Dirty Feet

I have to admit I enjoyed my time away this past month.  It gave me time to relax and reflect.
A long vacation gives us the luxurious time to read the books you got for Christmas and time to search the Internet for impossible projects for your home.   Another of the things it allows time for, on the inevitable rainy day, is to watch television.  That’s something I don’t do very much, and my ‘stay in the house’ days in February reminded me just why I gave it up.

In February we lost some personalities that I remembered very well from my childhood.  One was Shirley Temple, the little girl against whom all other little girls were measured back in the day.  Although her movies were already considered old, with dimples and bouncing curls and talent she danced her way through my early
television experience.  Watching her routines with Arthur Treacher (later the fish and chips king) was pure magic.  Every little girl of my generation wanted to be either Shirley Temple or Annette Funicello from the Mickey Mouse Club.   Today my grandchildren are exposed to Honey Boo Boo and her dreadful family, and more is the pity.

In that same time frame we also lost Sid Caesar.  My parents always loved Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca.  They were part of our family evening line up along with Your Hit Parade, Ed Sullivan, Perry Mason and, of course, an endless assortment of westerns.  The comedy was silly and slapstick, but my Dad thought Sid Caesar was a comedic genius.   Years later my husband and I would look up to see him taking a seat in Wolf’s Deli on West 57^Th Street in New York.  Caesar was working on Broadway at the time, looking very dapper in his black turtle neck with the Times tucked under his arm.   He sure wouldn’t make it on television today.

 

Today we seem to find great humor in putting inappropriate sentences into the mouths of children and the elderly.  Personally I don’t enjoy the raunchy comments written for elderly women like Betty White.  She has the show about Cleveland and another one with “comedy” vignettes that have elderly people doing outrageous things. One episode I could not get away from fast enough had an 80 something woman making sexual advances to young men on a city street.    It seems we laugh at situations and conversations that would have horrified people not so many years ago.

Channel surfing during some inclement vacation weather gave me more information about shows than I really ever needed to know.    I now know there are at least four shows about life in Alaska that make me very thankful I live someplace else…anywhere else, actually.  There’s a show about an obscenely wealthy family of duck call producers, and one about backwoods entrepreneurs who produce moonshine.  There are shows about drag queens and drag racers, chefs and psychics and psycho-babble experts.  With the legalization of marijuana in a couple of states I bet we’ll soon be setting the DVR to record new shows about producing and using what promises to be the new favorite American crop.  It’s all about entertainment…right?  

The ugliness of confrontational TV shows that drag the most personal and sordid details of the participants lives into the spotlight is mind numbing.  Why anyone would want to air their dirty laundry on national TV while they scream obscenities (bleep-bleep-bleep) at one another is simply beyond my comprehension.  "Today we will interview a woman who claims to be the schizophrenic step child of a hearing impaired devil worshiper!"  I always wonder where they find these poor souls…but there appears to be a stream of them steady enough to keep Jerry Springer in expensive suits.

I am reminded of a quote I once read. I’ve long since forgotten who said it but it went something like, “I refuse to let anyone walk through my mind with their dirty feet.”  That still seems to me to be a very wise statement. 

I don't want to sound preach-y here, but even if you don’t watch a lot of TV, you really should take the time to go around the dial just to see what’s on.  Is this really  what you want to invite into your home…and into your mind?  It might be as disturbing to you as it is to me when you think about what our children watch on a daily basis.  

I’m not naive enough to suggest we return to the Shirley Temple days;  I know perfectly well the Good Ship Lolly Pop sailed a long time ago. However, if what's on TV right now represents what we have become, I'm afraid we may discover that we are all holding hands on the deck of the Titanic.

                                        Life is Good