TV at Its Finest

The television. The hours we spend watching other people's lives in that little animated box is amazing isn't it? Studies show that last year the average American spent 153 hours watching the tube each month. After watching the 1970's film, Network, my reaction towards television still stands as is. And that is, too much T.V. makes me feel like a loser. Plain and simple. If I sit and watch the tube for more than a half hour at a time I feel like somehow that little box sucked out part of my brain and I won't ever get it back. I used to be an avid television watcher who had to watch shows on such and such night of the week. But then I began to realize how much I wasn't learning from any of it. Zip, zero, none. If anything, after watching a reality T.V. show, I learn that people out there have a lot more problems than I would ever want to be involved with. And for the most part I learned after watching Greys Anatomy that doctors have affairs and have some unsolvable issues that can never be dealt with.

The sad truth to television though, as was pointed out in the film, is that T.V. networks will do whatever it takes to make a hit on television. These days that just happens to be shows that involve a bunch of people living together for a summer and dressing trashy every weekend to then go get drunk and hopefully get some action. In the process we get to see people punch, spit and kick each other in drunken rage and then go make out in hot tubs. Oh the life, right? Well have you ever wondered what happens to these people after the season is over? I do. Can you imagine a girl from Bad Girls Club going in for a job interview after that? Good luck with that one honey. The thing is, those networks don't care what happens to them as long as they are getting good ratings.

So why do we like to watch stuff like this? Well for one, I think we can't figure out how to humor ourselves anymore. If we aren't sitting in front of a television that has to be our imagination for us, we tab ourselves as bored. For two, we like to make ourselves feel better by watching other people's problems. One thing that really became evident to me while watching this film was that things really don't change a whole lot over time. Sure, we upgrade, but the world around us will always seem bad. The only difference way back when was that they wouldn't reveal any of the so called real world on television so we had shows like "Leave it to Beaver", and I Love Lucy" along with good ol' Archie Bunker. It's not like life back then was hunky dory but television wanted us to think so. Now networks have run out of ideas to entertain us because once they started throwing the "real world" stuff on T.V., Americans just craved more.

So here we are with highly educated half hour shows informing us of the things that are going on out there. You know the shows where people eat bugs and marry strangers for money. They are great, aren't they? I feel so much better about myself after watching things like that. If you can't sense my sarcasm I will tell it to you straight up, I think television programs are going down the pooper. I like to turn it on to watch sports once in a while, or maybe America's Funniest Home videos or "Who's Line" to get a good laugh. Sometimes American Idol because I love music. But other than that, I try not to pick up the remote too much in fear that someday my brain will be gone forever. I would like to think that I have my own imagination, which is in fact why I'm so darn funny.

Anyway, I think television controls us a lot more than we think, which is why I try not to plop myself on the couch too often. I like having control and the thought of someone else controlling how I think because I'm too lame to come up with something else to do, well like I said, it makes me feel like a loser. On the other hand, this may be contradicting somewhat, but I love to go to movies. That's a topic for a whole other blog though.