It’s about time we had a cultural revolution in this country. Not just some change in mass artistic preferences or some new aesthetic sensibility, because none of that ever has any effect in the long run. In the end, it just gets co-opted by advertising and marketing executives, and faster than you can say “8-27 year old demographic” we’re back to where we started.

What I have in mind is more along the lines of an actual blood n’ guts revolution, featuring barricades, riots and executions. Imagine CDs from “American Idol” winners, videos of “reality” television shows and the collected works of Nora Roberts all burning together in the brilliant red flames of the righteous — a marvelous bonfire of the vanities rivaling anything lit by the hands of God. If you smile at that image, you may have some inkling of my vision.
I guess I’ve always been a bit of a revolutionary at the core. Give me a rifle, some torches and a few propaganda posters and I couldn’t be happier. I’ll go on spreading the word to the masses and inciting violence against the establishment with a twinkle in my eye and a song on my lips. I’ll be whistling a cheerful old ditty while spreading terror through the hearts of my enemies.
I can almost envision the utopia that I may one day be blessed to witness. A world of joy and happiness, without the money-grubbing entertainment industries polluting our culture. Television will be programmed based on quality rather than marketing demographics. Airing commercials in a theater before a movie will be punishable by decapitation. It will be a world of peace and moral values. After the genocide, of course.
You didn’t think there would be genocide? Of course there would be genocide. We just need to work out which people go up against the wall and get a 21-gun salute aimed at their heads. There are too many fevered egos in this society, and too many of them have taken control of our culture. I think it’s time to get active about it. Of course we could just change our buying habits, teach ourselves about art and try to make change with moderation and rationality. But to hell with moderation and rationality — I want bloodshed! The music of all these blonde nymphets has driven me to it. The mere existence and popularity of someone like Clay Aiken has pushed me over the edge of sanity into the deep, dark abyss beyond.
On that note, I think the music industry ought to be the first to go, since it stands as the perfect example of how an art form can be corrupted for profit. You can no longer sit on a street corner and play the banjo for loose change without being sued by the Recording Industry Association of America for covering “Enter Sandman” by Metallica. We need to make music humble again; take it back to the days before all these musicians and their record companies formed bleedin’ messiah complexes.
But if you want to talk about fevered egos, look no further than the American film industry. From the studios to the actors to the directors to the caterers, it consists of nothing but self-important, condescending, over-paid profiteers turning a great art form into nothing more than an advertising medium. So of course they are all deserving of death in my eyes. If an actor does three months of work and in return gets a paycheck that represents the gross national product of a small South American country, then that actor should be considered an enemy of the state and be treated appropriately, i.e. drawn and quartered.
“But Ryan,” you’re probably saying, “this vision of yours is violent and cruel. It is obviously the product of a diseased imagination, not to mention based on completely subjective opinions. Anyway, television certainly would be the first industry to feel the wrath of the cultural revolution.”
But of course. How could I forget that most corrupted of mediums, the one most infected with the money-grubbing bug, the one most willing to sell out every value in exchange for a Frito-Lay advertising account? Personally, I think there is scant hope for this particular form of entertainment, regardless of what happens, but certainly something has to be done about it.
For example, the cast of “Friends” was paid a king’s ransom to do one last season of that worthless pain parade of a show. People are starving in this country, yet David Schwimmer still has a career. Families have no health insurance, our schools are under-funded and newspaper headlines often look like dispatches from the bowels of Hell, yet Matthew Perry is earning a cool million an episode. This is no longer just a cultural revolution, it is now officially a religious crusade.
We must rid the world of this madness, if not for our own health then for our children’s futures. All of these overblown egos and the sick culture that nurtures them must be put down for good. Let’s set the cities on fire with rock ‘n’ roll. Vive la revolución, baby.