Tobacco and Television

Appologies for the delay. Life and Finals intervened to writing.

I stopped smoking as a principle not because of the on face medical risks, but rather because of the way those risks get played as a social norm. Essentially, good advertising constructed a coherent social norm around a product utterly worthless or even harmful to humanity. The risks, dangers and practices associated with smoking became associated with a norm ‘rebellion’ or ‘individualism’ through very little more than effective ad schemes. First of all, that is a bit creepy, but second of all, it reveals something about the functioning of rebellion and social criticism. Even if it’s true that smoking cigarettes serves to criticize/resist certain cultural values (good health and wellbeing) it works to support other values in different ways. In this case, the normalization and co-option of teenage rebellion and the like- the act gets ritualized and rationalized as part of the normal functioning of society. Two ways- first, as something to normalize against. ‘Resistance’ provides one half of the practices referenced by normalization, and as long as that resistance remains coherent, it will operate as part of that normalization. The body’s disease must be classified for it to be cured. The Beach Boys were doing nothing more than selling the teenage years. Second, as part of capital. True, smoking is subversive/different to a certain degree, but that subversion occurs under the ultimate control of capital, where that resistance becomes a new target market for Phillip-Morris.

This relates to the Daily Show. The Daily Show is the answer I get from people when I tell them they shouldn’t watch TV. It offers a small dose of satire or left-y social commentary in an otherwise very conservative environment. However, very rarely does the Daily Show (or similar shows- South Park, Kolber Report, Simpsons, etc..) ask for any real change in what the viewers do. The very act of watching is sufficiently radical. This is because satire and social criticism operate as a subset of the ‘entertainment’ culture of television. Watchers consume criticism of the news just like they consume any other news. The show itself is the endpoint to the transaction, because it merely occupies your time as a distraction from ‘real’ life. Television’s form transforms users time into a unit of exchange. The option to flip channels or turn off means that images and news must be highly entertaining to maintain viewership. The competition for advertisement revenue TV’s structure creates requires this. The Daily Show (and similar broadcasts) aim to position their target audience in relation to politics/the world at-large to sustain viewership. Laughing at normal news assumes that the ones laughing aren’t participating in the normal news format, and makes the laughers appear above it all and simply smarter than everyone else. They ‘get it’ more than other people do. This creation of a community is directly analogous to TV news’ creation of a national or global community, linked by shared events. By creating the idea of these communities, TV channels make their money: having people exchange their time for participation in a communal experience.

All of the comments about capitalism and normalization apply roughly to this form also. Broader economies of power and distribution of wealth determine how these forms of ‘subversion’ impact the world, and often it means the impact becomes negligible or non-existent.