me quoting someone more engaged with some things than i am (also smarter, by definition, than i)
this is my Berkeley CA friend (an excerpt from a way back post)
I think William James once defined sentimentalism by invoking the image of a rich woman crying ina performance hall over something like Les Miserables, but then brashly rushing past the poorbeggars on the steps outside the hall. The sentimentalism in this case had to do with her usingfictional desperation for her own emotional thrill and for a scheduled catharsis, but then losingthe apparent sympathy and sensitivity, which made the catharsis work at the performance, as soonas she faces desperation and poverty in reality.When people complain that television news in America these days in exploitatively emotionalist orsentimental, it has to do with a similar gratification of the viewer's emotional needs for thetragic. That this is a betrayal of the function of television journalism should be apparent to allwho watch the news at a critical remove. Anyone who is critical of the TV news must also beself-critical as a viewer in order to resist a manipulation which might not be the consciousintent of any news-reporters but which is startlingly clear to many viewers.For example, a quote from http://slate.msn.com/id/2125732/"We watched the news for hours, flipping from channel to channel, looking in vain for the kind ofinformation that would let two relatively non-brave people like us decide whether to launch out ona personal mission to evacuate people. As time passed, we became shocked, then enraged, that theTV news wasn't giving us this very very basic information. To show us a tearful woman begging toget out of the city, and not explain exactly, in detail, what the issues would be to get her outof the city, is just foul, disgusting, obscene, and inexcusable. All we saw was more and morefootage of sad, desperate, people. OK, we get it already.—James DurbinThat quote is from the readers' follow-up complaints to a story about hating the TV news by JackShafer in slate.com on sept 4, 2005. The TV news as performance has the same built-insentimentalism as James' opera hall example, except it collapses reality onto the stage: theemotional thrills given by the appearance of desperate people on the screen sentimentalizes theviewer into the crying woman, who can do nothing about what she sees.But it is reality mediated through the TV news that causes this catharsis, which makes itdifferent than James' 19th century example. The infotainment viewer craves the heightenedemotional experience that the news as infotainment provides. This is not every actual viewer, asis clear by the quote, but rather the implied viewer and the created viewer -- the one whogradually aquires an addiction and a craving. The craving built into the structure of infotainingTV news turns the viewer into a sentimental vampire who thrives on grandiose and incoherentdispatches of intensity from a real crisis, while relapsing into boredom and stasis or junkyishwithdrawal when nothing happens. The perversity is that this enjoyment -- of course in the formof painful or 'bad' emotions, and not recognized as 'enjoyable' -- it is the call of the TV newsfor the sentimental viewer. It is a source of unrecognized pleasure, and it should bother us thattelevision news reporting can convert events into catalysts for our hysterical enjoyment, withouteven addressing what the viewer who soberly 'gets it already' can do to respond to reports. Torepeat, not every viewer is the sentimental viewer here described. But with the educationaldemand of reality TV that the viewer love and need every recording of intense human drama, everyguaranteed authentic crisis of a real person somewhere, and every smoldering detail of someone'ssad exhibited desperation, there will be more viewers of this type and more news of this type.The integrity of any TV news today depends on its formal and generic difference from reality TV. I think this is why I, and a lot of us, can't tolerate the news we (don't)watch; not just that we don't like to feel manipulated, but that we can't witness the erosion of this difference.
I think William James once defined sentimentalism by invoking the image of a rich woman crying ina performance hall over something like Les Miserables, but then brashly rushing past the poorbeggars on the steps outside the hall. The sentimentalism in this case had to do with her usingfictional desperation for her own emotional thrill and for a scheduled catharsis, but then losingthe apparent sympathy and sensitivity, which made the catharsis work at the performance, as soonas she faces desperation and poverty in reality.When people complain that television news in America these days in exploitatively emotionalist orsentimental, it has to do with a similar gratification of the viewer's emotional needs for thetragic. That this is a betrayal of the function of television journalism should be apparent to allwho watch the news at a critical remove. Anyone who is critical of the TV news must also beself-critical as a viewer in order to resist a manipulation which might not be the consciousintent of any news-reporters but which is startlingly clear to many viewers.For example, a quote from http://slate.msn.com/id/2125732/"We watched the news for hours, flipping from channel to channel, looking in vain for the kind ofinformation that would let two relatively non-brave people like us decide whether to launch out ona personal mission to evacuate people. As time passed, we became shocked, then enraged, that theTV news wasn't giving us this very very basic information. To show us a tearful woman begging toget out of the city, and not explain exactly, in detail, what the issues would be to get her outof the city, is just foul, disgusting, obscene, and inexcusable. All we saw was more and morefootage of sad, desperate, people. OK, we get it already.—James DurbinThat quote is from the readers' follow-up complaints to a story about hating the TV news by JackShafer in slate.com on sept 4, 2005. The TV news as performance has the same built-insentimentalism as James' opera hall example, except it collapses reality onto the stage: theemotional thrills given by the appearance of desperate people on the screen sentimentalizes theviewer into the crying woman, who can do nothing about what she sees.But it is reality mediated through the TV news that causes this catharsis, which makes itdifferent than James' 19th century example. The infotainment viewer craves the heightenedemotional experience that the news as infotainment provides. This is not every actual viewer, asis clear by the quote, but rather the implied viewer and the created viewer -- the one whogradually aquires an addiction and a craving. The craving built into the structure of infotainingTV news turns the viewer into a sentimental vampire who thrives on grandiose and incoherentdispatches of intensity from a real crisis, while relapsing into boredom and stasis or junkyishwithdrawal when nothing happens. The perversity is that this enjoyment -- of course in the formof painful or 'bad' emotions, and not recognized as 'enjoyable' -- it is the call of the TV newsfor the sentimental viewer. It is a source of unrecognized pleasure, and it should bother us thattelevision news reporting can convert events into catalysts for our hysterical enjoyment, withouteven addressing what the viewer who soberly 'gets it already' can do to respond to reports. Torepeat, not every viewer is the sentimental viewer here described. But with the educationaldemand of reality TV that the viewer love and need every recording of intense human drama, everyguaranteed authentic crisis of a real person somewhere, and every smoldering detail of someone'ssad exhibited desperation, there will be more viewers of this type and more news of this type.The integrity of any TV news today depends on its formal and generic difference from reality TV. I think this is why I, and a lot of us, can't tolerate the news we (don't)watch; not just that we don't like to feel manipulated, but that we can't witness the erosion of this difference.
posted by am at
12:15 AM
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