The Inherent Honesty of Music and TV

That title is a little misleading.

It occurs to me that music is an intrinsically honest medium, which is why music resonates so strongly with people. The messages are typically universal truths about life, and living, and humanity, and whatever. However, television, while also wildly popular isn't intrinsically honest. In fact, television is intrinsically dishonest because of the constraints of the medium (half hour to hour time slots, the addition of commercials, etc.) it is forced to exaggerate situations, and change the way people interact to simulate life. These changes have to be made in order to speed along the action and neatly conclude a plot in a very specific time frame.

Really what you have then are two popular forms of entertainment that give you conflicting perspectives on life. If you grew up, like me, watching a lot of TV during your oh so important formative years you develop this skewed purview of the world. Then, when you're older, like me, and start listening and appreciating music you start to realize that these are the themes that people really experience. Music contains real emotions and ideas, as opposed to situations that are developed to move along a short, confined plot. And then you start to wonder how you were shaped as a child, and what disservice all that fiction did to you. Then you want to fix it, but it's hard to undo values and perspectives you've accepted as true for so long. It's enough to make you crazy.

A good example of the conflict between what TV tells us vs. a common theme in music that proves true often is loneliness. On television people are always dating someone new, relationships are quick and insignificant. I'm thinking of "Friends" when I write this. Monica, Phoebe, and Rachel constantly had new boyfriends that they just met randomly all the time. They'd be around for an episode, sometimes two, then they'd disappear. Rarely are any of these past boyfriends mentioned in later episodes, and for the most part they've been effectively erased from everyone's memory. Personally, I've probably been in four or five relationships. I think about them occasionally, and have lots of stories about ex-girlfriends that occasionally come up in conversation. This is pretty standard. To that end, there are so many songs about that time when you're not dating anyone. When you feel like you'll never find anyone you're happy with, and when you just feel completely alone. I know that's real.

The only time you hear about themes as complex as that on TV are during serial dramas like "The L Word" where they're able to extend stories over 32 episodes. But even then everything is exaggerated and spliced up because if it wasn't people wouldn't be compelled. If there was a series about the relationships of four average couples (for example) it would probably be a lot of boring footage. Then again, it might make for an interesting reality TV show, but it probably wouldn't work. The cameras would change everything, producers would get the most dysfunctional couples they could find, and the whole project would become a caricature of itself.

And isn't that what this boils down to? Why do people give music more validity. We respond to the honesty in "You Outta' Know" and then think Alanis Morrisette is annoying when she gets all new-agey and spiritual. It's not the truth that brought us to her, and we feel betrayed. She's just a good example, but this has happened plenty of times. Artists lose their message sometimes, the message they were known for, and we feel betrayed. Of course there's the bubblegum pop. The Britney Spears and the Backstreet Boys singles that you hate to like, but do in a really visceral way. The production value is just so good, and the harmonies are so tight you can't help but like it. But even there we're hearing songs about someone being in love, or being lonely, or growing up. They're still messages about reality.

Then I guess this all boils down to the fact that music holds a mirror up to reality, and TV re-shapes it. You look for messages and lessons and empathy in songs, and escape in TV. But like I said, if you confuse the two it'll make you crazy--you wind up dancing in fountains and thinking the world is full of models and homicides.