Barbara Benjamin
5626 words
Television and Fraud
The Quest for Art, Beauty, and Truth in TV Land
The invention of the
Gutenberg Press brought significant changes to Western society. But those effects are considerably diminished
by the impact of television. No other
medium is quite like television, and no other medium could have the same
potential impact on human affairs. As an
art form, television stands alone in its unique ability to represent nearly
every other kind of art form. Like film,
it has the exceptional advantage of combining visual and audio into a single
medium. But, unlike films the power of
television is that it can transmit drama, dance, music, comedy, and sports, as
well as informational reporting, political and community events into
150,000,000 homes simultaneously.
Television is both vivid and immediate.
It can make events and issues seem clear and real which are remote and
complex. Part of television's potency
lies in the intimate sense viewers believe they feel when "meeting"
the great figures of the world and actually "seeing" major events as
they are happening. For the price of a
television set, viewers can go anywhere in the world without leaving the comfort
of their homes.
Although some would
argue that television is an art form, it at least
"contains"---transmits---art; and some would question even that. However, text is considered an art form, and
shows contain text; therefore, any show, regardless of its quality, would
necessarily be art. Though, in reality,
quality can't be defined (except by cultural---or other---defined standards),
so the quality of television shows is irrelevant when defining them as
art. This is also true of any other art
form: quality does not determine its status as art.
Among television's more
unusual distinctions is the ability to perpetrate a hoax or commit fraud, which
can have extensive national, or even, global impact. If fraud were to surface in other art
forms---for example, in painting or sculpture---the ramifications would be
relatively marginal. Some negative
results may affect a particular segment of society, but overall the impact
would scarcely be measurable. Though
difficult to conceptualize, fraud could also be perpetrated by newspapers or
magazines. But, in these cases, the
effects would be confined because these media types have specialized focus,
thus, a limited scope of readership.
Although never intended as a hoax, radio's airing of the now infamous
Orson G. Wells radio play, War of the Worlds, caused a near panic in
some areas of the country. A hoax by
radio, then, could have potentially disastrous results. However, this would only have been possible
in the pre-television era, when every home had a radio and was the main source
of entertainment and information. Such
was the case during the era that War of the Worlds was broadcast.
Radio no longer
dominates in American households. Today,
television has taken the reigning position.
Kent Anderson mentions in Television Fraud that it's
estimated that over ninety percent of American households have a television set
(xi). The typical American spends an
average of four hours a day watching it.
The sheer breadth of television's possible influence is staggering. More than any other medium, television has an
audience which cuts across all lines of cultural and ethnic backgrounds,
economic status, and education levels.
Watching television has also become the primary free-time activity for
Americans. Considering cable television,
specialized stations, and the major national networks, the television industry
enjoys one of the most extensive audiences of any medium. As a result, the potential impact of fraud
could be substantial, for television's influence is considerable.
In 1955 a phenomenon
occurred in the form of a television quiz show.
The fraud which grew out of the success of this particular show
eventually brought about the temporary demise of all quiz shows on
television. The show was called $64,000
Question. Originality wasn't a basic
ingredient of this show. In his book,
The appearance of
secrecy surrounding the handling of questions was an elaborate feature of the
show. The questions were supposedly kept
in a vault by a bank officer at the Manufacturers Trust Company. During the show, the bank officer sat
conspicuously behind a desk, flanked by two uniformed security guards, and
handed the higher-valued questions to the show's host. When contestants wished to attempt a question
at the $8000 or higher level, they had to enter what was called the
"isolation booth," a soundproof compartment containing a microphone
and a window facing the audience.
Inside, the booth was brightly lighted for the audience to observe, for
maximum effect, the contestant's mental strain when attempting to answer an
arduous question. At the isolation-booth
level, the contestant received a Cadillac convertible for a consolation prize
if a question was missed.
Within a few weeks of
its first airing, $64,000 Question became a raging success.
Success breeds
imitation, so, as would be expected, many quiz shows soon appeared to claim
their share of the money that could be made from giving money away. Few, though, were as successful as $64,000
Question. And, quiz show mania was
not limited to the
The popularity of quiz
shows created another phenomenon: winners became overnight folk heroes. The heroes were the big money winners. Viewers were greatly impressed with the
contestants' extensive knowledge and the grueling mental pressure they endured,
and they were thirsty to know everything about their new heroes. The mass media was eager to display the new
heroes to this fascinated public.
