Television Makes Us Cry and the News Brings Us Closure

As I was watching the news, I discovered that entertainment's focus is to engage the audience and to give them the feeling that they are being informed, just as Postman predicted. One show, however, caught my attention more than any of the others. Nancy Grace is a television show in which a bigoted woman devotes her time to issues that she believes "the public deserves to hear the truth about." Now, as this is a common slogan to any television news network, you would expect to hear world issues, right? Wrong. Not only does she report exclusively on the murder of young people, but she builds a foundation for her stories by covering them for months at a time. Flip to her show, and there it is: new evidence about where the body may be found, pleas from the family of the victim, and trials that are being taken to find the killer. So, Ms. Grace, how is this relevant to anything? We "demand to know the truth" of what, the brutal murder that you have so happily presented before us? This is a case closed, and I can make no action whatsoever to change that. However, the show always brings a disturbing amount of emotions to the viewer.

Through this, has Postman failed to predict that the discourse of news itself will no longer have to do with irrelevant information, but rather provoking an emotion? More and more television shows have stopped reporting information all together, and instead they act as a soap opera, with a cast that changes week to week as in Nancy Grace, to entertain the viewers. Is this beneficial, that the separation of information and media has become more evident? Or is this, in contrast, a deeper threat to society, that the media will report for the sake of evoking pure emotion? I believe that a society ran by the communications of emotion is highly more dangerous than one that is ran on the communications of irrelevant information, because what we cannot do with irrelevant information, we can put into effect through emotion.

What do you think?

Brave New World..... the movie, dun dun DUUUNN!

Sorry for the dramatics.... I couldn't help myself.

Anyways, as I was surfing through youtube, amusing myself to death as Mr. Postman would say, I decided to type in "Brave New World" to check out the trailer. Instead I came across the actual movie (pssht! Hey youtube!! I thought you guys were cracking down on copyright violations. Well, guess what? You missed one.).

If I was a movie critic, I would have had walked out before the first five minutes were up. Now, I know that most films based on novels are nothing like the actual book but this one really hit the ball out of the park in the aspect of "worst attempt to follow the book". In my opinion it focused too much on the love affairs going on and didn't even hint at the sections that Mr. Huxley went on and on about, and they were the most important. In the book, John talked for more than half of chapter 8 about his and Linda's life in Malpais, yet the movie completely ignored it. At that point I thought it was kind of ironic to make a movie based on a eye-opening book if the producers weren't even going to try and send out the same message.

And that would be were Amusing Ourselves to Death pops in; Andrew Postman, Neil Postman's son, compares Huxley and and Orwell in the introduction. Postman explains that no matter which point of view you associate with, it will still be the same thing. In Huxley's eyes, this movie is just another method to appease the masses; like the Bread and Circus the Roman Emperors would have held in the coliseum just to maintain their subjects happy and clapping their hands like dazed three-year-olds. But on the other side of the spectrum, Orwell would have had a fit and declare that this movie is another way of brainwashing us into firmly placing those rose tinted glasses over our eyes; he would have seen this as an easy manipulator since most people in this day and age would rather watch television than read a book.

So are we all doomed?

Seems like it, if you're a pessimist. But an optimist would just be cheering for the soma.

But I want your opinion on this; due to our current society's love for all things electronic, do you think that it will all eventually turn us into mindless zombies, sans all the blood and gore? If so, is it to be feared like Orwell states or to be embraced and taken with a gram of soma?

P.S.
Heres the link to the first part of the movie on youtube since embedding it was disabled by the person:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuiaT0nX9ls&feature=channel

I just had an Epiphany! Well, sort of...

When I completed reading both of the summer books, I tried to look for a connection between the two. Just how do a controlled society and entertainment go hand in hand? It's simple. If you understood both books, then answering this question is easy.

