Television

Getting through it, catholic school felt alternately like suffocating in quicksand, routing the lurking ambush of a terror squad , or expanding with sudden joy as when a hurricane approaching is preceded by brief but glorious sunlight and tranquility.

Experiencing life, I often credited that education for the rewards gained from the love of literature acquired despite the cautious offerings but likely because of the scholarly approach and the appreciation of excellence: pleasure in the written word, even more in the spoken; solace in time of sorrow; refreshment in time of leisure. Taking my children to the now almost quaint institution of a bookshop in their adolescence, I could command attention, almost impress, with my deep knowledge of literature and experience of the classics. What had been forbidden during school days, Lawrence, Woolf, Joyce, Lessing, later transformed into the emotional and intellectual affluence and security of a well-read life.

Alas, one with its quirky rules….

“If one starts something, one must certainly finish…” And I struggled to finish every book I read until past my mid-century mark! Imagine discovering new freedom after 50!

“Read at least one ‘classic’ every summer……” Feeling, forever young!

And “some books are less worthy than others!” Yes, the shame of reading trash! Whole genres…. Like the Mystery novel!

Until about five years ago, the mystery novel, like its film, dramatic or television adaptation was, for me, a lesser thing, not even a guilty pleasure! Dorothy Sayres? Patricia Highsmith? Serious fiction? Surely, not.

Ill informed, cheap pretension! – my view that the mystery novel, or film, play or drama, is a lesser art. Hawthorne, Green, Poe, Sayers, Tey, DuMaurier, Eco, Black. Surely, these are great writers, indeed. Sherlock Holmes, Inspector Morse, Maigret, Montalbano, Comissario Brunetti, Wallander, Miss Marple, Miss Fischer: investigators who delight,indeed. Alfred Hitchcock, David Finchner, Carrol Reed, Francis Ford Coppolla, mystery genre directors who perfected an art form.

The good mystery engages the intellect in a complex puzzle, commanding attention to the most subtle detail. Through this conceit, the skilled author lays bare and probes layers of the culture and society surrounding the characters: the physical landscapes, the interiors of the homes, offices and public spaces, the art, music, poetry of the day or of the past which supports the characters; the landscapes of the mind. The mystery exposes the organization of the society, how it adheres, where it fragments, what it values and what, or whom, it discards. Through the portrayal of crime, and the consequences of crime, concepts of justice are examined; issues of class, race, religion and gender probed. We observe equality and inequality, generosity and self-interest. The mystery scrutinizes human motivation, often exposing the role of history in contemporary identity: the effects of emotional loss and the loss of power; the consequences of addiction, greed and mental illness. The mystery can introduce the foreign and make it ordinary, whether it be the distant place or the idiosyncratic hobby or passion, such as collecting a rare bird or a stamp with a particular ink. The mystery feeds the human hunger for an understandable world – where chaos is tamed, action and consequences are predictable, if only we go back and see the clues. The mystery genre answers the quest for restored order, the search for social justice, a belief in connection and control.

Alas, in television, in particular, the mystery has been mutilated. As one idea so well presented in Gina Gionfriddo’s play Raptrue, Blister, Burn, television and film mysteries are toxic with sexplotation plots which are, in essence, modern “crime porn” masticated for the masses. Not just a murder, we confront a plot of serial killers sexually abusing young women or boys, formalistically, securing trophies, eating , burning or mutilating them, or engaging in some other perversely imagined amalgamation of male-commanding, female-submissive scenario of violence, gore and ritual, all available in prime time and cable for download and on the internet, 24 hours a day. Fine actors, like Kevin Bacon or Viola Davis pollute the images of FBI agents or Law Professors, indeed of human beings, as they become these new tv “crime porn” stars (The Following, How to Get Away With Murder) in dramas which do much more than merely coarsen public discourse: they pollute the national psyche.

The flood of “crime porn” in our theaters and on our screens fulfills none of these basic needs and aims at none of these aspirations. Nor is the issue whether or not there is evidence to suggest that the violent degradation of women and children and the occasional man on the screen increases real life violence. For even if this is not true, it is clear that ours is a society that is far too violent, far too toxic, and, certainly, far too intolerant. I recall my incredulity upon learning that the crowds had hungrily gathered to watch beheadings during the French Revolution. Could this be the impulse which stimulates the greedy creation and consumption of “crime porn” today?

The devolution of “crime porn” provides us with no surrounding layers of culture, (art, literature, music, landscapes) to cushion or surround the crime, to give a meaning, a context for the violence or a significance for the act or the actor. Typically, in crime porn plots, the darkness of deranged criminal is only slightly less dark than some corrosive thing in the life or past of the detectives; the question of how society coalesces, what it values, how it is generous, is not often asked, much less answered. Were it to be, the answer would be as dark and ugly as the depiction of the crime itself. Crime porn does not make chaos understandable, the unthinkable comprehensible; it does not provide a sense of justice and restored order. Rather, crime porn seems to reflect our own anxiety that our world is intolerably out of control, craven, degraded, senseless and adrift.

The riddle is that we call this entertainment. The puzzle is, we permit new, more lavish, star-studded performances every year. Nationwide, we decry the many dangers of the media – cyber bullying, cyber crime, government surveillance – all while this “entertainment” violence propagates unimpeded. The perplexity is our passivity.

As at other times in my life, I am grateful for the solidity gained from my classic, if confining and imperfect, education. A screen can be switched from images to words or a book picked up, and these, detective fiction included, can still transport to reaches where humanity and justice are examined, explored, considered.

The mystery, it seems, is how our culture, as a whole, can be moved to some place safe from this pandemic of “crime porn”.

