But isn't the screen just a modern, pop version of a magic mirror?
No no no, the palantirs, magic mirrors and mind control satellites of paranoid fantasy* are all precursors to the SCREEN, echoes back in time paving the way for the glorious modern window to the world.
It's like astral travel if you sent your spirit to Albert Square, or dreamwalking through daytime talk shows- what was the domain of the priest, mystic and shaman is now easily accessible by anyone with a telly, and the imaginary world spirit walkers travel through has become overpopulated with gameshows and sitcoms.
Think about it- before TV and movies, would you ever have experienced a jump cut or long pan in your dreams? Dreams are becoming more like movies, because we watch TV and movies and then dream about them. We have internalised the visual language of film, and at the same time many of the subliminal messages consciously or unconsciously included in the medium. For example horror movies exploit our fears, (so when you're in the shower you may think of Psycho) and product placement and adverts normalise Coke and Lexus as artefacts in our cultural landscape, casual uses of tropes reinforce our prejudice and stereotyping. The black guy dies first (Jazz), the gay characters are camp (Brad Pitt in Burn After Reading), the hot chick motivates the hero who is a man (almost every movie ever), the same things happen again and again as we re-watch the reruns and lose our expectation that things will be different and every day is new.
The SCREEN is already in your head and the characters on it almost real (can you name the actor who plays Dr Who? Can you recall the date of your father's birthday? Which was harder?) and it's only a matter of time before the images are beamed directly into your eyes 24/7 and the screen is a part of your brain/world visual interface, so you'd better learn to love it.
If not, you face alienation and exclusion as you are further and further divorced from what the rest of humanity is experiencing. Try telling someone you don't watch TV and see what reaction you get- incredulity, disbelief, a gradual edging away and sidelong glances...
There are as many high definition TV sets in the USA as there are total people in the UK (60 million). The Screen Age is here already.
*in fact in 'Light of thy Countenance' Moore specifically references common schizophrenic descriptions of black boxes that insert voices and images into the head, as a foreshadowing of TV |
