The little ones sit by their tv screen, no thoughts to think, no tears to cry, all sucked dry, down to the very last breath

I actually surprised my wife with this one: the Virginia Tech gunman mailed a series of photos and videotapes to NBS news, so should they, and other news agencies, have shown excerpts on their nightly newscasts/websites, etc.? It's easy to suggest no. The killer was already dead by his own hand, and this gives him a posthumous gift of the recognition he wanted, and could in theory motivate others to similar action. Oddly enough, I find this argument wholly unconvincing. Don't get me wrong, after a traumatic experience it can be brutal seeing repeated images of the killer...but that really is a phenomenon over which has some control. Turn off the TV, avoid the newspaper for a couple days, and stop watching Cable news entirely (actually, that last bit of advice applies for everyone, frankly, regardless of the situation). What worries me, among others, is the media declaring a blackout on things that are on their face newsworthy, to prevent us from having our sensibilities challenged. See the arguments by Atrios:

I'm a bit puzzled by all the conversation about whether NBC and other news outlets should've broadcast Cho's videos. While there can always be debates about what should be front and center, the idea that this kind of thing should be withheld by a Media That Knows Best is rather disturbing. Emphasis and placement is always an issue, which is why if nothing else this stuff can be put on the internets where people can make the effort to take a peek if they wish.

And, no, I didn't have much desire to see any of it, I just reject the idea that our Elite Filters really know what's best for us.

and Kevin Drum:

There's no question that these images and videos are intense; they undoubtedly cause pain to the loved ones of the victims; and they might even help promote copycat behavior — though I suspect this is more urban legend than reality. But like it or not, they're also a key part of helping us understand one of the biggest news stories of the year.

I think this is exactly right. When the media acts like gatekeepers, we are shielded from violent images at the true cost of not understanding their context at all. I would argue that the lack of bloodshed from Iraq shown on tv has led us to ignore the deaths of several hundred thousand innocent civilians, since we never see the true picture of all the suicide bombings and executions that plague that country. We don't even see the true effect on our military, since the media is banned from showing soldiers' coffins and they have dropped the ball utterly on the effects of serious injuries on the troops. Until the recent expose of Walter Reed by the Washington Post, the media was basically happy to pretend that these things just didn't deserve widespread attention, even though Salon pointed out many of these issues years ago.

That said, some discretion is called for. Rather than pimping the Cho videos endlessly, it was probably appropriate to show brief snippets and post the remainder to websites, but in the end, it is up to us to decide what we wish to watch and what we would prefer to avoid, not up to them to censor the news for the sake of the most sensitive individuals.

By the way, what of the argument that we are just provoking copycats? More from Kevin Drum at Political Animal:

Still, does publicizing specific mass murders inspire copycats? I'm not so sure about that. In fact, it might be just the opposite: the massive publicity these events generate makes everybody far more vigilant about the possibility of "disturbed loners" in their midst and might actually reduce the likelihood of copycat sprees. What's more, when all is said and done, most of these killers come across in media accounts as delusional, hopeless losers, not as heroes to emulate.

What we all need to remember is that no matter how brutal this killing was, random killing sprees, including those at schools, are extremely rare. There is not some "wave of killings" taking place at schools, just like there is no wave of kidnapped children, or any of the million other problems blown up to ridiculous proportions by the various news outlets. What there is, rather is much more hyperventilating news sources to which we have access, who are willing to make random isolated events into trends so that we may be scared into watching their programs. VT was a true American tragedy, but also a rare and reasonably random occurrence. Some perspective goes a long way into fitting it into a reasonable narrative, and that requires both access to details about the case, as only the news can provide, but also a reasonable approach, which we can rest assured they most definitely won't provide.

