Watch What’s Good For You

Now and then I’ll read a book that both wins me over and loses me every few paragraphs. It’s an odd experience and it doesn’t happen often. The Rebel Sell, by Joseph Heath and Andrew Potter, was one such experience. And a book I’m currently reading is the same sort of thing. The book is Two Aspirins and A Comedy: How Television Can Enhance Health and Society, by Metta Spencer. The great thing about the book, from my perspective, is that Spencer argues that television, among other popular entertainments, is not pure escapism and that it can even have healing benefits. What she means by this is that when we watch TV shows and films we learn from the characters. Stories have lessons. You only think you’re watching ‘mindless’ entertainment.

Her ideas nicely balance those of Steven Johnson in his book, Everything Bad Is Good For You. Spencer notes that Johnson focuses by choice on the structural elements of the popular media and their increasing complexity and correlative effects on our intelligence as viewers and gamers. While she doesn’t dispute Johnson’s claims (she even lists his book as one of her favorites on her blog), she notes that he completely ignores the possible beneficial effects of the content of popular media. What do popular stories have to say to us? And how do they affect how we feel?

But then she makes an interesting decision – and by interesting I mean a decision that upsets me. She decides that the best, most beneficial stories are those that aren’t overly complex or intellectual but instead the ones that put a premium on empathy. So she looks in depth at a show like Northern Exposure. On the surface, this is a great choice. It’s a well written show that was one of my must-sees during its original run. And the series’ emphasis on spiritual growth is important – something that I don’t think has truly been replicated since (at least not with the show’s utterly non-denominational approach).

The problem is that I myself couldn’t watch only that type of show. I also get spiritual enlightenment of a … different kind. For example, I think that one of the best films about redemption is Pulp Fiction. Looked at from the spiritual perspective, it’s the story of how three badasses (a weak man, a righteous man, and a shepherd) find different degrees of redemption. Then there are the other types of stories about people who go the other way. Take Memento, for example. It’s about a memory-impaired ethically challenged character who is banished to his own personal hell. And he is damned for good reason. I like the occasional story that gives us a perfect model of what not to do.

Spencer, though, finds these types of stories considerably less healthy. She admits that she empathizes with Tony Soprano, but that she feels somewhat unwell after watching an episode of The Sopranos. These shows, she contends, make us feel unhealthy because of the questionable nature of the main characters and their environments.

This is, she readily admits, subjective. And that leads to what I see as the main problem with her thesis: it rests on a narrow ledge of what is healthy and what is morally rejuvenating. She believes that the best stories draw us into an empathetic relationship with the heroes – but not just any heroes. There is little room in her schema for the true antihero. Nor is there room, as it turns out, for gratuitous or vicious violence. By these standards she eliminates films like Raiders of the Lost Ark and Pulp Fiction. But I would argue that the violence in Pulp Fiction is neither gratuitous or vicious. After all, it’s a black comedy and when a kid is asked what he thinks about miracles and he says he has no opinion, that is simply not the right answer. The universe of the black comedy demands his head be blown off.

I suspect something else is going on here with Spencer’s specifications. The shows she consistently champions are predominantly feminine in nature. The not so secret ingredient is the empathy. And she earlier in the book admits to her disinterest in entertainment that demands a lot of mathematical and spatial intelligence and with complicated structures. It turns out that the secret to spiritual enlightenment is to be less masculine and more feminine.

Me, I’d argue for a more balanced approach between the masculine and the feminine. And if that proposition doesn’t work, then I would point out that, traditionally, many of the great religions have recognized that there are at least three ways to achieve a more spiritually enlightened position: the path of love, the path of good works and the path of knowledge. Spencer is clearly on the path of love. And I, meanwhile, have consistently chosen the path of knowledge. In fact, reading her book so far has given me a good deal to think about and that has made me feel more enlightened already. And I feel energized reading her work, precisely because she is telling me something I do want to hear and something I don’t want to hear. That’s the way I am.

Spencer makes the understandable mistake that modern medicine makes – she assumes that the same medicine will make everyone feel better. But some of us are allergic to heartfelt dramas, as many a girlfriend and wife has come to understand.