Don't Blame TV, Blame Mass Consumption

"Most scholars and critics who write about U.S. popular culture, though, seem both to take TV seriously and to suffer real pain over what they see. There's this well-known critical litany about television's vapidity, shallowness, and irrealism. The litany is often far cruder and triter than what the critics complain about, which I think is why most younger viewers find pro criticism of television far less interesting than pro television itself... a strange mix that's been around for years now: weary contempt for television as a creative product and cultural force, combines with beady-eyed fascination about the actual behind-the-glass mechanics of making that product and projecting that force." (Wallace)

There is an interesting dichotomy in what Wallace has to say about television. On the one hand, many view it as a potentially dangerous propagator of pop culture that seems to become increasingly filled with raunchy, moronic material to which we, as viewers, have become desensitized. On the other hand, TV is an immense industry with great economic and creative potential. So how do we reconcile these two seemingly opposing ideas of television?

I think it comes down to how we consume. As a society we have evolved towards convenience. Instead of watching a new episode every week at a certain time, we can now record it and watch it when we want- or even better, watch entire seasons of shows in a couple days. TV is no longer an antennae box in the living room, but exists in our computers and phones, so we can watch it essentially whenever and wherever. This convenience, I would argue, demands content. I've watched
every season of Family Guy, now I need something new. The ease with which we consume TV is coupled with a demand for more shows, seasons, series. Thus lies more opportunity for writers to create content. However, I would argue that the problem is that when we demand more content, we desire a very specific kind of content that is usually driven by mass ideology.

I know Jameson and Althusser have their own theses trying to explain exactly what ideology is, but I would argue that, in its most basic form, it is a living entity that evolves. Thus, if I can say that our television content is inspired by cultural ideology, then we could look at today's programming as a reflection of today's ideology. There exist plenty of pointless, predictable and formulaic programs that cater to the demographic that wants to escape their mundane realities, but there also exists highly cerebral content, shows that put mass ideology into question.

I think there will always be critics of television, but I think the problem lies not in TV itself, neither its content, but rather in the ways TV is consumed. Content wouldn't matter if no one watched. If we as an audience demanded higher quality programming, would it still be seen as mind-numbing? I think our problem lies in the mass consuming of images that reflect our ideologies back at us, which we in turn reflect back by means of our consumption. An endless cycle of reification.