PS: It seems that Rosa Brooks of the LA Times feels similar to me about assuming the tragedies and trauma of others, in that it is overdone in modern society:

Convincing ourselves that we've been vicariously traumatized by the pain of strangers has become a cherished national pastime. Thus, the Washington Post this week accompanied online stories about the shooting with a clickable sidebar, "Where to Find Support" — apparently on the assumption that the mere experience of glancing at articles about the tragedy would be so emotionally devastating that readers would require trained therapists...

Our self-indulgent conviction that we have all been traumatized also operates, ironically, to shut down empathy for other, less media-genic victims. On the day of the Virginia Tech shooting, for instance, Army Sgt. Mario K. De Leon of San Francisco (like the Virginia Tech victims) died of "wounds sustained from enemy small-arms fire"). On Wednesday, car bombs killed at least 172 people in Baghdad. But no one has set up a special MySpace page to commemorate those dead.

Boy, the way Glenn Miller played. Songs that made the Hit Parade. Guys like us, we had it made. Those were the days.

Friends, parents, people who stumble upon this blog because of random blog searches, lend me your ears. Well, actually eyes, come to think of it. I come not to bury television, but to praise it. I'd like to put forward an opinion that, while certainly not unique, cuts against the standard story that nearly everything gets worse over time. There are a string of writers and thinkers who have claimed that each generation is inferior to the prior one dating back roughly 3,000 years or so, and to them I say "Bite me". No, I'll try to argue that television, one of my other true loves after my wife, selected other family members, physics, and baseball, is better today than it ever has been before. Well, better in a way. Like many aspects of modern media, there is simply more of it, and the average show on TV is almost certainly worse than the average show from years ago. Let's face it, the average show is a crappy reality show where a group of strangers on a deserted island build a house for a needy family while being taunted by a B-list celebrity who wants them to eat some animal's internal organs for the chance to answer a trivia question that may earn them some large amount of cash, since those shows make up a majority of modern television. If we look at the cream of the crop, though, it really does have a great deal to offer.

Tonight, we'll examine comedies. Some people look down their noses at all network comedies, assuming them to be nothing but a series of fart jokes and cheesy double entendres. First of all, there is nothing wrong with fart jokes and cheesy double entendres, when done right. They are juvenile, but given the choice between laughing at something and not being amused, why do we even have to think for a second as to which choice is better? It's really an easy one, all things considered.

Still, there are any number of comedies on TV that really push the envelope for what a 30-minute comedy can be, and better yet, they're available on DVD if you haven't seen them before. We'll ignore some of the more formulaic dreck out there, and lord knows there's plenty of it. In the 80's, we had harmless nuclear family comedies where twice a season they'd discuss An Important Issue and give some good advice their Teenager In Trouble. Now, we have Twentysomethings Who Hang in a Coffeeshop, or harmless family sitcoms with or without children, because, lets face it, what can be more fun than watching two DINKs snipe at each other but remain in love?

Tonight had two of the finest examples of sitcoms redefining the genre. Importantly, neither is a 4-camera sitcom, the genre done to death by safe comedies like Raymond, King of Queens, and virtually every other "living room" oriented show on TV. The Office may be the finest remake of a British comedy of all time, not that there's really that much competition. If you've somehow managed to miss both versions to date, it's filmed in mockumentary style, detailing the lives of a group of paper supplier employees toiling away under their hapless boss. The original attempted to be as excruciating as humanly possible, limiting its lifetime but making sure that every single moment was utterly embarrassing for everyone involved, up until the slightly more heartwarming finale. The American version, on the other hand, is designed to have more legs, giving it's characters enough redeeming features that you can see how they've managed to all plausibly keep their jobs. In style, the show owes some stylistic nods to mockumentary movies (Christopher Guest comes to mind), and perhaps to Arrested Development, which admittedly tilted slightly more toward farce and less toward comedy.

