TV: bad for us?

Grindstaff quotes Richard Zoglin’s warning that “a new batch of shows is playing ever faster and looser with the line that separates fact and fiction” and discusses the ethical problems raised by this blurring of the “line.” Postmodernists would argue that this line was constructed, even fictional, to begin with. Thus, perhaps our awareness of the blurring of the line between reality and fiction is a good thing. We no longer accept our news as “fact” but rather as a story that appears to have some grounding in fact delivered by a station or channel that has some sort of philosophy and then written and delivered by an individual with his or her own agenda.

So: what do you think? Is reality television desensitizing us to reality (as Gringwold suggests)? Or is it making us (and reflecting the fact that we already are) sophisticated, savvy, and even cynical viewers?

And is this a good thing? Or a bad thing? What is your opinion? Be specific.

get an account at blogger.com

Hey all--

If you want to post (and you do, I know), apparently you need to create an account at blogger.com. It won't cost anything . . . If you are desperate, and things are not working, you can try my My Space account where I also have a blog.
Bear with me. I'm new to this. The google account is free though and they'll walk you through a set up. Ok? If you really really can't get this up by tomorrow midnight, no worries. Just bring your paragraphs to class. We'll get there. And I'd rather have this be a public blog--a blog out in the world--than a private Rollins one. Who knows? Maybe Springer himself will check in . . .

See you Wednesday

trash tv: perverting our young? really?

Check out the essay at this address:

http://proxy.arts.uci.edu/~nideffer/Tvc/section3/11.Tvc.v9.sect3.Grindstaff.html

Here's an essay on trash tv. It raises some interesting points about "high" art and "low" art. New media always seems to be considered trash. Parents used to be appalled at the sight of their children reading novels, now they pay them off (in Pan Pizzas, for example) to read them. I get interested in ANYTHING that gets people worked up enough to declare it "trash" and "porn" and "dangerous" and "the democratization of perversion." (Oh how I wish I had coined that phrase.)

Anyway. Here's my question. Does television really have the power to change the way we all view the world? Does it really normalize "filthy" behavior? Or does it just act as spectacle that we can all watch, moralize about, and feel superior to?

Are we really so stupid, so shallow, so naive as to be taken in and unable to "separate fact from reality"?

Has tv really gotten worse or trashier? Or has it gotten better and cleverer?

(And yeah, that was more than one question.)

what do you think?