Examples Of Romantic Narrative In Mass Media

“Televised events like the Super Bowl, the Olympics and the World Cup give us a rare opportunity to share a moment in time with the world,” proclaims Tim Leberecht of www.designmind.com (Leberecht). With our busy lives, we almost never take out time to spend with our loved ones, and these televised events are when the majority of people meet up and have fun. “Millie? Does the White Clown love you? Does your ‘family’ love you, love you with all their heart and soul, Millie?” Montag asks Mildred (Bradbury 77). Guy Montag is questioning his wife out of desperation, and is extremely curious to know if she believes that her fake TV family really loves her. From this we can see that he is truly disappointed with life and his wife’s immoral addiction to television. We must keep in mind that our society today is not as dumbed down and obsessed with fake parlor shows that spread real, tangible people apart as Mildred is. TV today is a source of knowledge and learning, and creates the perfect circumstances and settings for the getting together of the people that really matter the most. One of the most important aspects of television is its ability to strengthen democracy and teach the law. “Seventy-two percent (of the US population) learn about elections and candidates from TV news,” states www.designmind.com (Leberecht). TV brings us information that is essential to maintaining our freedom and our guaranteed

As television viewers, we tend to slouch in front of this electrical box after a long day’s work, many of us don’t think or know about how much television programming has changed since our parent’s childhood. In “Thinking outside the Idiot Box” by Dana Stevens and “Watching TV Makes You Smarter” by Steven Johnson, both writers give their thoughts and opinions about how television programming has evolved over the last three decades. These gentlemen recognize that the days of slap-stick comedy were over and replace by more sophisticated stories. This new brand of programs have provide a step stoning for the evolution of television to gain momentum.

World War II ended on September 2, 1945, and citizens in America were dwelling in the postwar booming economy. Thus, people had a hole burning in their pocket and many entrepreneurs found a means in which they could supply their products to consumers. Therefore, television became a method of communication, rather than the radio, the television allowed individuals to watch events in the comfort in their living room. In the 1950’s a television could be found in almost every American’s home becoming known as the dawn of the television age. A famous sitcom in the 1950’s which first aired on October 5, 1951 is I Love Lucy. This particular show is the building blocks of the beginning of television, exposing viewers of the society in the 1950’s, along with the minimal similarities and mass differences when compared to today’s shows.

American television today has drastically changed from the first appearance of the television in the 1920s. Currently, television is nothing but sitcoms poking jokes at the disabled, the LGBT community adapting to the American family standard, and even late night television poking fun at our 2016 Presidential candidates.1950s television depicted America’s heterosexual, patriarchal society in which an “ideal and acceptable” family consisted of a generous working class father, an accommodating and good-natured mother, and a few respectful children. Whereas 1950s American television required the audience to accept television families without question, American networks today understand that times are changing and just like mass communication, adapting to the millennial generation of technology is a must for television families to appeal to the growing masses. But when did television families first start to step away from the cultural ideals of its time? From the 1920s through the 1960s television upheld the Father Knows Best standard of television with shows such as ‘Father Knows Best” and “I Love Lucy.” Well, fast forward 30 years, and in came the Bundy’s. The Bundy’s were television’s first dysfunctional, on screen family to undermine the idea that an ideal family must function perfectly all the time. Married with Children reminded us that it was ok to not conform to society’s cultural norms. “…people want to watch a family that

“Television is providing some sort of compensation for the social atomization that it itself has contributed to , and thus , all the simulated conviviality , while being a pleasant “dream,” is “pure wish fulfillment,” indeed, rather “phony,” and, perhaps, sad”(315).

Four million babies were born each year, the introduction to rock and roll music took place, and more schools and homes were constructed in its cities (History), having a great impact on America and its people at this time. But nothing had as big of an impact on American society and its peoples ideas, as the grand emersion of the television. “Television was not merely entertainment. It was a teacher, offering lessons in what was acceptable in society.” (Stereotypes, page 3) Television and it’s forms of entertainment itself, changed the way people saw gender, class, and moral values

Stronger bonds of affection and shared interests would form whenever the family gathered around the television sets. Media Historian Lynn Spigel states that,” Not only was it shown to restore faith in family togetherness,” Spigel notes, but TV did it “in splendors of consumer capitalism.” (Edgerton, p. 92) Postwar television promoters pushed the new “family togetherness” that TV viewing would generate within the family. The era of viewing TV in public setting did influence stations' early programming decisions and civic discourse about the new medium and its audience but it was brief. As stated by Edgerton, “By 1950, 45 percent of families who lived in those areas in which TV was available had purchased television sets. The camaraderie of watching in a bar was outweighed for many men by the convenience of watching it at home.” (Edgerton, p. 97) This supplements the social change of family togetherness in the early period of

