Why I Like TV
Jun. 17th, 2007 04:10 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jhameiaSo recently I've been watching a lot of TV. Especially Star Trek. I'm not really a Trekkie, but that's how it goes. For a while, it was a daisy chain of a lot of science fiction shows:
3pm: Star Trek: Original Series
4pm: Star Trek: The Next Generation
5pm: (I usually switch over to Disney/Family channel for the Proud Family
6pm: Star Trek: Enterprise
7pm: Star Trek: Voyager
8pm: (This used to be Andromeda, now it's Relic Hunter so I switch over to Teletoon for some pretty cool cartoons)
9pm: Stargate SG-1 (lately I've been watching 6teen instead)
I do like science fiction because I like imagining what humans would be like in a different setting than ours. When we quit having hangups with each other, how do we deal with other species in the known universe? How do we deal with a foreign that's not just from the other side of a continent, or a border or a planet, from the other side of a galaxy?
Watching TV is usually a mindless activity on the part of so many people - which is a HUGE shame, considering the kinds of questions that the scenarios shown can raise. When a particular character behaves a certain way and faces certain troubles BECAUSE of their own actions, don't you want to question what they could have done to avoid their problems? Don't you feel "I would've done that differently" or "they should have done that" - even BEFORE the problem crops up?
It's incredible how our problems are portrayed on TV so exaggeratedly, and we're SEEING it.... we know the consequences of certain actions, but we are still none the wiser for it. It's confusing. We've seen that people are capable of more than what they think, but it's still okay to not work for what they want (and to talk incessantly about it) and assume that's their lot in life. On TV we see so many options and alternatives for living, and we don't think that WE can do that for ourselves.
Instead of learning lessons from the hardships of others, we glue ourselves to the TV and just watch as if we're objective observers, there to live the lives of others because we're too lazy to live our own, on our own terms. Instead we live by the terms of the artists and directors who portray "real life" as if it's the way to live, because we don't dare set the parameters on our own lives. We can know a TV character inside out, but would we dare look at ourselves with such scrutiny?
Among the cooler cartoons I've seen (and let's admit, some cartoons these days, while over-dramatic and ridiculously exaggerated, can be really fun, because they're just that ludicrous) is 6teen, which is kinda like Friends, but for a younger audience. It's like Friends in that there're several plots over-lapping each other, and each character has a specific kind of dynamic with any other given character. It's actually kind of mature for the type of audience they're looking at, which is really cool. Of course, there's some melodramtic childishness which you just KNOW could have been avoided if the character had any sense or, Heaven forbid, asked someone adult instead of trying to fix the problem with stupid solutions.
There are different ways of dealing with different things and experiences - some better than others (not necessarily right or wrong). Books and television shows which chronicle such experiences can teach us this. (I'm saying TV because this is the main medium of entertainment these days.) What I don't understand is.... how does it work that people can watch TV for hours on and end STILL BE SO DAMN STUPID? I know TV isn't exactly intellectually stimulating (some of it is downright insulting in how stupid it is).
Reality TV shows are usually no fun unless the end result is positive - so stuff on TLC like Take Home Chef and Miami Ink are incredibly fun. What Not To Wear personally horrifies me, because I can't believe how it's apparently necessary to humiliate people in front of national TV into changing their style. I mean, if everybody hates what you wear, you'd think SOMEONE would say it instead of shutting up. I enjoy the shopping and makeup tips, but I don't agree with the philosophy that a person HAS to spend time looking good all the time. (I wear makeup only once a month on average, assuming I have to reason to.) But I DO learn from the show, so when I do my shopping, I know what to buy for myself instead of constantly floundering around, because I KNOW what's out there now, and how to match things.
Science Fiction, the space exploration type with many aliens in particular, is supposed to ask questions of humanity as a whole, not just as several factioned groups, not just individuals, what their position in the universe will be when faced with an extremely different culture. It's supposed to be educational, on a subtle level - when we think education, sometimes we think "going to school" and "learning something" - but you don't need to be fed some facts to learn something: you just need to learn how to ask questions.
