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June 27 - July 4, 2004 |
Culture Vulture
Television: The Transmitter of Hope
By Donna Lypchuk
Originally Published: 2004-06-06
Someone posed a very interesting question to me the other day: "If you were exiled to a desert Island and could only take one thing with you, what would it be?"
"Ah ..err. THE TELEVISION!" I blurted out.
Seriously, the idea of not basking in the rays of the cathode tube for even one day gives me the heebie-jeebies. For instance, during the power shortage last August, I spared no expense or time turning on my tiny battery-operated television set. I find fuzzy pictures with even a little bit of ambient music, applause and voices talking to me enormously comforting.
My attachment to the television is truly disturbing. Without my daily dose of television programming, I am just like Linus from Charlie Brown without his blue blanket.
Apparently, I am not alone in my addiction. A study done by the sponsors of the annual National-TV Turn Off week in the United States cited that by the age of 65, most Americans will have spent more than nine years of their life watching the boob-tube. I am almost positive that I have spent more than that and am affronted that many consider watching television to be a waste of time. It is, as the Comedy Channel Logo says "Time Well Wasted."
Watching television is supposed to be a waste of time because it is not considered to be real. I beg to differ about this. Television is just as real as anything else. Maybe television addicts are merely choosing to exist in an alternative reality that seems much more pleasant, much more colourful and most of all much more hopeful.
For instance, who could not help but be cheered by those Fruitopia commercials, that show a dancing mandala of tropical fruits? Some people like to meditate on Buddha mandalas - I like the Fruitopia commercials. I find them very centering and healing.
Why hang around with your own friends, when you can hang around with Seinfeld or Larry David on Curb Your Enthusiasm? Who needs girlfriends when you got Carrie and the crowd on Sex and the City? Why worry about your own dysfunctional family when the cast of Everybody Loves Raymond is a more acceptable substitute? These people are a lot wittier than anybody I know!
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