My childhood next door neighbor had cable television and no phone, a combination I found odd and my parents found repugnant. “If you can’t afford a phone, then you can’t afford cable.” Not that they wanted to. If my parents had enough money for cable they probably would have donated it to our local PBS station during pledge week. After all, we might have been poor but we had standards.
I was secretly a cable addict, getting my fixes at the baby sitter, or at a sleepover. Sometimes I held true to the family ideal and abstained from the more vulgar displays. At a second grade slumber party the tube was tuned to MTV and George Michael’s “I Want Your Sex” came on the screen. “It’s my SONG!” the host’s mother howled and began bumping and grinding along to the synthesized beats, with the other little girls joining in. I ran around the corner and hid my red face, my heart beating fast.
Other times I let down my guard and witnessed a fairly impressive amount of sleaze over the years. I can remember David Lee Roth’s plump rear end in leather chaps, bouncing to the tune of “Yankee Rose.” Madonna doing all the things Madonna is known to do. R rated movies and eventually, even worse. My parents lectures were all true. Once that stuff gets in , it never gets out.
I never expected to have cable TV as an adult. I wasn’t a big TV watcher when I lived on my own. My roommate had painted her TV red and put leopard fur on the control panel, and I watched 90210 with her every Wednesday night, but the TV had no remote control, and I can’t stand to watch commercials, so I rarely watched anything on my own. Usually I was writing poetry or reading or using the internet. There were Bible studies and concerts to attend, thrift stores to peruse. I had better things to do.
Then I got married. While I liked to fall asleep while reading my husband had always used the TV as his lullaby. I found it very distracting to read while the TV was going so I had to accustom myself to his habits. We’d cuddle up and watch The Late Show with Conan O’Brien or Seinfeld on DVD. We only had a few channels, so we rarely surfed. I learned to get sleepy with the TV on, although I still can’t sleep all night with it playing the way he can. I have to turn it off just before I fall asleep.
My husband had cable growing up and he decided to get the basic package when we moved to a new apartment. I enjoyed having something to watch while I nursed our baby. When we bought our house we upgraded our package again. Now we have digital cable with On Demand TV, and approximately 74 channels.
A curious thing has happened. My husband has become a library addict, and brings home close to 10 books every week. Between working 40 hours a week, class or studying 4 nights a week, and spending time with his family he doesn’t have much time for TV. In his free time, he reads. When I have free time, my first impulse is to grab the remote. Nursing babies with clutching hands make it hard to hold a book, and the light from the TV doesn’t wake up a sleeping babe.
I’d like to say that I only watch The History Channel, or Animal Planet, or TLC. I do watch all of these, but the bulk of my cable TV consumption is divided into a few different categories.
#1. Reruns of sitcoms I have already seen 45 times. This includes Seinfeld, Scrubs and The Cosby Show. All have their merits, but how many times do I need to see Jerry or George break up with a woman for some nitpicky reason (man hands) or watch J.D. dump Eliot (only wants what he can’t have) or see Dr. Huxtable turn on the jazz and waltz Claire up to their bedroom (every single episode ends this way!)
#2. Rubbernecker Special. Includes heavily edited episodes of Sex and the City, VH1′s Rock Of Love with Bret Michaels, I Love New York 2, basically anything trashy and stupid that for some reason sucks me in. Repulsive, yet I cannot look away.
#3. “Oh No You Didn’t!” This includes anything that I stare at, open mouthed, because I cannot BELIEVE that what I am seeing is actually on television. This isn’t things I actually watch…but it’s things that I pause for a few minutes on just to see how far they will actually go. I feel too old to actually be titillated by any of this stuff, so I watch just long enough to shake my head and cluck my tongue.
Pretty depressing, isn’t it? Even the educational shows cause problems. I’ve learned a lot from “What Not to Wear” but while increasing my knowledge it also increases my discontent. I get the impression that Stacy and Clinton don’t understand that sometimes you have to choose between buying food and buying even one t shirt. Guess what? When you have a family, food wins.
Which brings me back to the idea of poor people having cable. When you bundle your cable in with your phone and internet it seems so reasonable. And upgrading…what is 10 more dollars a month? Before you know it you are paying FIFTY DOLLARS A MONTH to watch TELEVISION. Television that is 90% knuckle dragging morons surrounded by twits in bikinis spouting off foul language.
It’s cute the way TV execs think that if you remove the middle syllable of a curse word then no one will know what you are saying. Remember when the whole word was bleeped out? Remember when you weren’t supposed to curse on TV? There are no longer standards of behavior for those being broadcast because everyone knows the editing booth will take care of it. Well, the booth might be able to turn a vowel sound into a beep, but it can’t transform a tirade of vulgarity into something intelligent and worth listening to.
