We live in a world ruled by pop princesses and pancake houses, where video games have replaced books and writers no longer need grammar. But look deeper, and it’s easy to see that our sometimes witless world remains an inquisitive and clever place. In short essays, our writers probe those signs of intelligent life.
TALKING HEADS
The collision of high- and lowbrow is TV’s speciality.
By nature, the populist medium is primed to deliver grand human ideas and events in the context of sales pitches, summing up and pushing forward in the ever-present now. With TV, there is no looking back to the previous page, no going deeper with a search engine.
Only the fleeting, always-urgent present tense, and right now that is being captured in the chatter of TV hosts, the questions on a game show, the riffs of cable’s commedians.
It is no longer the nightly news that defines the American moment; it is the offhand comment, the punch line. And if you listen closely to it, you can learn.
The most momentous, historic events are bracketed by “right back after these messages.” Likewise, the most banal diversions — daytime TV? — offer a clue to a profound subtext of what’s on the serious agenda.
When the ladies of “The View” chatter about Libya, we know the national psyche has been seized by the Khadafy moment. The spectacle is not the same as reading Foreign Affairs magazine, but it points the way.
Similarly, when a game show features IBM’s supercomputer playing along, our attention is flagged: Artificial intelligence is now on the table.
Silly pop culture leads us to think deeper. The lamest joke by Jon Stewart, when he sits opposite a great thinker or brilliant author, facilitates our understanding of the smart stuff. If a book about the environment or the budget is worth a nutty sendup by our court jester, it’s worth a serious focus for the citizenry. Stewart’s mini-review is as close as most of us will get. Superficial, maybe, but we’ve been informed.
And there’s this: TV is often smartest when it’s silent. The visual medium brilliantly juxtaposes images to reveal truth. A comparison of satellite photos — an astounding experience now available on computer screens too — reveals the before and after of Japan’s earthquake/tsunami catastrophe more effectively than all the wordy reports. Joanne Ostrow
See ‘related items,’ above right, for 8 other signs of intelligent life in The Age of Stupid.