Both versions were visionary in being true ensemble pieces, with a lead cast of four or five actors but a good number of meaty parts for the supporting cast, especially in the American version (it doesn't hurt that many of the side actors are the show's writers, who can insert themselves into any bit they want). More than anything else, it makes its characters seem more real by giving them a world in which they interact, rather than just a living room full of canned laughter. Also, if you think about it, it would take weeks for a small family to crack enough jokes to fill up 22 minutes. An office with 15 people in it, on the other hand, is a comic goldmine. If I had to assign a single influence, though, it has to be All in the Family. The Office does everything it can to be as offensive as possible on network television, and Archie Bunker will forever be the archetype. We need not even get into a discussion of political correctness; it's simply true that many of the finest comedians of all times have been able to skewer society by pushing it's buttons: George Carlin, Lenny Bruce, Eddie Murphy, Chris Rock, etc. In Steve Carrell's character's flaws are all our flaws reflected, and it's hilarious.

I somehow missed out on Scrubs for its first five seasons, and I don't know what I was smoking. Tonight's episode, a musical written by the team that wrote Avenue Q, was brilliant, the defining episode on TV since the Season 2 finale of Deadwood (which still takes the title for the entire decade, hands down). Making fantastic use of a the directorial control allowed by a single-camera setup, the show also maximizes it's ensemble cast of 11 or 12 regulars. Ironically, it's inspiration seems to be I Love Lucy, the first multi-camera show on television, as well as the Honeymooners; they toe the line between farce and comedy, they love to employ physical humor, and they all know how to harness a character's anger for comedic purposes. If anything, the show can be seen as a post-modern update of it's 50's forbears, adding a self-referential and self-aware narrator on top of a similar style of humor. By letting it's voiceovers go omniscient, it picks up the ability to mock pretty much whatever it chooses, including other TV shows and even it's own actors.

If TV is better today, it is not in spite of its past, it is because of it. Every medium has its visionaries, but it also has it's interpreters, who can take the ideas of previous greats and resynthesize them for the modern day. So long as new rules are being broken and new situations explored, comedy will always stay fresh, in spite of network executives' attempts to Raymond us into brain death. I haven't even gotten into the network vs. basic cable vs. pay cable divide, so I'll do that some other time, and manage to work Weeds into the discussion (who wouldn't love a sitcom about a suburban mom growing marijuana). Until then, get reacquainted with your television. Remember, for most of us, it raised us from our childhoods into adulthood and beyond, teaching us important life lessons, and never even asked us to take out the trash or make our beds.

Why do we always come here, I guess we'll never know. It's like a kind of torture to have to watch the show.

That's the muppet show for all the google-challenged. So, the point was raised in comments:

The real problem with cartoons is that they, more than ever, reflect reality rather than provide an escape from it. On the other hand, so-called reality programming (like I would want to be on an island with several people I don't particularly like striving not only to survive, but all the while harboring the suspicion someone might give me a million dollars if I were successful) has increasingly less to do with any reality that I have ever seen.

While admittedly there is very little redeeming value to be found in most reality TV (look, it's yet another edition of MTV's The Real World, featuring 7 alcoholic collegians, three of whom are gay or from a recognized minority, each of whom behaves like a different one of the Seven Duffs from the Simpsons: Sleazy, Queazy, Edgy, Surly, Tipsy, Remorseful, and Dizzy!), many of us, nay, all of humanity can learn various lessons from Survivor. First of all, fire is a necessity for life. It's mythology come to life, people. Second, you need to eat protein to maintain your strength. I don't know why being on an island for two weeks makes every person into a dietitian, but so help me, it does. They never stop jabbering about protein literally all day long. Third, it is good to be in the majority, for they have all the power. If you are able to flip yourself from the minority to the majority, let the other side have it. Make them clean up around camp, make them hunt for food, and whatever you do, don't let them privatize social security because you just took over Congress tribal council. Most importantly, many people will try to befriend you during your 39 days on the island, but they want to cost you and your family one million dollars (say it Dr. evil style, it sounds better). When the time comes, screw them over, and remember what you can do if you had a million dollars. Side note, if you do choose Kraft Mac and Cheese, remember it is made only two miles from my apartment in lovely Champaign, IL.

