Scat on the Carpet (Osbournes, The)

Member Name: "420565

Product:	Osbournes, The
Date:	02/05/03 (215 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Family values, A wicked mansion, Rock and roll!!

Disadvantages: Dogs everywhere, Kelly is a skank

"We have nothing to fear but fear itself."

"Mr Gorbachev, tear down this wall."

"Oh, the humanity!!"

Some quotations resonate from generation to generation, and like a fine Bordeaux, their flavour does not wan with age but grows bolder. They encapsulate the essence of their context in such a way that posterity harbours a deep, intrinsically rooted empathy for those who witnessed the circumstances that inspire them. In a way, these utterances speak for a generation. They reflect the collective opinion, the collective sentiment, and arguably even the moral fibre of the era.

I could expound on many levels about things like this and philosophise til you all want to shove hot bamboo shoots into my eye sockets, and then into your own just to put a little spice into your day, because let's face it, this sort of talk is really boring. That's why I've only used it as an introduction, because it's not of much relevance to "The Osbournes". Nevertheless, before I throw all social gravity to the wind, let me wind this up. I just wanted to interrupt myself for a minute so that you all know that no, it's not going on forever. Anyhow...

The momentum of human social progress is carrying us to heights we never thought we'd reach at a pace we never thought possible. Maybe we underestimated ourselves, I think we did. And if we study similar cases of our will and achievements taking the better of us, we get into things like the Great Depression and Monica Lewinsky hosting her own television programme. These are the things that pucker the butt. In times like these, there is little that's said that, unlike the aforementioned quotes, conveys a sense of urgency, dignity, importance, or even anything at all. The twenty-first century is the age of the washable felt-tip marker, nothing is ever made to last. Apart from washable felt-tip markers themselves, nothing embo
dies this better than the entertainment and disinformation industry. And so rather than our political and cultural leaders leaving pemanent intellectual marks on the world, they leave us with things like this...

"Shaaarrrrooonnn! Lola vommed on the carpet again!"

"I'm the prince of f*cking darkness, I'm not cleaning up another f*cking cat turd!"

"I love you more than life itself, but you're all f*cking mad!"

"Rock and rooooolllll!"

"It's all about... It's just... Bloody rave drugs and... Bloody hell... NEVER MIND!"

A-men, brother! I couldn't have ever said it better myself, no sir. Not after a man-sized barrel of industrial strength everclear, not after a bad bout with homebrewed dopamine inhibitors, and probably not even after a hefty wallop with whatever stick it is that's concussed Ozzy's not-so-fragile mind to the state in which we know and love it. There's a sublte genius integral to the art of absolute crassness that appeals to us all on a very subliminal, and very paradoxical level.

For as long as there's been a means of mass communication, there's been an inexplicable jealousy of those behind it. I can assume that in the days of the Spaghetti Western, there was an element of the population who trotted about clad in bola ties and stripéd gondolier's garb, emulating the delightful antics of whoever that woman was whose misadventures took her from grain silo to grain silo, saving the lives of ill-fated Italian baffoons strapped to mill saws. But I wasn't around then, so it's just an assumption. I know for sure, however, that a lust for association with the rich and famous does indeed exist. Anyone with a modicum of insight can see it when they open their eyes for a fraction of a second. It started with the tabloids, which employed scandal and debasement of cultural icons as a mean
s of bringing them to the level of the common bloke. Hell, if you can't join them beat them. Beat them to the point that they're exposed as being no better and no different than us. It doesn't directly quench our thirst to be the cream in the coffee of society, but that's really not a realistic goal. So we take out the cream and turn everyone into ground up beans. This method proved successful. Like any insatiable human desire, it could not be appeased that easily though, and the tabloids eventually grew into televisions programmes dedicated to the sole despicable purpose of smearing celebrities. Soon entire television stations emerged, perpetuating this nasty western fetish.

And now it's reached its apex. Moral degradation of prominent personalities has reached a fine art, manifested by the show we love to hate. "The Osbournes".