Accordingly, each hero's personality was publicized as much as their
winnings. These ordinary and previously
unknown people represented part of the American dream---modern-day Horacio Algers. Their new celebrity status propelled them on
a "brief publicity-laden life of tours, awards, endorsements, and
commercial requests" (
What could account for
this highly unusual popularity of quiz shows and the contestants who were big
winners? Many saw it as
To Shayon, a contestant
in the isolation booth grappling with difficult questions had all the basic
elements of Sophoclean drama: struggle, dismemberment, death, and renewal .
. . 'He is face to face with the very meaning of life, with the most desperate
crisis of his aspiration . . . . [The] audience . . . who pity and fear . . .
observe (courtesy of the clever, naked, searching camera's eye) how they are
dismembered by the trial, the suspense, the unendurable torment of the hero who
is expiating publicly their private unacknowledged sin of greed. (22)
Perhaps
greed, to some degree, figures into the popularity of watching these shows, but
other factors seem more compelling. Shayon's explanation seems plausible. The viewer, more than merely being
entertained, has all his senses stimulated and is ultimately rewarded with a
cathartic outlet when the hero triumphs.
The whole event represents the trials which we face in everyday
life. People of all ages are entertained
by television programs and are provided with a new door to media personalities
through which millions of people can reach to feel a "sense" of
contact with them. Television
personalities and the new heroes, after all, appear regularly and reliably
either daily or weekly, without regard to weather, local disasters and
tragedies, or war and world famine.
Observing
people win large sums of money, for some viewers, must be like wish
fulfillment. The television screen represents
a kind of dream to drift off into, like sleep, and the show a dream
experience. The quiz shows (and other
programs) symbolize what the viewers want for themselves. According to Walter Benjamin, the actor is a
signifier. In this case, the contestant
is the actor, signifying the wealth, status, and recognition the viewer
probably won't ever have. The viewers'
lack is represented by the contestant.
To other viewers, the winning contestant is a surrogate, or a
displacement for some threatening element or thoughts in their own lives. Many people are struggling with disturbing
situations like divorce, children in trouble, financial difficulties, or even
appalling thoughts like wanting to harm or kill another person. Rather than seeing the contestant as a
signifier, these people use the image or action to remove themselves from their
own worlds of dismaying stress and fear.
Marya Mannes
explains the lure of television in "The Television Pattern:"
Steady
viewers are characterized perhaps more than anything else by their passivity .
. . . Television is distraction and solace for millions on whom this
civilization has imposed the crushing weight of emptiness. To them, young and old, the turning of the
knob is The Way Out. (20)
It's
conceivable, too, that the television screen functions as a sort of mirror,
replaying the mirror stage of Freudian psychoanalytic theory. Some viewers who use television as a
distraction have not established a secure or firm identity, or they are
exceedingly dissatisfied with their own perceived image. For them, the television screen may simply be
a mirror reflecting an image they see temporarily as a displacement for their own, thereby superimposing an identity they imagine to be
their own. This other image, then, would
also be a signifier or place holder for their own identity.
Studies
have been done which support to some degree these speculations. The essay "Adult Fantasy Life and
Patterns of Media Use" discusses studies which were conducted in an
attempt to find whether the content of individuals' fantasies has any
connection to types of media viewing.
One study found a significant correlation of a personality type they
term the "full-headed model" with the use of particular media
content. The "full-headed"
model is characterized by:
An
over production of certain types of fantasies and daydreams to which the
individual would rather not attend . . . . When a person's inner fantasies and
thoughts become too aversive and unpleasant . . . almost any sufficiently distracting
external stimulus will be used to drown them out. Television . . . reduces negative affect . .
. by substituting someone else's thoughts for your own . . . . It is simply the
easiest [way] . . . for shifting one's attention away from one's miseries. (88)
"Full-headed"
individuals have frequent violent and fearful fantasies. Television, in their case, acts like a
neutralizer. Their thoughts can be
shoved aside by focusing on the activity which appears in front of them on
their television screen, similar to the viewer who would use the contestant as
a surrogate.
Taken in a broader
context, television viewing can reveal the subconscious mind of a culture. The types of shows which are favored by a
culture's majority could be clues to its psyche. Our culture, for example, likes programs with
sports, violence, crass language, and bathroom humor. Oddly, these are all strong preferences of
young boys. The heavy emphasis on sports
and violence could reflect the dominating influence of our patriarchal heritage. The desire for crude language and off-color
humor could indicate that this culture is still in a juvenile state of
mind. Based on the
strong desire that Americans exhibited, as a culture, for the quiz shows and
the contestants, might suggest some kind of significant lack within the culture
at that time.
