Because The TV Said So

As a Communication Design Major, I not only understand the power of media, I’m taught how to make it media more appealing to the mass audiences.  I must admit that I have a love-hate relationship with the entire concept of my major.  I absolutely admire and respect the power of the tiny little gadget called television but despise the lemurs who take what that little gadget says (or doesn’t say) about truth, health, reality, trends, etc. – to heart.  It is amazing to watch a society so advanced but yet be consistently controlled.  So why or how can this phenomenon happen?  Easy.  It’s basically human nature.  Everyone wants something to make them feel better; either about themselves, the world they live in, the clothes they’re wearing, the job they’re working, or the life they’re living.  They need to have someone or something to remind them, they are worth something and have value.  Because you are only Somebody, or worth something, if you have value . . . and you can only attain value IF you are worth something.

A beautifully written example of how our society has unfortunately de-evolved in this regard is Salman Rushdie’s, Auction of the Ruby Slippers.  Basically everything is for sale, nothing is sacred.  The “Auctioneers” portrayed in his satire are recognized as having the power. “It is to the Auctioneers we go to establish the value of our pasts, of our futures, of our lives (p. 101).”  They have the power to “spin”; put a good label on it and watch it sell.  Corporate America, the Multi-Media Moguls, the Religious Self-Righteous, the Political Talking-Heads, etc. they spin it, we buy it. . . literally.  By having so many avenues to find inner peace – either through a purchase of something shiny, justification or praise from someone higher up, or appeasement through self-indulging; we, as humans, tend to believe or want to believe in good and “truth.”  But we really don’t like getting our hands dirty.  I believe that our society as a whole has lowered its standards, have become enablers, money-driven, self-perpetuated and reclusive.  “Most of us nowadays are sick (p. 87).”  With technology comes advancement, with advancement comes change, with change there is technology.  Corporate America, Media, etc., have grown into what we have made them and we have become what they deemed best for us.  And the there’s the rub. 

New shoes, accolades, chocolate, prayer, democracy, technology – all have a price.  Our world relies upon supply and demand, which is becoming more and more like a mantra rather than an economics lesson.  Rushdie states, “This is the courtroom of demand (p. 99).” Our society has been built around, “more is better” or “bigger is better.”  In order to solicit this idea, we need to create a strong, cycling, mandatory demand; and what better avenue than our friendly gadget, TV.  Television can make rags look formal, sinister look chic and healthy look effortless but this is fiction, this is what we are told to believe, not the actual truth.  “This permeation of the real world by the fictional is a symptom of the moral decay of our post-millennial culture (p. 94).”  We want to believe everything we see and hear that comes across the pipeline.  Sometimes what we are told to believe in, changes abruptly into the complete opposite.  Therefore creating endless media that can ‘spin’ one direction today then change the next. 

Because we are in constant search for better, and will do anything to have it, there will always be a demand.  “Thanks to the infinite bounty of the Auctioneers, any of us, cat, dog, man, woman, child, can be a blue-blood; can be – as we long to be; and as, cowering in our shelters, we fear we are not – somebody (p. 103).”  But there are several who rise above the controlling, monotonous, superfluous ideas and have a moment of clarity to which they question.  Therefore the sense of empowerment is no longer in the hands of the conquerors on the TV but rather taken back (even if for a split second) and grasped by the very beings who made the media what it is.  The narrator in Rushdies’ short satire, has a moment of clarity and realizes that he doesn’t need the trivial ruby slippers in order to feel better about himself and upon doing so feels a sense of weight lifted; he feels refreshed and more importantly free. “Alternatively, in that miasmal ocean, we may simply float away from our desires, and see them anew, from a distance, so that they seem weightless, trivial.  We let them go (p.102).”

Every so often, society takes a quick glimpse at itself, and recognizes the overwhelming control that we have given to certain empires.  Ironically, we see through what ‘truths’ are being spun and demand change.  Therefore we wait to see what new changes, what new truths, we are to believe in.  Television is the hub for all information.  Rushdie satirically would have his gilded in gold but for the rest of us it’s best to understand the power that media has and to question the unquestionable.  Don’t just believe what is being spun and realize we have empowered those governing over us, not just politically but in every aspect of our lives. Therefore we can discern for ourselves what truth is, what is valuable and what is demanded. . . at least until the TV tells us different.