Why You Watch What You Watch When You Watch
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Why You Watc h What You Watc h When You Watc h Martine Syms Why You Watch What You Watch When You Watch 1 Why You Watc h What You Watc h When You Watc h Martine Syms I told her I once heard a comedian say that if you put an apple on television everyday for six months, and then I told her I once heard a comedian say that if you put an apple on television placed that apple in a glass case and put that on display everyday for six months, and then placed at the mall, people would go up to it and say, Oooh, look, that apple in a glass case and put that on there’s that apple that’s on television. America’s a lot like display at the mall, people would go up to that apple. it and say, Oooh, look, there’s that apple — Paul Beatty, Slumberland that’s on television. America’s a lot like that apple. Tonight I’m going to talk about what it means to be American and watch TV. I’ve been thinking about nationalism a lot over the past few years because I live in Chicago, a true American city. Philadelphia is not a true American city, but it is the first American city, so in many ways you’ve won. I was born and raised in Los Angeles, which is also not a true American city. In fact, a stranger once told me that by “European Standards” Los Angeles is not a city at all. I used to be one of those pretentious assholes who longed to be an expat. I wanted to live in Europe and have good se x a n d e a t g o o d c h e e se a n d g o to g o o d m u se u m s. I desired citizenship. America is defined most fundamentally by its commercialism. At best to be an American is to buy for a dollar and sell for two; at worst, it’s to be bought and sold. Every American exists between product and merchant. We’re a market, not a public. While this is problematic, it is the condition of living in the United States—it’s the dream we speak so fondly of. I’m interested in the possibilities of commercialism. And I don’t mean that I want to be a millionaire, although for the record, I would like to be a millionaire. Capitalism overlooks institutions that are important, but have no profit motive. At the same time it creates the circumstances for consumer-citizens to over fund whatever ridiculous ideas they value. 2 Why You Watc h What You Watc h When You Watc h Martine Syms For example, the iPhone is absurd. I have one and 80% of the time I can’t make calls on it. Instead I can send an email, schedule an appointment, take a picture, check bus arrivals, listen to music, tweet, accept credit card payments, scan documents and invoice clients, among iBeer other tasks. The first person I knew with an iPhone was a student of mine. Miles was fifteen and spent the beginning of each class pretending to drink a beer, after which I would confiscate his phone. At the time iBeer cost $2.99. iBeer is on an estimated 60 million sm artphones. 3 Why You Watc h What You Watc h When You Watc h Martine Syms Commerce and conceptual art are the only contexts in which something so wildly unreasonable can be that popular. I’m interested in both traditions. I want to know how to create value. Which leads me to a series of questions, like “What is value?,” “What do we value?,” What is value? “What is the difference between value and capital?,” and “How is that value/capital embodied, objectified or institutionalized?” These are the questions I ask myself when I’m really stoned. 4 Why You Watc h What You Watc h When You Watc h Martine Syms Television has always been in my life. I was born in the late eighties, after the tube had become fully integrated into American society. Young urban professionals like my I believe that television directly reflects parents had seen JFK’s assassination, witnessed the the moral, political, social and emotional Televised War, watched the Watergate trials and gotten need states of our nation. [I believe] that their MTV. Ted Turner splintered the three channel television is how we actually disseminate monopoly and FOX was born. Nonwhites and gays were our entire value system. regularly on TV. The Cosby Show (1984)—which followed an upper-middle class black family; Roseanne (1988)—a sitcom in which the title character worked in a factory; and A Different World (1987)—a series about students at a historically black university—were the highest rated shows of my birth year. Compare that to today when American Idol (Wednesday) and American Idol (Thursday) claim top ten spots. I have no nostalgia for the past. I don’t think the 80s (or the 70s or the 60s) were any better, I think they were different. I believe that television expresses the values of its culture. To quote, Lauren Zalaznick, Chairman, NBCUniversal “I believe that television directly reflects the moral, political, social and emotional need states of our nation. [I believe] that television is how we actually disseminate our entire value system.” 5 Why You Watc h What You Watc h When You Watc h Martine Syms Nonviolent Communication, a method developed by psychologist Marshall B. Rosenberg, provides a useful framework for understanding how television communicates our desires. Nonviolent Communication has four components: observations, feelings, needs and requests. NVC The basic NVC process involves observing the concrete actions that affect our well-being; stating how we feel in relation to what we observe; identifying the needs, values, desires, etc. that create our feelings; and requesting concrete actions in order to enrich our lives. In the language of NVC, every conflict is a result of our needs not being met and every joy is a result of our needs being met. American television replicates this approach in a commercial setting. Television is an advertising medium and its economic engine is driven by demographics—the sta ti sti c a l c h a ra c te ri sti c s o f a p o p u l a ti o n —by which we can interpret need states. In fact, according to $10,000/hr corporate marketing guru Seth Godin, demographics don’t even matter anymore. Need states, or what Godin calls “psychographics,” are much more important. Psychographics include our personality, attitudes, interests and lifestyle. We commonly refer to these attributes as “taste.” In his 1979 masterwork, Distinction, Pierre Bourdieu revealed that taste was so entangled in social structure that it had almost nothing to do with the individual. If social conditions like class undeniably inform taste, then they undeniably inform need, which shapes television. So although our feelings remain unspoken, we can tune into various programs roughly organized by emotion. Note the use of sentiment in generic labels: drama, comedy, thriller, mystery, action, etc. Television is suspended in ste p s two a n d th re e o f th e NV C p ro c e ss; i t sta te s h o w we feel and acknowledges why we feel that way. 6 Why You Watc h What You Watc h When You Watc h Martine Syms The first show I was completely obsessed with was Six Feet Under (2001), an HBO series about a family that owns a funeral home in Los Angeles. Six Feet Under began during my freshman year of high school and ended my sophomore year of college. For the last two years of SFU school, I would re-watch the series in its entirety whenever I was feeling depressed. I did it mostly to cry. I’m a bawler. My eyes well up and my mouth turns itself upside down. Sometimes it feel good, but usually I want it to stop. I know I’m being manipulated by the music, the pacing or the narrative. I know that I know better, but I can ’t help it. I like a sad ending and Six Feet Under was built on a sense of loss. I only stopped this ritual because I moved in with my boyfriend. He was working long hours at the time and I wasn’t. It was dark and cold and I had the urge to watch my favorite television show. My boyfriend would come home to me planted in front of the screen with my knees in my hands, enjoying “home-comfort transcendence.” He’d wake up at 5am and find me in the same position. One morning he got angry and yelled at me. He thought it was si c k. I a p o l o g i ze d —eyes glazed from hours of watching, dried tears on my face—and told him I only had six more episodes to go. I’m comfortable sharing this moment because I know I’m not alone. Americans currently watch a little over five hours of TV every day; a few years ago we were doing eight hours a day. Our habit has appeared to decrease because of the internet, but if you think people aren’t watching TV on the internet, you’re obviously a 60 year old television executive. A terrifying statistic claims that watching TV is “the number three activity” for the average American, after “sl e e p a n d wo rk.” 7 Why You Watc h What You Watc h When You Watc h Martine Syms Television is how we feel.