Regardless of the
reasons why the quiz show became so popular with viewers, television networks
and sponsors wanted to profit from the public's overwhelming interest in $64,000
Question. The show's sponsor,
Revlon, announced that the company's earnings for 1955 had risen nearly 200
percent over the year since the show began.
So, with that kind of bottom-line success, within a short time the
airwaves abounded with quiz shows. Says
The television industry
loved the quiz shows because they were among the least expensive shows to
produce, even considering the large amounts of prize money. The sets were minimal, and there were no
actors to be paid. Sponsors were equally
enamored of them. Any show which
commands a wide viewership usually translates into
increased sales for that show's sponsor.
The quiz show craze, then, afforded some nice opportunities for ad
agencies and sponsors, as well as producers and contestants. Like Revlon, some of these sponsors later
experienced similarly astounding increases in profits when sponsoring a popular
quiz show. Jacques Lacan's
belief that desire is the fuel of all human behavior becomes evident when
considering the sponsor/producer relationship of, not just quiz shows, but of
all shows. It is, of course, quite
simply the desire for money.
Desire is closely
connection to greed, and success not only breeds imitation, it also often
breeds fraud and deceit, bedfellows of greed.
As the quiz shows proliferated, the pressure increased to draw audiences
away from competing shows. Sponsors
desire only high ratings. If ratings
fall prey to
Shortly following the
dynamic success of $64,000 Question, a new show appeared called Twenty
One. It later became one of the more
significant competitors to $64,000 Question. After the first few shows aired, the producer
of Twenty One noticed that most of the
contestants "seemed to stumble to victory. . . . and
[he] quickly sensed that some form of contestant control was necessary to
produce a more exciting contest.
Showmanship would have to take precedence over honesty" (
To stay alive, it was
imperative a show kept its audience. If
players weren't exciting, ratings dropped.
Viewers responded favorably to certain personality types and to big
winners. In the interest of giving the
audience what it wanted, and for their show's survival, nearly all producers
began rehearsing their contestants---who were also often given scripts to
memorize. Thus, contestant behavior was
predetermined as much as possible.
Later, other shows, as well as Twenty One, hand-picked
contestants they wanted to win, provided them with answers and told them exactly
what to do, what to say, and how to react.
For example, contestants were told how long to wait before answering,
how to dab the sweat off their brow with a handkerchief, and so on. These methods proved extremely successful for
Twenty One, and the ratings increased to the level of $64,000
Question's.
Ultimately, shows that
used deceptive devices were the most popular.
Above all else, producers considered these shows to be
entertainment. To them, it was just show
business and they were providing what the audience responded to most favorably,
and they obviously weren't beyond implementing devious means. After the frauds were exposed, one of the
producers commented about the unethical planning procedures of his show: "Our purpose was entertainment . . . . that is what we were really scheduling. We were scheduling the entertainment" (
Look, this may be a quiz business to the housewives
of
Many people felt this
was a valid point.
There's no doubt that
what was done was deceptive, but no crime was perpetrated. That is, no laws were violated---other than
the law of ethics. There was also no
victim. The purpose of commercial
television is to encourage the consumption ethos. A show must have money in order to be
produced. Mannes
explains in The Reporter that "television is a mass medium that is
supported by the sale of goods, and the more people look the more people
buy" (19). So, if viewers enjoy the
shows, the sponsors usually make money.
Thus, for the quiz shows, viewers are happy, sponsors are happy,
contestants are happy, and producers are happy.
The entire television industry is a triangular relationship with the
viewer, the sponsor, and the producer: one cannot survive without the other
two. In the case of the quiz shows,
heavy pressure from advertisers (greed) to produce increased ratings for
"their" show---resulting, of course, in fatter bottom lines---was
ironically one of the reasons for the conception and implementation of the
frauds.
But was there really no
victim? Technically, there was no
law broken; and technically, everyone was happy, and no one was
hurt. But what about
Art? What about Beauty? And what about Truth? Though technically the programs on
television are considered art, a more accurate name should possibly begin and
end with "technological communications media for mass consumption and
deception." The network's (show's)
tie to advertisers is a symbiotic relationship---one depends on the other for
life. The necessity of mass
dissemination forces an appeal to the widest possible population---a mass
audience---so the advertiser's message receives maximum exposure. The "truth" is that the advertising
corporations actually compete for air time with the shows. They consume the very vehicle of their
message. The percentage of air time
given to advertising has increased enormously since the 1950s. Advertisers want more exposure (air time),
and the networks and producers want more money.