In Amusing Ourselves to Death, Postman talks about how the entertainment business controls us. We are like their puppets. One of the main goals of television is entertainment. They want to appease us. Why should they care if we are entertained? Well, they don't. While we are watching these shows that turn our brains to mush, they are controlling what we do and when we do it. There is a new episode of the popular show Degrassi on t.v. tonight and I know that many of my friends will be watching it. Do you see that? They just got us to turn on the t.v. and watch their show exactly when they wanted us to do it. Yes, we are all guilty of it, there is no doubt about it. When there is something that entertains us, we really don't care if we are being controlled. That's when the connection between Postman's book and Huxley's book becomes apparent.

Throughout Brave New World, the citizens are given soma to keep them relaxed and to appease them. There it is. Just as television controls us in our world today, soma controls these people in their world. Just as we don't know or don't care that we are being controlled, they don't care that their every move is being dictated either. It must be something about the human being that makes us so easily distracted that we forget what is really happening and that is just what the people at the top are taking advantage of. It's like giving a baby his favorite food. Make him happy, and he won't care what happens next. Television, soma, and anything that pleases us are all distractions. I'm not saying these things are bad, because I love them too. I'm just making sure that we are all aware of what is going on so that there can be no questions asked. No one can say "I didn't know television controlled us!" You're right, because neither did I until I began to read these books. So I've found the answer to my question. The connection between these two novels is appeasement as a form of entertainment. Now my question to all of you is: What is your opinion on appeasement in the entertainment industry? Do you think there is another connection between these two books? I am interested to hear what you guys think.

Hey, I'm not done thinking about that!

You know when you're watching the news and you hear about a killer on the loose, and then all of a sudden they start talking about a recall on cookies? Yeah, I hate that too. I wasn't done worrying about that killer on the loose and you decided to talk about cookies. Doesn't that seem a little odd to you? In chapter 7 of Amusing Ourselves to Death, Postman talks about how the news anchors use the phrase "now...this" to transition into another topic. What I don't get is why they talk about something life threatening first and their next topic is about rainbows and butterflies. It would be better if they transitioned by saying "For more information on that, visit our website." What if that killer is right outside my door, but I didn't get a chance to hear that because you just had to talk about cookies. Postman is absolutely correct when he says that the media controls what we think and for how long we can think about it. I feel as though the news program is telling me what I should think about and when I should stop thinking about that issue. It's as if they spend less time talking about the important things and more time on the irrelevant topics. The media does indeed control us. Did you ever realize that the television producers can make us come to the t.v. whenever they want? A new episode of Glee is on and we blow off the best party of the year just so we can watch. I'm guilty of situations like that and it's weird how Postman knew exactly how we would react to television when he wrote this book before we were even born! If the t.v. can control us through television shows, what else in our society has been controlling us, and for how long have we been going with out noticing?

Amusing Ourselves with Visual Imagery

It is very clear what you need to watch a movie or a t.v. show: eyes. On page 7 of Amusing Ourselves to Death, Postman describes how a person's looks can determine whether or not they are successful or "amusing". I know for a fact that when I am watching a show, looks play a tiny role in whether or not I continue to watch. Whether they be extremely beautiful or outrageously odd looking, physical features that stand out keep me watching the show. However, those features are not the only things that keep my eyes glued to the screen. I also want to make sure the show is amusing. Am I being entertained? That is the main question I ask myself when watching a show. Is this show worth watching or could I be doing something better? As Postman says, looks play a big role in amusement. Many teenage girls, and even their mothers, have become addicted to the famous Twilight Saga. I have asked some of my lady friends why they liked it so much and I would get responses such as "Because Robert Pattinson is so hot" or "I wanna bake cookies on Taylor Lautner's abs." Half of these girls don't even know what the twilight saga is about. All they care about is what these characters look like. These twilight fangirls have proved Postman's point exactly. They could be talking about blowing up the United States, but because they look like an underwear model, they are "amusing." Now, the question is: Do some of our role models today hold that title because of looks or because they have actually made a difference?