The View from Nowhere

While recently watching the timeless classic “Strange Brew” starring everyone’s favorite hosers Bob and Doug McKenzie (played by Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas) I began to wonder about passivity in entertainment.  Much has been said about tv and brain rotting, video games and violence, Teletubbies and the apocalypse but what about the rapid loss of social skills in relation to the consumption of media?  Media is…. well mediated.  As we sit in front of the screen we have certain expectations.  Things we see should be interesting, require little commitment, and be available by request, meaning it shuts up when we want it to.  After thousands of hours of media consumption in a lifetime, how much of these expectations sneak into daily living?  Back to Bob and Doug.  In the film folks are outraged at the poor quality of the movie.  They throw food, boo, and then stampede the exit.  While watching this I had a hard time imagining people who would behave this way.  Even if completely disgusted would they be so expressive?  It seems like folks would just silently file out muttering to each other.  Sure, I’m talking about fake reactions depicted in a work of fiction but the point is that this kind of active involvement in a live experience seemed foreign to me and this shows that it is not something that I see very often.  While attending a performance of local improvisation group Theatre Sports I noticed that most people wanted to stay as far away from the stage as possible.  Odd, since that is the whole point of going is to have a participatory experience.  I wonder how many people I interact with on a daily basis think to themselves, “how can I change the channel?”