TV-free at last

Three weeks ago, I unplugged the idiot tube as part of the 90% reduction challenge, and then something odd happened: I started to like it. After a few days the incessant voices repeating slogans and jingles in my head began to fade away, and I could hear my own thoughts for a change. What a novelty! Slowly, I stopped worrying about the lives of characters in my favorite shows and began to think about my own life.

I started coming to my own conclusions about how to spend my time and money. I began cooking from scratch and planning a small balcony garden. I checked out copious numbers of books from the library and pored through them ravenously. I spent more time talking and laughing with friends and family. [Ed. note: And crying -- one dear friend died a few days ago.]

And I really saw for the first time, that Howard Beale was right.

When the movie Network was made over 30 years ago, I was just starting my own career in broadcasting. I never actually saw the whole thing, just clips here and there, but I heard so much about it that eventually, I thought that I did see it. I didn’t realize my mistake until today, when I watched another clip, one that’s not so famous.

Or maybe I did see it and just forgot about that scene, who knows. One thing I do know is that I’m going to buy the DVD and make my own, homegrown TV-addict son watch it at least once.

Back when the movie came out, I remember the knowing laughter from fellow broadcasters and reviewers. But they weren’t reacting to the message that Peter Finch, as Howard Beale, was delivering to his audience: that television had the power to take over our minds and thus, the world. They thought Faye Dunaway’s character, a network executive who realized the company could make a fortune by turning the ranting anchorman into a hit show, was the brilliant inside joke of the movie. And she was. What they didn’t know was that everything screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky said in Beale’s rants would eventually come chillingly true.

Or maybe they did know. Maybe I’m the oblivious one who finally woke up when I pulled the plug. Who knows, maybe more of us would wake up by doing the same.

Try it. You’ll like it.