IGN has released a list of the twenty-five best primetime cartoons of all time. I found this out last night. I was sitting in front of the TV, minding my own business, when I was assaulted with this list. I didn't ask for it. I didn't really care. But, nevertheless, it was there. (By the way, IGN is some kind of "gaming and geekdom in general" Web site. Don't feel bad. I had no clue what it what it was until I started writing this column.)
Do you remember the good old days when it seemed that these "top whatever" lists actually meant something? Sure, they never did, but at least they gave that illusion. It was an idyllic time, when the dodo was still alive, and men were men, women were all Southern belles, and a Cadillac cost only a quarter.
I remember one of these lists very clearly. It was the American Film Institute's "100 Years, 100 Movies" list. Now that made sense! What better way to celebrate one hundred years of American film than to list one hundred of the best examples? And these choices were not backed with merely a pithy paragraph. They had dozens of essays by critics to back them up. To top it off, this was the American Film Institute. They carried an air of authority with them...even if most of us had not heard of them before they released "100 Years, 100 Movies."
In retrospect, we should have put a hundred year moratorium on these lists after that one. At least for movies. Similar rules would have been applied to other media, of course. But alas, we were fools. Drunken on the beauty of that AFI list, everyone and their mother began making lists. TV Guide had to have their say with a "best of the best" list.
Now, I'm sorry, but the name TV Guide carries a lot less clout than the American Film Institute. What were they doing releasing their own list? They were just a magazine staff, not experts. Yet, we still took their word as truth.
And it wasn't just TV Guide. It was every magazine. And it's only gotten worse with the passing years. AFI has lost their crown by rating everything from certain genres to movie scores to quotes. Yes, quotes.
Even worse, now it's a yearly thing! What happened to the rare prestige?! And am I the only one disturbed by the fact that they keep saying 100 years, and it's been 108 by now. And there couldn't be a hundred years of scores since the talking picture only came around in 1927! What's become of society?
The problem seriously seems to be worsening every day. By this point Entertainment Weekly is practically doing a daily top ten list about anything from top ten anthropomorphized canine detectives to top ten movies that have "chocolate" in the title (no, I do not know whether or not "Chocolat" [2000] counts). Sure, it may be cute and distract you from work for a few minutes...but dear god, it's getting ridiculous!
Why do we even read these top ten lists, anyway? We know they don't carry the slightest bit of actual authority or truth to them. In all honesty, they are pretty much a slightly refined equivalent of polling everyone on your floor.
Yet, if we agree with any of the choices, we all immediately rejoice. Why is it that seeing our favorite movie or show on a list suddenly makes us feel like our lives contain meaning? "Yes! Maxim totally agrees that "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" is the best film of the past fourteen years to incorporate hair dye into the dialogue! I'm not a complete failure at life!"
Conversely, we know that if we don't agree with even one choice, we'll discredit the list as what it is: a thoroughly arbitrary collection of opinions with the flimsiest of backings. And then, even though thrown aside, we'll continue to grumble about the choices in conversation for the coming weeks.
"Man! What's wrong with Ain't It Cool News?! How dare they forget California Dreams from their list of 'Top 46 syndicated TV preteen shows of the Nineties?!' What did they think they were trying to pull on me? The scoundrels!"
As I watched the names chosen by the deities of IGN roll by last night on the screen, I finally saw the "best of the best" lists for what they were: utter stupidity. The assortment of these names had no rhyme or reason (except, of course, Simpsons HAD to be at the top). It's simply a few fanboys trying to have us accept that they know more than us. But really, at the end of the day, their list is just another list: it will outrage some, enrapture others, and then be forgotten in a few days.
