Post by Retrovision on Oct 15, 2007 7:38:03 GMT -8
(From: www.canada.com/topics/news/story.html?id=64087e0f-5976-4612-a9ad-df4f55286664&k=46934)
It's Monday, so be miserable
Misty Harris , CanWest News Service
Published: Monday, October 15, 2007
If Halloween gives license to be scared, today's greeting-card holiday is an excuse to be just plain scary. Oct. 15 is National Grouch Day, the singular 24-hour period each year when having a case of "the Mondays" is not merely allowed, but encouraged.
Although the pill purveyors might disagree, experts say there's good reason to celebrate the walking, talking rain clouds of the world -- if only for a day.
"When you look at the complexity of modern everyday life, the temptation is to be completely cynical," says Robert J. Thompson, a professor of popular culture at Syracuse University in New York.
"Yet, most of us, for whatever reason -- manners, or wanting to be liked, or how we were brought up - generally don't feel comfortable expressing that disdain all the time. So, in some ways, the grouch is the cultural mercenary we hire to say all the things we're thinking."
This phenomenon is most evident in the popularity of the anti-hero on television, where such ornery characters as Dr. Gregory House, Grey's Anatomy's Dr. Miranda "the Nazi" Bailey, and American Idol's Simon Cowell have emerged as surly stars in a cast of fluorescent smiles and pleasant platitudes.
"When you see someone who's really grouchy, you get this urge to cheer them up. It's just like seeing a wounded animal you want to nurse back to health," Thompson says of the TV characters' appeal.
"Real-life grouches are much less lovable. They're grumpy, they bring the temperature of the room down, they see the dark side of everything, and they don't have any scriptwriters to redeem them in the end."
Karen Tober, a receptionist from Edmonton, confesses that she's "a natural born grouch" who's been known to complain that the sun is too bright. But after realizing the negative impact her gloomy outlook was having on those around her, she began making a change.
"While one of my favourite creatures on TV is House, I certainly don't think it fitting to celebrate his nasty attitude," says Tober. "On TV, it seems to inspire the folks around him to rise to a higher level. In the world around us, I'm not sure it has the same effect."
For many Canadians of a certain age, their baptismal splash of snark came courtesy of Oscar the Grouch. Sesame Street's trash-can-dwelling Muppet, who incidentally inspired National Grouch Day, may be the most prominent example of how society is taught to humour those with little humour.
"The characters (on Sesame Street) could be viewed as deliberate attempts to foster appreciations for different types of personalities in real life," says Richard Graham, chair of the children's TV division of the Popular Culture Association.
"Oscar exemplifies what psychologists call oppositional defiant disorder. He's the archetype that teaches children to tolerate this kind of individualist in society."
It seems fitting then, that a real-life sourpuss informed Oscar the Grouch. The story goes that Jim Henson and a friend went to a Manhattan restaurant -- varyingly recounted as either 'Oscar's Salt of the Sea' or 'Oscar's Tavern' -- where they were waited on by a server so grumpy as to be comical.
According to the book Sesame Street Unpaved, Henson and his companion were so amused by the man's behaviour that they made trips to Oscar's a regular form of "masochistic entertainment ... and their waiter forever became immortalized as the world's most famous grouch."
mharris@canwest.com
© CanWest News Service 2007
Misty Harris , CanWest News Service
Published: Monday, October 15, 2007
If Halloween gives license to be scared, today's greeting-card holiday is an excuse to be just plain scary. Oct. 15 is National Grouch Day, the singular 24-hour period each year when having a case of "the Mondays" is not merely allowed, but encouraged.
Although the pill purveyors might disagree, experts say there's good reason to celebrate the walking, talking rain clouds of the world -- if only for a day.
"When you look at the complexity of modern everyday life, the temptation is to be completely cynical," says Robert J. Thompson, a professor of popular culture at Syracuse University in New York.
"Yet, most of us, for whatever reason -- manners, or wanting to be liked, or how we were brought up - generally don't feel comfortable expressing that disdain all the time. So, in some ways, the grouch is the cultural mercenary we hire to say all the things we're thinking."
This phenomenon is most evident in the popularity of the anti-hero on television, where such ornery characters as Dr. Gregory House, Grey's Anatomy's Dr. Miranda "the Nazi" Bailey, and American Idol's Simon Cowell have emerged as surly stars in a cast of fluorescent smiles and pleasant platitudes.
"When you see someone who's really grouchy, you get this urge to cheer them up. It's just like seeing a wounded animal you want to nurse back to health," Thompson says of the TV characters' appeal.
"Real-life grouches are much less lovable. They're grumpy, they bring the temperature of the room down, they see the dark side of everything, and they don't have any scriptwriters to redeem them in the end."
Karen Tober, a receptionist from Edmonton, confesses that she's "a natural born grouch" who's been known to complain that the sun is too bright. But after realizing the negative impact her gloomy outlook was having on those around her, she began making a change.
"While one of my favourite creatures on TV is House, I certainly don't think it fitting to celebrate his nasty attitude," says Tober. "On TV, it seems to inspire the folks around him to rise to a higher level. In the world around us, I'm not sure it has the same effect."
For many Canadians of a certain age, their baptismal splash of snark came courtesy of Oscar the Grouch. Sesame Street's trash-can-dwelling Muppet, who incidentally inspired National Grouch Day, may be the most prominent example of how society is taught to humour those with little humour.
"The characters (on Sesame Street) could be viewed as deliberate attempts to foster appreciations for different types of personalities in real life," says Richard Graham, chair of the children's TV division of the Popular Culture Association.
"Oscar exemplifies what psychologists call oppositional defiant disorder. He's the archetype that teaches children to tolerate this kind of individualist in society."
It seems fitting then, that a real-life sourpuss informed Oscar the Grouch. The story goes that Jim Henson and a friend went to a Manhattan restaurant -- varyingly recounted as either 'Oscar's Salt of the Sea' or 'Oscar's Tavern' -- where they were waited on by a server so grumpy as to be comical.
According to the book Sesame Street Unpaved, Henson and his companion were so amused by the man's behaviour that they made trips to Oscar's a regular form of "masochistic entertainment ... and their waiter forever became immortalized as the world's most famous grouch."
mharris@canwest.com
© CanWest News Service 2007