Mass Media is Making Mountains out of Molehills
Its been festering in my mind for some time this little spark of a notion about what society is being fed by the mass media. Only now do I feel I have a proper "shoot from the hip" grasp of the situation necessary to get good and worked up about it on this blog.
The News: Bouillon Cubes of bad news.
Quick! We're a major network and we only have one hour to tell our viewers everything that is going wrong with the world. It really gives one a bleak view of mankind. We begin with natural disaster, move on to major criminal acts, now to entertainment where the following stars are in trouble with the law. I can't tell you the name of Michael Jackson's last album, but I know he's in court. I can't tell you what team Kobe Bryant plays on, but I can tell you he has been in trouble with the law. The tsunami is going to cause a sharp rise in the cost of sumatrian coffee *gasp*. Churches were burned, people were murdered, politicians are charged in scandel, our president has another hair brained idea. And yes, this is not an absolute. If there isn't enough bad news in the world for a strong one hour broadcast, we can give a minute or two to interview the woman with cancer who lost everything in a mudslide but battles on to save stranded puppies. Its called "filler" and it has its place. Good news is generally relageted to the 5am broadcast of the local news, or nationally on shows like Sunday Morning (I am a huge fan), Good Morning America, and Regis.
Action Adventure Films: Blood and Escapism
The easiest, most cleche, safest action of an action film is the slide over the hood of a car to get to the other side quickly. Have you ever tried this? Probably not with your own car if you did. Its murder on the paint job. Plus fairly difficult for a number of reasons. Why aren't movie hero's all def? They shoot guns more than combat soldiers in Iraq, and can still have a conversation at 100 miles per hour in a convertible. They get beat up and the most they have is a bruise. The only time someone dies from getting hit in the face is in shows like CSI where you have to have a dead body or there is no story. Or the local news where it seems to happen an awful lot. There are people who say that these movies are making people more violent. They may have a point. According to action shows/movies gunfights happen all the time in an explosion of broken glass and the best cops disreguard their chief's orders, bust the case wide open, kill the bad guy, and still have a job the next day.
Comedies: This never really happens
Comedies show us all the time very matter of factly stuff that you just wouldn't do. Watch any comedy anytime anywhere. Take a situation where someone says or does something absolutely hysterical. Try it in the office... The only one laughing is going to be you. Everyone else is going to be standing there with their mouths agape saying "How could you say that?" "What could have possessed you to do that?" "Why are you such an asshole all the sudden?" "That was the harshish, most thoughtless act I have ever seen." Sometimes even I get angry with sitcoms and find myself shouting at the screen, "What are you doing? That's the dumbest thing ever." Sara just patiently tries to calm me down and remind me that if they didn't do or say something so rediculous or dumb there would be no story. Fraiser Crane makes me want to pull my own hair out by its roots, and I'm still the guy who has the reputation for being the asshole to my friends.
Sex and stuff: Style is an illusion, fads doubly so.
Every wonder why teenage girls today are dressing like street walkers? (No offence to the ladies of the evening who work hard for the money.) Do some channel surfing. Why do young girls want Bratz dolls? What is their favorite star staring in? Why do we seem to have more sex offenders in the news these days? Pick up your TV guide. Most American comedies start with teenagers or those in their early 20's made to look like they are in their teens. Make them sexy, if they have no boobs, put them in something skimpy enough that it looks like they do, now shorten that hemline and show us some midrif. Who is watching the prime time comedies? The demographic the networks are shooting for the most is the less than 35 crowd. Some networks shoot lower. "Next on EasyView, beautiful young people doing and saying things that no one really does or says in real life while wearing really expensive and trendy clothing that shows off a good deal of skin we've spent a fortune on to look perfect and glowing." And I can't tell you how many times I have fallen into the trap of saying, "Wow, she's really sexy", only to have Sara turn to me with a bemused expression and say, "She's only fifteen you perve!" Ok, if she's only 15 why is she wearing that outfit, doing that with that guy after leaving that night club the scene before? Why am I sitting here being put into a position where I am being enticed to view a fifteen year old as a sex object? Are they running out of sex offenders on the six O'clock news that they have to go out and make more?
Mass Media is a Deviant Factory: If the average TV viewer sits in front of the TV or goes to the movies and is fed nothing but extraordinary, improbable, and atypical images doesn't it follow that what the average viewer thinks of as average behavior going to be modified? As a child I watched The Three Stooges with rapped wild eyed amazement. To this day my mother is afraid that I am going to start a pie fight. Fortunately she stops me when ever she sees me eyeing the pie table with that gleam in my eyes. My mother also lives in fear of seeing me on the six O'clock news. Meanwhile, Sara can not always be there to stop me when I get that gleam in my eyes as I am prepairing to click the "post" button.
