What does what we watch on TV say about us?

Like a lot of people, I spent some time in front of the tube this past week, watching all manner of what have you that came into the house courtesy of a satellite some 22,000 miles away.

There was, in addition to the standard holiday fare, (football), a James Bond marathon, some kind of fixer-upper marathon, as well as numerous showings of tried and true holiday films. I did not find any of this objectionable or troubling, but it made me wonder a bit about the role of the popular medium as a communicator of sentiments and as a mirror of the larger culture.

What, I ask myself, having nothing better to do, does a James Bond film do for the masses? (Let me say that this might also apply to Clint Eastwood, John Wayne, Jet Li, Van Damme and numerous other mini-genre's). There is this guy, who appears to be you know, one of us, a regular guy just doing his job. Of course he is licensed to kill, and to take whatever measures he deems necessary to accomplish his mission. Do you know anybody licensed to kill? I don't. I'll bet you know at least one somebody who needs killing though. Right? Why is this stuff so popular? Well, like I said, Mr Bond is like us, he holds down a job, which often presents him with extraordinary demands and no support system to deal with them, (like many or most of us, although those demands rarely involve nukes, space shuttles, Fort Knox or Ursula Andress), and he is free to do what he needs to do to finish his task. And there is nothing in the way of comeuppance for doing what he did in order to do what he did. As it relates to those of us with more mundane lives, perhaps we see a man who is free to take whatever action is necessary, guided by only what he knows to be right, and then, if not rewarded, then shielded from the potential ramifications of his actions. In my world, that relates to taking a shortcut to eliminate a lot of pesky paperwork, or possibly buying a few extra widgets in order to have a spare for that odd occasion when one simply needs one for some unforeseen event. When I do not follow rather strict procedure on damn near everything, my world comes apart. Sometimes this is called bureaucracy in inaction. The result of working in my world is usually not seeing the end result of what I do, and in those instances when I do see it, I see only that it is not what it was intended to be, a bastardized, rationalized perversion of the original concept. When I watch James Bond, I get to see a guy go to work and accomplish something, and even benefit from the end-result in some small way. My world is not like that.

Then there is the Bob Vila genre. How many programs and even cable channels are devoted to that? Bob, and all those other folks like him, make things look soooooooooooo easy. Besides being a huge subliminal come-on for the hardware and building materials industry, (not to mention those contractors who end up finishing or fixing what has been done), its purpose is to give the viewer delusions of adequacy. What is the real issue here? Tools. That's it in a nutshell. Those folks on TV have access to an unlimited tool budget, and can have practically anything for the cost of mentioning the model number and manufacturer on TV. The rest of us have to make do with what we have on hand, and that, as many of us know, is the mother of many screw-ups. What I see on these programs may be real, but it is not the same reality that I deal with.

Then there is the issue of porn. All I will say for the moment is why?

I also mentioned Christmas movies. One channel even played the same movie over and over for 24 hours. I do not doubt for a minute that there were some viewers who watched that channel, (or at least had it on in the background) every waking moment of that time period. Why? I mean once, maybe two broadcasts, but a solid 24 hours?

What does all this have to do with anything. Well if you are reading this, I am glad you asked.

We as individuals are becoming more and more disconnected from the body of experience that is commonly called "life". As we go through the motions of doing what we do, certain deficits seem to occur within ourselves. Sometimes called satisfaction, we settle for what we get at work and at home, and rationalize it with what see on TV. We see a man (or woman) seeing a job through, and enjoying the fruits of his or her labors. We see average people who are empowered to make changes for their own betterment, and then see them do it and then enjoy the fruits of their labors. We see ordinary people in ordinary circumstances rise above the day to day parochial concerns we all deal with, and then see the good that was done. Looking at TV does a lot for calming the frustrations created in the lives that we lead.

Now, back to porn. (Couldn't wait, could you?). This seems to be primarily a male oriented medium, so I will stay within that avenue of thinking. I am certain that there is a female analogue, but do not know what it is. I have always believed that the biological imperative in the male is to fight, provide food and reproduce, (I usually reduce that to a few other picturesque terms, but you get the idea). In the world we live in today, men do not fight, do not hunt or gather food, (for the most part), and have no significant territory to defend. That leaves sex, and the simple satisfaction of that urge is, in many cases, not enough to satisfy the other issues that remain unresolved. So, sex, being the only biological imperitive that the individual has any control over becomes paramount, and, in the world we all live in, that just ain't enough to satiate all the instinct that dwells within. It can't be a roll in the hay, it has to be the Super Bowl of rolling in the hay, with women too numerous to count, (and drop-dead gorgeous to boot), with all the tools and accessories required to you know, get the job done.

And what is the job?

To provide the consumer of such wares a bit of satisfaction, or at least a balm to sooth the frustrations that our lives produce.

There. I feel better now. Oprah said so....