Amusing ourselves to Death: The Age Of Show Business

In watching American Television, One is reminded of George Bernard Shaw's Remarks on his first seeing the glittering neon signs of Broadway and 42nd street at night. It must be beautiful, he said, if you cannot read. American television is indeed a beautiful spectacle, a visual delight, pouring forth thousands of images on any given day. The average length of a shot on network television is only 3.5 seconds, so that the eye never rests, always has something new to see. Moreover, television offers viewers a variety of subject matter, requires minimal skills to comprehend it, and is largely aimed at emotional gratification. Even commercials, which some regard as an annoyance, are exquisitely crafted, always pleasing to the eye and accompanied by exquisitely crafted, always pleasing to the eye and accompanied by exciting music. There is no question but that the best photography in the world is presently seen on television commercials. American television, in other words, is devoted entirely to supplying its audience with entertainment PG 87 The Problem is not that Television presents with entertaining subject matter but that all subject matter is presented as entertaining, which is another issue altogether. �.. No matter what is depicted or from what point of view, the overarching presumption is that it is therefore our amusement and pleasure. That is why even on news shows which provide us daily with fragments of tragedy and barbarism, we are tragedy and barbarism, we are urged by the newscasters to "join them tomorrow." What for" One would think that several minutes of murder and mayhem would suffice as material for a month of sleepless nights. We accept the newscasters' invitation because we know that the "news" is not to be taken seriously, that it is all in fun, so to say. Everything about a news show tell us this - the good looks and amiability of the cast, their pleasant banter the exciting music that opens and closes the show, the vivid film footage, the attractive commercials - all these and more suggest that what we have just seen is no cause weeping a news show, to put it plainly, is a format for entertainment, not for education, reflection or catharsis. Pg 87-88 Now ...This.... All that has happened is that the public has adjusted to incoherence and been amused into indifference. Which is why Aldous Huxley would not in the least be surprised� Indeed he prophesied its coming. He believed that it is far more likely that the Western democracies will dance and dream themselves into oblivion than march into it, single filae and manacled. Huxley grasped, as Orwell did not, that it is not necessary to conceal anything from a public insensible to contradiction and narcoticized by technological diversions. Although Huxley did not specify that television would be our main line to the drug, he would have no difficulty accepting Robert MacNeils's observation that "television is the soma of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World." Big Brother turns out to be Howdy Doody. PG 110-111 Shuffle off to Bethlehem(religion on the TV) The first is that on television, religion, like everything else, is presented, quite simply and without apology, as an entertainment. everything that makes religion an historic, profound and sacred human activity is stripped away; there is no ritual, no dogma, no tradition, no theologye, and above all no sense of spirityal transence. On These shows, the preacher is tops. God comes out as second bababa. Pg 116-117 ... Most american, including preacheres have difficulty accepting the truth, if they think about it at all, that not all forms of discourse can be converted from one medium to another. It is naive to suppose that something that has been expressed in one form can be expressed in another without significantly changing its meaning, tecture or value. Much prose translates fairly well from one language to another, bu twe know that poetry does not; we may get a rough idea of the sense of a translated poem but usually everything else is lost , especially that whyich makes an object of beauty. The Translation makes it into something it was not. pg 117 For the most part preachers have not seriously addressed this matter they have assumet that wahat had formerly been done in a church or a tent, and face-to-face, can bedone on television without loss of meaning, without changing the quality of the religious experience. Perhaps their failure to address the translation issue has it origin in the hubris engendered by the dazzling number of people to whom televison gives them access..pg118 I think it is fair to say that attractin an audience is the main goal of these programs, just as it is for ' the A-team" and Dallas." As a consequence, what is preached on televeision not anything like the sermon on the mount. Religous programs are filled with good cheer. They celebrate affluence. their featured players become celebrities though their messages are trivial, the shhows have hight ratings, or rather because their messages are trivial, the shows have hight ratings I believe I am not mistatken in saying that Christianity is a demaninding and serous religion. when it is delviere as easy and amusing, it is another kind of religion altogether. pg121 It is well understood at the national council[ of Churches, if they have figured it out it must be real] the athe danger is not that religion has become the content of television shows but that televison shows may[have] become the content of religion. pg124 Reach Out and Elect Someone Television does not ban books, it simply displaces them. Hw delighted would be all the kings, czars and f�hrers of the past(and commissars of the present) to know that censhorshi is not a necessity when all political discourse take the form of a jest. pg 141 Teaching as an Amusing Activity We now know that "Sesame Street" encourages children to love school only if school is like "Sesame Street." Which is to say, we now know that "Sesame Street" undermines what the traditional idea of schooling represents. Whereas a classroom is a place of socail interatction, the space in front of a televeision set is a priveate preserve. pg 143 As a television show, and a ood one, "sesame Street' does not encourage children to love school or anything about school. It encourages them to love television. pg 144 The Huxley Warning We would be better off if television got worse, not better. "The A-team" and "Cheers" are no threat to our public health. "60 Minutes," "Eye-Witness News" and "Sesame Street" are. pg 160 ...in the end, he was trying to tell us that what afflicted the people in Brave New World was not that they wer laughting instead of thinking, but that they did not know what they were laughing about and why they had stopped thinking. Amusing ourselves to Death Public Discourse in the age of Show business Neil Postman Penguin, 1985