I found out about archetypes, stereotypes, media engineering that eventually plays into social engineering and the social hierarchy in America. How certain characters are placed above others, subtexts, all of that stuff. It really turned me off to television.
Learned a lot in regards to race and the media too and that was it for me. I didn't want to waste my time with the shytz anymore.
I remember all of those years watching these shows, having my favorite characters and heroes and having to perform all of these mental gymnastics to relate to the roles. I remember for a little bit thinking to myself when I was young how much I wanted to be white just to be like Spider-Man, just to be like those super heroes. I just really got sick and tired of the criminal lack of representation when it came to black people on Television to the point I don't care about it anymore.
I was that black kid that wore glasses in my school...so eventually (especially growing up in the early 90s when Family Matters was popular) I was just called Urkle mercilessly. Then Jacquese from the Real World...then whatever black guy had glasses that was on a popular TV show. Not even like Basketball players (I got ridiculed mercilessly as well for not being some uber athletic basketball player, got called "white boy" by other black kids for doing good in school, and was shunned by everyone else).
Bottom line, TV feeds into America's love for convience and ignorance. Rather than draw their own conclusions about people and things, they'd rather let a magazine, TV show, or article written by someone else decide how they should feel about something without putting any thought into it.
I know exactly where you are coming from. You think American television perpetuates American culture, a culture you find lacking. And you are right about that. Where you start fukking up is rejecting it based on that. All art perpetuates/reflects/changes/sustains the culture that created it, so if you want to reject American tv you may as well reject American sculpture. They are the same thing. Basically, rejecting an entire form is pretty stupid.
