Quiz Show

Last night, I ventured to the town of Happy, TX (the town without a frown) for basketball games of 3 of my teens. We arrive shortly before 6:30 (when the first game is about to start). As we are outside, I hear a buzzer ring (thinking it might be either the end of a JV game, or the 1 min. warning) so we hustle on in. As we arrive, we see the girls team (1st game we were supposed to watch) leaving the court. Come to find out that they bumped up the games and hour in order to not chance driving in bad weather. Good for them, stinks for Katie and I. We arrived home close to 2 hours earlier than we had planned.

I tell you that story, to tell you this one.

Since, I was not expecting this "down time", I took advantage of the situation and grabbed the remote to do a little channel surfing. When Katie joined, I had paused on a movie called "Quiz Show." This is set back when television was first making a big stand. The was a game show that aired called "Quiz Show". As the story unfolds, a member of a congressional committee set up to "monitor" several things (including television) has a hunch there is something not quite right with this game show. After many failed attempts, he finds out that the game is rigged. They give the answers to one contest before the show (in addition to teaching him how to act/sweat/lie).

This man then begins to find more evidence that goes all the way up the chain in NBC. Since the best way to stop this kind of activity is to cut the head off, he attempts to attack the highest levels of the National Broadcasting Corporation.

At the end of the movie, he makes a cool statement. When things start to turn, not so much in the direction he intended, he turns to a friend and says "I thought I was going after the TV programmers, but it turns out they are coming after us."

I really enjoyed this movie (mainly because it is based on a true story). That line stuck with me. It always amazes me how much TV corporations guide the way we think. We often do not even doubt what TV says. They may try to give us an un-biased view of all the Presidential candidates, but I rarely see some of the runners. The Today Show aired a segment on the benefits of sex. Over the course of the segment, they encouraged those who have "gone a-while with-out" to grab the next "decent looking" person and fulfill that need. In the last seconds came their advice to married couples... "talk".

TV has taught a generation many lessons, ideas, thoughts, and beliefs that I would prefer they learn somewhere else. (This coming from a person who grew up always having a TV) This thought hits more at home now that my daughter is fascinated with "Baby Einstein" or TV in general that has lots of colors and interesting music.

I'm not saying that Television is evil. I'm just saying that pretty much any show, news article, or broadcast event has some agenda. This, in and of itself, is not bad. Sometimes I wish they could just publicize that agenda, so I will be informed at what they are about, and what messages they might be sending me, or my kid.