As I write this, I’m on an airplane, watching the in-flight
entertainment: videos of animals trying to lick stuff out of the bottoms of glass
containers. Everyone around me, from the annoying 5-year-old across the aisle to the gruff, tattooed biker dude to the blaze teenager is enraptured. But not me. I find this to be an insult to my aesthetic and intellectual...
...oh, wait. Those silly animals, they keep getting their heads stuck in things!
A Corgi with his head deep in a jar of gravy. A kitten with her head in a tall
water glass. Oh, wait, now it’s a French Bulldog pushing around a giant ball.
Oh, oh! Now it’s a cat trying to open a
door, but the handle is just too high. Poor little dude!
The sad thing is, I’m not even being facetious. I absolutely
LOVE videos of animals doing funny shit. As I’ve mentioned before, such videos
make me so happy it’s embarrassing. And yet, I realize what I’m watching is a
horrible, horrible show; one that represents the demise of narrative
storytelling in our culture. The whole thing is an aesthetic nightmare—there’s even
a cartoon border around the videos featuring clouds and daisies.
This in-flight video must’ve been mandated by the Homeland
Security folks. The reasoning? Anybody, when faced with the choice of hijacking
an airplane and watching overly-excited hamsters try to leap out of a
habi-trail, would rather find out if he hamster video wins first prize in the
Funny Rodents category.
The show even features veterinarians who, for some reason,
narrate the events (professors, perhaps, at the University of the Obvious).
“Boy, that little guy really wants that gravy!” Another pundit is an “Animal
Lover/Comedian”(/Guy Desperate for a SAG card.)
Why are animal videos so compelling? Is it because I have the attention span of that zany
little hamster that keeps using his hamster wheel to propel himself out of his
cage? Aww, a kitten falling asleep in
someone’s hands! Why are you so cute, sleepy kitten? Or you, arm-stretching lemur (are you a lemur?)?
Why can’t I stop watching? The cute toxicity ceiling is reaching
Chernobyl levels. Oh, wait! A fluffy,
white longhaired bunny has made friends with a schnauzer! They’re playing
together! Squeee!
I am so full of shame. This is irony-free, sacrcharin-sweet
Sweetness is the sort of thing that normally makes me want to wretch. But I
can’t, because I’m too busy smiing and going awwwwww…
If anyone asks, I totally
hate this show.