Here's something to think about whilst conversing with "Snap, Crack, and Pop." In fact, it might curdle yer Cheerios; toss yer pop-tart (no, not her), hard-boil yer eggs, too:Somewhere in the imaginary firmament of the economy, the average annual income for top money manipulators, hedge-fund operators, and high, financial criminals is around $270Million/yr, That means: every minute every one of them is merely ALIVE, every one of them collects almost $9 every fucking SECOND they're merely alive! Just for breathing, farting, fucking, driving, whathefuckever. No. Really. Here's the arithmetic: $270 MILLION per yr = $750 THOUSAND per day = $32,150 per hour = $520 per min = $8.70/ SECOND.
You cannot tell me, cannot show me, cannot prove to me that anybody is "worth" that kind of recompense for their time. The daily income of one of these titans of finance equals the MONTHLY income of many retirees and/or disabled people. You earn less for one hour swamping filthy cattle trucks in some fly-specked, shit-drenched truck stop in Oklahoma City, at noon, in August, at minimum wage--which is what it pays--than one of these skeevy fux in $15000 suits and $5000 shoes makes in one SECOND of "Elite work."
How's them cheerios tasting now, querida?
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The assembled foto-montage presents selected "stills" designed to capture one particularly alluring feature of the programs they advertize; to convey, in a single image, as much as possible about the television shows from which they are taken, to beguile future viewersand to pique future viewer interest.
With that in mind, I call your attention to the image in the upper right corner: "Free Agents."
Let's "unpack" it, as we semiologists say; lets describe what is present before our eyes.
First, where are we? To me, it looks like we're in a storeroom/stockroom of a business of some sort. There are filing cabinets and stacks of shelves. Functional. Nothing exceptional. About what you'd expwct if you'd ever been in or near one, and a lot of people have.
Now, look who's there? We notice a drably, conventionally dressed man idly leaning against a file cabinet who is looking absently away, his middle section partially obscured by an extended file-drawer.
Then, kneeling--almost splayed--at his feet, there is beautiful woman in a very short, bright dress, on her hands and knees, her legs spread as far as her skirt will allow, her ass elevated--for easy access and entry, we wonder. From this 'attitude', there is no other plausible implication other than that she is a sexual supplicant in front of and leaning towards her master who casually brandishes a penis the size and shape of a file-drawer. BIG dude. Size DOES matter. In the porno flics of which this is dutifully reminiscent, what comes next is fellatio.
So, what do you think is the central message that image attempts to convey to potential viewers?
I'm guessing this show is trying to rip off "The Office." I will admit I didn't watch "The Office" enough to know if there was this kind of strange, power-warped, s&m/dom fantasy-sex vibe of "business" going on there. But it seems to me that the teaser--and probably the show itself--is an effort to eroticize the cube-rat's often unbearable indenture, to suggest alternative benefits accruing with wage-slavery; but to commodify it, too, and narratize it, and make "work" --the scene of necessary drudgery, humiliation and disappointment appear (potentially) the scene of a hot, sexy fantasy...
...OR: It could ALSO be (they're not mutually exclusive; with imagery, nothing is)--and staying well and within the same understanding of the iconic references--a fierce, feminist critique of the roles imposed on women by the (still, overwhelmingly) patriarchal structures of most USer4 businesses. I somehow do NOT expect this to actually be the theme of the show, but it does open the stockroom for that kind of critique.
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