Examples of Dumbing Up

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Please give me examples of dumbing up - the opposite of dumbing down where low culture TV deals with difficult, complex issues or grapples well with ideas considered beyond its Ken.

cf: The question about Virginia Woolf on Brian's Brain (for non-UK viewers, a kids TV quiz where the supposedly thick titular Brian is asked ten questions by youngsters usually about pop music, TV or football).

― Pete (Pete), Monday, 17 February 2003 11:02 (twenty-two years ago)

I don't think the opposite of 'dumbing down' is 'dumbing up', is it?

― Lara (Lara), Monday, 17 February 2003 11:43 (twenty-two years ago)

And I don't think mentioning Virginia Woolf is dealing with difficult complex issues or grappling with ideas!

― Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Monday, 17 February 2003 11:44 (twenty-two years ago)

It's (Brian's) Braining Up.

He did v. poorly this week.

― Tom (Groke), Monday, 17 February 2003 11:45 (twenty-two years ago)

The Daily Mirror (it wishes).

― Mark C (Mark C), Monday, 17 February 2003 11:47 (twenty-two years ago)

Depends on the context. If it was related to Nicole's prosthesis, rather than the interwoven themes of madness, sanity and sexuality then maybe not.

― Lara (Lara), Monday, 17 February 2003 11:48 (twenty-two years ago)

ITV having that Second Coming prog.?

― Nick Southall (Nick Southall), Monday, 17 February 2003 11:49 (twenty-two years ago)

Okay - call this thread an example of the dumbing down of me then.

Dumbing up is what the dumbed down would call it (counter-intuative play on extant terminology - see Lollywood, a thoroughly incomprehensible term for the Lahore film industry unless you understand its route).

Smartening Up then, or Braining Up. Sort of what Channel Five has started doing with its regular arts and architecture slots.

Second Coming seems an excellent example.

― Pete (Pete), Monday, 17 February 2003 11:50 (twenty-two years ago)

The question was "Which twentieth century novelist was the leading character in the film The Hours, whose interwoven themes of madness, sanity and sexuality were epitomised by Nicole Kidman's ridiculous false conk?"

Brian's answer: "Sven Hassel"

― Tom (Groke), Monday, 17 February 2003 11:53 (twenty-two years ago)

Jeremy Vine hosting the old Jimmy Young programme on Radio 2.

― Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Monday, 17 February 2003 11:55 (twenty-two years ago)

Lollywood!! A theme park for lovers of confectionary!

God, I'm in rapture!

― Lara (Lara), Monday, 17 February 2003 11:56 (twenty-two years ago)

I'd rather have then Daily Mirror attacking war and saying things I agree with than another crap pro-war tabloid.

I even BOUGHT it today.

― the pinefox, Monday, 17 February 2003 11:59 (twenty-two years ago)

Everything on Radio 5.

― Lara (Lara), Monday, 17 February 2003 12:00 (twenty-two years ago)

Pete is OTM with Channel 5. It's really watchable in a non-dumbing-down, non-patronising way a lot of the time - early-evening in particular - but you still get that bizarre moment when you flick onto it and some heaving false boobies are writhing around on a moustachioed greek.

― Mark C (Mark C), Monday, 17 February 2003 12:03 (twenty-two years ago)

I WANT CHANNEL 5 - ANYONE WANT TO SWAP FOR TG4??

― Lara (Lara), Monday, 17 February 2003 12:04 (twenty-two years ago)

culture

― mark s (mark s), Monday, 17 February 2003 14:09 (twenty-two years ago)

Radio was a dumbing up, but in the last 18 months, they've dumbed down - they've lost the long interviews and lost the investigative reportage and the desire to do off the beaten track stories. They've no moved into a phase where they define stories against 'newsworthiness' and that newsworthiness is defined as a tabloid newspaper.

― Dave B (daveb), Monday, 17 February 2003 14:14 (twenty-two years ago)

The Hours, Chicago, the increasingly complex policy debates happening in offices around the country as war approaches, more people reading the Economist = all equals 'braining up' of some sort. You could even go so far as to compare Daredevil, Spider-Man and the X-Men with superhero 'blockbusters' of past decades, or look at the way the new Star Wars films are being recieved vs. Jackson's LOTR. Pop music, though I loathe to admit, is becoming more and more intelligent either in the sense of better packaging for surer hits or at least in the relative variety of sounds yr likely to hear while flipping through four random radio stations. The english language may be turning into txt msging but I think this is actly pretty c00l & not nec a sign of dumm

Basically I wd agree with mark s but 'culture' is too vague (culture on earth? or in space? do you see)

― Millar (Millar), Monday, 17 February 2003 14:20 (twenty-two years ago)

I think Mark S was tawkin' 'bout bacteria.

― Pete (Pete), Monday, 17 February 2003 14:25 (twenty-two years ago)

language is a virus from outer space!!

― mark s (mark s), Monday, 17 February 2003 14:28 (twenty-two years ago)

Biological warfare fm the heavens = God or possibly someone like him?

― Millar (Millar), Monday, 17 February 2003 14:42 (twenty-two years ago)

me dislike him

― mark s (mark s), Monday, 17 February 2003 14:43 (twenty-two years ago)

Tower of Babel jokes - c'mon mark let's run with it

― Millar (Millar), Monday, 17 February 2003 14:43 (twenty-two years ago)

A great example of "dumbing up": South Park. The show started out purely as a forum for scat jokes, then veered into evil, evil satire once it had hooked an audience.

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Monday, 17 February 2003 15:01 (twenty-two years ago)

Daniel Bedingfield using the word "resound" and acknowledging the existence of mortality.

― robin carmody (robin carmody), Tuesday, 18 February 2003 00:30 (twenty-two years ago)

No one ever agrees with me when i say this, but Everybody Loves Raymond is Eugene O'Neil with a laugh track.(sometimes)

― ryan, Tuesday, 18 February 2003 19:10 (twenty-two years ago)

The New York State Regents tests are a pathetic attempt.

― Maria (Maria), Tuesday, 18 February 2003 23:01 (twenty-two years ago)

Regents Exams are soooooo about dumbing down.

― rosemary (rosemary), Tuesday, 18 February 2003 23:08 (twenty-two years ago)

But they make you take more and more of them so they can say they're raising the standards. That is why they are pathetic.

― Maria (Maria), Tuesday, 18 February 2003 23:10 (twenty-two years ago)

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