tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7461948747659071092.post5673696406295951007..comments2023-09-29T02:49:02.989-07:00Comments on An Emphatic Umph: Creating Yourself with Television, Art, and the WorldDaniel Coffeenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03912050391869734890noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7461948747659071092.post-91153675169720462312014-12-15T18:48:43.942-08:002014-12-15T18:48:43.942-08:00First of all, The Wire is so fucking smart — so co...First of all, The Wire is so fucking smart — so complex, so nuanced, so funny, so epic — that is melts me every time I watch it (over a dozen times, at least). I've written about it a few times:<br /><br />http://thoughtcatalog.com/daniel-coffeen/2010/03/hbo-television-art-the-wire-obama-omar/<br /><br />http://hilariousbookbinder.blogspot.com/2009/08/wire-again-and-menace-of-quantity.html<br /><br />Anyway, there are so many ways t watch and engage art, TV in particular because it plays this everyday role for us. TV is not extraordinary as it's so everyday — and that gives it a kind of power and intensity that's becoming clear to all these days. <br /><br />But it also gives it an enormous range of modes of engagement, including a variety of ways it can edify. We think documentaries teach and 'shows' entertain but that's of course a specious distinction. Curb Your Enthusiasm is edifying in the ways it explores and presents the dynamics of social discourse. It's amazing in that it gives us a distinctive affective mode of engagement (and not, say, a behavioral or moral one). So, yes, it's entertaining — so funny I literally punch myself — and, in the same breath, expands the very possibilities of how to go and feel in the world. <br /><br />And, sometimes, we 'just' want a chuckle or distraction — but that should not be belittled at all. Daniel Coffeenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03912050391869734890noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7461948747659071092.post-82927508097446795902014-12-08T15:56:58.717-08:002014-12-08T15:56:58.717-08:00I underwent something similar with House of Cards....I underwent something similar with <i>House of Cards.</i> I couldn't get through the first season because the characters were too ruthless, the one-sided violence was too brutal, and the retribution or reckoning (if any) was too slow in coming. I'd been invited to watch it with friends, a weekly viewing night, but I was also undertaking therapy at the time, to cope with my conflict with society and an awareness of a near-term end of the world. Thus, the show was in no sense a form of escapism, only an enhancement of the issues that disrupted my existence.<br /><br />Season two was different. After I took a break and returned to the show, I was engrossed in it. Now my wife and I are watching <i>The Wire</i> for the first time, and it is by no means a pick-me-up, but it is really good storytelling. I support the "good guys" but hate many of them on a personal level; I'm against what the "bad guys" are working for but I feel real pleasure when they progress and overcome their obstacles.<br /><br />I don't question what this means since we only have about 16 years before the food riots in our own nation erupt, and wondering is as pointless as stumbling along in obliviousness. I'm finally engaging with entertainment on one of its two prime functions: if not education, then distraction.sxoidmalhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00622946839908244709noreply@blogger.com