1、Spudding out Barbara Ehrenreich Someone has to speak for them, because they have, to a person, lost the power to speak for themselves. I am referring to that great mass of Americans who were once known as the “salt of the earth,” then as “the silent majority,” more recently “the viewing public,” and
2、 now, alas, as “couch potatoes.” What drives themor rather, leaves them sapped and spineless on their reclining chairs? What are they seekingbeyond such obvious goals as a tastefully colorized version of The Maltese Falcon? My husband was the first in the family to “spud out,” as the expression now
3、goes. Soon everyone wanted one of those zip-up “Couch Potato Bags,” to keep warm in during David Letterman. The youngest, and most thoroughly immobilized member of the family relies on a remote that controls his TV , stereo, and VCR, and can also shut down the neighbors pacemaker at fifteen yards. B
4、ut we never see the neighbors anymore, nor they us. This saddens me because Americans used to be a great and restless people, fond of the outdoors in all of its manifestations, from Disney World to miniature golf. Some experts say there are virtues in mass agoraphobia that it strengthens the family
5、and reduces highway deaths. But I would point out that there are still a few things that cannot be done in the den, especially by someone zipped into a body bag. These include racquetball, voting, and meeting strange people in bars. Most psychologists interpret the couch potato trend as a negative r
6、eaction to the outside world. Indeed, the list of reasons to stay safely tucked indoors lengthens yearly. First there was crime, then AIDS, then side-stream smoke. To this list should be added “fear of the infrastructure,” for we all know someone who rashly stepped outside only to be buried in a pot
7、hole, hurled from a collapsing bridge, or struck by a falling airplane. But it is not just the outside world that has let us down. Lets face it, despite a decade-long campaign by the profamily” movement, the family has been a disappointment. The reason lies in an odd circular dynamic: we watch telev
8、ision to escape from our families because television shows us how dull our families really are. Compare your own family to, for example, the Huxtables, the Keatons, or the peppy young people on Thirtysomething. ln those families, even the three-year-olds are stand-up comics, and the most insipid rem
9、ark is hailed with heartening outbursts of canned laughter. When television families arent gathered around the kitchen table exchanging wisecracks, they are experiencing brief but moving dilemmas, which are handily solved by the youngest child or by some cute extraterrestrial house-guest. Emerging f
10、rom Family Ties or My Two Dads, we are forced to acknowledge that our own families are made up of slow-witted, emotionally crippled people who would be lucky to qualify for seats in the studio audience of Jeopardy! But gradually I have come to see that there is something besides fear of the outside
11、and disgust with out families that drives us to spudhoodsome positive attraction, some deep cathexis to television itself. For a long time it eluded me. When I watched television, mainly as a way of getting to know my husband and children, I found that my mind wandered to more interesting things, li
12、ke whether to get up and make ice cubes. Only after many months of viewing did I begin to understand the force that has transformed the American people into root vegetables. If you watch TV for a very long time, day in, day out, you will begin to notice something eerie and unnatural about the world
13、portrayed therein. I dont mean that it is two-dimensional or lacks a well-developed critique of the capitalist consumer culture or something superficial like that. I mean something so deeply obvious that its almost scary: when you watch television, you will see people doing many thingschasing fast c
14、ars, drinking lite beer, shooting each other at close range, etc. But you will never see people watching television. Well, maybe for a second, before the phone rings or a brand-new, multiracial adopted child walks into the house. But never really watching, hour after hour, the way real people do. Wa
15、y back in the beginning of the television era, this was not so strange, because real people actually did many of the things people do on TV, even if it was only bickering with their mother-in-law about which toilet paper to buy. But modern people, i.e., couch potatoes, do nothing that is ever shown
16、on television (because it is either dangerous or would involve getting up from the couch). And what they do dowatch televisionis far too boring to be televised for more than a fraction of a second, not even by Andy Warhol, bless his boredom-proof little heart. So why do we keep on watching? The answ
17、er, by now, should be perfectly obvious: we love television because television brings us a world in which television does not exist. ln fact, deep in their hearts, this is what the spuds crave most: a rich, new, participatory life, in which family members look each other in the eye, in which people
18、walk outside and banter with the neighbors, where there is adventure, possibility, danger, feeling, all in natural color, stereophonic sound, and three dimensions, without commercial interruptions, and starringus. “You mean some new kind of computerized interactive medium?” the children asked hopefu
19、lly, pert as the progeny on a Tuesday night sitcom. But before I could expand on this conceptknown to our ancestors as “real life”they were back at the box, which may be, after all, the only place left to find it. Consider the question: According to the author, what are the reasons for “spudding out”?
