Golden Statue...

My daughter, a budding thespian, occasionally enjoys putting on
Oscar-caliber performances designed to persuade her audience (me) to
conform to her point of view. When she does this, I make a point of
awarding her with an imaginary Academy Award designed to match her
level of imaginary drama with an appropriate level of imaginary
glitter. When this year’s Academy Award show came up, I decided to take
the opportunity to show her a few minutes of the spectacle so she could
see what I’m talking about when I say, “And the Oscar goes to . . .” .

So I hooked up the rabbit ears and tried to get a passable picture
for the purpose of clarifying my behavior. But what I found was that,
to the contrary, it put me and my Oscar catchphrase in a completely
unfamiliar, freakish, and disturbing context that confused my daughter
and made me regret my decision. For just a few minutes the poor child
was exposed to a barrage of harsh, rapid-fire noises, bizarre images,
and disturbing messages. Women with ultrathin eyebrows and ultrathin
bodies painted into designer gowns, sycophantic hosts
overcongratulating overthankful actors, a slew of loud advertisements
for a range of products from investment services to suvs to cell
phones, and speedy montages of seemingly random images from past award
shows and from the movies in competition were all hurled at us, and the
audio and the visuals overran our house and overwhelmed our senses. My
daughter, visibly exhausted, stretched out on the couch and asked me to
turn it off.

What a sensible child. In the ensuing peaceful silence, I reflected
on what had just happened to us, from this brief incursion into our
lives of the television. And I thought about all the millions of
households across our country for whom this was a normal occurrence.

We watch movies on DVD in our house; we’re not antimovie, antistory,
or antiwatching. But my experience the other day reaffirmed my decision
not to have television and reminded me why: Television is an assault.
The rapidity of its images, the pattern of constant story interruption,
and the championing of hideous messages aggrieve the senses and the
soul. Within just a few moments of television exposure, we cannot
think, we cannot look away, and, worst of all, we cannot purge from our
minds the wheedling, persistent ideas that

1. we are not good enough as we are (we are too old, too fat, too messy, too unorganized, too uncool, too hairy, too unproductive);
2. the way to improve ourselves is through consumption of specifics foods and products;
3. girls are sexual objects and boys are purveyors of violence;
4. the world is an awful, dangerous, ultracompetitive place; and
5. the way we look is much more important than anything that might be going on in our heads or our hearts.

I happen to live in the real world. I know that it is important in
certain contexts to look good. I know as a business person that image
counts. I know about bloody rampages with guns and machetes, about war,
and famine, and child slavery. But television perpetuates a false,
extreme view of the world that promotes and fosters the fake reality
that it falsely claims to be merely portraying. It is not a simple
witness; it is an agent.

Watch a few minutes of television and you come away with the notion
that a murderer or a child molester is lurking outside your door, that
your bank account is being emptied out as you sit there, that you must
purchase a particular fragrance or a specific computer in order to
improve your circumstances, that you need to tune in again tomorrow to
find out what you need to think and do and wear. And these ideas will
make you behave differently, vote differently, live differently. The
television will make you worry about the safety of your daughter even
as it propels her to sexualize her behavior and her clothing. It will
make you fret about your son’s behavior even as it pushes him to behave
more aggressively and thoughtlessly.

During our few moments of TV, I found myself studying Oscar,
muscular and somehow masculine but still sexless, his features mere
creases and suggestions. He seemed like how you would become if you
were locked in a television for generations. Maybe your senses and even
your gender would somehow devolve as a means of self-protection, as a
way to shut down the assault. But you’d still hang on to the sword as a
way to ward off the threats and the fear.

I’ve got an idea. Think of me as an ad, sandwiched in between two
segments of a reality show. Here’s my pitch: If after watching
television for years and years or even for just a night, you feel that
nagging concern that something isn’t right, you need to be afraid, or
you need to improve yourself, here’s what you do: Turn off the
television, cancel the cable bill, pull down the satellite dish. I
guarantee that in a week you’ll be feeling a whole lot better.

Image by Alan Light, 9/28/06, Creative Commons license

©2008 ProgressiveKid