No more anxiety for us, thanks

Tina Brown writes in the Washington Post that reality TV shows are a vestige of the narcissitic, consumerist 80s:

We thought the post-9/11 world would be earnest and thoughtful and all about bedrock values. (You can see the mood reflected in the current gloomy crop of Oscar holiday movies, greenlighted after the terror attacks.) But our nerves have rebelled. America is not good at anxiety. Give us "Elf"! Give us "The Bachelor"! Let's go shopping! ...

The cuff-shooting vulgarity that might have been uncool in the dot-com '90s has doubled back and lifted Trump up again. In a media culture where Paris Hilton and "Joe Millionaire" reign, Trump can even be cherished as an elder statesman.

You know, a lot of people howled when Brown became a Washington Post columnist. But I find her stuff compulsively readable and quite often very funny.