Money magazine recently had a small blurb about how television viewing is up in this crappy economy because it is an inexpensive form of entertainment. However, it turns out that it's not so cheap in the long run, because with each hour of television we absorb, there is an increase in the desire to consume non-essentials which results in increased spending. For far too many Americans, an increase in spending means an increase in debt.
This time, we can't blame the advertisers. It's the shows we watch and their unrealistic representations of everyday life that have us clamoring for more debt. I don't have cable and I don't watch all that much television. I'm a PBS dork, to be honest. But I have found myself railing at the television more than once over ridiculous representations of middle and lower-class life. Remember the Roseanne show? It depicted the life of a middle-class family. Ultimately, the show characterized the demise of the middle class with the death of unions, as Roseanne lost her job as a factory worker. I loved the show because it was so (painfully, at times) realistic. It showed a messy house, parents who made stupid choices with their money, and a family living essentially paycheck to paycheck. Hello, most of America.
Today's version of the middle-class family with a parent who works in a factory can be seen in the George Lopez Show. Although I love George Lopez's comedy, the show is an absolute farce. The house showcases outrageously expensive art and furnishings. The set for this show is actually more elaborate than even the Cosby Show, which showcased an upper middle-class family.
I'm not even touching the surface of unrealistic representations out there. Sex and the City (which always excused its ridiculous excess by saying it intended to play into fantasy), Desperate Housewives, Friends, on and on. You would think that people would see these representations as the farce they are. However, research has shown that as a culture, we have developed an odd relationship with our televisions. We have allowed TV to determine our concepts of reality more than our daily experience. How disturbing is that?
For instance, you may have a husband who absolutely adores you, a general sense of joy and a great job, but the idiot box is constantly telling you that your thighs are too fat for your happiness, health or career. Turns out, we are more inclined to believe the TV than our own experience. So, we jump on a new diet bandwagon for fear that no one will love us, we'll lose our jobs and will be miserable forever, despite the fact that there is no basis in our daily reality for such fear. Kinda insane, eh?
There are dozens of books tackling the topic of television: Endangered Minds: Why Children Don't Think And What We Can Do About It; The Plug-In Drug: Television, Computers, and Family Life; and Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television are only a handful of the examples of critical analysis of the impact of television.
But in the end, it's up to us to pay attention. What is determining your concept of "normal?" What determines the quality of your life? Why do you want the things you want? How much of your identity is comprised of genuine versus cultivated desire? I will often stop and ask myself why I feel that I want and/or need a particular item. Despite the fact that I don't watch much television, I find that 9 out of 10 times, I want a particular item or way of being or whatever because some random stranger is trying to make a buck off me. It's infuriating. I wonder how folks fair whose primary source of entertainment is the idiot box? If the research I've read is correct, not too well. I worry about us as a culture when the Joneses that we try to keep up with aren't even real.
