On Sun, 22 Jun 1997, Janine M. Debaise wrote:
>
> Some of us here (upstate New York) have been talking about what an
> ecofeminist vision for the future would be. One recurring theme: how can
> we ever change the mindset of a culture when the people in that culture
> spend hours every day being indoctrinated by the tool of major
> corporations, the television set. The messages corporations send over
> this are pretty obvious: Be good consumers! Buy things! Women are
> objects! Nature is a resource to be used! You can find happiness by buying
> things, buying things, buying things!
>
> As a parent, I fight this battle in my own home. On the last day of
> school for the summer, we make a ceremony of putting a pillowcase over the
> television set and the pillowcase stays there until Labor Day. I want my
> kids to learn from their friends, relatives,and parents, and from their
> experiences with weather, trees, mosquitos, etc.
>
> I have been thinking that an important grassroots ecofeminist activity
> could be a campaign to remove televisions from our culture. I think that
> any positive contribution television makes to our culture is far
> outweighed by the disadvantages.
>
> Any thoughts on this?
>
> Janine
>
>
hi janine,
i like the idea of a no-TV campaign, actually there is already
a group doing that, although i forget their name.
another idea would be to have a subscription payed programming
that reflects the messages one would like to see (and not
a special rerun of Terminator 2 on your pay-per-view channel). i like
to see good interviews, good movies, good plays, etc and
i would like to be able to contribute to the creation and consumption of
programs that i would find valuable, at the same that
i "boycott" the useless stuff out there. i would also
like to see more international programs and with all
the satelite technology we have, i think cable could do
a much better job of supplying people with much greater worldwide choices.
aren't people talking about a 500 channel system? why
couldn't it be every major station from each different country,
plus specialized quality programming.
there is a ton of great films made, which usually never
get shown on TV, which becomes such an elite thing,
because of commercial distribution obstacles. if you go to
specialized film libraries or international film festivals,
it's amazing to see the richness of what's been produced and
for the most part is never shown to the "masses,"
exactly because it questions
and goes beyond so much of this buy,buy,buy nonsense.
Vera
