Everyone has met this person. Maybe you even are this person. The interaction tends to go like this: you mention how much you like watching some Food Network after a long day of reading and this person looks coldly into your eyes and says disdainfully “I don’t watch television.” As if those four words suddenly propel them onto a moral and intellectual level that you, lowly television watcher, could never hope to reach.
Outright TV hatred is widespread in the US. While saying the words “television set” shouldn’t be hard for most people, TVs continue to be referred to as the “boob tube” or the “idiot box” (hey, that’s the name of this column!). Television’s bad reputation can be traced to a number of issues. First of all, there’s the fact that television is linked to advertising and consumer culture, which many people are rightly suspicious of. It can be hard to view television as an art form when you’re watching a show and it’s suddenly interrupted by that terrifying man yelling at you about the ShamWow! absorbent towel. Parents today often attempt to raise their children without television because of the bombardment of commercials that target kids. Television is also frequently blamed for the rise of violence in the U.S. In addition, there are very strong stereotypes that are associated with people who watch television on a regular basis. If you watch a lot of TV, you are suddenly a lazy couch potato who is refusing to achieve your full potential. There are also those people who don’t watch simply because they are convinced that all of television is an artistic and moral wasteland.
However, I refuse to believe that television is a culturally bankrupt waste of time. In fact, I consider many television shows to be interesting, complex, witty, thought provoking and entertaining. This isn’t to say that I believe every single minute of television aired on every channel is worth viewing. But do we hold other forms of popular culture to this standard when we judge their worthiness? The statement “I don’t watch television” is frequently used as an assertion of superiority. But I’ve never heard anyone say “I don’t listen to music” or “I don’t watch movies” in the same way.
We live in a time where our tastes in popular culture are analyzed as personality descriptors. How did we judge a person’s taste before everyone’s favorite TV shows, bands, movies and books were easily accessible via Facebook? You may not hear someone saying “I don’t watch movies,” but I bet you have seen a film buff give someone a particularly condescending look when they admit their favorite movie is The Notebook. People regularly use subjective separation between highbrow and lowbrow forms of popular culture and art as judgment.
So why, then, do some people feel justified in lumping all of television into one indistinguishable mass, unworthy of their time? We accept literature as encompassing various genres and a range in quality from trashy romance novels to epic American tales to dense biographies to predictable mysteries. Television comprises a similar amount of variety. If I turned on a TV at any given time, I could watch a ridiculous soap opera, a witty sitcom, a gritty cop show, or a mindless reality show. Especially since the increase in the number of channels offered, it can be overwhelming to open a TV Guide and try to choose what to watch.
There are “good” and “bad” examples within every form of popular culture and opinions on these issues are incredibly subjective. But it becomes tiring and frustrating for the television enthusiast when many people continue to disregard the quality television that exists by broadly declaring that all television is culturally bankrupt. Statements like these lump all people who watch television into the same category, whether they’re enjoying the nuance of The Sopranos or watching people eat bugs for money; whether they’re tuning in to the wit of 30 Rock or the easy laughs of Two and a Half Men. This doesn’t line up with how we judge other forms of entertainment and frankly, it doesn’t seem fair.