Studio8 - Uniting the Arts

Interesting article. You know I have never seen the Sopranos, .

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.

It blows my mind that there was no black and white television until color TV came on the scene. There is a word for phenomenoa like that, I can't think of it.

I think TV is very dangerous for children . If I had a small child I would hide it in a closet. I would tape shows I thought appropriate. I love Mr Rogers Neighborhood, I watch it sometimes whan I feel really lonely. I have seen some great kids shows, Water Planet is one my favorites too.

I am not a parent if I was I would look to the bright side of things because "children are hostage to the future " (JFK?) that we are devouring. I sometimes see the masses as a great plague of consumerism sucking every last resource out of the earth. It is not just here but China, India, and others. TV creates lots of demand. We suddenly realize we need a cell phone, four TV's, a new car, a dvd player, Tivo, on and on.

"old Firesign Theater records, a place where increased spending opportunities mean harder work for everyone—and more of it, too!—as long as we get in step with the voices of the feet already dead in the service of their country, so God bless "

http://www.villagevoice.com/specials/pa ... ffield.php

These are all personal choices. What's noteworthy about this group is that we are consciously making them, not simply cottoning to whatever is on or whatever everybody else does. I have these friends who seem to watch TV constantly when at home. Doesn't matter what's on: sports, the news, cooking shows, a movie, a jazz concert. It's always on and they are always in front of it. That's slightly scary to me. What's scarier is that they're both very bright people and could be doing so many more interesting things with their time -- IMHO.

movies that are based on true stories

Stilltrucking, I am still trying to make up my mind about what I think about movies that are based on true stories. Two immediately come to mind: An American Haunting, and Titanic.

I walked out of American Haunting with my panties in a wad because of the way it maligned a historical figure -- some living American family's ancestor. Then I got on a website and learned a bit about the actual events, and now I am impatiently waiting for the well-researched book on the subject by the webmaster of that site. WHERE IS IT??

I had a similar reaction to Titanic. I wanted to learn everything I could about the disaster and how it affected people. I just read this fantastic book about Margaret "Molly" Tobin Brown, visited her house on Pennsylvania Ave and her summer house on Wadsworth. I found out we've been fed a bunch of outrageous myths and out-and-out lies about this woman. She is not as described.

And in fact the real culprits in her mythologization are the musical about her, and also the Denver Post at the turn of the century. I have read a number of different sources now all telling me that the Denver Post was notorious for its yellow journalism and disregard for the truth. Does anything change? We think our made-for-TV movies spread misinformation. How dare Disney distort the TRUE story about Pocahontas and Jamestown and tell myths and lies to our children about it via cartoons?

One thing these fictionalizations can do is inspire further exploration.

Another thing they can do is communicate a mood or a general feeling about a previous time accurately, by using visual metaphors, behaviors or customs more appropriate to modern times. Titanic is a case in point. Picture the high point in the romantic story in that film. Jack and Rose are perched on the railing at the helm of the ship and he is spreading her arms to give her the sensation of flying. That has become the symbolic moment for the whole movie. Well, the fact is passengers weren't allowed in that part of the ship. However, the memorial monument to the men who sacrificed their places in the lifeboats to the women and children is a cloaked male figure spreading both arms wide, in that exact pose. The romance between Jack and Rose is much more understandable in modern terms. Their behavior together had nothing to do with the way couples acted in 1912. But if the story had been consistent the courtships of the period, would anyone have related to them, or gotten the message of separation that made the historical event so poignant and horrifying?

I hate inaccuracy and I cringe when I see it, but on the other hand, what is art except interpretation? Can history be made into art? Yes, I am beginning to think it can be.

Stilltrucking:

I think TV is very dangerous for children

I watched several hours of TV a day as a child. We had several programs we watched after school and before dinner. It was a ritual. After dinner, adults controlled the programming, but we still saw quite a bit of it. On the weekends, we had our "Creature Feature" late-night ritual involving staying up late and watching several creepy movies while gorging popcorn, ice cream and so on.

Still, I agree with you. Especially today. I think it teaches children passivity and conformity. It teaches them to be good little consumers. It teaches them that life is about instant gratification, entertainment at the flick of a switch. And it teaches them unrealistic values about people and the nature of life in general. They seem to carry those values with them into adulthood with inceasing frequency. When I was a kid in the 1960s, TV was about fun stuff. It was about Batman and Robin and Superman and Gilligan's Island and Star Trek. These were things that you knew had no concrete relationship to the actual, real world. When the shows taught values, they were usually values that had universal significance. The shows didn't consciously attempt to acculturate the way they seem to me to do now.

Zlatko: I had the unfortunate habit of waking up to a clock radio in the morning when I was young, and therefore I heard about axe murders and rapes and riots and wars at a very impressionable time in the morning. These mental images would stay with me throughout the day.

Like you, I really have to limit my exposure to all the horrors in the world. But if you give me a newspaper and make me read about them, I won't. I just won't. The TV is a living eye that forces me to pay attention. I can only take it in short bursts, but every now and then I have to or I'd be a human mushroom -- raised in the dark and fed shit.

I don't give a flip about the commercials. "I am the master of my fate" and "the captain of my soul" not the media moguls pushing cars and personal hygiene products. But that is usually my signal to go do something else for a few minutes.

You were a fortunate child to have parents that cared enough about you to supervise, to watch what you were watching. From my observations it is or was a common practice to park the kid in front of the TV set to keep him from bothering the adults. It has been almost twenty years since I have been around people with young children. Things may be different now.