I’m also tired of looking at people’s rear ends. There are prudes in the world, but there are also people who just want sex to stay, well, sexy! And when you are inundated with it night and day there is so little mystery that it ceases to become interesting. The kind of sex that is repeatedly shoved down our throats on TV is less like fine chocolate and more like sludge. Tell me, which would you rather have?
Having cable was an interesting novelty for a while, but now I really understand why my parents didn’t want it. It’s the same reason I am not comfortable having it in a houseful of children. My sons are at an age where I have the control, but they are smart and curious and it won’t be long before they can work the remote. The idea that they will find stupidity, sleaze and disrespectful behavior to be normal is a horrible thought. It’s not that these concepts are exclusive to television, or cable television, but 74 channels = 74 more ways my kids can be corrupted when I’m not around.
I doubt I will ever be able to convince my husband that the TV is unnecessary, but I’m hoping he can see the value of an extra $50 a month. $50 dollars can buy a new outfit that Stacy and Clinton would approve of. A nice dinner out to one of those restaurants I am always seeing commercials for. $50 could repair my sewing machine and I can finally actually create something instead of just watching other people do it.
$50 a month can buy a lot of books.
When I have access to cable I watch the same stupid crap. Well, not the SAME crap, it’s usually sports-oriented. But it’s still pretty much crap.
I don’t even own a TV, and I’d like to not have one even if I get married – though obviously the lady would have something to do with that. I’d rather read than watch TV any day, and I’ll be doing a lot of that since I’m going to be in grad school for the next 5000 years.
Just remember – they’re not only selling their crappy programs to us, they’re also selling us to advertisers. We buy the crap that allows them to sell us yet more crap. Gotta love America.
Nice to hear from you, like the blog.
- Jason
i kept checking back to your blog site to see if you had written anything new and today i was pleasantly surprised!!
p.s. YAAAAY for the the cosby show.
p.p.s. i always wanted tony danza (from who’s the boss?) to be my dad.
When Newton Minnow called television “a vast wasteland” in 1961, he was talking about “a procession of game shows, violence, audience-participation shows, formula comedies about totally unbelievable families, blood and thunder, mayhem, violence, sadism, murder, western badmen, western good men, private eyes, gangsters, more violence and cartoons.”
I don’t think even he could have predicted the soul-sucking sinkhole that TV has become.
Whenever I watch TV these days, I mostly watch DVDs–from our own collection or checked out from the library (it’s free!).
Sometimes you are a little bit of a prude…admit it
There is nothing wrong with television. NO argument will convince me differently. As far as kids seeing things they shouldn’t…well there are two things you can do to battle that. 1. Use the V-Chip feature on your television. 2. TALK to you children (which I know you do). You can’t protect them from the world, and you shouldn’t try. Instead of trying to shield them, when they see or hear things…talk about those things. What are they? Why are they wrong, not wrong, good, bad…etc.
That is how I have been with Katie. I figure she is better prepared to deal with the world around her if I don’t shield her!
My parents were somewhere in between my parenting style and your parents parenting style. I wasn’t totally shielded, but then again I think they tried. Most of what I learned about the world, I learned as a latch-key kid after my parents divorced. Then there was no one to talk to me about it. Hence…I moved on from just watching to trying and experiementing and eventually getting pregnant!
Katie, on the otherhand, has been able to watch rated R movies (mostly) since she was about 8. (As long as I was with her to talk about things on the screen). I have never tried to censor her television and an very odd thing has come out of it all…she censors it herself now. She is allowed to watch pretty much whatever she wants, but she WANTS to watch Disney Channel, Nickeldeon…etc. Even stranger is she really isn’t all that interested in running out to see the latest rated R movies with her friends. She mainly just wants to see the stuff that is age appropriate for her.
I’d like to think that a lot of that is because I didn’t shield her and didn’t forbid her from seeing things. Instead, I encouraged it and then we would talk about it. Now, she isn’t tempted my the fobidden fruit and is content just being 13.
I have a good friend Paul who likes to talk about a world were things are increasingly voyeuristic and people have this entitlement complex of feeling like they deserve to know everything about everyone (especially celebrities).
To me this world of entertainment (which I love so dearly) is a place where to be constantly plugged into fantasy, into the lives of others (ala reality TV), and into a trance-like state of vegetation, is a big money maker. We prefer to live in other’s lives instead of maximizing our own life. The most hilarious example of this is Kelly from the Office. Someone asked her if they missed anything while they were away and she started just spouting all the celebrity gossip, that was so important to her, that was her world. Ironically and satarically, I was watching this on the Office a TV show meant to mimic reality TV, by peering into the boring lifes of others. Am I just sucker?
