Confessions of a television addict.

When I was a little girl, living in a two room apartment in the Bronx, we had a tiny television.  It was a small screen black and white TV,  set into what seemed to be a huge wooden cabinet and it took centre stage in our living room.  I remember watching The Howdy Doody Show, Kukla, Fran and Ollie, as well as my all-time favourite, Rootie Kazootie, sitting cross-legged as close as possible to the television in a sort of hypnotic state. I loved watching TV as a kid. It opened up worlds beyond worlds for me.  In my mind I travelled far beyond the walls of our little apartment, away from the rows my parents seemed to have and to a world where children got to sit in studio audiences wearing silly hats and eating Power Bars and women got to be 'Queen for a Day'.  Marvelous!

When I was a bit older we graduated from our tiny screen TV to a larger black and white screen and then we even acquired a second television.  My family had truly embraced the American way of life. I got used to watching television all the time, when I did my homework, when I came home from school and most evenings.  We had dinner together in the kitchen, but would each leave the table the moment we had finished eating since sitting together as a family was not too wonderful. I actually remember no conversations at the table, though there must have been some. I do remember retreating to the bedroom and switching the TV on as soon as I could.

Television became the backdrop to my life.  It was like moving wallpaper.  I could study while the TV was on and do my homework.  I could pretty much block out the TV or keep it in the background quite easily.  It became my ever-present friend.  I cried with Scarlett O'Hara watching 'Gone With the Wind', commiserated with Jo in 'Little Women', was horrified by Joan Crawford in 'Mildred Pierce' and identified with Bette Davis in 'All About Eve'.  I loved the fact that my mum and aunt loved watching 'I Love Lucy' as much as I did and my parents even reminded me of Lucy and Desi a bit since my mum dressed like Lucy and my dad had a strong accent, albeit his was Polish and not Cuban, like Desi. My aunt and uncle always seemed like the neighbours, Ethel and Fred, too. Television taught my family to be American.

And now, as a fully grown adult, all of 61 years old, I still love television.  There, I've said it, I confess, mea culpa.  Watching TV is one of my guilty pleasures.  I can try and dress it up in all sorts of academic sociological guises, but the real truth is I will watch almost anything.  I get wonderfully lost in watching telly and feel like it is a little gift to me to have the possibility of entering so many different worlds so easily.  I am often home during the day since I work only a number of days a month and I have become quite an expert on the joys of daytime telly.  We have, as yet, resisted signing up for cable TV so I have to make do with 35 channels, but frankly that's more than enough for a non-discriminating watcher like me. 

I am a television whore, I will watch anything (except sports) and usually do.  Of course I have favourites.  My informed hypochondria means I watch most medical dramas, the gorier, the better.  I love CSI and Law and Order and have learned so much I am close to being able to commit the perfect crime.  I am a sucker for Judge Judy and watch most talk shows, especially the ones involving DNA and lie detector tests.  I marvel at the type of people who want to have their supposed loved one take a lie detector test about their fidelity and then say how much they love each other.  I am in awe of those people who climb mountains, trek the Himalayas and cross the Arctic.  The fact that they do it, means I will never have to.  The thrill of vicarious adventure is enough.

Of course, I am still able to have the television blasting away in the background and get on with work.  I can get on with other things while it's on.  I don't need to watch all these programmes, I just like the fact that they're there.  Just like television was the medium by which my parents learned to be American, I also learned to be English by watching TV.  When I first came to the UK I really didn't get the humour and the haughtiness of the English.  The more I watched TV, the more I began to understand the quirky eccentricity of the English.  After all, where else could I watch a four (!) part series on Harris tweed.

I get annoyed with those who make judgements and get all superior about the fact that they don't watch television.  The people who look down their noses at the common people who watch this lower class medium all have their own addictions, sources of pleasure and guilty secrets.  If I spent my evenings at the opera or my afternoons at the library or communing with nature,  those same judgemental people would approve.  I have friends who disagree about television watching. Karl Marx once referred to religion as the 'opiate of the masses' and many of my friends think of television in the same way.  Too bad, I say.  Different strokes, etc.

My TV watching has not prevented me from being creative, indeed their are times when it has sparked my creativity.  It has occasionally been a wonderful cathartic medium for me and there are other times when it has helped me to relax, unwind and even heal.  All this from a small box - I intend to continue watching.  I wonder what's on now?