This post will touch on themes I covered in my earlier post gaming - do not want! In that post I expressed how I felt that current games and gaming are essentially time wasters. Adding to this, I believe that gaming doesn’t benefit players in a meaningful way, ie. more than just as entertainment. I say ‘current’ because I believe games could be of meaningful benefit people but aren’t at the moment.
However, recently I’ve begun to think that this time wasting applies to other media as well - namely film and television. People have different tastes but most film and tv shows seem so devoid of any meaning. Sure they’re good for entertainment purposes, for a light laugh, but it pretty much stops there. There are films and possibly some tv shows which break this mold but generally it seems that you spend some time watching a film/show but you are no different for having watched it. It hasn’t enriched your life in any way.
Good films/tv should be thought provoking and you should be different for having experienced them. They should make you question things you’ve taken for granted or give you some insight into life and the way you live and the things you do in ways that you hadn’t previously considered. Films (I don’t really watch tv) that have had this ‘enriching’ experience for me are 2001: A Space Odyssey and The Dark Knight. 2001 really makes me think about what it means to be human, and the possibilities and challenges that humanity will face in the future. The Dark Knight really makes me wonder about corruption in society, and how much of a difference one person can make, and the power of symbols.
I’ve been thinking about this for a while, but yesterday the LA Times featured a story with a quote by Alan Moore which really hit on what I’m trying to say:
“I find film in its modern form to be quite bullying,” Moore told me during an hourlong phone call from his home in England. “It spoon-feeds us, which has the effect of watering down our collective cultural imagination. It is as if we are freshly hatched birds looking up with our mouths open waiting for Hollywood to feed us more regurgitated worms. The ‘Watchmen’ film sounds like more regurgitated worms. I, for one, am sick of worms. Can’t we get something else? Perhaps some takeout? Even Chinese worms would be a nice change.”
Alan Moore expresses well what I’m trying to explain (even if the metaphor gets a bit convoluted towards the end of that quote) and also alludes to another aspect of it: Repetition and lack of originality. Not only does most film/tv lack any meaning or value beyond pure entertainment but there’s so little original thought in most of the movies I’ve seen recently (beyond The Dark Knight). Speed Racer, a film I really enjoyed and found to be superbly entertaining, suffers from this badly. It was novel in terms of the art direction and extensive use of green screen special effects for pretty much everything, but in terms of plot or themes it’s nothing we haven’t seen before thousands of times.
I also think the fantasy genre (books/films/whatever) suffers from this as well. I don’t claim to be an expert on fantasy but I have read/watched quite a few fantasy series, and the genre seems for the most part to just recycle the same basic plots/ideas/characters that were established years ago. One notable exception I’ve read recently is the Temeraire series.
Of course it isn’t surprising that there’s a large number of books/films (particularly in the fantasy genre) that are very similar to each other in terms of plot/characters - these are obviously quite popular and sell quite well. But in that respect they are close to most films/tv: entertaining but ultimately meaningless.
I think “regurgitated worms” is a good metaphor for many films/tv. Hollywood/whoever feeds us more and more unoriginal, visually pretty, entertaining, ultimately meaningless crap which we watch and consume without thinking. It entertains us, keeps us happy and distracted from real issues. Meanwhile, other things are happening in the world, interesting things, important things, things which people don’t hear about or let slide if they spend too much time just watching unenriching films/tv. This may sound very cynical, but it really does seem at times like some forms of media have the effect (whether it’s being used deliberately or innocently) of a drug - it’s nice to watch it, consume it but it’s ultimately distracting us from things that are more important and worthwhile of our attention.