Post
by Zlatko Waterman » June 14th, 2006, 5:29 pm
Dear All:
In the interest of fairness, I post the essay below. Paul Levinson is Professor of Mass Communications at Fordham University in New York. He has published scholarly books as well as five science-fiction novels-- the sf with some of the top publishers in that genre and the scholarly books likewise. He is also a "MySpace" friend of mine and we e-mail back and forth fairly often. Those of you who have visited my MySpace site know I have even done a painting for the cover of one of his books. I posted that image here, also, I think.
At any rate, here's Paul's view on the subject of the worth of television.
It's a point of view I don't agree with, as you probably suspected.
( paste of essay below)
ONLY IDIOTS DON'T WATCH TV
by Paul Levinson
Sunday, June 11, 2006
It used to be called the "idiot box" -- and still is. Critics have been muttering for years that we're a nation of "vidiots," that television's been rotting our brains. But who are the idiots now? People who saw Rome on HBO this Fall? The opening credits alone were a masterpiece of music and animation. Or perhaps the video dopes are those who have been watching the next-to-concluding season of The Sopranos, or watched the past three seasons of The Wire, or I forget how many seasons of Curb Your Enthusiasm, or Da Ali G Show -- many award-winning, all also on HBO. Who are the nitwits now? People who saw or missed those shows?
It's not all cable -- the networks have been enjoying a golden age, too. Lost on ABC and 24 on Fox are two prime examples. And in all cases, the availability of these series on DVD, which allows the viewer to see multiple episodes of a series without commercial interruption, is fueling the new excellence of television.
But it's not entirely new, either. There have been great programs throughout TV's history, ranging from Have Gun, Will Travel to Star Trek to All in the Family to Hill Street Blues to ER, to name just a representative sampling.
What's different now, though, are the wings of new media -- which, rather than flying away from television, are lifting it to new heights. Not only cable and DVDs, but IPODs which offer downloadable episodes are making television easier to watch and better. Why better? Because when people were obligated to watch television on inflexible schedules dictated by the networks, many shows were pitched to the lowest common denominator. The cardinal rule of that first, now bygone, age of television was "thou shalt not offend or confuse." But when people can see television on their own schedules -- whether via on-demand cable, or DVD, or TiVo, or IPODs -- television can take chances. It can cater to more than individual tastes. Like books and movies, TV can take risks to achieve greatness. For my money, The Sopranos has been every bit as troublingly splendid as The Godfather saga.
Back in the 1960s, Marshall McLuhan applied the term "rear-view mirror" to help explain our perception of new media . He meant that we see new technology through lenses ground in the past. The automobile was first called "the horseless carriage" and radio "the wireless" before they broke free of their pasts, attained names in their own right, and claimed their destiny.
How many people who still think TV is only for idiots are looking at it through a rear-view mirror, looking at it backward, focused on network domination which is no longer the case? Maybe TV needs a new name.
But by television or any other name, the much-maligned tube is finally achieving its potential not only to entertain - but inspire.
It used to be thought that watching television distracted us from more noble intellectual pursuits like reading. But, to the contrary, it seems that an intellect charged by any medium is all the more hungry for new adventures of the mind. Literacy is on the rise. Harry Potter and The Da Vinci Code are happening in an age of television. Its rising tide will likely be lifting many more boats to come.
