Six Hours Of Television :: essays research papers

Six Hours of TelevisionIn look at modern television schedule there argon hundreds of showsto learn from. Picking six hours of television to analyze from the prospectiveof an anthropologist is by no means easy. It is easy however, to talk aboutwhat our nation looks like to some others who lease never been here. Everyone isgorgeous, lives happily, and overcomes all problems, but more on that later.Four hours of the programming I chose is perhaps the most touristed programmingthis year, consistently stand out the Nielsen ratings. For the stay dickenshours of programming I decided to look at two jurisprudence drama shows, one that wasbrand new this succession and one not brand new, but still going strong.For the two hours of police dramas, I looked at programs with differentangles. NYPD BLUE is the story of police detectives, and HIGH INCIDENT was anew show that looked at the grab of policing from the beat. HIGH INCIDENTrepresented one of the first t.v. shows to come from th e SKG plant life of StevenSpielberg. However, just like Spielbergs previous AMAZING STORIES, HIGHINCIDENT has already ceased to air. This could still change though, with thenext season. Of the remaining four hours, three are on television everyThursday night, and include the tremendously popular FRIENDS, the SINGLE GUY,the hits SEINFELD and CAROLINE IN THE CITY, and the most popular show this year,ER. For the remaining hour I choose to look at THE TONIGHT SHOW, with Jay Leno. in the midst of these shows there are many similarities and many differences. All ofthese shows can be directly compared with each other, having some of the samequalities. Looking at these shows in the perspective of an anthropologist somedisquieting trends emerge. I will present the info as if an outsider,from another nation, were watching American shows, and believed what he/she wasseeing to be lawful of what goes on in America.Perhaps more realistic than the other shows, NYPD BLUE, and HIGH INCIDENTrepres ent the closest what life is really like. To a foreigner seeing theseshows, they would probably believe that America is a line of business bath of crime and illwill towards other people. While this isnt true the whole nation over, thereare many cities like those pictured in these two shows. Like the other shows Iwill discuss, these two have casts made up of predominately Caucasian males andfemales. Other nationalities, such as Asian, Afro-American, and Latino aresprinkled in just enough to make for sure the shows are politically correct. To an