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Monday, May 17, 2010

To TV or Not to TV

When I was a kid, TV shows always had a little moral at the end. Whatever the problem was, by the end of the half hour it was solved and tied up in pretty ribbons, all nice and neat. Marcia Brady would learn that it's better to be a good friend than go out with that cute football player; Fat Albert and his gang would learn how to deal with that bully; and those people on Fantasy Island would make their dreams come true.

I see a bit of this now on TV, but nearly as much as it used to be. The moralizing is a bit more sophisticated and realistic now. Reality shows, although produced and edited, show people in a much different light. There is moralizing, but there is also a celebration of people screwing each other over. "It's all part of the game."

I can't say that I know which is better. The TV of my childhood gave me unrealistic expectations about how problems are solved. Real life problems cannot be solved in a half-hour. Problems do not get tied up into pretty ribbons. Real life problems are much grittier than deciding to go to the prom with the "right" boy.

Today's TV doesn't flinch away from gritty problems, just watch CSI, Law and Order, or Glee. In fact, TV today seems to love to jump onto any or all subjects. Glee has a teenage gay character that is handled quite beautifully, with dignity and finesse. On the flip side, we have just as many programs that show the worst kind of human behavior imaginable. Anybody catch any of Jersey Shore? Survivor? Real Housewives of . . . (pick one, they're all disgusting).

Every once in a while, I remind my kids that what they see on TV isn't real. I remind them to question the things that they see and hear and to remember what is what. I tell them that advertisements on TV lie, and to question things they hear on the news. I often wonder how damaging this constant barrage of information is on children and their psyches. It's enough to make me want to throw my TV out of the window.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

TV sucks. :-)

There's some good TV that educates or actually is meant to make one think. But as for primetime dramas and sitcoms, they are unrealistic and damaging in many ways, some of which you mentioned.

I wish I hadn't been raised on TV. I also wish I hadn't been raised on sweets. lol But, I am who I am.

I think that it would be nice to read instead of watching TV, and if I were single, I would. But, with TV, my wife and I can laugh together and converse, which we wouldn't be able to do while reading. So, it does have it's social value. I remember FOX Sunday nights in my bedroom with my friends back when it first came on the air. We had a blast.

So, it's pretty much what you make it to be. But none of it's real, especially that which they call "reality" television. :-)

Maggie said...

I grew up on Leave it to Beaver and I Love Lucy (didn't take me long to get tired of both).

In my 30s I got hooked on Hill Street Blues, which was (among many other high-quality attributes) the first of the 'serious' drama series shows to copy the soap-opera format of having several story lines progressing at the same time, with different starting and ending dates. So you really had to watch everything or you would miss something vital.

I loved Furillo and Davenport. I thought Norm and Belker were funny, in a wry sort of way. I liked how the male/female police-partner pairs were handled, and thought this was good role modeling for the rest of us who were having trouble navigating gendercrap at work.

During that time I was also working as a copy editor on a local daily newspaper.

And gradually I began to discover seriously racist attitudes and thoughts in my consciousness.

For someone raised in a lilywhite community with liberal aspirations and plenty of consciously-taught antiRacism messages from my parents, the development of racist thoughts in my head was a huge shock.

I couldn't understand it. None of the People of Color I knew, at work, in my neighborhood, or even in random encounters on the street ever offered fuel for the random thoughts I was having.

Then I worked second shift for several months, and recorded a lot of Hill Street Blues without getting to watch it.

When I went back, I was shocked. There, in my favorite evening TV series, was the source of the racism in my head.

Belker's "Dogbreath!" was rarely directed at a white man on the street (and, now I think of it, never directed at a woman). The cops, both black and white, thought nothing of grabbing a black teenager by the shoulder and throwing him against a chainlink fence for a patdown, but they were usually more respectful with whites -- even when the black teens were just 'hanging out in the neighborhood' and being pressed for information, whereas the whites were going to turn out to be the murderer, or the embezzler, or in some other way actually the badguys.

Nowadays I've been away from TV news for nearly 5 years (when my beloved housemates are watching it, I tend to leave the room), and have almost stopped watching TV dramas. Once in awhile when I watch an episode for some particular reason (say, the recent Bones that focused on Witchcraft) I am usually reminded of why TV is toxic for me.

Nowadays I have more room to think my own thoughts.

So ... for me TV is a non-trivial influence.

My 22-cents, allowing for inflation.

Unknown said...

TV?...
American Idol - good...I like the outtakes
Fringe - better...softspot for well-written sci-fi
Football - best...because it is
Anything else is shit, now post something fresh 'cause it's freakin' September already...and then some!

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