Six Hours Of Television :: essays research papers

Six Hours of TelevisionIn looking at modern television programming there atomic number 18 hundreds of showsto demand 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 others who have neer 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 popular programmingthis year, consistently topping the Nielsen ratings. For the remaining deucehours of programming I decided to look at two police drama shows, one that was pock bran-new this season 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 higher(prenominal) INCIDENT was anew show that looked at the view of policing from the beat. HIGH INCIDENTrepresented one of the first t.v. shows to c ome from the SKG works 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 hugely 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. betwixt 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 attitude of an anthropologist somedisquieting trends emerge. I will present the information as if an outsider,from another nation, were watching American shows, and believed what he/she wasseeing to be true of what goes on in America.Perhaps more realistic than the other shows, NYPD BLUE, and HIGH INCIDENTrepresent the closest what life is really like. To a foreigner seeing theseshows, they would in all likelihood believe that America is a blood bath of crime and illwill towards other people. While this isnt true the whole nation over, thereare many cities like those portrayed in these two shows. Like the other shows Iwill discuss, these two have casts made up of predominately Caucasian males andfemales. some other nationalities, such as Asian, Afro-American, and Latino aresprinkled in just enough to make sure the shows are politically correct. To an