The Big Lie of The Small Screen

Ruminant With A View

by Elizabeth Boleman-Herring

TEANECK, NJ—(Weekly Hubris)—2/14/11—I had an epiphany recently, during the Super Bowl, of all things.

It came home to me that, whatever I see on a smallish, rectangular screen is, in the final analysis, somehow unreal to me. Always, somehow, “virtual,” as opposed to “analog.”

What I see on the screen of my computer or my television set (what Rachel Maddow calls “The TV Machine,” with good reason), is “something” I imagine, I believe in fact, that I have the power to turn off and on at will.

Whether I am watching Super Bowl 45, or the demonstrators in Tahrir Square, or an explosion in Iraq, or “Spartacus: Gods of The Arena,” what is on the screen is “not me,” “other,” “not mine” . . . “not real,” finally.

I’m sure if I go back to Marshall McLuhan’s writing in the 1960’s, I will find this same thing stated in better words than mine, but I thought it was high time I reminded you, and re-learned, for myself, that there is a yawning divide between “bread and circuses”—which comprises a lot of what we experience on-screen (the diversions and clever snarkiness of Facebook exchanges, HBO entertainments, anything on Fox) —and . . . reality.

We can curl up on the sofa and zone out while watching bread and circuses. But too often we curl up on the sofa and zone out while watching real-time events from our real world.

We are going to have to fight, fight, fight to remain awake, engaged and responsive to blows raining down on our sisters and brothers half a world away; a tsunami or earthquake devastating the lives of other sisters and brothers; our own Congress legislating away the rights of sisters and brothers much closer to home.

One of the “elements of newsworthiness” taught to journalism students is called “Proximity.” The more closely a story affects a viewer or reader, the more newsworthy the story.

A tornado in Brooklyn’s going to draw more attention than one in Kansas, IF you happen to live in Brooklyn.

The problem with the computer screen, the Blackberry screen, and the TV screen is that the screen itself mitigates against the viewer’s sense of empathy, of any proximity.

The viewer, today, more and more and more, is insulated against anything thrown up on the screen.

In a very real sense, we’re all becoming “Sofa Buddhists”: detached. Dangerously detached.

It takes one hell of a wallop from anything broadcast or projected onto a rectangle to move us to thought, reflection or action.

Look at me here in this actual column: I’ve been watching the events unfolding in Cairo, on many sorts of screens, since January 25^th, and all I’ve really done in terms of “responding” is ruminate about the entire situation in print.

. . . which may, in fact, be lots more than you, yourself, have done, but which is little enough, indeed.

Many of “you” may simply have caught snippets of the ongoing story while channel-surfing amongst “entertainments,” responding to non-essential e-mails, putting things into or getting them out of the microwave, visiting the loo, etc., etc.

“The Screen” has become wallpaper.

Everything on the screen is morphing into . . . bread and circuses.

Even these words. Even these words.

Your PS of Zen—“Places” to go via the rectangular screen in order to act and to effect some change in our shared world:

1) Amnesty International http://www.amnesty.org/

2) Human Rights Watch http://www.hrw.org/

PS No. 2—Keith Olbermann, wherever you are, I miss you! (See most recent reports of Keith’s activities at: http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Elections/Vox-News/2011/0209/He-went-where-Keith-Olbermann-s-move-to-Current-TV-makes-sense-for-now