As a result, the viewer gets less and less entertainment value. Plus, the consumer must pay more and more for
products to pay for ever increasing advertising costs. Advertising grows like a cancer. Once it's started growing, it cannot
stop. It must continue to grow until,
possibly, at some point it self-destructs.
In order to appeal to as
broad a market as possible, shows are purposely made bland, thereby hindering
development towards quality. The
proliferation of quiz shows, exploding out of one successful show, is a cogent
example. All had a similar format,
varying only in the outward appearance.
Because the
development of new formats is viewed as too risky, producers
stick to what has proven successful once; thus, successful shows are
imitated incessantly. Anything
successful, then, becomes a formula until totally rejected by the public. The public must buy, so the attitude is to
give them just enough to stimulate their buying instincts. This chain of events is a consumption
triangle forming Theodor Adorno's
idea of the matrix of production and consumption, in which the consumer is
stuck in the middle. Viewer/consumers,
in a sense, vote with their money, receiving more of the same---products and
shows---until they stop viewing and buying.
However, it is quantity---not quality---that they get for
their vote. There is no incentive to
produce quality---only the minimum that the consumer will tolerate. Quality is an integral part of Beauty. Mass culture and mass art can achieve only
mediocrity, lacking in quality. Beauty,
then, cannot be found in television programs, a product of mass culture, or the
culture industry. The business of
television programming aptly fits Adorno's
description of the culture industry. His
observation that mass art has lost individuality, and that appearances of
difference are only an illusion, without a doubt, applies to television.
As an art form---an art
form without Beauty---can television answer the question: "What is Truth?" To answer, another question must be asked: "What can be trusted about images seen on
television---or in films?" Nothing. The very
essence of these media is deception. It cannot be avoided. Everything about them is manipulated. Viewers witness only
what the camera's eye wants them to see.
Sound is controlled; sets and scenery are controlled; makeup and
appearances are controlled; people are controlled. As a natural consequence of that, events are
controlled. "Real" people seen
on television are like cyborgs: they are completely
unreal, made of a series of minute dots on the television screen via an
electric current. They are 100 percent
technology.
Most television shows
are not live, so ultimately what passes before the viewers' eyes is the end
product of the cutting room process.
Film, of course, submits to the same process. Because of the cut-and-paste performance of
the cutting room, when watching a film or television program only multiple
fragments are seen. Even when the
programs are shown uncut or live, the multiple-fragment syndrome is still
present because the camera moves constantly from one point to another producing
just a series of pictures, not necessarily coherent. The whole picture cannot be seen when looking
at a two-dimensional screen. The third
dimension will always be missing. (Derrida's absence?)
Though all images on
television and film must be manipulated, the purposeful and willful
manipulation of events for the purpose of influencing public opinion is called
"framing." Framing occurs even
on such seemingly objective and neutral programs as the news. In 1990, a study was conducted to examine the
framing process on network television news as it applies to visual art and
artists. In his essay, "When Art
Becomes News," John Ryan comments: "A main point of these studies is
that news is less a mirror than a social construction possessing the ability to
"frame" events for its viewers" (870). Frames give the viewer subtle clues of a
negative or positive nature. Some
framing techniques are tone of voice, choice of words, body language, facial
expressions, use of humor, what is shown
as well as what is not shown, what is said as well as what is not said, use of
camera angles to portray level of involvement and social roles, and so on. Ryan explains the extent to which framing
occurs:
Studies of television's ability to frame reality
have focused on such diverse topics as political campaign coverage.
. .coverage of political violence and terrorism. . . stories on trade unions
and strikes. . . coverage of war and peace issues. . . and the routinization of seemingly non-routine stories. (870)
All
these studies found incidence's of framing.
An typical example of framing involves the artist, Christo. When
introducing a news story about Christo, a well
respected national news anchor, David Brinkley, used the pejorative term
"alleged artist" when referring to him. And Tom Brokaw, another national anchorman,
called him a "self-styled" artist, another term to infer skepticism
of the artist's legitimacy. A field
reporter for Brinkley's show "interviewed" Christo
but only gave him four seconds to explain his art, but most of what Christo said was unintelligible because of his heavy
accent. The camera then returned to
Brinkley, who was shown laughing. Two
weeks later, Brinkley did another two minute story on the artist. Ryan comments on the film clip, which was
shown on that program, about Christo and his project:
"Through clever editing Christo is made to look
somewhat foolish" (880). The study
found that all major network news shows subtly ridiculed Christo
by inferring that his art should not be taken seriously---even that his work
shouldn't be considered art. It seems
peculiar that a medium which is only a marginal art form, and has no Beauty,
should be so arrogant in its presumption that it should inform a nation of what
art is---especially in the forum of TV news, whose "authority"
doesn't come from any claim to art, but to unmediated "truth."