I realize I was on a bit of a rant the other day. I think the worst thing about cable is how BORING it is. The just keep rehashing the same crap over and over again. I’m so sick of thongs…of the trash talk…of the idiocy!!!
I think my next essay will be about the 10% of television I do like. And I’ll be taking advantage of the fact that I still have cable to watch Project Runway’s season premiere.
I’m not a prude. I just think sex should remain interesting, and the way it’s splashed all over tv, etc just makes it gross. And boring.
First off, I think it’s interesting that you throw “What Not to Wear” on the “educational television” pile. Not saying it’s wrong or right, just interesting.
Secondly, if he doesn’t even watch it anymore, why wouldn’t your husband agree to ditch cable?
Thirdly, let’s not all pretend that television is so much worse now that it was back in the Glory Days, whenever those were. Hip-swiveling Elvis shocked and appalled legions of viewers in his day. Commercials were integrated seemlessly (and deceptively) into shows. Lucy dared utter “pregnant” over the air, causing a huge ruckus. People were just as offended by television back then as we are now, and I don’t think that’s ever going to change. Society is going to sway and morph and television will be there the whole time, reflecting our values and ideals right back at us. I mean, really – “I Love New York 2″ IS trashy, but do you think it’s such a departure from what goes on in countless cities around the country every single day?
Perhaps it’s not television we’re all offended by; perhaps it’s what television forces us to accept about ourselves?
I guess that is what I find depressing…if it weren’t for TV I wouldn’t even know half this crap, and it wouldn’t be so integrated into my brain. I tend to not even blink at trashy hos and bad language, because I am now desensitized. This robot is just trying to think.
And I don’t think it’s “pretending” to say that it’s much worse now. Imagine if the 50s people who were offended by Elvis’s hips (and lets face it…that was pretty whoa!) saw New York in a hot tub getting her toe sucked. It IS more out there. No one is saying that people weren’t sucking toes in the 50s…but they kept it in their bedroom and not on network TV.
Hugh is down with canceling cable…he’s bored with my choice of programming and he’s ready for me to start reading again.
This was first and foremost a critique of myself and what I allow into my brain. It’s not all crap, but I tend to watch the good stuff over and over again instead of doing something new. And it’s the same old stuff that I am paying $50 a month for!
Now excuse me, I need to go watch Season 3 of Project Runway for the 50th time.
Oh, no, I agree that television is TECHNICALLY much more randy than it was in the 1950s – I was saying that COMPARATIVELY, we’re just as outraged about telelvision now as they were then.
And I was (perhaps unsuccessfully) trying to make the point that, if nothing else, television breaks down some of our social barriers, which CAN be a good thing. (Can you imagine if we still didn’t allow pregnant women to be on television?! Or to see a married couple sleeping in the same bed?) Granted, it’s a double-edged sword…
I’ll leave you alone now! (I should note, though, that this was very well-written and thought-provoking. And I’m honestly not trying to pick on you!)
I know what you mean. It truly is a double edged sword. The boundaries that were broken down used to be positive..now it seems to be about breaking down barriers for no other reason than TO break them down. Shocking the bourgeois is counter productive if there isn’t some thought and purpose behind it.
okay, i can’t hold my tongue any longer after reading all the post.
why would anyone want to subject themselves to countless hours of simulated and over glorified reality when they could be out producing their own reality?
that is exactly what it boils down too. you can throw in all the other reason (and there are lots of good ones) but when it comes down to it wouldn’t YOU rather be in that hot tub getting your toes sucked then watching it????
and okay, okay, we don’t all have the energy or time for that BUT what about creating something or reading something (like kate said) or preparing for a fun outing (or derive, although i guess that isn’t planned so much) tomorrow…
i grew up pacifying myself with television and have since learned there are much better things to pacify oneself with.
I don’t want the wrong impression given off here. My disdain for the material on cable, if possible, exceeds Kate’s own by some considerable margin. I like the expanded access to sports, and I like the educational programs on History and Discovery. The extent of my own trashy pop culture television consumption is pretty well limited to Kate sucking me into What Not To Wear, and my affinity for all those “list” shows…you know, the AFI Top 100 Movie Villain Countdown, or VH1′s 50 Most Softsational Soft Rock Songs. I can’t help myself there…they appeal to the innermost part of my being that longs to organize everything in sight.
Having said that, we ARE canceling our cable. On the rare occasions that I still have time to watch TV and am not doing one of my other hobbies or family obligations, there is enough football and baseball on network television that I can pick up over an antenna if I really want it. And I figured out after a year or so of cable that History and Discovery pretty much just repeat the same 10 programs over and over for years.
