I do occasionally watch the Today show in my zombie-wake-up window between around 7.10-7.40. It provides a safe "nothing" space, akin to those lost minutes in the shower when you're not quite ready to admit it's over and the trudge to work begins. I can't say I *enjoy* it though. In fact it's quite painful to watch, mostly because, since the days of Jessica Rowe, Today has been acting like the more serious aunt unsuccessfully trying to crack wacky jokes 'cause her zestful sister (Sunrise) was getting all the attention. 

It's also painfully conservative, with Lisa Wilkinson and Karl Stefanovic playing the Mum and Dad role, as in the awful 9am with David and Kim, and Sunrise -- like the classic older guy newsreader, younger girl reader couple, which makes us feel more comfortable because its, like, nuclear. BUT, the most interesting thing is that Karl, it seems, has been "Koched". As in, at some point over the last few years, someone evidently decided Karl was too boring and serious, and asked him to act like David Koch. And now he's acting all alpha male, making wobbly sports commentary, vaguely sexist comments, acting all Dad-like when interviewing younger women, and making bad jokes. Very unpleasant. And I still haven't forgiven Lisa Wilkinson for her days on Beauty and the Beast, in which she apparently represented some kind of "new" feminism that even at the time seemed a bit shaky. I do sound full of bile.

How have I not watched this before? Why have I not wagged lectures before? The Drs seems to be a new The View-style medical issues show, covering serious medical issues through "Hot Topics" style chats, in which the doctors of dubious qualification switch from anecdotes about their 2 year old being cute at soccer practice, to "evidence-based" medical research with great dexterity. For example, "Notox", the Next Generation of Botox that uses some bodgy laser thing that seems like those similarly bodgy home use laser hair removal/ laser hair enhancement laser things. Sold! But seriously, it's as if soon our only source of information will be The View-style Hot Topic chats.

I also find it curious that all of these "Doctors" feel it is necessary to wear their operating room gear (whites? blues?) in the studio -- as if they could be called out at any second....

Happiness NOW!

One of my more perverse interests is the bad self-help gurus who frequent day-time television. Today I enjoyed “Happiness NOW!”, by happiness expert Robert Holden, which, as the author told an easy-target Oprah, worked from a law-of-attraction approach… in other words, if you project positivity into the world, you’ll get positivity back. 

To prove his point, Holden and O dragged 6 average Joes onto the set to talk about their happiness or failure to reach happiness. Having completed surveys to measure their “happiness levels”, those who weren’t adequately happy were then systematically berated for not being in touch with their inner happiness, because "happiness starts now". You just have to get in touch with your inner happiness… the world is inside your head… if it’s a happy world you construct then you’ll be happy. Such platitudes were then followed by a smug Dr Holden and O talking about the moments when they each discovered that they were the masters of their universe. This became quite surreal when O was talking about the moment “in 1985” when she realized that her world existed in “her head”, and it was hers to control… Hmmm.

I couldn't find this particular footage, but here's O talking on Larry King about how, I kid you not, a call from the casting director of The Color Purple is the basis of her particular brand of metaphysics:

My problem with this kind of stuff? Where do I start…

1) Law-of-attraction frameworks (eg the base of The Secret – for those who like their metaphysics by Channel 9 producers) provide a false sense of agency based on blaming the miserable and sick for their own state of affairs. This is really just a thinly veiled Social Darwinist approach: she got cancer because she was anxious, he’s poor because he wasn’t positive enough… Rather than working hard or otherwise as the deciding factor between success or a swift descent through the social sediment (eg ignoring class), law-of-attraction simply swaps work for “positivity”. This means people can feel comfortable for their successes because the less successful just weren’t positive enough – genetics, class, prejudice be damned – and dampen their fears of the great unknowns, eg cancer, which can be warded off through positivity alone (which I'm sure is a factor, but not the only factor). This might be my own pathology here (cynic, pessimist), but this sort of stuff irks me deeply.

2) Yapping on about connecting to your “inner happiness” trivializes the mechanics through which people can feel happy and secure. Yes, attitude is important, but there are a whole host of other factors that effect outlook and disposition – financial security, genetics, health, intra-family dynamics etc. Asserting that within any of these contexts one should be able to connect to their own happiness adds another thing to worry about. Why have I failed at happiness?

3) Self-help authors are not disinterested observers. They’ve got something to sell, so it’s in their interest that we believe in a quick-fix to happiness.

4) Telling people that they can feel happy if they want to is very, very similar to telling people to just get on with it.

5) AND (this might be too cynical, but) the same consumer capitalist societies which allow people like Oprah to find their happiness cannot function if everyone is able to create their ideal lives. Oh my god I'm so negative...

But seriously, when did Oprah get completely loopy with this kind of stuff? Is this what happens with obscene wealth and power?