Toxic Emotions and American TV

In the past few nights I have watched some American TV shows -- something I rarely do. Last night I saw a show about Raymond. The night before that I saw "Friends." The two shows seemed about the same to me, in fact I thought the one about Raymond was "Friends" until the end of the show when I saw the name.

In each show there was a lot of sarcasm. No one was using any feeling words, unless they used them in a joking way. Last night Raymond lost his wedding ring. He was afraid to tell his wife. And the way the writers had the wife act, it is no wonder he was afraid. She immediately started verbally attacking him. She interrogated him with questions like "Why did you take it off!?" "How could you do such a stupid thing!?" "Were you spinning it on the table again!?" "How did he get your ring?" "You took it off to go to the bathroom?" Then when he told her about a woman trying to "hit on him" she verbally attacked him even more. He was obviously proud of the fact that another woman found him attractive and talked to him when he didn't have his ring on. But when he tried to share his feelings with his wife she snapped at him, saying, "And your are proud of that?"

She didn't show him any understanding or forgiveness. She didn't say, "You sound like you were afraid I would be angry..." She didn't say, "It's okay. I know you feel bad . But it was just a ring. The important thing is the love, not the ring." She didn't say, "Well, that woman who tried to hit on you obviously has good taste! Thanks for telling her you were married. It makes me feel good to know I can trust you." She didn't say any of this because the writers either never thought about it, never heard anyone speak like this, or didn't think it would get as many laughs.

Instead she punished him by walking away and then throwing his clothes out the window. This was supposed to be funny.

In "Friends" there was one scene where someone started to cry. The person next to her said "Hey, don't do that!" He then tried to talk her out of her feelings and make a joke. He didn't show her any understanding or offer to give her a hug.

I also watched some of the Simpsons. I will admit that I laugh a lot when I watch that show. The social criticism is very insightful. But still, it is nearly pure sarcasm.

These are the kinds of things Hollywood is spreading around the world. A friend of mine from India once said, "I don't really understand sarcasm." And she wouldn't because she didn't grow up in the American culture. Or the British. The Australians are not far behind.

What we see on the television, especially from American producers, it seems clear to me, is huge amounts of sarcasm and invalidation. This is the kind of thing that frightens me, especially when the young people in every country I visit are watching American TV shows.

Emotions are contagious. So what is happening is that the children and teenagers around the world are picking up the emotions behind the sarcasm and invalidation shown on the television. As they learn English from American media, they also learn the destructive, defensive, invalidating, unforgiving, sarcastic, resentful, arrogant and aggressive ways that Americans speak. They also absorb the emotions which go along with the words. They hear the tone of voice, they see the body language and the behavior. It all adds up to convey the feelings of the actors and actresses, all of which reflect the American culture to a frighteningly accurate degree.

I am not even talking about huge amount of violence and destruction coming out of Hollywood. That is another subject. What is frightening to me, though, is that even though the amount of violence in American shows is acknowledged around the world, other countries are still showing films like Terminator 3, SWAT and Matrix Reloaded in their movie theaters and on their planes and busses. I had to see Terminator 3 on the bus in Malaysia. There was almost no way to avoid looking up and seeing and hearing the violence as we drove to Kuala Lumpor. We were literally a captive audience. I put my headphones on and tried to listen to music to drown out the sounds. But nearly everyone else on the bus stared blankly at the screen and let the all the sounds of yelling, swearing, gunfire, crashes and explosions fill their minds.

Even more frightening is the more subtle kinds of influences American TV and movies is having on the rest of the world. Around the world, English is the dominant second language. The teenagers are all watching American shows. Europe has its own culture, but Asia, including Australia, looks up to the USA as if everything coming out of there is "cool" and desirable.

No one is stopping this. It is like a poison that is spreading without any control or even awareness of the danger. The parents are spending less and less time with their children and teens. They are too busy trying to make money and then relax from the stress of working for someone else. More and more, both parents are working. And there are more broken homes. And most of the parents don't even understand English well enough to know what is being said, even if they were interested.

One day I was at a Catholic high school in Jakarta and the students were playing a song from America which was about drugs and group sex. It said something like "Come get it on with us all night long." "Come have X with us and have sex with us till the early morn" -- (X being the drug Ecstasy). Even the teenagers didn't really understand this till I told them. They told me not to tell the principal what the words were or she wouldn't let them listen to it. It was one of their favorite songs and they were playing it over loudspeakers for the outside athletic competitions between them and other Catholic schools, something which was disturbing in itself for the high level of agressiveness and misguided values, something which again modeled the US sports competitions.

Americans are very unhappy people. The more I travel, the more clearly I see this. All the money they have has not made them happy. Nor has it made them better members of the international community. They are getting more defensive, more self-righteous and less able to admit their mistakes. They don't want to hear any criticism. They don't want to try to understand why people hate them. They just want to impose their culture on the rest of us, whether we like it or not.

They are filled with toxic emotions, while always pretending to be happy. If someone is actually paying attention and gets depressed at what they see around them, the Americans will say the person has a "chemical imbalance" and they will fill them with drugs. This is happening to more and more teenagers.

Yet this doesn't stop the unhappiness and it doesn't make America any less depressing, aggressive, sarcastic, or violent. The toxic emotions in America are slowly poisoning hundreds of millions of teenagers and children around the world.

Very few people see what is happening. But to me it is unmistakable. And very, very frightening.

S. Hein
Perth, Australia
November 2003