Though framing can
be---and is---used in any news story, this particular study found that the art
world is singled out consistently in a long-standing use by all networks of the
ridicule frame. Ryan remarks about this
negative framing of art: "The fact that the art world is deemed marginal
is itself part of the framing process---that is, its portrayal defines it as
unimportant, and this defined lack of importance justifies its depiction as
such" (887). The public, then, for
many years has received from national network news shows a constant stream of
negative messages regarding the art world.
When framed news items are broadcast nationally by popular news anchors,
the message is indeed profound. Ryan
mentions that the same events can be used differently by "differing
symbol-producing systems" (886). So, it's possible to receive different
messages of exactly the same event---even the same film clip---when shown on
different news casts. Further, it was
found that public opinion can be influenced accordingly, depending upon how the
event is framed. If this is true of
supposedly objective news shows, what can be believed of anything on
television? Was fraud and deception
limited to the quiz shows? Where is Truth?
Perhaps today the quiz
shows no longer use the deceptive practices which caused such a ruckus in 1959,
but what about the news shows and other programs? An editorial in The Economist says:
The problem of deception goes far beyond the
question-and-answer programmes. It includes the pretence (sic) that rehearsed
discussions are really unrehearsed, the use of recorded laughter to prop up
comedians' flat jokes, the practice of telling audiences when to applaud, and
the strange no-man's land, somewhere between honest exaggeration and downright
misrepresentation, where so many advertisements hover. (725)
Deception is woven into
every area of television and advertisements.
Perhaps television's
most damaging deception is the destruction of sacred ceremonies. Ceremonies through the millennia, until the
advent of mass media---namely, tv---produced
a sense of bonding among the participants.
Gatherings of people for religious events or celebratory events are
important primarily for the bonding of a community or other subculture. Now millions of people view spectacular
events of a ceremonial nature on television, such as the wedding of Prince
Charles and Princess Diane, and they feel as though they are there. Viewers are deceiving themselves to believe
this. They sit in a room watching a
picture of electric dots on a screen in a box, either alone or with a few other
people. But, it's not possible to feel
the same excitement and magic the crowd at the actual event experiences. A crowd generates special excitement and
passion which is totally absent when the event is viewed on television. Television viewers have not bonded with anyone
else who saw the event on television nor with the
people in the crowd. Can you imagine
watching on television the events at
Benjamin's thesis that
modern media destroy aura is sadly true, especially concerning ceremonial
events. The aura is missing from
ceremonies which are broadcast on television.
The viewer is totally on the outside of the experience; the shamanistic
quality does not extend to them, and there is no way to bond with other
television "participants." In Media, Culture and Society, Paddy Scannell
points out that "the slow erosion of auratic
authority and the decay of charisma historically coincides with the gradual
establishment of television as the universal electronic mode of
communication" (156). The
television industry has robbed the television viewing public of the Aura of
Beauty, of the shamanistic quality, and of the bonding process associated with
participation at the actual event; and at the same time, creating the myth that
watching television is participating.
The commentator of the event partly performs this function of deception.
Where is the Truth? The true fraud caused by television resides
in framing, in providing a misconception of a "sense" of
participation or "intimacy" with people seen on the screen, and
actually exists as an integral part of the medium itself. The fraud and deceptions of the quiz shows in
the 1950s sent a short-lived ripple of disbelief and anger. In fact, nothing really changed as a result
of what happened then. The FCC
instituted a useless ruling, the networks had some other types of shows
"cleaned up," and the public settled back into their easy chairs like
catatonic featherweights and continued to watch increasingly more
television. The quiz show frauds were
only an aberration to the true fraud and deception. Once out of mind, the public feels all is
right with television again, and they continue to rely on this medium for the
major part of their entertainment and news.
But there's an undercurrent of loss they are oblivious to: the destruction of aura---an earthquake which
threatens to swallow up the essence of the already weakened spirit of mass
culture's automatons. In TV Land, there
is no truth and it's all a fraud.
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