sorry this is long, but it's interesting. or it is to me, but maybe that's because i wrote it. in any case, the short version is the following:

kill your television.

i came home today after a day at school that should have never been, having snowed so freakin' much and all, and (quite stupidly) turned on the tv to watch something other than the simpsons - they're not on yet. well, i've certainly learned my lesson.

channel surfing... channel surfing... stop. i come to a program called 'it's just entertainment.' The segment covered (and exposed the true brutality of) a wrestling show, only the thing is, they pair men with women and, inevitably, the women are horribly tormented, battered, abused, and almost tortured in the most gruesome and repulsive of ways. there are no rules to this game and it depicted near-naked women in thongs and sorta-bikini tops being dragged across the floor, having their hair yanked out, smashed and crushed on the ground, or forced to perfom acts on each other like slapping one another or doing whatever the male in the ring asked of them. not all of it was focused around male-female pairs, however. some of it also showed two men together, obviously unfairly matched, in which one guy dominates the other by aggressive means and mocks homosexual acts on the other. thus, the show promotes female abuse and homophobia, which fosters the idea that hitting women and forcing them into submission is an acceptable social standard, as well as supporting people's urges to beat, laugh at, and torment gays by selling it to the public as entertainment. the audience gobbles it up, as the segment proved by interviewing viewers of the wrestling matches. even the women that enjoy watching it (no kidding!) openly admit they don't believe it is degrading to women (wtf? how in the name of all creation!?). and everyone interviewed, just common citizens walking out of the arena with CHILDREN, for crying out loud, all claimed "it was just entertainment... the kids know the difference between reality and tv..." most of them look to this kind of thing as acting out private urges to hit women or mock gays in what the public has viewed is an acceptable manner - to pay millions of dollars to support this business and to laugh at and be sucked into the appaling drama of the interactions between these people.

when i saw this, i definitely dropped my sandwich and nearly spilled my milk fumbling for the remote to quickly change the channel.

channel surfing... channel surfing... stop. i come to another program about celebrity stalkers. the psycho-mania that motivates them and a few specific cases that illustrated what exactly stalkers of nicole kidman, steven spielburg, and master p had done that utterly terrified them and their family and made them fear for their safety. one claimed to be "the death angel" who's presence indicated "a great blessing to the one who is visited, but only if he listened..." most had been arrested before too much damage was done, but i couldn't take it anymore. the tv was going off.

once again i have reminded myself of why i don't watch anything but the simpsons, and that only when i remember (which isn't frequently). seeing these two programs consecutively deeply disturbed my shamefully ideal and unrealistic idea of human nature and what the world is really like, which is all too easy to do when you emerse yourself in a cozy little blogger like this one filled with people you absolutely love. i'm not naive, don't get me wrong, but it did remind me of that great question of whether one wants to become aware of their surroundings and bear its weight, or if instead one wishes for the safe little alcove within into which one can hide from reality and remain disillusioned. for the moment all i can do is bury myself in my books and homework and decide to come back to it later. so i guess i've decided to run away for a couple of hours at least. coming to acknowlege shows like these and their impact on culture and society are no joke and even still are just the tip of the iceburg is too much for one swallowing.

kill your television.