Things of Import

I'd been stuck in John F. Kennedy International Airport for about four hours when I saw an ad for NBC'S "All-American Summer" in one of the gossip magazines. Apparently the "All-American Summer" is epitomized by a muscle-bound man grilling weenies for other muscle-bound nobodies. This did not look like any America I'd ever seen, but my father is an engineer and I've never lived east of the 5. Perhaps things are different on the other side.

Still, even after I'd gotten on my flight, NBC's concept of the "All-American Summer" stayed with me. I couldn't stop thinking that there was something very odd about selling a television lineup based on its fundamental Americanness. And not just any Americanness, but "All-Americanness." What does that mean? Is every program completely, wholly, and utterly American-an impossible premise given that two of the shows, "America's Got Talent" and "The Baby Borrowers," are British imports? Or does something about the programs embody what it means to be "All-American" or, as Wikipedia so poetically puts it, "stereotypically clean-cut, mainstream/conventional middle-class white people, particularly teenagers and young adults"?

I've never really understood the term "All-American." I'm told by people who care about such things that it's actually a sports term, and it designates a certain degree of athletic achievement. I suppose this kind of group-oriented, testosterone-fuelled meritocracy is the key element behind NBC's promotional tools; the lineup consists of the 2008 Summer Olympics, "The Baby Borrowers," "Last Comic Standing," "Celebrity Circus," "Nashville Star," "American Gladiators" and-just in case you forgot you were still in America!-"America's Got Talent."

These are the shows NBC has chosen to represent America. Excepting the Olympics, they are all reality shows. Two are hosted by former-80s-has-beens resurrected by cable TV (Billy Ray Cyrus on "Nashville Star "and Hulk Hogan on "American Gladiators") and one is hosted by a former-90s-has-been still awaiting his resurrection (Jerry Springer on "America's Got Talent"). Although vaguely depressing, it's fitting that these aged white males are the faces of an advertising strategy based on a nostalgic misremembrance of what it means to be American.

Exponentially more depressing is "The Baby Borrowers," a self-proclaimed "social experiment" (read: exploitative device trading on last summer's cinematic successes, most of which forgot about a little thing called "The Pill") that places a baby with young couples. I have a lot of unanswered questions about this program, like whether watching a toddler suffer in the hands of incompetents is cruel or simply "good TV." But that doesn't have anything to do with today's theme.

I can't be the only one offended by the fact that NBC has reduced the essence of my origins to roid rage, twangy blondes playing guitar, and unplanned pregnancy. America, old friend, were we not, at some point, a bit more than this?

Yes, we were, and that's the foundation for this column. My lived experience is not about any of the mythically-American things NBC asserts are the very core of the United States value set; I am not represented by Billy Ray, unwed mothers or an imbecile who thinks training his cat to ride a unicycle counts as "a talent." Most of us aren't. So instead of spending the summer NBC's "All-American" way, let's spend it a different way, a way that's less blatantly distilled and isolated, a way that embraces the cultural exchange present in the art products we enjoy.