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August 23, 2005
Everything Bad
I finished reading Everything Bad Is Good For You: How Today's Popular Culture Is Actually Making Us Smarter by Steven Johnson last weekend. Regular readers of this blog will be familiar with the author’s arguments in regards to video games, but might not be aware that he also thinks TV is making us smarter. (This is irrespective of all of these mediums' moral content) This does not mean all TV is smarter, but the best TV today is far superior to previous TV in terms of complexity, mainly because TV is now under the control of the viewer in the form of the VCR, Tivo, reruns, etc. He uses Seinfeld and The West Wing as his main examples of shows that deliberately withhold information from the viewer and expect the viewer to pay close attention to very complex and overlapping plot lines to follow what is going on. Shows like the West Wing, 24 and Sopranos are especially different from previous decades’ shows in that you can not just watch one episode and tell what is going on.
The only dramas I watch on TV are the ones I can get on DVD so I can watch each episode on my schedule and in order, like The Sopranos or The Wire. I watched 24 once and have not watched it again even though I suspect I would like it because you have to follow each episode to tell what is going on and even then it can still be hard to follow. Compare that to Dragnet or even some current TV like Law and Order where you can watch one episode and know exactly what is going on. (I gave up on Law and Order years ago after figuring out that every episode has almost the same plotline. I could predict when the plot twists would occur with clocklike precision) The most striking difference with current TV is that shows like The Apprentice now spawn discussions among the poeple who watch it, whether on the internet or around the water cooler, which I think is a big part of their appeal. The Apprentice would not be a very interesting show if you could not talk about it with other people and debate the characters motives and decisions.
Movies have gotten smarter to a lesser degree because unlike TV where plots can unfold and characters can develop over dozens of hours, movies have at max 2-3 hours or so with complex plots like Lord of the Rings or Memento about all you can squeeze out of that format. Lord of the Rings actuall maxed out at 10 hours or so, but that is a rare exception. Unfortunately, as with video games, a substantial portion of movies and TV is still junk and does not challenge its audience. Of course, the same can be said for books, many of which are worse for you than some video games or TV shows.
Posted by Pete at August 23, 2005 05:39 PM
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