Television and The Hell We are Living In

I read Gareth Higgins's blog quite often. A while back I read this post and the first paragraph was simply lost on me. I figured that Higgins was talking about some random TV show that I had never seen, so it didn't really resonate too deeply with me. More on this in a minute.

Carrie and I watch a decent amount of television. We try not to watch too much, because we know its a giant time sucker/waster and that most of the shows on TV don't align with how we want to live our lives. As a matter of fact, its getting harder and harder to watch TV without knowing in my heart that what I am watching is simply trash. We try desperately to only watch shows that have something creative to offer (The Office, Late Night w/ Conan, The Colbert Report). I admit that we are suckers for good reality TV (Biggest Loser, Survivor, Little People Big World, Last Comic Standing), but try to stay away from some of the more trashy reality TV (Flavor of Love, Real Desperate Housewives). Its just a shame that trashiness makes people watch more TV.

Which brings me back to Gareth's post. Last night, Carrie was watching a TV show that I didn't have much interest in. It was getting kinda late (for us anyways) and I decided to lie in bed and read. I read a little of Flannery O'Connor's "Wise Blood" and then decided to read a little of the Bible. I just randomly flipped open to this passage. I read it and reflected a little on what it had to say and prayed that I would be filling my mind with media that is creative, compelling, and pure.

After this, I lazily turned on the TV to watch a little before I fell asleep. I mindlessly flipped channels, stopping for a while on a Colbert rerun and Sports Center, before finally stopping on a game show on FOX. I'm not a huge game show fan, but was curious enough to linger on the show to see what it was. It turns it was Fox's new game show (the one Gareth was talking about in his first paragraph) entitled The Moment of Truth. If you haven't seen this show (and I hope you haven't) basically the contestant is forced to questions about themself (that they probably don't want to answer) in front of the whole world on TV and their loved ones who are in the studio. Why would anyone in the world want to do this? Well, for money, of course.

In my short time watching it last night, I saw the contestant answer two questions (in front of his mother, two brothers, and ex-girlfriend). The two questions where: 1. If given the chance, would you like to get back together with you ex-girlfriend? 2. When you were dating you ex-girlfriend, did you ever cheat on her? The contestant answered yes to both of these and won $100,000 for his efforts. It was truly sickening.

In the word's of Utah Phillips, talking about commercail media, "that’s built on the least commendable features of the human psyche, greed and envy, rather than the best."