Imagine watching TV dramas, and all of their attendant commercial ads, in a room full of people without homes, money, education, or the skin color of the ownership class. It is disconcerting to view television through such a lens, the lens of marginalization. Sitting in this room, with these men and women who’ve been kicked to the curb of ’empowered’ consumerism without so much as a “thanks for playing, better luck next time”, you slowly become more and more painfully self-conscious of the assumptions that have guided you.
For you, TV has always been a mirror rather than aspirational portal – the actors are mostly the same color as you are, and they live in homes much like those in which you have lived. Most of them speak like you do, and they drive to and from jobs that you could see yourself holding. Suddenly, in this room, with these people, you find yourself deconstructing every televised assumption of what life is, transposing in your head the gaudy orchestrated extravagance into the more dissonant key of poverty.
Sometime during Law and Order: SVU, you lean over and ask the guy next to you, “Do you ever get the sense that TV is written by rich white people, for rich white people?” He chuckles, but with less humor than resignation, and replies, “Man, I ain’t never felt no other way about TV.” He understands, and yet still stares, transfixed.
Advertisements feature diamond rings, cruise ship vacations, new furniture ensembles, and luxury vehicles. “SAVE! hundreds of dollars when you buy a new living room set!” That is, if you have a living room in which to put it, let alone the thousands upon which you’ll receive your hundreds in discount. Perhaps you feel particularly uncomfortable when an ad comes on for a private rehab facility in Malibu. It offers a place where one can find the “perfect setting to heal body, mind, and spirit” – for a price. The sad irony is that many of the people in this room with you have active and disruptive addictions, and a message such as this serves only as a harsh but unspoken implication that where they are now is not the place where healing is found. You see this and feel it move through you as you reject its assumption. There is love here; it’s just easier to see on some days than others.
May we be so blessed to see through our struggles to the love that underlies.
The Westward Expansion
Let those who have eyes to see, see
Imagine watching TV dramas, and all of their attendant commercial ads, in a room full of people without homes, money, education, or the skin color of the ownership class. It is disconcerting to view television through such a lens, the lens of marginalization. Sitting in this room, with these men and women who’ve been kicked to the curb of ’empowered’ consumerism without so much as a “thanks for playing, better luck next time”, you slowly become more and more painfully self-conscious of the assumptions that have guided you.
For you, TV has always been a mirror rather than aspirational portal – the actors are mostly the same color as you are, and they live in homes much like those in which you have lived. Most of them speak like you do, and they drive to and from jobs that you could see yourself holding. Suddenly, in this room, with these people, you find yourself deconstructing every televised assumption of what life is, transposing in your head the gaudy orchestrated extravagance into the more dissonant key of poverty.
Sometime during Law and Order: SVU, you lean over and ask the guy next to you, “Do you ever get the sense that TV is written by rich white people, for rich white people?” He chuckles, but with less humor than resignation, and replies, “Man, I ain’t never felt no other way about TV.” He understands, and yet still stares, transfixed.
Advertisements feature diamond rings, cruise ship vacations, new furniture ensembles, and luxury vehicles. “SAVE! hundreds of dollars when you buy a new living room set!” That is, if you have a living room in which to put it, let alone the thousands upon which you’ll receive your hundreds in discount. Perhaps you feel particularly uncomfortable when an ad comes on for a private rehab facility in Malibu. It offers a place where one can find the “perfect setting to heal body, mind, and spirit” – for a price. The sad irony is that many of the people in this room with you have active and disruptive addictions, and a message such as this serves only as a harsh but unspoken implication that where they are now is not the place where healing is found. You see this and feel it move through you as you reject its assumption. There is love here; it’s just easier to see on some days than others.
May we be so blessed to see through our struggles to the love that underlies.
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