Television in Kyrgyzstan

Kyrgyz Television

Since moving into my new one-man apartment, I have had so much too much time to learn about television in Kyrgyzstan. Despite the fact that Kyrgyz is lauded by linguists as being the purest of the Turkic tongues, Kyrgyzstan has been less zealous about language purity than other Central Asian nations. On the upside, this means that Kyrgyzstan has maintained some degree of Russian language schooling which helps to prevent isolationism. On the down side, Kyrgyzstan gets much of it’s news, information and popular culture filtered through Russian sources. Russian mass media is very much and ever increasingly dominated by the Kremlin.

Russian TV consists of 3 or 4 stations, none of them independently owned, and MTV Russia. When I turn on the tube, I am usually in search of a plot driven action movie. It is the best way to passively learn language that I can stomach (the only thing better is soap operas or talk shows for colloquialisms). Actually the “poppier” a media product is, the better a language tool it usually makes. Pop products are simple, catchy, unintelligent. This brings the comprehension threshold down to reasonable levels.

I tend to avoid MTV in the states as if it were contagious. Russian MTV has all of the characteristics of American MTV that I despise in spades. Its only redeeming quality is that it actually plays music videos. This is made up for by the fact that it only plays hip-pop and rap videos of the lowest caliber. It is easy to miss the glaring artistic deficiencies in the product when it is so thoroughly smothered in sex.

Here I have to digress for just a moment and admit my many biases and allow for some culturally differences. First the differences, Russians have a different take on feminine beauty than the West. Basically, few Russian women criticize the objectification of women. Many would appear to embrace it. Some attribute this to the Soviet system that officially promoted the “liberation” of women by demanding they both work and take the lioness’ share of the burden of caring for a family. Some might say it is because of the instability follows the Soviet collapse that women are all too happy to trade feminist ideals for the stability of traditional roles. Some would say otherwise. Whatever the reason, women are hyper-feminized relative to Western Europe and the States. On Russian TV stations scantily clothes attractive young girls sing songs and dance seductively. These shows are on most all of the time. What surprised me most was not their existence but their outstanding acceptance and even popularity. In Russian and here in Kyrgyzstan men and women, young and old have asked how I enjoy the “spectacles.” The question is not only free of the bitter irony that would dripping from such a question if anyone I knew from home were to make a similar inquiry but is actually almost rhetorical. It usually seems to be granted that I am naturally blown away by the artistic brilliance of large breasts and a fit butt waxing and waning to a drum machine’s beat while computer generated sounds accompany the vocalist. A computer program could write a program to write the sounds. Just take a music theory 100 class and make the computer match the chords to the drum machine’s beat.

Before I got carried away, I was trying to say that the standard of beauty vs. sexy is different as is the value of musical complexity. These spectacles, instead of being popular only among boys/young men and hyper-hormonal youngsters of both sexes, are embraced with pride by many people of many backgrounds (even Soviet university professors).

I’ll take what ever is behind Door number 2: Baseless feelings of intellectual and moral superiority! YESSSSSSS.

Just as I was getting comfortable in my one man apartment with ivory trimming, who should appear before me in Russian MTV form but Jeffery Sachs, Columbia Economist, author and general thought provoker. With him, his Lovely Assistant Angelina Joleigh to tour Africa and chat about transactions costs and other obstacles to development on a journey that has the heart warming and wrenching in turns. And here I am, in Bishkek, watching a minor lesson in development economics with African examples on MTV, but in Russian, in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan.

The utility of celebrities in promoting responsible, sustainable and realistic policies is… tricky. But, I can confidently say that without Angelina (UN Ambassador of Goodwill) the message would not have made its way to where-ever Soviet TV sets are being quickly replaced by vastly superior imports. If we have to build a new pantheon of celebrities of sports and screen to link our increasingly atomized selves to a larger conceptual community, we might as well have them use their powers for some human empathy. The vanity of our divinities can wear thin after a while.

So not all hope was lost. The show ended and what followed was another episode of the same series. This time “Diaries” documented the ascent of The Pussycat Dolls to fame and fortune. Reassuringly disgusted once again, I renewed my search for that elusive plot driven action movie. On Russia’s official state TV network aired a show about a crime fighting German Shepard and his human partners. On the other channel I found another episode of some Russian show that features Russian secret agents, disguised as Arabs, taking names and kicking “Wahhabist” butt in the Middle East. So, yes, these is a Russian equivalent to Team America… only they take it seriously. I was not sure whether to laugh or cry. I always try to laugh.

Despair, sweet hilarious despair.