I hate television. I watch it a lot, but I hate it. It seems that ABC is making an attempt to change my attitude. The broadcasting network is now using blatantly disgusting promotional advertisements to make couch potatoism look heroic.

Before we get to that, I must try to deprogram those who have already fallen prey to ABC.

Think about TV for what it is. When you hear a statistic that says the average American family has the TV on for six to eight hours a day, realize that this is one quarter of every day spent sitting stationary staring at a small box.

Television is often criticized for being too violent or sexually explicit, but these criticisms miss the point. The quality of television is poor, not immoral.

Sitcoms are written to set up the characters for one-liners, talk shows exploit the misfortuned and not-so-bright of society for the entertainment of home viewers, and sex and violence are used for shock value in order to increase ratings. This is why an Academy award is more prestigious than an Emmy.

For their part, ABC has somehow decided that these and other criticisms of TV are wrong. One of their commercials shows several people reading and makes them look miserable and ends with one of their brilliant slogans, “Books are overrated.”

The one-liners for the other commercials include: “The couch is your friend;” “Don’t worry, you’ve got billions of brain cells;” and “If you ask us, kids don’t watch enough TV.” Fortunately, these people usually are not asked.

I thought these were a joke when I first heard them — they just had to be. ABC did not do this to be funny. Lee Clow, chairman and chief creative officer for the advertising agency doing the commercials, said this: “So we said to ourselves, ‘Hey, we grew up with TV and we’re bright and literate.’ What is TV anyway? It’s recuperative, a way to veg out at the end of the day. It should be acceptable.”

This guy needs to take closer look at his environment. Things are not as peachy as he may think. It is hard to brag about being bright in a country that imports its scientists and has math scores at the bottom of the barrel.

A recent survey of women visiting abortion clinics showed that nearly half could not explain what the Roe v. Wade decision meant. Some had never even heard of it. This tells me that Roe v. Wade movies and TV shows are not getting the point across. These people should have read the book when it was assigned in high school.

There was also a study done a few years ago which showed approximately forty percent of high school seniors thought the U.S. fought against Russia in World War II. Again, there are a multitude of W.W. II documentaries on television, and yet we are faced with this embarrassing ignorance. Pay attention in history, kids!

The people who created these ads for ABC probably do not raise their kids with the ideals their commercials promote. They know very well that their kids will not be bright if they spend eight hours per day watching TV. If TV executives won’t set their kids in front of the tube from 4 p.m. until midnight, why should anyone else?

I applaud those parents out there who try to teach their children that there are more interesting ways to entertain themselves. I sympathize with these dedicated parents when one of those ABC commercials comes on after trying so hard to get through to their kids.

The United States is the best-entertained country on earth. This is an admirable quality but a poor priority. American citizens spend billions of dollars on entertainment each year, while getting money to improve education is like pulling teeth.

If we can look at these commercials and realize we have erred, great. If we use them as ABC would have us do, we are in trouble. Luckily, adults with even modest intelligence will not take these commercials seriously.

So we may not be doomed after all. Just remember that watching TV is like going to a casino — the winners are running the show and the rest of us are the losers.

Other forms of entertainment are available. I did not believe it either, but trust me, it is true. Besides, books are not overrated, and I have met several people who do not have brain cells to spare.

---

Aaron Klemm is an undeclared sophomore from Woden.