Perhaps I’ll watch that show. After the city has turned its lights off and the pre-midnight rainbow has become a sea of flashing yellow down State street, I’ll huddle quietly and try to dissolve the mystery surrounding musical and television pop culture. Reality TV? Maybe, but you know it can only be real when people don’t know they’re being filmed, and some of these people are really, very obviously, aware of the cameras. I’ll watch it though not on TV and I won’t vote, but part of me is curious about this pervasive pop phenomenon. It’s interesting, but I can’t get past a skeptical detachment (nor do I want to). Some people spend more time communicating with this show, about this show, than they do with their children, their spouses, their books or their dreams.
Once, when we were all in black and white, television seemed so wholesome. It was a reasonable extension from the family sitting around the radio, listening to the Little Orphan Annie show, news radio, or dramatic productions of great (by “great” I mean pulp) mystery stories. Then we had Bewitched, Leave it to Beaver, I Dream of Jeanie, etc etc. The shows were limited and wholesome, the time spent in front of the television set was balanced by time reading, talking about the news, playing chess, checkers, cribbage, bridge, being a family.
[long rant deleted]
Now, huddled in the blackness as my screen flashes lightning and laugh tracks guide me, sometimes I shiver quietly, and wonder how television could have been so subtle in devouring my integrity.