Ved recently wrote a blog post about television shows. It amused me that every single show that he mentioned was at core a comedy (we exclude Burn Notice because no one knows why we watch it). This is interesting: are we only capable of coupling emotionally with those who have pleasant lives? I think we can safely that this is false. So let's rephrase a little: can we only connect with those who are ultimately happy. This, too, I believe is false.
The reason these shows appeal to us, of course, is part of the reason for which we seek friendship: to be able to immerse ourselves in the lives of others, and to empathize with them. But this differs in a critical way from making the same connection with TV show characters: as we come to know our friends, we are constantly changing, but as we watch a TV show, despite the effect we feel it has on us in retrospect, we are much more static.
But I do not think this explains our (or at least my) preference for comedies. For if we are static while watching TV, is not the same true doing the reading of a book. Yet, I find that I more often connect with characters who have deep underlying regret and sorrow than with happy-go-lucky characters. And here, of course, is the true motivation for this post: I have finished, for what is at least the 10th time, the Ender Series. As has become the norm, I cried when Ender died, because I had come to love him, the small, broken boy who bore the guilt of a million murders, the man who spent his whole life trying to atone for a crime that was not his.
Why should a book be so different from a TV show in the way it effects me? And are these tastes peculiarly mine, or does everyone feel this way?
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There are good non-comedies on TV too, you guys just refuse to watch them -_-
ReplyDeleteHEY HEY HEY SPOILER YO
ReplyDeleteI STILL NEED TO READ ENDER'S GAME =_=
but they're all checked out in the library >:
I like sad things! But comedies are more pleasant.
ReplyDeleteI read funny books too.
ReplyDeleteAnd I watch sad movies.
But TV shows are supposed to be pleasant and entertaining, not cathartic or emotionally earth-shattering. Like seriously, would you continue to watch the Office if it made you cry every week?
On an unrelated note, I just watched 500 days of Summer and it was really good.
Um, so Sammy told me Ender doesn't actually die, he just like vaporizes or disappears or something and his soul becomes embodied in a young version of Peter.
ReplyDelete...Weird?
What I dislike about movies is the incredibly short plot. In both shows and books, you come to empathize with characters after hours and hours of seeing their personality and mannerisms. A movie is over in two short hours.
ReplyDeleteThere are plenty of respectable and non-comedic movies out there. However, I have not yet come across a good show that isn't a comedy. There were the animes, Death Note and Code Geass. They were entertaining. Neither, I think, is intended as a comedy.
Death Note has an obvious reason to watch - we loved the mind games and the epic cat-and-mouse between Light and L.
The appeal of Code Geass is harder to identify. It has a certain amount of the mind games, and some elements of comedy.
But the reason I personally loved Code Geass was similar to the reason you love the Ender series ... that there was someone out there great enough and empathetic enough to take the troubles of the entire world on his own shoulders and die as the scapegoat.
Lelouch was not a perfect human being, and he did not sacrifice himself alone. He certainly dragged many people down with him. But his intentions were always good. He worked for a better world, and that's why I can love him, or perhaps the idea of him.
But bottom line, there just aren't that many good sad shows out there. Executing a sad show is hard; you can't drown the people in sorrow episode after episode. There's gotta be something else.
As you know, there may be no one else who watches more TV than I do. In fact, I have wasted around $100,000 on TV this past year with the class-skipping and procrastinating I did. So I have two thoughts for you.
ReplyDeleteFirst, in relation to more modern interpretations of the entertainment industry in general, TV shows and the like are an escape from the stress of our lives. In fact I would go so far as to say that we as a culture enjoy comedy based media the most because we lack such basic happiness in our day to day business. The easy access of such media allows us to waste time on what I would call the happy drug.
Second, if we draw upon certain parts of Aristotle's Eudemian Ethics, in order to achieve a live of fulfilled eudaimonia, we seek to do what one with a eudaimonious life can enjoy which in some respects is taking advantage of TV. Granted this interferes with Aristotle's beliefs that rational conteplation leads to the most euaimonious life.
Just a little food for thought.
Doctor Who is pretty dark (at least with David Tenant) and I think it's a pretty excellent show.
ReplyDelete