As far as the kids go, here’s the thing. With all due respect to Jondi, I don’t want my kids watching The Disney Channel or Nickelodeon either. I am less concerned about them being exposed to potentially offensive material than I am concerned about them being exposed to garbage entertainment (and yes, I still say this in light of Jarvis’s obsession with Scooby Doo, which is another post for another day. Suffice it to say we try to steer them towards quality, but we aren’t forcing our tastes on them either). I would vastly prefer that they be exposed to something R-rated that contains offensive material but has something valuable to contribute (say, to use some widely known examples, The Godfather, or Schindler’s List, or Rushmore), than something like Drake and Josh or Hannah Montana. In fact I think Rushmore, in spite of the F-bombs and talk of handjobs, is a pretty great message movie to screen for, say, a 10 or 11 year old just embarking on the journey of adolescence. Kate may or may not agree with me there (probably leaning towards not).
Ultimately, I’d prefer that instead of trashy TV OR milquetoast tween TV, they’d prefer to read a book or draw or play outside or, really do anything not on the TV. Except maybe watch the Super Bowl with Daddy.
It’s really not content that is the biggest part of my worries. The things Jondi has been saying are things that I have been saying FOR YEARS. My biggest worry is that we are paying for something we cannot afford that has proven to be (for me at least) a colossal time waster. I hate that my FIRST impulse is to grab the remote. It didn’t used to be.
And it’s not to say I’m giving up all watching either. I just want to be more selective! If we aren’t paying for cable, then maybe we could afford NetFlix and finally finish watching everything in The Great Movies by Roger Ebert! And I’d have more time to read FREE library books and watch FREE library dvds!
I am sad about missing the fourth season of Project Runway though. *sniff*
I always had cable until about 2 years ago and have gone without it since. I have to say, I miss it. I miss it a lot. Some of my favorite shows are only available on cable and now I find myself having to find ways to download them on the internet just so I can see what happen this week. Maybe its bad that I enjoy a good sci-fi show…but that’s what I like
I enjoy LOOKING at the outdoors, but not being IN them 
HEHE!
Anyway…I do understand getting rid of cable as an un needed expense in a time of monetary trouble. That is precisely why I got rid of mine two years ago. I just couldn’t afford it. I do read a little bit more now…but I also spend a lot more time on the internet reading blogs and discussion boards! hehe
I have a love/hate relationship with tv too, but I have definitely broken myself of watching Total Trainwreck TV. I have too many other things I want to do. Anything on mtv makes me nauseous, E! and others are pretty bad too. But I also like a lot of shows on cable offers so I pick and choose. I agree w/ you that it’s not a necessity; I’ve lived without it and was fine.
We do Netflix for $14.99 a month; I think it’s worth it. PLUS you can watch almost all of your favorite tv shows now on DVD, you just have to have patience. We just watched season 1 of Ugly Betty and it was great! You can catch up with some cable shows that way.
I had no cable for three years when I lived with my sister. We were content with the network shows on ABC, NBC and Fox… (Still seemed to fit in a lot of trashy tv, but also rented a lot of Netflix movie classics w/ the greats like Fred Astaire…wish they still made movies like that!!)
But……. Jeff HAS to have extended cable so that he can watch the east-coast football games that don’t get broadcast here. I’m sure he’d survive w/o football, but then again, he gave up A LOT to move to the West Coast and marry me. So I suppose it’s not all bad.
I find myself addicted to many of the same shows you are, Kate, What Not To Wear is my favorite, and I have a platonic-crush on Clinton, but still can’t quite figure out if he’s just a femmy man, or a gay man?
I’d kind of prefer not to know, and I appreciate that he doesn’t really talk about it …
I also occasionally really get into the travel shows, and just about anything on HGTV – Rezone America, Divine Design, What’s With That House?, If Walls Could Talk, Design on a Dime… I suppose owning a house makes me even more interested in that.
What I wish cable would do is allow you to pay for only the channels you want, a la carte, and I wish there were more interesting channels, for instance channels with truly educational programs where you could almost do home college level education – maybe tutorial shows about new computer software, or more stuff about painting, foreign language, more “how-to” programs that are broadcast in an ongoing series as though you were enrolled in a class. That would be really cool. I suppose PBS probably has a lot of that kind of stuff… but I guess I envision entire channels devoted to true learning…
But thank goodness for DVR. I feel like I’m reclaiming much of my life by being able to fast-forward through mindless commercials.
seriously, Kate, your blog is like the only blog that is worth reading. I LOVE IT!!!