Keller @ Large: Has Boston Jumped The Shark In Hollywood?
BOSTON (CBS) - For one reason or another, Hollywood loves Boston, and it's a love affair that's been going on for many years.
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The Kennedys and Harvard kept us in business for years before the full-scale infatuation with our gritty customs kicked in: "Good Will Hunting," "Mystic River," "The Departed," and so on.
All good movies, if just a cut below the "Friends of Eddie Coyle" for true local color.
We do love their money, and even the gangster movies are probably good for tourism, amazingly enough. But it feels like our allure is starting to fade a bit lately.
In Tinseltown, you know you've jumped the shark when the only callbacks your agent can swing are from reality shows looking to roundup a group of cranky ex-celebrities.
And now we're getting that same treatment.
If you've seen even a minute of the wretched "reality" show "Southie Rules," that's a minute of life needlessly wasted.
But that's nothing compared with the horror of Hollywood's latest Boston-oriented brainstorm.
The Lowell snowplow driver fired last week after he posted online a profanity-laced video of himself plowing under cars and laughing about it has received multiple feelers from reality-show producers since his embarrassing story broke. And he says that, while he's sorry for the fool he made of himself, he's considering their overtures.
So, this may be what we have come to – the depiction of us on network television as a culture of crude, offensive narcissists, reveling in the misfortune of others, indifferent to any concept of professionalism.
There's a derogatory name people around the country who've had to deal with folks like that plow driver call us, one I cannot repeat here. If this guy gets his own show, it'll be a validation of that unwanted stereotype.
And we may have to start asking ourselves: are we really going to allow that image to be our new calling card?
You can listen to Keller At Large on WBZ News Radio every weekday at 7:55 a.m. You can also watch Jon on WBZ-TV News.
