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POSITIVEUSES
(Continued from page 22)
Well, history reveals tbat the poor
were a lways clever enough to feel
anxiety and alienation. During the
Am" rican, French and Russian rev–
olutions, communication, instant
and mass, was nonexistent. Never–
theless, the citizens managed to get
their anxiety together and we all
know what happened. As for the
atfluent, they have always been so
richly endowed with emptiness and
neuroses that generations of writers
became famous scribbling novels
about them.
Our culture-no, all cultures, in–
cluding the primitive peoples we've
been misinformed about- have al–
ways worshiped wealth, honored
wealth, genuflected to wealth. Televi–
sion is just the latest angle to exploit
our crass little natures. Critics too
often confuse tbe message/sales pitch
with the medium. Listening to them
one gets the impression they run out
for a beer during the programming
and see only the commercials. Spon–
sors and advertisers do indeed bom–
bard us in an attempt to push
products. But the same message
comes to us in the form of mail to
occupant, on billboards, radio, in
magazines and newspapers, and on
the sides of buses and backs of
bencbes.
Our greed, our alienation, our neu–
roses and finally the violence in our
society are blamed on television. Too
easy, too easy an out. The Germans
didn't need years of violence flick–
ering before their eyes on a little
screen to get them ready for what they
did. And Hitler didn't need television
to hypnotize an entire nation into
following him, screaming their ap–
proval of his obscenities. They tore
their fellows from among themselves
and roasted millions
in
a "final solu–
tion" without prime-time condi–
tioning.
Sigmund Freud, palms probably
lifted to the sky, cried, "Wha t do
women want?" 1 ask the same thing
of television's critics. "What do you
want?" How much entertainment,
news and inforrnation sbould we ex–
pect to receive in each 24-hour
period? We do not demand that our
theaters offer only opera, Shake-
24
speare, Beckett or ballet. We do not
purcbase books on philosophy or
poetry by the tens of thousands, nor
frequent concert halls to hear seri–
ous music by new composers, nor
consistently jam the halls of mu–
seums. These interests are reserved
for a small portion of the population
who for a variety of reasons enjoys
intellectual entertainment.
And so
1
concede that television is
not pulsating with serious drama, or
awash with high musical moments.
But this so-called wasteland offers
programming like the fascinating
special on poet T. S. Eliot, a sump–
tuous musical treat called
Stravinsky
Remembered,
Laurence Olivier in a
new staging of O'Neill's
Long Day's
Journey into Night
which aired in
prime time. How about the two-hour
uninterrupted and anguished exam–
ination of the growing gang menace
in Los Angeles, the Cousteau docu–
mentaries, Wolper's
Primal Man,
tbe
historie
World at War,
Alistai r Cooke
and the
America
series,
Masterpiece
Theater,
and the scary special
Earth–
quake?
A little less paralysis of thumb
and forefinger and a bit of indepen–
dent dial twisting and suddenly you
find yourself watching a very reveal–
ing open-ended discussion on the
Equal Rights Amendment witb tbe
ladies showing their fangs on both
sides of the issue; or actor James
Earl Jones interviewing comics
Scoey Mitchell and Slappy White
on
Black Omnibus.
That was a mar–
velous piece of TV, rich with black
humor and irony. And Barbara
Walters with her
Not for Women
Only
series deals in depth with the
nature of our Congress, discusses
homosexuality, airs the emotion and
commotion over obesity, the legal
rights of cbildren.
Along with the soaps, game shows
and old movies, daytime program–
ming provides provocative and un–
expected moments. A talk-sbow
host had a painful interview with a
reluctant Margaret Trumao Daniel,
who seemed a bit hazy about the
contents of the book about her
father which bears her name as au–
thor; and an extraordinary dis–
cussion with Mary Sirhan, mother
of Robert Kennedy's assassin. Mrs.
Si rhan's blind passion in behalf of
her son should have been the sub-
ject of serious review by both psy–
chiatrists and television cri tics.
Tbe repeated complaint tha t tele–
vision offers no substance to engage
the mind is simply not true. 1 chose
an evening at random to monitor
the tube without trying to find the
best night of the week. That evening
there was a staggering array of in–
formation and entertainment
presented by all the channels, both
network and local, during prime
evening hours.
Earthkeeping,
a series for young
people, examined the values in–
volved in the interaction of humans
and their environment.
The Lively
Arts
showcased a Metropolitan Op–
era singer. There was stunning pho–
tography to charm the armchair
traveler on
Wor/d of Survival
which
visited the Galápagos islands. There
were four specials on-each a joy to
watch. The Harlem Globetrotters
repeated their
Popcorn Machine
thing, and you'd have to be sorne
sourpuss not to get a kick out of it.
The Mario Thomas special induced
tears and laughter. Lily Tomlin fol–
lowed in another hour of comic sat–
ire. The Massachusetts Institute of
Technology joined ABC news to do
a half hour called
New Hopes for
Medicine
which explored the break–
through in multidisciplinary medi–
cine. There was also a great movie
on that night: the 1937 version of
the life of Emile Zola starring Paul
Muni. Aldous Huxley's bitter novel
Point, Counterpoint
was trans–
formed for television and aired that
randomly chosen night.
r
could go
on. The content and quality of just
one evening's TV schedule was
overwhelming.
For a change of pace, television
offers cooking Iessons from experts
who urge their listeners to stretch
their culinary imaginations. One
can exercise with physical thera–
pists, learn Spanish, Hebrew or Ger–
man, or follow a yoga guru. There
are programs in Spanish and Japa–
nese for our large ethnic popu–
lations and a variety of consumer
education programs aiding us in be–
coming wiser purchasers.
Ideas a re exchanged through the
various talk-show hosts and their
guests. How many of us, after all,
can confront Menachem Begin,
Richard Nixon, Anwar Sadat, or a
The
PLAIN TRUTH October-November 1978