Television: The Opposite of Art


© Chris Rothe

Of all the things you'd never expect to happen, television has appealed to an even lower common denominator than the greed inciting "Millionaire" show and it's spin-offs. Yes, there is a new form of television medium to start your jowls-a-salivating. The so called 'reality TV" The first form of which was the wonderfully pointless 'Survivor" in which a group of 16 people were pitted against each other in pointless far from reality competitions to discover which was one of then deserved the coveted Million Dollar Prize. That even sounds like a convoluted attempt at a "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" spin-off. If that wasn't enough to get the intelligent viewer angry, the spin-offs from this show are even worse. "Big Brother", the show where 16 people live together in a house. Not a house! Whatever will they do? They also vote against each other for some prize, though I haven't even watched the show long enough to find out what this prize is. My point is, how stupid does society have to get before they realize what tripe television is cramming down their throats? Where is the visually pleasing, intelligently written programming I'm sure most of us are pining for? I'll tell you where, on one or two under funded rarely watched channels. There is no art in television anymore. Sex sells. People realize this and so, sex is everywhere. People stay up till all hours of the night trying to satisfy their perversity on the cable programs. These shows aren't even entertaining. Sex and anger. For some reason, there are channels devoted to these types of programming and they consider it artistic. I say, where are all of the real reality based programs? As most of us have probably figured out, television is a utensil. It is used to keep us sane; to entertain us in this workaday world we're forced to exist in. It is a mental massage after a hard day's work, or a way to relax and pass the time. It is not necessary to be artistic in a guaranteed marked such as television. People really will watch whatever's on. Well, most of them anyway. This is why this so-called reality television is so big. It's showing people in situations that are a little worse off than people have it now. It shows people in pain and people that are angry and helps to appeal to those people that need to feed off of the pain and emotions of others in order to realize they can wake up and carry on tomorrow. Hey, if someone's got it worse than me, I'm not that bad off, right?

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Here's the follow-up discussion on this article: View all related messages

7.   Sep 28, 2000 7:06 AM
I appreciate what Jerri has to say and also know many people who use TV as a backdrop to avoid feeling alone or lonely in their home.

Personally I have very strong feelings about the animated/tele ...


-- posted by suzannemhill


6.   Sep 26, 2000 7:46 PM
If it were not for television, there would be a lot of lonely people in the world. It's great company for many, especially our older folks.

I agree with a lot of your points, but it all depends on ...


-- posted by jerrib


5.   Sep 6, 2000 10:45 PM
It's not that these shows aren't profitable, for what that's worth, they really are a poorly written cheap form of entertainment. They don't even try to cram in any of life's little lessons like they ...

-- posted by Codmo


4.   Sep 6, 2000 8:29 AM
What I am really seeing here is a rant against other people's tastes in entertainment. Reality shows, it is said, are too lowbrow, and not fit for human consumption. So what of all the viewers who a ...

-- posted by Andulamb


3.   Sep 5, 2000 1:19 AM
regardless of any 'unintetional' means of programming, i.e. what you describe as the phsycological aspects, these shows are still simply made for people who are easily entertained and these people are ...

-- posted by Codmo





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