TV: A Tall Tale

By Sam Watermeier

 
Painter Steven James explained art best. "Nature is larger than life, and that's the way art should be." Cultivation theory founder George Gerbner would argue that nature is larger than life because art made it seem that way.

According to the cultivation analysis, heavy television viewers (who watch more than four hours a day) are more likely to see the social world as a reflection of the one depicted on TV. But if the social world is like the one on TV, wouldn’t we see less people glued to their computers?

In this age of passive online communication, TV allows us to vicariously experience more upfront, honest expression. Take the HBO series “Curb Your Enthusiasm.” The hero Larry David says the kinds of things most of us only feel comfortable expressing anonymously on the internet. 

 

Impure thoughts are funny on TV because they're usually unexpressed in real life, David says. Therefore, the social world isn't what we see on TV, as Gerbner’s theory suggests about the way people perceive it. Rather, television provides an idealized version of it. Even reality TV is essentially a fantasy or an amplification of the everyday. Surely women don't bicker as viciously all the time as they do on "The Real Housewives."

David says he never worries about crossing the proverbial line because that's what viewers expect him to do, especially on HBO. It's his responsibility to express what they cannot, to be a vessel for their frustrations. The nature of TV is that it is a special dimension, giving its inhabitants a sense of power to do things others normally wouldn’t in real life.

It's troubling to step back from a show like "Curb Your Enthusiasm" and realize you and most others around you are not as open and honest as Larry David's character. As Pablo Picasso said, "Art is a lie that makes us realize the truth."

Apparently, David’s blunt honesty is bleeding over into more objective television as well. Even so-called "fair and balanced” news television is clearly becoming a myth, moving from a "just the facts, ma'am" approach to more theatrical and opinionated entertainment (e.g. "Morning Joe," "The O'Reilly Factor," etc.) There's a reason why people turn to the tube instead of other sources in the world outside of it — the reason being that television provides sensational spectacle. As soon as something is filtered through a camera, it loses a sense of raw reality and becomes something more exciting — a funhouse reflection of it.

Our world will never completely be like the one on TV, as Gerbner suggests, because the very nature of television is larger than life. When heavy watchers see it as a reflection of their world, they are idealizing, imagining a reality that is as big and exciting as the art of television.