As a child of the latter half of the 20th century
I, like most of my generation(s), were raised in front of the TV. Television. The
Boob Tube. The Idiot Box. Since it’s invention, parents have warned their
children that too much exposure to this technological invention will destroy
one’s brain. And too be fair, some of that was true. Certainly much of the
content on TV has done nothing to expand the minds of its viewer. But over the
past decade or so, the quality of television programming has expanded to a new
level of quality. While at the same time some other media has started to
devolve and become the brain rotting quality that TV was always accused of
being.
Now I’m not delusional, there is still a lot of crap on TV.
For Odin’s sake we live in a world where Duck Dynasty is one of the highest
rated shows on cable and people get their information from Fox “News” (cannot
and will not refer to that channel as a legitimate news source). But while a
small minority of viewers enjoy trash, the vast majority of us are enjoying
honest to goodness treasure. Paid subscription cable channels and digital
delivery systems are allowing truly amazing programming to bypass the
traditional survival of the fittest ratings system and show us true art.
If you watch the Emmy Awards the past several years, the
major networks are getting fewer and fewer nominations. The big award winners
are channels like HBO, AMC, A&E, etc. all channels on pay cable. As an art
form, TV is far outpacing film, which was once the bastion of artistic story
tellers. The market was saturated with independent filmmakers, making risky and
unique films with complete unknowns. Now Hollywood churns out formulaic stories
casting only a handful of stars. TV is where the risks are being taken. With
direct to market distribution methods, even the riskiest of TV endeavors can
find some kind of audience. Movies on the other hand need to make all their
money back within the first weekend.
But film is the not the only medium to see a decline as the
quality of television has improved. Books are now no longer something where a
person gets improved and enlightened. The old adage of “Go read a book” does
nothing when you see the quality of most books be churned out by publishers.
Nearly every reality TV star or scandal ridden ideologue has a book deal. When
a sleaze peddler like Rush Limbaugh can put out a children’s book, seeking to
corrupt an entirely new generation, can any one really claim that books are any
better than Television? His poisonous vile radio show has me envy the deaf.
And similar to films, books are also falling into the
formulaic pattern. With the hits of series like Twilight, Harry Potter, and The
Hunger Games, there have been slews of imitators. Practically a cut and paste
job has taken over the art of writing, replacing one supernatural protagonist
with another and changing the dystopia future world the characters live from
one allegory for the United States to another. All in an attempt to grab the
disposable income of young adults looking to find an idolized versions of
themselves in the pages of a different hundred pages they can download to their
tablets.
In the age of binge watching, television writers are
realizing that their shows are being enjoyed in different ways than the weekly
viewership of traditional shows of the past. Despite the different delivery
methods available to books and movies, only TV has felt the need to change with
the delivery system. And perhaps this is because TV has always been a bit of a
neglected child of entertainment media. Despite the rare instances of book
burnings, or the occasionally boycotted film, TV is the one medium that has
been called derogatory names since its inception. And yet TV has been the only medium
that has truly tried to evolve and change. Books have been the same since the
Gutenberg printing press. Movies have developed better technology for its
production, but the basic movie going experience has not changed much.
One can only hope that this glorious renaissance of
television will spill out into film and literature and encourage all media to
reach new heights of greatness. However, having studied a bit the history of
media I can only assume that instead of TV raising the rest up, the rest will
simply drag TV down and this brief anomaly of greatness will end. For the sad
truth is that while art is meant to inspire the elite, the business of show is
to entertain the masses and appeal to the most common and basic sensibilities
of the great-unwashed masses among us. So in the end, yes, TV will not rot our
brains. We’re rotting its.
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