Television is so different now than it was when I was growing up. I remember Vietnam war footage on a small black-and-white TV set in the kitchen of my parents' first home. I remember dials you had to turn BY HAND to change the channel or increase or decrease the volume. Until I was in high school our TV always had rabbit ear antennae that needed to be adjusted to make the picture come in; in the case of certain channels, such as the all-important 56--the image wasn't quite clear no matter how you adjusted them. Certain people--my sister--got a reputation for being "good with the picture." Certain people--me--were prone to bribery, threats or outright payment to get the channel changed or volume increased or decreased without having to get off the couch.
When I was a child, and a teenager, and even a young adult, come to think about it, television programs--dramas or sitcoms--were on once a week, at the same time each week, and if you wanted to watch a show, you needed to actually be in your house, in the same room as your television set. If you needed to get a snack or to go to the bathroom or to answer the phone, you had to leave the room during a commercial, or else risk missing a pertinent scene. There were reruns, at some point they kicked in anyway, but they too were only on when they were on--available in no other format, at any other time.
When I tell this to the middle- and high-school students I tutor, their eyes glaze over, they look at me as though I'm about a hundred and ten. And this before I even describe the shows themselves. Try explaining Mork and Mindy or Happy Days to a twelve-year-old and you will see what I mean. Twelve-year-olds do not even know who Robin Williams is, let alone the Fonz. And in a way, I get their disbelief; it is the same way I feel when a student's five-year-old little sister comes over to the computer we are working on and figures out how to download new printer software from the internet.
In a funnier way, I can't really remember what it felt like to have to heave myself off the couch to turn up the volume so I could hear every single time Arnold said, "What you talkin' about Willis?" from the bathroom with the door open. Although it is relatively recent, I can't imagine not being able to pause the image on the screen when I need to make the popcorn. I really, really can't remember a time when to watch a movie on your television set the movie had to be, well, playing in real time on your television set. The Wizard of Oz was on every March; we watched it together, as a family--there were no Blockbusters, no Netflix, no On-Demand.
On-Demand. This could be the catch phrase of modern television, entertainment, life itself these days--our systems are designed to prevent our having to wait. How has this ability to have whatever we want whenever we want it changed the way we view or perceive the things we want? I am very interested in this. At one point, my sister and I were allowed to watch one hour of television. We almost always chose Little House on the Prairie, which ran on Monday evenings, and we would wait for it all week. We watched it together, always, and sometimes one or both of my parents watched it too, and then we would talk about it, not always, but sometimes, often enough. If we missed it, it simply passed on by.
I think something has been lost in the years since Saturday morning cartoons meant the same thing to every kid in America, and the same thing to parents, who weren't really that keen on getting out of bed at 6 a.m. on weekends. Today, television, like so much else, is an endless buffet open twenty-four hours a day. Nothing is special, not even live TV or events such as elections or Superbowls or even--god forbid--the Miss America pageant, which we watched in September and which at least gave my mother an opportunity to weigh in with her opinion on women parading around on stage in their swimsuits (not good).
That's all for tonight, but this is related to a larger project I've been taking notes on for a while. I really want to write something political right now, but it's not that kind of a blog! Hope the TV stuff is not too Andy Rooney.....ASW
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
I, too, occasionally feel nostalgia for those days, but only briefly. I'm pretty sure that we've gained mmore than we've lost as we've moved towards a more on-demand culture. Have you noticed that kids today are less apt to sit in front of the TV vegging for hours? I think it's great that on-demand seems to make people less passive.
But as always, Amy, I enjoy reading what you write!!
Before the ubiquitous Disney Move, High School Musical debuted on TV; my daughter and I made a date to watch it together on that first Friday night. The day before our movie date, I realized that the Friday night in question conflicted with the Adoptive Mom’s group meeting that I had already agreed to attend. Aghast, I talked to my daughter and she assured me that she wouldn’t have hurt feelings. I did go to the meeting, feeling lousy about it, even though I knew her Dad would be a good, perhaps better, stand in for me. The meeting wasn’t great and I felt pretty darn bad about missing the movie --until I realized that it was showing again Saturday night, there was a sing-along version scheduled for Sunday night, and that it would be playing through out the entire next weekend. Yes, there is something to be said for the simpler times, but I watched the movie with her the next night, and suffice to say, was pretty grateful for our “On Demand” society that weekend.
Oh yea, and by the way, these days I’m paying better attention to my calendar.
I was talking about this recently with a friend - your comment "nothing is special" really hit home. I remember getting very excited about watching "specials" when they were on - Peanuts Thanksgiving, Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer, Frosty the Snowman. These shows were on once a YEAR and we waited for them endlessly. I like Netflix, On Demand, etc. - they are definitely convenient, but it makes me wonder this: If they can have/watch/do whatever they want whenever they want, what kind of "specials" (televised or otherwise) will there be for my children get excited about?
Post a Comment