DVD Player

We recently got a DVD player. In this age of streaming services, it's not uncommon for households to go without devices for physical media. When Netflix was dominating the market, this seemed ike a pretty good deal. Unlimited, on-demand, ad-free shows and movies at a marked down price. 

But as time ticked forward, rivals got introduced. Content got divided between them, so being subscribed to only one service wasn't enough. Prices kept climbing. Ads got incorporated. They even put in tracking systems to make sure you weren't sharing your account over multiple households.

Many sports fans have stuck to cable because streaming doesn't offer the live experience. However, I watched one of the US presidential debates over Disney+ as it happened, which make you wonder what's holding them back. Later, an attempt at documenting a young Youtube star box an elderly legend of the sport showcased the limits of what streaming can do. I didn't watch it, but apparently the quality was bad.

An expensive service that requires access to multiple paid channels, with ads, and is anchored to your home address? Thats just cable with extra steps. At least it's still view-on-demand.

But a big problem with these streaming services is that they need to pay the original creator a certain amount regularly. This has sparked an increase in content made by the streaming service itself. However, demand for new work has shrunk. Old classics draw more attention than new works and even modern titles try to reflect old hits, acting as sequels, prequels, or reinterpretations. I've got some theories on this phenomenon but we won't get into it now.

So, streaming services are still beholden to works belonging to others and must pay regular fees to survive. This means that anything you enjoy that isn't owned by the organization may be removed if it stops being profitable. Just yesterday I looked up The Joy of Painting on Netflix and it wasn't there anymore.

So you can only guarantee available, unedited media if you have a physical copy. Ergo, we got a DVD player. This led me to explore my old CDs and VHS tapes that I still have from the pre-streaming age.

I didn't remember how... masculine a lot of the media I consumed was. Not manly per se, just marketed toward a male audience. This includes:

The entire Seinfeld series (I saw a video of some People of Colour attempting to guess their friends favourite shows and movies. Since he was White, they guessed Seinfeld and Its Always Sunny in Philedelphia)

Taledega Nights (A mid-range move about racecars starring Will Ferral. It did spawn some iconic quotes)

Inception (I was encouraged to buy this because "I'm smart" but the actual content of the movie is pretty easily replicable because you just have to say "That was a dream" to explain anything")

I Pity The Fool (Made by Mr. T. It's a subversion of masculinity, done by someone perceived as macho who engages people in solving their problems by more introspective means. Still marketed to men)

The Rocky movies, one to five (Classic movies of resillience, about boxing. My brother has referenced it often)

The Godfather trilogy (controversial opinion, but only the first one was worth watching. In the recent Barbie movie, when they're trying to thwart the Kens by appealing to their male ego, they ask one of them to explain the Godfather trilogy)

Jaws (just stay out of the water please. The shark can't get you on land)

The Aristocats (Sole example of something I owned that was actively not marketed to a male audience)

Me and Lee-Anne were recently watching Call the Midwife and I said to her "If this were up to my college-aged self, we would probably have wound up watching some White male garbage" and she said "Well, now you have me, so you get to watch some White female garbage"