Friday, May 25, 2007

i didn't kill my tv, i just abandoned it and found a surrogate

I'm procrastinating again because I really am fed up with exams. But I am preparing in some way for the exam by watching Diva (1981), which was critically panned when it first came out, but the audiences--especially the young ones--loved it. I don't love it. It has many flaws, but I think it makes for an interesting study of race and gender.

In any case, Diva is not the reason why I wanted to post. It came to my attention yesterday that I have in fact lived months without a TV. To paint a wider picture of what TV means: one of the reasons why I decided not to go to my dream school in Vermont, which has only 300 students on a campus 15 miles from the nearest town, was because I didn't think I could live without a TV (you can't even get satellite out there). The last time I really thought about not having a TV for so long was just before I came here. And almost immediately, I forgot such a thing existed.

While you might think this is not true because I have seen many British TV programs, I would argue that it is different. Streaming the video online is almost the same thing as watching it once it's been released on DVD because there are no commercials. Nothing interrupts the show. And let's face it, some shows are just made as filler for commercials. But that is neither here nor there.

Plus the fact remains: I do not have a TV and the only times I have ever been in a room with one was either while I was on vacation or in the pub (which is not often).

OK. So perhaps my seeking out the programs online means I couldn't live without a TV, but I didn't go looking for these outlets. People recommended them to me, so I checked them out. If I hadn't heard about them, I wouldn't have known they existed.

I think when I go home having a TV at my personal disposal will take some getting used to. I'll have to learn to be patient through all those commercial breaks, too.

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