First of all, just for the record, I'm not at all a celebrity lapdog. I don't give a crap if Justin Timberlake is caught toking with his mum, and I don't lose a minute of sleep over the prospect of Kate Moss choking over a chunk of muffin lodged in her throat due to an erroneous bulimic episode. It just doesn't matter, not in the great scheme of things. But still, I've a grain of that young-generation vanity in me that does, I confess, strike a twinge of envy every time I hear those garbled, unintelligible mumblings spew forth from the lips of the Half-Inflated Dark Lord.

In contrast to a lot of other celebrity features and reality shows, "The Osbournes" really doesn't go out of its way to dramatise things. As bizarre and frightening as it may be, it seems to be, as we're told it is, a very accurate documentation of day-to-day life in the Osbourne's personal circle of Hell. For example, an entire episode focuses around nothing but the removal of a melted plastic chicken from the stovetop. Sure, the protagonists (if
we c
an call them that, though caged rats seems a more appropriate label) could ham it all up. They could sing songs while they scrub away at the range, like the Partridge Family. They could turn it all into a grand drama, shove each other and everything into a great chasm created by conflicting morals, and then by the end of the half-hour, turn it all around into a great sappy ethical lesson. But they don't. The scrub, and that's all they do. Watch Ozzy scrub as he chastises his daughter for not being punctual for her gynecologist appointments. Watch Sharon scrub as she reads her son the riot act for sassing off to the nanny. Watch Jack scrub as he juggles smartass comments to his mother with snide remarks to his sister about her lax attitude toward personal hygene. Watch Kelly scrub as she balances flippant remarks to her father and chiding quips at her brother. It's a beautiful thing to watch.

In a more poignant way, though, "The Osbournes" appeals to my subgeneration (the fifteen to twenty-five group). It's an amusing and dysfunctional message; regardless of status or structure, family and mutual respect, no matter how its manifested, is the panacea for whatever plagues us. I'm not as sure about the rest of the world, but where I'm from, divorce and family woes have always been rampant, and have reached a record low since 1983- miraculously the year of my birth. It comes as no surprise that I'm not exempt from this Norseman's Burden. My father is a cavorting, womanising, malevolent, greedy dick. My mum tries her best despite infinite odds. My sister is an incorrigible maniac without the slightest shred of prudence, whose actions dig us all into a rat-filled, pongy grave. My brother is a melancholy genius who flushes a future of bounty down the toilet with copious amounts of marijuana. And I'm me- a suicidal, brooding butthead who places more value on cooking a smashing pirogi or rendering a phot
ograph of a troll so that it "looks really funny" than achieving any level of success in life.

But "The Osbournes" can sort of serve as a guiding light to those families who, should they continue in the direction in which they're headed, will end up as mine is in little time. In other words, they could probably act as inspiration to the less-imminently-doomed of us. They're about as f*cked-up as you can get. Just look at them. Ozzy, a tattooed, drug-addled, bat-head-eating rock star, is a father, for Christ's sake! He's the self-professed prince of darkness, yet he's raising children. He curses like a Polish dockworker, but admires Bill Cosby for his squeaky-clean encouragement of family values. Sharon, an aristocrat turned sour, struggling with butt cancer, encourages her husband to nick soap from Buckingham Palace, but then scolds her daughter for going a bit wild with a credit card.

The examples go on, and I'm not about to list any more. But the major underlying theme, whether intended or whether it just seems to have emerged over the course of the show, is that dedication and solidarity conquers all. I can imagine it's hard enough raising kids, and I know it's hard enough having been one. And I can also imagine it's not exactly peachy being under constant media scrutiny. But tackling both of these at once would probably shatter the will many. The Osbournes can do it though, they've got balls. And while funny and disturbing as hell, it turns me green with envy to see that a freakish gaggle like Britain's royal family (come on, admit it. Nobody gives two figs about the Mountbatton-Windsors anymore...) can stick by each other in the face of insurmountable odds. It may even be so much as inspiring, encouraging for the future, if some of the lost kids grow up with twisted but ultimately morally intact role models like this. If we can get through the present and patch o
ver some of the lumpy crap, the next few generations will be the upward slope to the restoration of society.

Actually, that's really going a little too far. I think I've read too much into "The Osbounes". Sad that I can admit to having done something like that. Thus, in closing, I backtrack and repudiate all I've said until this point. It's really all about this...

"If I have to clean up another pile of dog puke, there's going to be Hell to pay!"

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