Ok, having completely failed to address the issue of escapism in reality shows, let's move on to cartoons. Why are they so real these days? The obvious answer is that life has become cartoonish. Remember, America's most informative source of news is a fake news program, the Onion reports actual news two years ahead of time (dkon gets credit for showing me this one, which was published in 2001 [!?!]), the people we choose to lead us are certifiably insane, and the most powerful man in the world still says "nukular". If Karl Marx was once right in suggesting that "History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce", the proper approach is now more Groucho, in that it's often hard to tell the difference between tragedy and farce the first time. Remember "Heckuva job"? How can a cartoon be more buffoonish than real life in these conditions? The Simpsons sent Homer into space in 1994, the Russians sent tourists there in 2001. South Park started out with "Jesus vs. Santa in 1995 (after JC vs. Frosty in 1992), explaining the true meaning of Christmas; Bill O'Reilly has yet to get the memo. Honestly, how can any fictional work really push the limits of believability these days. Okay, I'm sure a few brave souls can manage it, but in general, when life becomes a daily farce, satire is the proper medium to excoriate it.

Television dreams of Tomorrow. We're not the ones who're meant to follow.

Proving that great minds think alike, or not, Dmitry and I had our question raised by the illustrious David Foster Wallace in a more condescending form:

TV is not vulgar and prurient and dumb because the people who compose the audience are vulgar and dumb. Television is the way it is simply because people tend to be extremely similar in their vulgar and prurient and dumb interests and wildly different in their refined and aesthetic and noble interests.

(found at ben.casnocha.com via Marginal Revolution via Brad Delong)

I disagree with this quote most-heartedly. TV is not vulgar in the sense of offensive, regardless of the ridiculous censorship rules imposed by the FCC. As Tom Lehrer explained some 40 fucking years ago, "Dirty words are fun". As for sex and nudity, which will take out DFW's prurient comment as well, they are a good thing that we are biologically conditioned to enjoy. Let's leave repression for medieval peasants named Dennis, shall we? If you think that sexuality is in any way unnatural, we'll have Alex in to guest post on the topic of the sex life of Bonobos, the primates that love to party. DFW may have meant TV is vulgar in the older sense of the word, "of the common people", but if so the point was obvious to begin with.

Ok, then why is TV so dumb? Remember that there are some criminally good programs on TV right now: The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, The Office, Scrubs, Veronica Mars, Battlestar Galactica, Weeds, Dexter, The Wire (taking this one on faith based on about thirty positive reviews from random strangers), etc. No, TV is very conservative, and the highest rated shows are frequently dumb because people like familiar programming, networks LOVE familiar programming, and originality is only occasionally rewarding to viewers but always risky for the network. See the demise, with no small influence of the networks, of Arrested Development, Firefly, Deadwood and a bunch of others. Many people fear change, and will continue to watch endless reruns of Murder She Wrote and Everyone Loves Raymond and laugh along with the laugh tracks forever, but with several hundred networks out there, it just takes some looking, and a huge cable bill, to see some good programming.

On a random note, when it came to buying Hanukah presents, my wife and I both secretly went for cartoon t-shirts (an Uglydoll for her, Cheat Commandoes for me had it been in stock; she went with Colbert Nation as a backup). Why do smart people enjoy cartoons and all sorts of youthful type stuff? Because they're fun. One can enjoy post-modern literature and the Cartoon network, although preferably not simultaneously. These things are fun, and if kids are the only ones smart enough to realize it, then maybe most adults are fools....no, that's too harsh. Most adults are wise, using their hard-earned smarts to behave responsibly in all sorts of ways, like voting for a former alcoholic with no grasp of world politics because they think he'd be more fun to have a beer with than his opponents, decent men who just don't have the charisma and fratboy charm it takes to make decisions about the global economy and international relations....