So I just finished watching the movie What’s Eating Gilbert Grape. (I know, I shouldn’t be watching television when I have heaps of summer homework to finish.) Anyways, the mother of this family reminded me of the possibilities of the effects of entertainment. The mother, Bonnie Grape, weighed five hundred pounds and for the majority of the movie sat on the couch and watched television. And I know that television can not be completely at fault for this woman’s obesity, but it must have played an important factor in her weight gain. I mean, think about it for a second. Television requires virtually no physical movement, aside from the pressing of the buttons of the remote. Now, it’s not possible to suddenly gain hundreds of pounds by just watching television, but combined with loss of exercise it can explain Bonnie Grape’s condition. In this movie, because of her physical condition, Bonnie was ashamed to leave the house, having not gone outside in seven years. She was laughed at in public because she was not the “acceptable” size.
This movie reminded me of the people in Wall-e, who were overweight and practically glued to their television sets. Except in this movie, everyone was overweight and being inseparable from one’s television was the norm.
So the whole point that I am trying to get at is that television is dangerously shaping the way we live our lives. In What’s Eating Gilbert Grape it prevented Bonnie from stepping outside her front door and she was frowned upon for becoming overweight and unsocial. In Wall-e it had become normal for people to be overweight and not interact with each other. My fear is that we are leaving “Gilbert’s World” behind and coming closer to the reality of Wall-e, where it will soon be acceptable to be dependent on our many forms of entertainment.
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I agree, it is quite possible that what was happening in Wall-e may be happening to us in the future. Bonnie was frowned upon for being so...large, but what she looks like on the outside is the least of her worries. Being so obese is very unhealthy and can cause many diseases such as diabetes. If our society no longer strives to be healthy, dying younger will also be the norm. That will be a huge problem in the future if that's the direction we're headed.
ReplyDeleteI invite you to read my post, which is related to this topic.
ReplyDeletehttp://apbloggers1011.blogspot.com/2010/07/how-similar.html
I definitely agree and also fear that television will ruin us. It is not difficult to envision our current world turn into a world like the one found in the film Wall-e,where the norm is to be overweight and for everyone to be hooked to their television set. There is also the possibility that our world could turn into a world like the one Aldous Huxley has created where excess weight is eliminated. Yet in both worlds entertainment plays a significant role in everyone's life.
ReplyDeleteIn chapter five of Amusing Ourselves to Death (sorry not italicized or underlined because I do not know how to [x), Mister Postman did mention how we've become so used to television "that we no longer hear its faint hissing in the background or see the flickering gray light." He did not exactly say that to refer to the weight gain in that passage, but what he says is true. Television has become part of many people's lives; television is like air and food, we live off of the radiation it spurts out, while our dendrites die off as we become less intelligent.
ReplyDeleteI would not at all be surprised if obesity and weight gain were to be widely accepted in our society. Unfortunately, this major problem is occuring all over the world and with everyday that goes by it just gets worse. But then I pander and think, how can it be accepted if it is unhealthy? Gaining a tremendous amount of weight also has its horrible consequences (i.e. death, heart disease, liver failure, etc). Also, there are solutions to these problems; we just do not use them to our advantage. Neil Postman pointed out that human beings have an infinite appetite for distractions. Do you believe this? We spend hours in front of a screen and like you said, it does not contribute completely to weight gain.
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