That portal, appraising a refuge from that insistent insomnia which followed the uncommon and lingering cold of that Pennsylvania winter, made too dark by death and distance and recurrent themes of global iniquity, offered succor and satisfaction.

That sanctuary improbably contains entire unseen worlds: icy rivers, fragrant fields, ancient towers; long-lost seasons, war battered villagers, sun-kissed nordic children; human depravity; graceful forgiveness; unconditional love.

MHZ Woldwide , MHZ Networks Worldwide.org might easily become an addiction.

U.S. television never tantalized in this way. The “comedy,” too mean, or cheap, or base, rarely spawns a smile. The fantastical or blood-drenched drama fails to engage.

Is the “small screen” in truth a magnifier of larger culture?

I see in most US made television too omnipresent toilet humor and flesh bared for the sake of it. No longer, if ever it was, art or narrative, or even excitement, but seeming as a naughty child announcing his own defiant and dubious accomplishment. Rarely does the screen reflect the economic truth that is our life and will be our videographic legacy. Rather, fabulous images permeate: pristine interiors; not a single unwashed dish awaits the harried mother on her return from work. Poverty, so rarely seen, is never seen true: one can never see the broken glass in the subway or the detritus in the alley or the smells of urine, blood, rotted food and sex emanating from the darkened halls of the tenement where the brave and perfectly coiffed FBI agent with his shiny gun snakes through with such grit and virile vigor.

Too much physical beauty: the highest of the high-end of runway fashions painted onto idealized forms of starving actors who exhibit bodies turned out by gyms or film editing tricks to emphasise the muscles on anorexic female forms. Anachronistic: emphasize the female form in costume above historical accuracy. Inappropriate: what matter if no lawyer, doctor would truly wear such fashion in the hum drum halls of her profession? Product placement: Whether cable or subscription or the network: the means to market to the masses(the car, computer or refrigerator in the scene) must never be forsaken!

Sex and violence. Violent sex. Cannibalism and cult criminality. Such themes sell, apparently. Heterosexual, the predominant cultural fantasy but increasingly same-sex relationships are scripted into shows, much as “racial quotas” are often witnessed. The marketing of violence and male sexual fantasy is the persistent “sell.” Infrequent now, tenderness on the small screen. Rather, sexual encounters as violently “passionate” encounters, virtual rape fantasies. Not that the small screen lacks for the portrayal of actual rape encounters; whole series dedicated to sex crimes.

The Anglo-American television drama produces more than its share of the misogynist serial rapist murderer, frequently ritual misogynistic rapist/murderer.

It tires. Saddens. Disheartens. More than rarely, it disgusts.

The discovery of MHZ: a cornucopia of European vision. Perhaps, it sparkles brightly in proportion to its novelty. Possibly. Or, it offers a genuine thread to untangle worlds unknown.

The mind awakes to the varied patterns of language; attending not merely the sound of the tongue but the eyes, the face, the gestures and body movement of the language as well. Communication in each country emerges uniquely. In drama, in comedy, the actor engages her entire self.

Landscapes incorporate the narrative. The thrilling North Sea cliffs tell a different tale than the Palermo seascape, the mood of the autobahn is different from that of the fifth arrondissement.

Food and celebration are conveyed so clearly in modern Swedish Solstice celebrations but vivid too are postwar Danish Christmas rituals, spare and sincere. A family dinner in 1950’s Milan creates a different feeling than the urban family meal in a Parisian restaurant.

There is pleasure in the private discovery of the cultural codes and conventions one might learn from the unfolding presentations.

Many regions value food more highly than US television producers. Care is taken to demonstrate cuisine, kitchen tools and cooking methods of a period, of a city or a country. Restaurants and kitchens, dining rooms and patios emanate ambiance so bright as one watches the smells, almost the tastes come alive, one’s palate is tempted with the wines richly described and correctly poured on screen.

Styles of living through the years evolve so dramatically, yet change not at all. When marketing products or perfection is not the story, dust can accumulate on the mahogany furnishings beneath the open Roman window and water stains on the tile under the soggy boots of a Berlin winter. The casual elegance of a Parisian Sunday brunch in an over furnished 1930’s apartment arrests our attention. People live with wine bottles on the table from last night’s meal and newspapers still being read in the internet age. The viewer is permitted a more realistic, if not a true view, of how wealth distorts lifestyle through the decades whether in northern continental urban Europe largely residing in apartments, or the Scandinavian and the Mediterranean whose lives, rich and poor, may have some backdrop of the sea.

Together, these tales tease to discover the values which bind the culture. When the father who has been grievously wronged embraces his child with forgiveness , is it the omnipresence of the Catholic Church in Italy which allows him to do so? But would an Irishman do the same? Or is this generosity something unique to the Italian landscape, sun-baked and steeped in the sweet aromas of the Mediterranean?

Most striking, History is a character in so many of the dramas. Most especially, World War II is kept an actor of our time. The war as action, the war as precedent, the war as motivation. The man as hero, the child as orphan, the woman as love child. Often without a direct mention, it is ever clear that the historical created the dramatic conflict of the moment, the precise events of history, the reality lived: these people and events inhabit the stories which unfold on that small screen.

As an American watching a world in which the characters of the twenty-first century appear deeply connected to the events of seventy-five or one hundred years ago, I feel a void. One could argue our culture is more free, unburdened by the past. One could also suggest we are less prepared to craft a future.

That portal, still a haven for restless nights, filled with the fireflies and the lightening of these overheated summer days, too filled with replays of unending global conflict, enlightens and directs an understanding which feels a salve for the burdens of the day.

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