Fools Deny This
When I was in high school and college, there were a few popular bumper stickers I can vividly remember: “Kill Your TV,” “Question Authority” and “Trendy People Suck.” (For my part, I had a bunch of death metal and hardcore stickers.) To this day, I still can hear a hint of the badge of honor being brandished when someone tells me he doesn’t have a television or never watches the one he does have.
Television as a medium has a peculiar status. Imagine if someone told you he didn’t listen to music or watch films. Never mind the fact that failure to own a television does not necessarily correspond to refined tastes in other mediums. Television means junk, means 5-hours a day of lobotomizing sitcomery. That’s just too bad. I believe we’re in a golden age of television drama.
Some evidence off the top of my head (I admit to not having seen all of these; some I actually dislike; and some are newcomers):
- The Wire
- The Sopranos
- Big Love
- Treme
- Breaking Bad
- The Killing
- The Walking Dead
- Mad Men
- Lost
- Game of Thrones
- Dexter
- True Blood
- Six Feet Under
- Carnivale
So as a tribute to you, oh beloved idiot box, here is a picture I found on the web of the first TV I can remember. We had this model (or one very, very similar) when I was growing up.
