As I was walking home from campus at noon, I saw a woman with a stroller stop and start talking to her child. I walked past and saw that she was pointing at faces on a big tabloid poster, and telling her 3 or 4-year-old whose faces they were. It amazes me that some people -- including those in France who name their kid after their favorite tv series actor or character -- have such a narrow cultural horizon to begin with, that tv actually broadens it.
A license for tv.... 116 euros.
A library card.... 15 euros.
Intellectual curiosity.... priceless.
2 comments:
Just be glad you don't live in North America--it can get mighty scary at times.
In all honesty, though, I'm always kind of sad when I see the quality of shows on television. Canada is fairly well-known for making really quirky, really high quality (given the average budget...) shows, yet also equally well-known for having those shows ignored (Twitch City is one of the funniest shows I've seen, but I'm the only one of my whole circle of friends who has seen it). Even the US has produced some great shows (Arrested Development has me in stitches on a regular basis). I think the big problem with television is that TV executives seem to feel that every show has to capture a huge audience on a consistent basis and, once that's happened, never let go. I'd love to see TV shows that are about 3 seasons long or so and feature a complete plot with intelligent writing. If that show does well by the time it's over, the writing crew could go on to start a new series. TV would be good and entertaining, but alas, this doesn't look like it'll happen anytime soon. Anyway, I'll stop ranting now :)
I'm not sure there are reasons to be sad about tv being the only form of culture most people will get.
Yeah, most of it is low-form, low-expectation, low-attention-span entertainement, but then again, you can't expect anyone to actually want anything else.
I used to be (ok, i still am) a huge tv geek, and not everything i watched is always intellectually fulfilling, but i still managed to become an arguably functionnial adult.
Yeah, I read an awful lot too, and that probably helped go the extra mile, but i like to think that people today who get information and culture only from tv still get more information and more culture that people from past generations (yeah, they didn't read much at that time either).
True, they name their kids Dylan.
I guess that's the price to pay.
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