Barbara Ehrenreich expresses her utter distaste for television in The Worst Years of Our Lives based in the 1980’s. Ehrenreich writes numerous assertions in regard to television’s unrealistic portrayal of every day life. She raises a valid argument when she points out that TV watchers will never see the commonplace facets of human life depicted on their TV screen. Instead, they watch shows filled with fake people, plastic smiles, ungenuine conversations, and unrealistic tasks all combined into a program that epitomizes the way in which we don’t live. Television distracts people from actually living their lives so instead they live vicariously through TV shows, wasting their lives away.

Today, television is everywhere and effects families and family life in impactful and often destructive ways. The medium is like an addictive drug where hours are dedicated to its use and mass consumption. In Marie Winn's essay, "Television: The Plug-in Drug," she described the effects of television on young children and the family environment at home. Television is one of the most dominating diverting factors of the common family as she noted throughout her work producing a scathing and prophetic view of the medium as it plays out in modern times. The purpose of this essay is to explore Winn's essay in terms of her honest and heartfelt approach leading to the article's overall appeal and effect.

Television has been used for decades to shape the human psyche. It has also played a major role in the development of American lives, and at times we fail to notice. “People are sheep. TV is the shepherd.” (Jess C. Scott, Literary Heroin (Gluttony): A Twilight Parody).

In his essay “Somehow Form a Family” Tony Early uses structure and tone to convey his use of television as an escape into an alternate reality and a way to mask his problems. In the years following his family’s purchase of the Zenith television, Early is faced with many challenges such as an absentee father, a loss of religion, a mental breakdown, and the loss of his sister. During all of these challenges television is there for him, promising him that life will get better.

Aristotelian mimesis dictates that the “art” produced by our culture and society is an imitation of our reality. If so, then our contemporary entertainment era overstocked in brooding, morally ambiguous anti-heroes bearing five o’clock shadows and “dark and gritty” narratives are a reflection of the flawed and unrelenting modern-day reality that we inhabit. This age of morally gray storytelling is a stark contrast to the idealistic depictions of American society and “traditional family values” found throughout various 1950s television (Museum of Broadcast Communications). The force behind this shift from a rather jubilant, dreamlike state of Cold War era media, to the grim and cynical state of present-day film, television, and music can thus be interpreted by some romanticists with a longing for the “good ol’ days” as a decline of virtues and goodness in American society. However, the “goodness” of America found in 1950s media was hardly a true reflection of reality. Through the further development of mass media and communications in the following decades, however, American audiences were then able to see passed the “goodness” from the shelter of their own homes (Murray). The realities that went into the lenses of news cameras, and out the screens of black and white television tubes exposed the horrors of war in Vietnam and the injustice towards nonviolent Black protestors to the archetypical nuclear families of America, distorting their idealized perceptions of American

Alain de Botton in “How Fiction Ruined Love” says that our culture’s infatuation on over climatic, romanticized love stories has a shock on our actual lives. In modern culture, few stories manage to convey the complications of a long-lasting relationship. Namely, people often go into relationships with unrealistic and high expectations. Few examples of this are when the going gets tough, couples often clamp under the pressure of everyday life. Ultimately, Alain de Botton argues that love is so much more that just sexual feeling and passion that romantic novels and movies portray it to be.

Today, romance is one of the most popular genres to watch on television. Unlike most, romance is a genre where the plot revolves around the love between two main characters as they experience the highs and lows of love. “Common themes that revolve around romantic movies are kissing, love at first sight, tragic love, destructive love, and sentimental love” (Taylor). These themes appear in many historical films and the pattern still continues in modern films as well. Watching romantic movies has a giant negative influence on the viewer's analysis of what love and relationships should really be like. These films give the wrong impression of reality when it comes to dating, marriage, having children, and even how to manage a relationship in

A major research concern for behavioral psychologists and sociologists today circles an integral part of the American family routine and life. Something that has become so inset into homes that it would be rare to find one without it. Research has shown a hidden danger lurking in our homes, and the origin may surprise you. Television has been around since the early 1950’s but behaviorists have just recently begun to start studying the effects these machines may have on children, social interaction and families. Research has begun to show negative consequences of television on children’s development and socialization proving that it does reduce and affect social interaction.