We're mammals, you and I. We all have warm blood and big cerebrums. When we were small, we were offered yummy milk from our mothers' dangling, pendulous breasts. As we get older, we pair off, connect Tab A into Slot B, and make even more of us. That's how it works.
But there's a question that's been bothering me for the last few months: if we weren't mammals, and laid eggs instead (or were monotremes), would that have a significant impact on our entertainment? What would our pop music sound like?
We have chemicals inside our bodies that are supposed to attract us to members of the opposite gender. These are evil fucking chemicals, because they tend to wear off after a few years. That's plenty of time to do the irreversible deed, spring off a joy-bundle or two, and then settle in for a lifetime of delusionary misery. God doesn't love us, He's a manipulative puppetmaster who cackles every time you breathlessly say "I think I've found 'the one'" or "Being a parent really changed my life." He laughs, laughs, laughs until His sides split.
But there's a question that's been bothering me for the last few months: if we weren't mammals, and laid eggs instead (or were monotremes), would that have a significant impact on our entertainment? What would our pop music sound like?
But back to those evil fucking chemicals. The majority of our movies, books, television shows and popular music are geared towards stimulating the glands inside us that secrete them. The sooner you accept that, the less likely you're going to complain about boobs on teevee, and you might even be ready for your own career in the entertainment industry.
An important part of the entertainment process is editing, leaving stuff out. The actual sex act is pretty messy and gross: salt, lubrication, blood and psychology. The trick is to show everything but the actual fucking -- trust me, if it was on every channel twenty-four/seven, you'd get sick of it. If you don't believe that, I was once remotely acquainted with a guy who edited hardcore porn footage for a website 40 hours a week; it only took three weeks of desensitization to make him never want to have sex again. That goes double for the "miracle of birth" itself; if we really wanted to look at that, the Discovery Health Channel would be the 24-hour Super Bowl of basic cable.
Actual sex and its horrible aftermath: these are things we don't want to see, and that's why none of it sells. We've seen brilliant examples of this theory at work with two media experiments conducted in the past week. There's the slow-burning failure of HBO's new series "Tell Me You Love Me", a show that tries to convince viewers that intense couples therapy interspersed with hardcore sex is something America might be interested in. And of course, there's Britney Spears, the poster girl for never being a poster girl again.
I like to think that if our species didn't need coitus to continue, we'd find a way to maintain a healthy industry based on diversion. We would manipulate the ingrained desire to produce and protect hatchlings, and we'd romanticize everything up to the point where we actually squeeze them out.
We'd certainly whip up enough entertainment to run a pop music chart that depends on complete two-month turnover, we'd write and film and package until we figured out exactly what would rivet egg-laying creatures to their seats. And if we ran out of synonyms for "egg," we'd just keep making new ones up.
