Tag Archives: Television

When You Google It, Just Remember – It’s Penal, Not Penile

Published in 2023, Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah’s Chain-Gang All Stars is influenced by some of America’s sports/entertainment behemoths, including the National Football League, Reality Television, and the World Wrestling Foundation. If you think of capitalism as a game, throw that one in, too. Each has a “bloodsport” element to it, so it’s understandable that Adjei-Brenyah draws from them, because Chain-Gang All-Stars is the “crown jewel in the Criminal Action Penal Entertainment program.” It allows felons “under their own will and power . . . to forgo a state-administered execution or a sentence totaling at least twenty-five year’s imprisonment” to participate in a spectacle where they can travel the country, get some fresh air, and perhaps become a hero. Oh, yeah, every couple of weeks or so, they’ll have to fight each other to the death in sold-out arenas and on pay-per-view television. But if they survive three years in the program, they may be granted clemency or a full pardon. Yippee! Where do I sign?

What’s that, dear reader? Yes, you’re correct. This has been done before. Several times, in fact. There’s the movie, The Longest Yard, and the re-make of that movie, also called The Longest Yard. And the movie, Running Man, and the other movie, Escape From New York, and the Hunger Games franchise. So it’s not really a fresh idea.

Except, here, everything in the penile, dammit, penal system is privately owned, and the competitors have corporate sponsors. Oh, yeah, that’s been done before, too.

How about this? Adjei-Brenyah wants you to take his premise as seriously as he does. And he’s not afraid to preach. The system is evil, evil, evil. He’s going to smack you in the face with the horror of it all, because he’s concerned you won’t figure it out on your own. These prisoners are humans, who’ve had traumatic upbringings. In case that’s inconceivable to you, he has characters say things like “These marks (tattoos showing the number of kills they have) don’t mean we aren’t people. These chains don’t mean we have to do it like they want.” He has footnotes! They cite statistics!! Some are relevant!!!

All of this is to impress upon the reader that America’s penal system is dehumanizing and evil. And the reader is like no shit, I already knew it was awful and in desperate need of reform. The fact that you’ve come up with a bloodier version of a more-than-twice-told tale doesn’t shed more light on the subject.

The outlandish premise would have been perfect for a satire, and that seems to be what Adjei-Brenyah initially intended. But about halfway through, he abandons that approach and turns to evangelism. The story is violent, bloody, and angry. Those are its strengths. There’s just one weakness. All that preaching and self-seriousness gets to be a bore.

Gladiola Overdrive, Chief Editor

White Noise: Always There, Just Like Death and Commercials

In White Noise Don DeLillo notes “All plots tend to move deathward.” I’m not sure if he is surprised by this, but he shouldn’t be. All life moves deathward. So how can plots do otherwise?

Let’s put that question aside and simply agree that DeLillo in White Noise is obsessed with death. But Gladiola, white noise is my favorite noise. How can it be linked to death? Sorry, my friend, white noise is always there in the background. Just like death. And Jack (the narrator) can’t stop thinking about death. Even when he’s thinking with his penis, his penis is thinking about death. He chairs the Hitler Studies Department at a small college on the hill. Why Hitler? “Some people are larger than life. Hitler is larger than death.”

Jack is married to Babette, and they have a blended family with a child from their own marriage but also children from several prior marriages. Babette is taking some kind of medication that she refuses to admit she’s taking. Like Jack, she is terrified by death. Even when she’s thinking with her vagina . . . well, you get it. “We (humans) are the highest form of life on earth and yet ineffably sad because we know what no other animal knows, that we must die.” When a train accident happens on the edge of town, a deadly toxic cloud gets released. Jack is exposed to the poison, and his fear of death becomes all-consuming. The novel explores the reckless ways Jack and Babette try and fail to manage this intense fear.

Published in 1984, the novel also skewers consumerism and our culture’s reliance on television – a precursor of the internet and social media. “When TV didn’t fill them with rage, it scared them half to death.” And it touches on inequality and inequity. During the toxic event, Jack thinks “These things happen to poor people who live in exposed areas. Society is set up in such a way that it’s the poor and uneducated who suffer the main impact of natural and man-made disasters.” The novel succeeds best when it is focused on these themes. But back to death.

The lengths Babette and Jack go to calm their fear are hard to relate to. When they wonder why no one else is overwhelmed by the fear as they are, Jack acknowledges that “Some people are better at repressing it than others.” He’s wrong. Everyone is better at repressing it. They become the poster children for repression and denial being the correct strategy. And that’s good news for me because I repress and deny everything. So I must be healthy as hell.

Gladiola Overdrive, Chief Editor