TV Is Getting On My Nerves!

Sometimes, I like to lounge in my sofa and take in some good TV -- like Prison Break, Heroes (my current favourite), Ugly Betty, Desperate Housewives and nearly all the late night comedies -- when I have the time. I just let the mindlessness wash over me, while I engage in nothingness! It is quite relaxing, and I always end up similing to myself at the silliness on TV, so successful at grabbing the interests of the lowest common denominator!


Of late, though, TV hasn't been making me smile. Instead, I get incensed watching it! Some of their character portrayals and themes actually make me mad!


I mean, look at all that is played out on TV and you will realise that no TV programme makes a claim to the moral high ground. The story line, the themes, the characterization all glamourize the weaker aspects of being human. You know, it is human to cheat, steal, enjoy sex with umpteen partners, back-bite, stab and get even, get ahead at all costs, do drugs, fumble and stumble and all this is quite all right because you are just being human! And, it's funny, too! So, celebrate it! Don't be ashamed of it!


Fine, I agree, be human. But, must we sink into this moral-less state and give no thought of rising above it? After we sink -- as is human -- can't we not find some inner glow of hope to rise up and get the better of ourselves? Isn't that what humanity is all about? Choosing to grow and becoming better than what our circumstances would have us become?


But, not on TV. On TV, everyone breaks all the laws and gets away with it! The only laws where you don't get off scot free are the civil laws. But, when it comes to moral laws ... there's no such thing! Look at all the abusive parents, cheating spouses, philandering singles, horny seniors, vicious teenagers, thieving businessmen, suspect clergymen, scheming women and violent men. Do you recognize any of these people as "human"?


I really don't see anything human on TV anymore! I only see a great thrust to identify with the baser, weaker self. And, what is worst, is that they show it all off shamelessly as if it were the only naturally human thing to do.

Take Ugly Betty, for instance. In the last episode (which I watched because I was laid out on my back and had nothing else to do!), Betty attends a teenage dance night at her old high school, meets an admirer, and they both have a "fun" evening. " What was the "fun" here? He picks the lock of a glass case filled with trophies which included one which Betty had won as the Best Citizen in her year. She wanted to hold the trophy and he makes it happen for her. How? By breaking the law. Picking locks is not a serious crime in this case, but, it is nevertheless an offence. They get caught but get off without penalty.

And, what does Betty say at the end of it, even though she got caught? "It was fun!"

Great! Fun it was but is fun only fun when it is criminal or immoral? Somehow that is the implicit message in TV's screen themes. And, if we are not awakened to it, we will never be discerning enough to realise that TV is hoodwinking us into believing that identifying with our lesser nature is being truly human.

It is a similar theme in Desperate Housewives. These schemeing, manipulative women do everything their better selves should tell them not to do, but they don't seem to have that inner voice. They cheat, lie, scheme, bitch and make up after all that. Their justification? When women are desperate they do desperate things. And that is only human -- so, it seems that is what TV is preaching.

Is it human to sink into a compassless morass of morals but not human to rise above it by holding on to some rules of civil behaviour, and be a civilised person?

This is the recurrent sublimal message that TV is sending out to passive viewers day in and day out. Identifying with your lesser self is the human thing to do.

I don't know if people are aware of what they are exposing themselves to -- a daily diet of lower cheap thrills that completely obliterates the hope that we have it in ourselves to rise above our lesser selves and be better human beings.

But, you don't see that on TV. All you see is a glamourous descent into indecency passing off as simply being human. There is little, if any, saving grace in portraying the struggle people go through to rise above their circumstances. On most TV programmes, especially the ones coming from developed nations, the theme is constantly the everyday, rotten things people do because they are human.

The rest of the world is expected to accept it.

We, of course, can't change this. But we can wise up to it. We can understand this is what TV is communicating to us. And we can decide to choose to go along with it and, maybe, do the same or choose to see it for what it is and don't do the same. We can shoose NOT to follow TV values.

We can't live with eyes closed, shutting out influences that keep bombarding us. But, we can understand what is going on and choose not to follow.