2008 Woodie Awards
Believe It or Not, There Is Life Beyond The OC
Courtney Roy
Issue date: 4/6/05 Section: Perspectives
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I have a confession to make: I positively loathe television. It flat out bores me. Now, while I will occasionally watch with friends, television is not something that I really shape my day around. In college, however, catching the latest episode of The OC, One Tree Hill, or whatever seems to be the latest obsession is absolutely essential to living. If these programs had some sort of artistic merit, or at the very least, something to say beyond what's trendy this week, all of this would be a bit more understandable. Long gone are the Golden Days of television, when silly things like scripts, actors with real training, and genuine talent really mattered. Today, the television greats of the past have been replaced by reality TV stars looking for a quick dollar, children of Hollywood giants, and models attempting to expand their horizons. The saddest part of all of this is that we just keep eating it up, and producers keep feeding us the same storylines again and again.
It's a rare day indeed when I am able to walk anywhere on campus without hearing screeches about the last night's shocker on Hip Teen Life on the WB. Not only is there very little variance in what happens-Billy cheats on Janie, or, even more shocking, Janie finds a new boy from the wrong side of town. While a little TV for recreation is totally normal, many people today are taking it to an extreme, and becoming so wrapped up in the fantasy world of Hollywood that they care about little else. It can be a tough idea to accept, but the performers, if we can refer to them that way, are simply that, performers. The world created on television is drastically different from our own, and often, it presents a world where huge problems can be solved with the drop of a hat. After seeing problems solved so easily on television, it is easy to assume that issues can be solved just as quickly in real life. When we go through a similar situation, and see that it cannot always be fixed and that things may not turn out the way that we expected, it can be a hard pill to swallow.
It's a rare day indeed when I am able to walk anywhere on campus without hearing screeches about the last night's shocker on Hip Teen Life on the WB. Not only is there very little variance in what happens-Billy cheats on Janie, or, even more shocking, Janie finds a new boy from the wrong side of town. While a little TV for recreation is totally normal, many people today are taking it to an extreme, and becoming so wrapped up in the fantasy world of Hollywood that they care about little else. It can be a tough idea to accept, but the performers, if we can refer to them that way, are simply that, performers. The world created on television is drastically different from our own, and often, it presents a world where huge problems can be solved with the drop of a hat. After seeing problems solved so easily on television, it is easy to assume that issues can be solved just as quickly in real life. When we go through a similar situation, and see that it cannot always be fixed and that things may not turn out the way that we expected, it can be a hard pill to swallow.