But Hester is right it is barbarism. Whether you watch or or not. It is barbaric. Why don't they just put his head on a pike in front of the white house? I think Jeremy has a good point too.

Meanwhile they don't want us to see those flag drapped coffins coming home. I can figure out why? They seem so orderly and calm sitting there in that air force hanger.

Have you seen Baghdad ER?

You were a fortunate child to have parents that cared enough about you to supervise, to watch what you were watching. From my observations it is or was a common practice to park the kid in front of the TV set to keep him from bothering the adults.

Actually, Stilltrucking, they didn't do either. They left us to our own devices when it came to what we watched. They sent us to bed at a decent hour on school nights, so maybe that prevented me from watching flamey stuff like Elia Kazan's "The Arrangement." I have no idea. But nobody supervised us, and by the same token, nobody parked us in front of the set for free babysitting.

I was luckier than some, because my temperament is naturally reclusive, and I spent thousands of hours of my childhood reading in my room. I am quite certain my mother would have thought those hours more productively spent "socializing" by watching TV with the family as a group. But I am also naturally quite obstinate, lol.

Also, you may have forgotten my age? I was born in 1960, so I was describing the actual programs available on television, not a carefully filtered selection of safe stuff permitted by parents.

TV has gotten noxious. There is no question about it. Like you, if I had kids, I'd be very restrictive about what they saw on television. Paranoid, even.

(sigh) I am getting very OLD.

As to barbarity -- YES, it IS barbaric when we we grind our molars in self-satisfaction over the unadulterated pathetic pictures of a bloody Iraqi corpse, but have SO much sympathy for American soldiers that we can't bear seeing the decorously draped coffins coming home. We are barbaric. And our barbarity is being manipulated and enabled by a government whose vested interest is in keeping us prisoner to our primitive delusions about the relative value of human life.

It's all quite monstrous.

Good job with your imagery. ST. You were quite effective in communicating this ....

Cat, I feel really dissed by what I'm percieving as your insensitivity to my point. Of course people are bloodthirsty, base, whatever, but that doesn't mean I am, or that everyone is okay? Can you give me that? Sheesh! The world according to Cat.....

Actually your reply totally exemplifies my point. We are so desensitized to this arrogant sort of baseness, that I'm the weirdo for not being comfortable with it.
Thanks for your comment......... grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr........

Yes we see alot of violence, some people pay to see lots of violence, but it's fiction on a screen. It's a cheap thrill. No one really dies or murders or is at war in a movie or a tv show, it's a depiction, and oftentimes in my opinion it's a message to NOT do that in reality......Are we so bloodthirst happy that we miss that part??????

The pictures of Zarqawi are real life, hello! and we killed him! Yes, he was a bad man, and earned his demise. But there is a big difference in that it is reality! This is a real and ugly war and it looks like it's gonna go on longer than any tv series okay? We need to be mindful of this, and teach this, preach this. We need to be mindful that killing and war in real life are NOT okay, and always a very last resort.
That's what I think anyway. So put that in your pipe and smoke it.

Zlatko, my aim is the same as yours. I want to be brave enough, and okay enough with myself someday to have no need, or interest in tv at all. I'm just not there yet. Sometimes, the tv just plain keeps me company! I am alone about 75 percent of the time anymore, and usually broke to boot. So TV is it, when I'm not listening to music or reading, or playing with my hair.....
I truly admire that you can do without it. It gives me encouragement that I can too.

Stilltruckin, I thank you for reminding me of the on and off switch. It is that simple. When those pictures come on glorifying the killings, I can turn it off, and indeed, i do.

By the way, we didn't have a tv when I was growing up, we were too poor. We did have a fantastic treehouse in a beautiful madrona tree though, and lots of woods around that we used play some war games in.

Come to think of it, I always got killed off willingly when we would play fort or whatever. Those games bored the hell outta me......and gettin killed set me loose from them.....
Heh.
H

I'm sorry ....

but that doesn't mean I am, or that everyone is okay? Can you give me that?

Of course I can give you this. In my world, it goes without saying, and perhaps that was my mistake in my response.

You are noticing that there's a problem with the way we glorify violence and you are 100% right. There IS a problem. Over time, it's been slowly corrected, but perhaps the process is too slow.

Your horror is totally justified. We should have evolved beyond this point hundreds of years ago, especially if our technological advancement is a gauge.

Actually, I was giving you the whole point, and only saying that I am NOT surprised, because I think Man evolves slowly, spiritually, no matter how he has advanced in other ways.

Hope that helps. If not, let me know.

Hester it takes more courage to watch then not. I think of what images the women andmen who come home will have in their minds for the rest of their lives. I need the news. I want to be aware of every bloody side walk in Tel Aviv, I want to keep that little girl running on a beach in Palestine in my mind and heart.. It helps me focus, it gives me clarity, for my prayers.

What I don’t need to watch is Jack Bauer mowing down a string of bad guys. War movies used to be antiseptic when I was a kid, they could not would not show the gore, blood encrusted Mars was a no no.



There were no trees when I was growing up Hester. Just warehouses, junk yards, horse and wagons, railroad tracks, cobble stone streets, piers and wharfs, box cars parked in the middle of the street, and gas street lamps which the lamp lighter would light on his evening rounds.

Cat what was on tv then, and what is on tv now, it aint the same.

We got to be careful we are not looking at the world through "lenses ground in the past"

Cat, Stilltruckin, thank you for your posts. It felt damn good to read them, I felt this sense of connecting. Always a treat when that happens, for me at least.
Cheers dears,

H