yellowdaisy 4, horkheimer & adorno

In the readings, Horkheimer and Adorno discussed the sameness of culture industries and how most things are identical and replicated from something else. They even go as far as to say culture industries like film and radio aren’t even portraying what they are as art anymore. I found the quote about that being “the truth that they are nothing but business is used as an ideology to legitimize the trash they intentionally produce” (42), to be very prevalent today. I feel like most things today put out there, on TV especially, could not even be disguised as art anymore. An example of this is how many networks from basic cable like Fox to channels like MTV all put out reality shows. What’s worse is all these reality shows follow the same formulas of either competing with members of the same sex for a date or testing yourself with physical challenges for money both which require living in a house with a bunch of strangers while cameras film your fights. This to me cannot even be disguised as art but trash that we are constantly bombarded with. Culture industries create the ideology that reality TV shows are the best thing to watch because the fake “realness” they create is more exciting and make everyone want to have their own reality show because they make consumers believe that “real” life can be that interesting. It’s a good business move for the industries because they don’t really have to hire actors or work too long on a plot line and can keep quickly producing these same shows over and over with different names. Films do this as well like how they follow the same formula for horror movies or teen movies because they know what their target audiences like to expect. Horkheimer and Adorno go on to discuss how it’s the few production centers that have a dispersed reception yet keep the “standardized form” because it is “derived from the needs of consumers” so we accept less than art and just want they give us for entertainment because we even believe it’s what we want to see. We accept what the culture industries give us and watch it mindlessly not bothering to want anything with actual depth. I can connect this concept of sameness in media industries to Benjamin. He stated how “the greater the decrease in the social significance of an art form, the sharper the distinction between criticism and enjoyment by the public. The conventional is uncritically enjoyed and the truly new is criticized with aversion” (29). This quote is about how television shows or films like my examples above, are pitched by saying they are based off something that already exists and works. It’s not usually anything radically different or moving which is what art should be because it’s now all based on making money.