People emulate those they see on television and low-character characters permeate the airwaves. Do you watch a lot of television? Do your children?

Discuss!

Xena Warrior Princess!

i do watch a lot of television, but out of curiosity who do you consider to be low character tv characters?

Basically any reality TV personality, House, etc.

meh. i'll open the front door and walk out if i really want to face reality. i'm scared that tube isn't strong enough to keep it out if i watch it on TV.

outside of survivor and dancing with the stars i don't watch reality television, so i can't really comment. but the latter is good wholesome fun, however i can understand how survivor might be a bad influence (cheat, lie, anything to win)

Donald Driver will win DWTS.

maria menounos will win dancing with the stars, and not only because she's prettier than donald driver, but because she's the better dancer and she has the better choreographer (the brother hough)

I watch The Travel Channel, Comedy Central, and The Walking dead.. I try and skip the Reality stuff, unless its food related like Bizzare Foods, or No Reservations.

man vs food!

although i had to stop watching it. i don't eat red meat, and that show makes me want to eat red meat SO badly :P

bonus

no. I split my time between talking to people/playing video games and find that I watch maybe 2-3 hours of tv shows per week now.

I saw man vs food.. crazy show.

I watch Modern Marvels and How it's Made and Top Gear and Sport Center. That's about it.

The STIG!
also Abby from NCIS. Her and Shirley Manson from Garbage are the two hottest 40 somethings I know ;)

hard to believe that she's 40+ since she looks 25ish.

bit same thing with eva larue, she's 40+ but looks younger.

discovery , ww2 stuff

Forgot about NCIS.

Pauley Perrette is 43. Kind of hard to believe.

Animal Planet (anything in HD). River monsters, Python hunters, etc.

Walking Dead, Ghost Adventures, Auction Hunters (Ton Jones is BA), and I find myself watching The Big Bang Theory a lot more these days.

I do like Anthony Bourdain in both of his shows (The Layover & No Reservations). I do like Andrew Z. as well, but sometimes I can't watch more than one of his shows in a single sitting.

If I am drinking 40's with my homies, you best believe I watch me some cops. Yo.

watch tons of TV , from sports to reality shows.

fav shows: Survivor , Lost , Sopranos , Boardwalk empire , heroes , Amazing race , weeds , eastbound and down , shameless , prison break and more ~_~

oh how can I forget Entourage

if it aint the movie channels or NFL network.. i dont watch tv no more since charlie sheen left 2 n half men

last charlie sheen season of 2 and half man is in tv here (and also some older season on other channel), no news if kutcher's season has been bought.

kutchers season isnt worth buying..

Discovery Channel is the best, imo.

2 and a half men with kutcher kind of sucks.

I try to watch: Fringe, Sanctuary and Supernatural.

Jack Bauer > Chucky > All TV

i should be surprised that zen likes ghost adventures but i'm not.

i think its total crap show and deserves its showing time (after ~1 am).

This is a good media literacy type of discussion.

There's plenty of truth to what aponic brings up here, and plenty of information about there about it.

However, you need to see the larger trends. Just looking at one television show is meaningless. Think of media as a powerful tool that educates people despite the fact that it's intended primarily to entertain.

I brought up stats with my students that show that they have more hours in front of a TV or a computer screen than they do with any one of their teachers in a year. So the best teacher you remember from high school--imagine how much you learned from that teacher, and imagine the fact that you're often more engaged and spending more time watching TV, playing on the internet, watching movies, etc.

Most of the time, since the messages aren't as consistent, it's not necessarily a big deal, but there are some consistencies that could definitely be part of our psyche at this point.

But back to aponic's point, it's not necessarily that characters like House are low-character. It's that they fit the archetype of any number of types of antiheroes. It's an interesting thing to think about, because you could see these characters as low-character, or in some of these cases, you could see them as more nuanced characters. Past heroes that I study with my classes are far more absolute. Medieval knights are often seen as these almost entirely perfect characters, and their flaws lead to their problems, so there's no nuance there. Modern heroes can be flawed, and are often tortured in some ways by their flaws, but they're still successful, so it's easy to see these as examples of rewarding bad behavior, OR it's easy to look at this as a more nuanced, realistic view of the world. All our heroes can't be Superman.

You hit an area of interest for me, can you tell? :)

I like what you bring to the discussion Twain. My basic point was that with so many anti-hero characters and, moreover, reality tv show characters, impressionable youths are encouraged to act in accordance with what they see. It is somewhat admired to be an ignorant ass. This isn't something new, I just think that the percentage of such people would be much lower without the influences of such characters on television.

Peter on Family Guy is very funny. From an psychological point of view he is a virtual psychopath with no lasting empathy for his family or friends. It isn't that people will suddenly act like Peter, but the idea that they will hold themselves less accountable for their shortcomings that bothers me.

Giggity giggity goo!