The Instrument of Our Destruction

Jim Geraghty writing in his "Morning Jolt" email of 02 JAN, 2012:

During the winter break, my older son and I also went to see the 3-D release of Monsters Inc. -- he kind of liked it; I kept waiting for the little eyeball monster to start reciting dialogue from When Harry Met Sally. But as much as Pixar deserves all of the accolades heaped upon its works, there's still this constant frenetic mania to their films -- screaming! And chases! And crashes! And things flying everywhere! And the drum-heavy soundtrack POUNDING LIKE THIS! I feel like I can hear the screenwriter and director panicking, "QUICK, THE KIDS MIGHT GET BORED! MAKE SOMETHING HAPPEN!"

I can't help but get the feeling that a lot of our modern children's entertainment underestimates their audiences -- that it's created with this almost palpable near-panic that if the screen isn't filled with colorful motion every single second, the audience will change the channel or fidget in their seats or lose interest. Is it that we're a more ADD-addled society? Or is it that audiences -- in the case of children's entertainment, the freshest of eyes and ears and minds, with no preconceived notions -- get conditioned to expect this?

Our own Davis has touched upon this subject several times: the "saturation" quality of modern screen entertainment and the almost desperate, Jerry Lewis-like stupidity of it all. While it can be partly blamed on the market-driven dumbing-down process necessary to appeal to the widest possible audience, Geraghty brings up an interesting and disturbing point which has been tapping at the back door of my mind for several years now: the conditioning aspect.

I have in the past been something of a documentary addict, especially historical and military documentaries. Some examples of series I truly enjoyed were "Wings of the Red Star," wonderfully narrated by the inimitable Sir Peter Ustinov, and the "Secrets of War" series narrated by Charleton Heston. Both of these series were from the 90s, and both were highly informative, like a lecture series presented by a talented and entertaining history professor. Of late, however, I have found that I can't get more than ten minutes into a modern documentary on such subjects before turning it off in disgust. There are two reasons for this, I think.

First, the material has in many cases been simplified to the point that it is not only uninformative, it's actually confusing. For example, one show I tried to watch on air warfare kept mixing imperial units with metric. They would give you the aircraft's weight in pounds, its top speed in kilometers per hour, wingspan in meters, and stall speed in knots. This, to put it mildly, is distracting. Not so mildly, it's insulting. You can almost hear the producers screaming "YOU NEED TO LEARN THE METRIC SYSTEM. YOU ARE A STUPID AMERICAN. YOU ARE NOT PART OF THE NEW WORLD ORDER." *click*

Second, and far more irritating, are these modern narrators. I've run across a couple who are tolerable, but most of them insist on narrating a serious, adult documentary as if they are reading a fairy tale to a six year-old girl. Their tonality is wrong for the subject matter, their inflections and emphasis demonstrate a complete lack of understanding of the material, and they are so BUBBLY and HAPPY and UPBEAT as they describe the horror of the gulags or the tragedy of the Malmedy Massacre. *click*

The upshot is that I have almost ceased watching any television whatsoever. For the last year, I can measure my television-watching time in minutes per week, and much of that was streaming from Netflix. I anticipate that number will decline even further in 2013. The current content of television, even supposedly informative television, is so mind-numbingly insulting to a person of above-average intelligence, I can honestly say that my time would be better spent doing nothing.

Once again, I would like to state that I realize I'm getting old and set in my ways. But that's not what this is about. It's about what Geraghty hints at: conditioning. Far too many people in this country spend far, far too much time watching that one-eyed monster.

Edward R. Murrow had this to say about the television in 1958:

This instrument can teach, it can illuminate; yes, and it can even inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends. Otherwise it is merely wires and lights in a box. There is a great and perhaps decisive battle to be fought against ignorance, intolerance and indifference. This weapon of television could be useful.

Stonewall Jackson, who knew something about the use of weapons, is reported to have said, "When war comes, you must draw the sword and throw away the scabbard." The trouble with television is that it is rusting in the scabbard during a battle for survival.

That sword, however, cuts both ways. In modern America, one edge consists of the likes of PBS, CNN, and MSNBC. The other, Dancing With The Stars, Survivor, and any of several hundred different cop shows, all of which rehash exactly the same three plot lines ad nauseum. Even professional sports has become politicized and rigged, fair competition having been replaced by the whims of big money and emotional whimsey, (don't get me started). Given those choices, I'd rather the sword remain rusted into the scabbard. But I fear that I am a member of a vanishingly small minority in that respect.

I think it ironically appropriate to wrap up this little screed with a quote from a movie -- specifically, Senator Gracchus in the film Gladiator:

“I think he knows what Rome is. Rome is the mob, conjure magic for them and they will be distracted. Take away their freedom and still they’ll roar."

The magic, the bread and the circuses... we have them all. The ignorant mob is firmly entrenched in political life via our ill-advised decision to grant universal suffrage. They grow fat on borrowed bread and applaud the dancing midgets on the television, while those who built the Republic labor quietly in futile desperation to keep it afloat. The conditioning is complete: "Watch the pretty flashing lights; do not worry about complicated things like budgets. We'll take care of that for you. LOOK! DANCING MIDGETS!! Have some more bread."

The truth is that we merely await the Man on the White Horse, come to administer the coup de grace to the dying Republic. Perhaps he is already here.