Watching TV doesn't make you smarter, and who is to decide which shows are considered worthy of watching or not. This is proven when stating that people are smarter from being able to follow more complex narratives, it doesn't follow that they are more educated than before. It is perhaps making them think more about future episodes and in turn also disengaging the viewer from the social inequalities and violence that the show may possess. People should watch TV shows based on what they like, for entertainment purposes, and not for the notion that they are doing it to "enhance" themselves. Because of the variety of interests and influence among individuals, there is no one able to declare that certain shows are really bad for everyone to view.
Perceived response to Reality Television: Oxymoron by George F. Will:
Watching television should be about what you like to watch, and not what is going to make you smarter or dumber. In “Reality Television: Oxymoron” People have the choice to pick what they watch based on what they want to watch. The only time people don’t get the choice what they want to watch if it is for class to teach something. People don’t have to watch something based on the educational factor in the show. Some shows like Fear Factor exist for entertainment only, or sports are there for people to watch. Even though you know you might see a fight during the game. Watching these shows will not necessarily make you smarter or dumber.
Perceived response to Family Guy and Freud by Antonio Peacocke: Peacocke intends to credit the show Family Guy with an agenda to make good humor out of our inherently human ability to find humor with letting our "animalistic and aggressive impulses surface from the unconscious" (266). The notion that we could be looking to analyze how we see the writer's humor may be accurate. However, this also coincides with the problem that believing tv producers want to make us behave a certain way is really not a likely concern of broadcasting executives. The argument Peacocke gives may convince viewers to look at the show in a new light, instead of seeing just the crude attempt for humor many people will see.
Works Cited:
Stevens, Dana. “Thinking Outside the Idiot Box” Comp. Gerald Graff, Cathy Birkenstein, and Russel Durst. They Say I Say with Readings. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2006. 182. Print.
Peacocke, Antonia. "Family Guy and Freud: Jokes and their relation to the unconscious." They Say I Say. Comp. Gerald Greff, Cathy Berkenstein, Russel Durst. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2009. Print
Will, George F. “Reality Television:Oxymoron” They Say I Say with Readings. Comp. Gerald Graff, Cathy Berkenstein, Russel Durst. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2006. Print.
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The one thing that I struggled with in your post was the lack of flow. If I didn't know what the assignment was I would not have known what you are talking about or why. I think the thing that would help you out the most is to read your post aloud to yourself. As you do ask yourself if this sounds like something you would say in a face to face discussion. If your answer is yes then you are in good shape. You have all of the information there to make a really great post it just needs to flow better.
ReplyDeleteI did not really understand the thesis of what you are talking about or what article you are really backing up. You go from saying how it is best to choose what you want to watch and in how no one can force you to watch anything along with how there is nothing bad out there for anyone to watch and I would have to say that there are some pretty bad things out there for people to watch. You start out by saying watching television does not make you smarter and is that why, because people choose what they want to watch and it is usually something not informative?
ReplyDeleteThis posting mentions the points of your selected writing but some of them could have been elaborated on a little more. It seems to be written a little bit like a list, which if we didn’t know the requirements from the assignment it may not make a whole lot of sense to an anonymous reader. I think it has good points but could have been set up a little different, maybe a little more descriptive and a little less like a list.
ReplyDeleteI think that with how short her article was you did a good job reiterating that tv is for the viewers entertainment. The paragraphs don't transition very smoothly though when you wrote what you thought she would answer Peacocke's and Will's articles.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the previous comments - I am just not quite sure what your thesis statement actually is. I also had trouble with the flow of the paper - I would recommend putting some better transitions both within and between each paragraph to create an easier-to-read post. I do think you did a great job picking the two other sources to relate your article to - again, the transition to those sources could be a little smoother. It almost seems like you answered the assignment questions, but didn't link everything together.
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