And that, I think is the failure of the masses who watch mainstream media.
3pm: Star Trek: Original Series
4pm: Star Trek: The Next Generation
5pm: (I usually switch over to Disney/Family channel for the Proud Family
6pm: Star Trek: Enterprise
7pm: Star Trek: Voyager
8pm: (This used to be Andromeda, now it's Relic Hunter so I switch over to Teletoon for some pretty cool cartoons)
9pm: Stargate SG-1 (lately I've been watching 6teen instead)
I do like science fiction because I like imagining what humans would be like in a different setting than ours. When we quit having hangups with each other, how do we deal with other species in the known universe? How do we deal with a foreign that's not just from the other side of a continent, or a border or a planet, from the other side of a galaxy?
Watching TV is usually a mindless activity on the part of so many people - which is a HUGE shame, considering the kinds of questions that the scenarios shown can raise. When a particular character behaves a certain way and faces certain troubles BECAUSE of their own actions, don't you want to question what they could have done to avoid their problems? Don't you feel "I would've done that differently" or "they should have done that" - even BEFORE the problem crops up?
It's incredible how our problems are portrayed on TV so exaggeratedly, and we're SEEING it.... we know the consequences of certain actions, but we are still none the wiser for it. It's confusing. We've seen that people are capable of more than what they think, but it's still okay to not work for what they want (and to talk incessantly about it) and assume that's their lot in life. On TV we see so many options and alternatives for living, and we don't think that WE can do that for ourselves.
Instead of learning lessons from the hardships of others, we glue ourselves to the TV and just watch as if we're objective observers, there to live the lives of others because we're too lazy to live our own, on our own terms. Instead we live by the terms of the artists and directors who portray "real life" as if it's the way to live, because we don't dare set the parameters on our own lives. We can know a TV character inside out, but would we dare look at ourselves with such scrutiny?
Among the cooler cartoons I've seen (and let's admit, some cartoons these days, while over-dramatic and ridiculously exaggerated, can be really fun, because they're just that ludicrous) is 6teen, which is kinda like Friends, but for a younger audience. It's like Friends in that there're several plots over-lapping each other, and each character has a specific kind of dynamic with any other given character. It's actually kind of mature for the type of audience they're looking at, which is really cool. Of course, there's some melodramtic childishness which you just KNOW could have been avoided if the character had any sense or, Heaven forbid, asked someone adult instead of trying to fix the problem with stupid solutions.
There are different ways of dealing with different things and experiences - some better than others (not necessarily right or wrong). Books and television shows which chronicle such experiences can teach us this. (I'm saying TV because this is the main medium of entertainment these days.) What I don't understand is.... how does it work that people can watch TV for hours on and end STILL BE SO DAMN STUPID? I know TV isn't exactly intellectually stimulating (some of it is downright insulting in how stupid it is).
Reality TV shows are usually no fun unless the end result is positive - so stuff on TLC like Take Home Chef and Miami Ink are incredibly fun. What Not To Wear personally horrifies me, because I can't believe how it's apparently necessary to humiliate people in front of national TV into changing their style. I mean, if everybody hates what you wear, you'd think SOMEONE would say it instead of shutting up. I enjoy the shopping and makeup tips, but I don't agree with the philosophy that a person HAS to spend time looking good all the time. (I wear makeup only once a month on average, assuming I have to reason to.) But I DO learn from the show, so when I do my shopping, I know what to buy for myself instead of constantly floundering around, because I KNOW what's out there now, and how to match things.
Science Fiction, the space exploration type with many aliens in particular, is supposed to ask questions of humanity as a whole, not just as several factioned groups, not just individuals, what their position in the universe will be when faced with an extremely different culture. It's supposed to be educational, on a subtle level - when we think education, sometimes we think "going to school" and "learning something" - but you don't need to be fed some facts to learn something: you just need to learn how to ask questions.
And that, I think is the failure of the masses who watch mainstream media.