjoy about the programmes.

I wonder what Japanese think of things like situation comedies, almost 
unheard of in Japan. If you think about the plot lines of something like 
"Frasier" or "Friends" seriously, they are actually very far-fetched. Taken 
literally they are about incredibly stupid people with bizarre lives doing 
ridiculous things. The reason we don't notice it with those shows is that 
we're accustomed to the format of "situation comedies", and we can see why 
it's funny. Perhaps if there was an active newsgroup for Japanese people 
there would be some Japanese saying how stupid our TV shows are. (Another 
mystery about Japanese people is why they don't like newsgroups. I think 
this is the only active "fj." newsgroup, isn't it?) I've talked to some 
Japanese people who'd watched foreign TV comedies, and they often said that 
they didn't see why it was funny. The only thing they seem to like is 
something like "Mr Bean", which is a sort of children's humour.

My thought for today.

Bye.