Are you really suggesting that it’s better for me to read a Nora Roberts book than to watch the final season of The Sopranos? Every medium – be it TV, books, the Internet (I’m looking at you, MySpace) - has loads of crap. As much as I, too, want people to watch TV less and read more (or, even more importantly, learn to read) I think attacking the medium itself is missing the point.
The point is selecting quality and then watching the quantity of that programming you select. And even as I say that I feel a twinge of hypocrisy for having a Netflix queue with more than 500 movies. I wonder if there’s a documentary I can add to my queue about addiction to DVDs? Hmm, I’d add it but Netflix says my queue is already too full. Damn.
Or should I stop watching those too?
I think you started to nail the issue in the first paragraph but then dismissed it when you wrote, "Still others would do this by dividing between poorly written programming and HBO programming." I’d replace the word “HBO” with "well-wrtten programming", leaving you with viewers – myself included – deciding for themselves which programming is well written and which is not well written and then choosing accordingly.
If there’s a detectable trend or factor in the programs I’ve mentioned (The Wire, Buffy, West Wing) it is that The Wire is superior than most fare. Should I feel guilty for watching TV? No. Do I feel inferior to those who junked their TV? No. Do I feel upset that more people seem involved in the voting process of American Idol than the American government? Hell, yeah, but that’s another issue entirely, one having more to do with apathy than television as a medium.
One last thought before I leave you: documentaries are television, too. I watch a lot of documentaries, often reviewing the best of them. Many of the documentaries are eventually shown on television or get some of their funding from television-related companies. I learn a lot from those documentaries, whether it’s telling me what really went down at the Olympics in Munich in 1972 (an Oscar-winning documentary, One Day In September shown on HBO but never screened at a theater, is quite educational) or Eyes On the Prize, one of the best programs summarizing the civil rights era.
Article comments
1 - Matthew Milam
As I said at Newsvine, my mother keeps playing the "I don't watch television" song. Yet she just purchased two seasons of House, which I consider 24's much crazier cousin.
2 - Lisa McKay
I’ve been watching each of those three programs on DVD and I have to say as much as I love books " and I read about two books a week " few books are of as high a quality as those shows.
That's a pretty extreme statement, Scott. While I'd agree that a lot of what hits the best seller lists sucks, there's a whole world of literature out there, way beyond the best seller lists or what hits the shelves at your local B&N.
Overall, I agree with your assessment, though. Some of what's on TV is quite good -- you just have to pick and choose.
3 - Mat Brewster
I used to belong to the 'blow up your tv' club. I have since learned to stop worrying and love my television, but some of the arguments still stand. There is a lot of crap on TV, and a lot of people waste their lives watching it.
However, you're right, reading books, listening to music, or consuming any other art form isn't necessarily better. There's a lot of crap out there no matter the medium.
There's also a lot of quality, and TV has gotten really good of late. Maybe too good. I'm having to force myself not to watch them all so that I can the time for other things of quality.