"Talk Radio"

Eric Bogosian portrays callers as some of the most extreme, and some of the most low-life people out there.  His character, Barry Champlain, is an abrasive talk show host who provokes angry messages from his callers.  By creating a landscape of callers that include drug addicts, racists, and indolent invididuals, Bogosian is commenting about his real view of society, and the type of people who call into radio shows. 

I often feel like people who call into talk radio shows do not know much about the topic they are calling about, but Bogosian definitely takes this critique to the next level.  He does not only portray callers as being unintelligent, but he also portrays them as ill-intentioned.  He ends up depicting the talk radio conversation as a hostile interaction between angry callers and an even angrier host.

This angry host, Barry Champlain, has a ton of nasty things to say about his callers, but he ultimately ends up hating himself as well.  He is, after all, a major part of this talk radio culture that he condemns.

When I listen to talk radio, I sometimes find that there are people who have very intelligent things to say.  As I become a more critical consumer of information, I realize that radio shows may actually go out of their way to choose callers who are off-the-wall and in ways “unintelligent”.  As we have said in class before, radio shows are seeking to make profits, and seething conversations, no matter how mindless, seem to be a means to this goal.