Dailies Contact Lenses

Copyeditors, may you assist?

The entertainment industry is decadent and depraved By: John Scala Broadcast television, the movie theatre, celebrity gossip magazines, the American population is based on and obsessed with constant entertainment. Is it a surprise that we are all nearly worshipping the lackadaisical figures that are part of our daily lives? Boredom; an obstacle everyone has been faced with, many, on a daily basis. The disorder can not be cured, but can be treated. One of the most commonly practiced treatments is the mindless self-indulgent tool of thought killing, the television. Millions, upon millions tune in every night to escape their daily lives, the exact reason people smoke meth. So as the population stares blankly in to the television screen, and as a coma like trance slowly takes them away from it all, they die, just a little bit more. Nearly every single one of us is part of the television generation, we grew up on cartoons, and other programs that kept us from being complaint ridden with boredom. Through are adolescence, we grew up with our eyes glued to the screen. Some of us still are watching our favorite programs, instead of socializing, reading, or participating in life. According to an Associated Press sponsored poll taken in 2007, one in four Americans read not a single book the previous year, and seventy-five percent of those who did, read no more than four. The American people are becoming more and more oblivious and idiotic as time passes. Our countries school system is failing - literally - this is supposed to be the greatest country in the world, so why are our students shown by a statistical average to be around a C average? Some may say the reason other countries, such as: Finland, South Korea, Japan, and Canada’s test scores and average IQ’s are so significantly higher than the U.S.’s is because of the large amount of the immigrant population here in the US. This is true, but only to a certain extent - especially here in Arizona - but I believe there is but one thing to blame; the entertainment industry. MTV was developed and first broadcasted on a national level during the early 80’s, it has throughout its time on the air, killed more brain cells than every single illegal substance combined. The countries lowering intelligence is even shown through: its most popular genre of music, its favorite television stations, and its favorite movies. Not only are our peers glued to the screen - but our parents, our grandparents, and even our great-grandparents. “So we don’t go out anymore. We sit in the house, and slowly the world we live in gets smaller, and all we ask is please, at least leave us alone in our own living rooms. Let me have my toaster and my TV and my hairdryer and my steel-belted radials, and I won’t say anything, just leave us alone.” Main character Howard Beale of the movie Network ranted. “So, listen to me! Television is not the truth! Television is a goddamned amusement park, that's what television is! Television is a circus, a carnival, a traveling troupe of acrobats and story-tellers, singers and dancers, jugglers, side-show freaks, lion tamers and football players. We're in the boredom-killing business! If you want truth, go to God, go to your guru, go to yourself because that's the only place you'll ever find any real truth! But, man, you're never going to get any truth from us. We'll tell you anything you want to hear. We lie like hell! We'll tell you Kojack always gets the killer, and nobody ever gets cancer in Archie Bunker's house. And no matter how much trouble the hero is in, don't worry: just look at your watch -- at the end of the hour, he's going to win. We'll tell you any shit you want to hear! We deal in illusion, man! None of it's true! But you people sit there -- all of you -- day after day, night after night, all ages, colors, creeds -- we're all you know. You're beginning to believe this illusion we're spinning here. You're beginning to think the tube is reality and your own lives are unreal. You do whatever the tube tells you. You dress like the tube, you eat like the tube, you raise your children like the tube, you think like the tube. This is mass madness, you maniacs! In God's name, you people are the real thing! We're the illusions!” The television, the movie theatres, and the internet is all we know, they are the ultimate tools of propaganda. Our nation is so fixed, that the television can make or break a presidential candidate, can end or start a war, and to place that much power - in to such few peoples hands. Nothing but corruption can be spawned, so please reader, read a book, read a newspaper, go talk to human beings, but above all of that - turn off your televisions.

Public Comments

1. Excellent. Wouldn't change a thing, even if I actually read it.