It's Simple Really...

[Rumckle]

To paraphrase Stephen Fry, sure we can take violence and sex off the television, but we've still got the violence and sex, and we have to put it somewhere.

[Akara]

Out of curiosity, where do you put comics in the "books good, TV bad" scale?

Comic books to me represent just another type of written media. one where art and prose come together to give us a different sort of literature than normal novels. still way better than parking in front of the tv all day.

[Cain]

Depends whats on the TV and what the written/drawn media actually is.

David Attenborough's Wildlife on One > All Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder by Frank Miller (unless your sense of humour is especially warped) and the Ragnar Redbeard's Might Makes Right.

For example.  That's all besides the point however, since the original point was people whining about violence on TV and, you know, trying to ban it all in their ongoing attempt to ruin all sorts of fun everywhere for everyone.  I just raised those books to reiterate the point that historically, and indeed presently outside of the post-industral world, violence has been a lot worse than what we see on TV.  I have never seen, for example, a child soldier being raped and then told to kill other children on the Teevee, yet such things are a daily occurence in sub-Saharan Africa.  I think that this continues to happen may be a bigger problem than Jack Bauer shooting someone in the head, at a time after which most kids are in bed anyway.

[LMNO]

yeah... those books. dunno. they seem so threatening. you actually have to, like, engage your mind and stuff. most people enjoy being passive sponges cabbages. speaking of, I have some literature to attend to! 

Can you clarify how reading forces one to "engage the mind" ?  It seems to me that some of the most successful books are the ones that do all the thinking (if any) for the reader.  It's much safer to produce a knee-jerk reaction than to present all the facts available and hope readers come to the same conclusions you do.

Then again, maybe I'm just pissed because I read Heinlein's "Stranger in a Strange Land," a so-called classic which was essentially the author explaining asserting how gender and sex between genders was the BEST THING EVER, how pantheism (and sex) is the solution to all mankind's woes, how the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis (strong version) is correct to the point where people have to learn an entire alien language just to be pantheists.   

If I was put in a room and told that I had to choose to talk to someone who has read every Dan Brown and John Grisham novel, or someone who tivo'd every season of American Idol, I'd choose the reader.

However, if the choice were between Brown/Grisham and The Sopranos, I'd choose the HBO dude.

Just because the content of the medium is usually crap, doesn't mean that the medium is worthless.

[P3nT4gR4m]

Agreed!

I don't watch much teevee but I like the stuff I do watch. And, especially in the cases of commercials and biased journalism, often not in the spirit intended by the programme makers. I find advertisements fascinating, analysing the effects I can feel from different levels of persuasion. Then there's a sort of holistic view that I can take, a bit like ozzy in the watchmen, skipping through the channels, gauging the overtones of propaganda that permeate the whole thing, in a more general context. Like, right now, everybody is talking about saving moneys. The phrase "credit crunch" which is a much more cereal-sounding one than "recession" will be heard around every 5mins on most topical daytime shows. It's so hot-topic it's replaced "global warming/climate change" as the biggest meme on the box. And I'd be surprised if your average tv casualty would even be aware that oceana is still at war with afghaniraq.

[Cain]

The Politics Show is like The Wright Stuff on meth, essentially.  And with about the same political nuance.  Which is, of course, why I watch it.

[Akara]

Just because the content of the medium is usually crap, doesn't mean that the medium is worthless.

I agree with you here, and I'm not advocating never ever watching tv shows whatsoever for any reason. there is a value to visual mediums like television, etc. It just should not be a subsitute for actual life things, like reading, going outside, etc.

[Requia ☣]

I think what i meant more is that reading does actually engage the mind more on a superficial level than television. Television is an entirely passive medium, whereas reading tends to engage your brain in to activity a lot more. I wasn't so much making conjectures as to the engaging (or not) nature of the material itself...

I definitely agree with you, some books can be almost as bad as television... but i still think reading, no matter how bad of material, is more engaging than television in general.

Out of curiosity, where do you put comics in the "books good, TV bad" scale?

Comics to me seem to mostly fall into the same category as TV, the problem seems to be not the medium, but that such large productions (comics are a ton of work to make, and a fortune to print), require a corporate structure, and corporations figured out a long time ago that mindless crap sells consistently.  Even the stuff that isn't mindless, still has to follow certain rules.  You must have at least X amount of sex, and Y amount of violence and so forth.

Though now that I think about it, books mostly do the same thing, its just easier to get at the stuff thats actually worthwhile there.  So they all suck.

[LMNO]

It just should not be a subsitute for actual life things, like reading

Wait, what?



You obviously have never met a literary escapist, have you?

[Akara]

Good point. Perhaps I am partially giving in to a knee-jerk reaction of "reading, good. Television, bad." In saying that. It is true that too much reading can be a bad thing as well. Viz. Don Quijote... lol

[hooplala]

People probably said the same thing about books that we hear about radio, tv, movies, video games, et al.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Split to remove trolling.

[Sir Squid Diddimus]

good move.

like i said.
i don't think it's so much t.v.'s influence on kids as how their parents raise them to watch it. if you plop a kid down in front of the tubes without any explanation sure, they can let their imaginations run wild.
but if you teach them t.v. is crap, it's merely here for entertainment and question everything you see on it, they will do just that. they will ask questions.
to me, there's nothing better than my son picking apart a news story or t.v. show and asking everything his little heart desires about it. it helps with honest communication and a better understanding of who they are, as well as them understanding who you are.

teach them and learn from them. kids are fucking awesome and they'll prove it every time you speak to them.
i love my little dude.
the end.

[Cainad (dec.)]

My parents, especially my dad, raised me with a pretty healthy amount of skepticism. My dad never was (and is) never shy about being all whenever he hears a "too good to be true" claim.

In other words, I've been raised to think:

Being a buzzkill > Being a sucker


So yeah, you can raise kids to understand that the TV is merely a boredom-killing machine.

[Jasper]

I'm with Howard Beale.