A More Intelligent Television

By Rick Morgan

My favorite television has always seemed to be the type of shows that have a very self-aware essence. As a viewer, there is something awe-inspiring about a show that can make television extend beyond the screen. The world of TV has branched out from the box on which you watch it; it has even gone so far as to make you feel involved. The distance felt between the viewer and the TV world is one of the more depressing things about the thought of watching television, and many shows seek to break down this distance. Community constantly makes jokes which revolve around overall structure. There is almost a metaphysical feel to some of the characters as they make jokes that are usually made by snide viewers. 30 Rock often goes so far as to speak at the audience, making us almost like a character in the show. And of course, Seinfeld came up with the “show within the show” idea, taking something from the real world and putting it on screen. There is a myriad of important implications when you consider this type of television.

Community has made a name for itself over the past two seasons, and this is in no small part due to its metaphysical brand of comedy. The interesting and comedic self-reflexive character in this scene is Troy, as he struggles to come up with a joke about 1 minute into the clip. Troy is mimicking the actions of a television writer, trying desperately to come up with a relevant joke. The viewer is being put on the other side of the glass for once and pulled into the creative process that goes into writing an episode for a show like Community. If the self-aware techniques in Community can be considered subtle, then the techniques in 30 Rock are certainly blatant. In this clip, Jerry Seinfeld (in a guest appearance, by the way) directly addresses the audience and informs them about the opening date for his new film, Bee Movie. The mentioning of Bee Movie works seamlessly in the plot, yet Seinfeld’s sudden pointing at the camera catches the viewer off guard. The audience is being treated like a character on the show, and not just some couch potato watching from their home. Of course, perhaps the grandfather of all these clips is the show Seinfeld itself. In this clip, we see the inception of the famous “show within a show.” This is the starting point from which Jerry and George run with their idea of writing a television show about “nothing” (which of course draws to mind Seinfeld itself). The world of Seinfeld, in which viewers have become totally immersed, is now a world that involves writing a show that might as well be Seinfeld.

This kind of self-reflexive television calls to mind the brilliant writing of Jorge Luis Borges. A writer who consistently tackled very abstract and metaphysical topics, his pieces often go hand-in-hand with the type of television being discussed. Through looking at the writing of Borges, we can gain a better understanding of the intentions of these television writers. Consider the short piece “Blindness,” in which Borges describes his reaction to losing his sight. The important point of this piece is that Borges doesn’t want to look at his blindness as a curse but rather a sort of life-path. He writes, “Everything that happens, including humiliations, embarrassments, misfortunes, all has been given like clay, like material for one’s art. One must accept it.”(page 128). This certainly applies to television writers in a broader sense. The obvious limitation for any television writer is the fact that viewers are essentially removed from the world that they are watching. By directly referencing and making ironic jokes about this separation of TV and reality, TV writers are taking advantage of an essential limitation. They are using the unfortunate distance to make a more powerful brand of comedy. Thus, they are taking Borges’ advice and embracing something that holds them back. Take, for example, the Community clip. The TV writers understand that there is an unfortunate distance between the creation of the show and the viewers enjoying the show. Instead of simply submitting to this limitation, the writers use it to make an exceptional joke. Troy’s struggle to come up with a relevant wisecrack pokes fun at the distance/limitation by pretending to put the viewers on the other side of the glass.

If this weren’t enough, Borges’ short piece “Everything and Nothing” can also be seen as connected to the intentions of television writers. In this story, Borges gives a sort of theoretical interpretation of the life of Shakespeare. The climax of the story comes in the very last paragraph, when Shakespeare laments to God that he feels he has wasted his life immersed in different characters. Borges claims that God responds, “Neither am I anyone; I have dreamt the world as you dreamt your work, my Shakespeare, and among the forms in my dream are you, who like myself are many and no one.”(page 93). Modern TV writers certainly share a lot in common with Shakespeare; they are constantly spending their lives enveloped in fictional worlds. This 30 Rock clip might be seen as an example of writers trying to deal with the issue displayed in “Everything and Nothing.” Perhaps they get tired of living in such a fictional world, and thus they created this clip in an effort to bring the refreshing real world into the world of TV. Seinfeld is talking directly to the viewer, which makes this clip completely interactive with the real life audience. TV doesn’t necessarily have to live in its own world.

It’s hard to examine these clips and not think about Margaret Morse’s piece “An Ontology of Everyday Distraction: The Freeway, the Mall, and Television.” This essay looks at the merging of three modern day entities and the dependence freeways, malls, and television have on each other. About television, Morse writes, “If television itself is a great storehouse for tokens of all these cultural systems, exchange values are created by their juxtaposition, but even more by means of passages through them.”(page 207). Morse is talking about television’s role in the merging of three very specific things, but the concept still applies to our topic of merging worlds. This Seinfeld clip is, in a sense, juxtaposing two different worlds. There is the fictional world we are watching (the world of Jerry and George), but there is also the world they are talking about creating. Viewers understand that the show being discussed onscreen is supposed to be representative of Seinfeld itself. Quite suddenly, our entire concept of the world we are watching has been turned completely upside down. The fictional world of the coffee shop is now the real world that we live in and that Seinfeld was created in. The world discussed by Jerry and George has become the fictional world. This clip merges two worlds onscreen and presents them simultaneously to the viewer.

As much as audiences (myself included) love this kind of television, perhaps there is something that gets tiring about it after a while. Much has been said in this post about the merging and breaking down of worlds by these television clips, but there are other possible interpretations. In “E Unibus Pluram: Television and U.S. Fiction,” David Foster Wallace makes a tremendous point about television and its constant use of irony. He explains, “Herein lies the oppressiveness of the institutionalized irony, the too-successful rebel: the ability to interdict the question without attending to its content is tyranny.”(page 184). I hadn’t thought about it much before reading the Foster Wallace piece, but maybe self-aware television is just a destructive mechanism that refuses to stand for anything.

In the end, however, clips like these break away from that depressingly unhelpful type of television. Self-aware television is, in fact, one of the few forms of TV that offers any kind of positive alternatives. Instead of just constantly poking fun at the distance between viewers and the world of TV, these clips are providing a way for viewers to feel more involved. Troy puts you essentially in the writer’s room. The 30 Rock clip makes you a character in the show. Jerry and George make you an integral part of the creation of the very show you are watching. We are finally provided with what we have always wanted: a way into the show.

WORKS CITED:

Borges, Jorge Luis. “Everything and Nothing.” Everything and Nothing. Trans. James E. Irby. New York, New York: New Directions Pearls, 2010.

Borges, Jorge Luis. “Blindness.” Everything and Nothing. Trans. Eliot Weinberger. New York, New York: New Directions Pearls, 2010.

Wallace, David Foster. “E Unibus Pluram: Television and U.S. Fiction.” Review of Contemporary Fiction 13.2 (1993: Summer): 151-194. Print.

Morse, Margaret. “An Ontology of Everyday Distraction: The Freeway, the Mall, and Television.” Logics of Television: Essays in Cultural Criticism. Ed. Patricia Mellencamp. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1990. 193-221. Print.