The Ovid Show

I thought it was a funny comment today that Dr. Sexton made about Ovid being a talk show host if he was still around today. I think that if he wasn't a talk show host he would definitely be a commentator on the ways we go about our lives with such...um...drama. It really couldn't be more true, we are raised in a culture where drama is all that we have to live for, and now it seems even worse because it is so easily accessed through the media. Drama is not only in the media, it is in every aspect of live whether you like it or not. Personally, I try to avoid drama like the plague but it prevails despite my efforts. In affect, drama is life and life is dramatic. The Metamorphoses are especially interesting to apply to modern times because they center around the more interesting aspects of drama: greed, jealousy, lust, betrayal. Which is no doubt what our culture has a major infatuation with. It seems almost ridiculous the amount of time that people spend judging and watching other people's lives. Take MTV for example, they have created a cult of people that are obsessed with the lives of seriously shallow people. I have watched these shows a few times and it surprises me every time that people actually find this sit interesting, and maybe it isn't that it's interesting maybe it's just that it's entertaining. I hope so, because it is entertaining to watch a bunch of stupid people fuck up their lives on national television. Sad, but entertaining for the rest of us.

I suppose thought the situations that Ovid was talking about in the year 8 may have seemed just as ridiculous to the people then, but still entertaining. I just wonder what Ovid might say about the direction culture has went with this type of entertainment. It has evolved from hypothetical situations involving gods and demigods to straight watching people make fools of themselves.

Oh, and apparently we are not the only ones who recognize the theme all that is past possesses the present. Brown University is coming out with a play written by Mary Zimmerman, that portrays the 11 plays by Ovid in modern context. The introductory sentence says, "When Ovid penned "Metamorphoses" in the first century A.D., it is unlikely he anticipated Beyonce's "Diva" serving as part of its soundtrack." Check it out at the cite below.

http://media.www.browndailyherald.com/media/storage/paper472/news/2009/03/06/ArtsCulture/Pw.Revamps.Ovids.metamorphoses-3663145.shtml