Seduced by Endless Choices of TV Filth and Junk Food for the Soul
by Sabrina Dawkins
I was first introduced to reality TV through the MTV cable show The Real World, and it was captivating to my young eyes. I used to watch the Real Housewives on Bravo. I told myself that I was doing psychology research by observing the behavior of those women, but no research was ever actually produced from consuming countless hours of reality TV. But oh was I entertained by the endless drama. And like a drug addict, I could not wait for the next episode. What would happen next? There was always a cliffhanger at the end of a show to entice me to watch the next one.
I didn’t realize that I was really learning nothing at all and was only being shallowly entertained week after week. There was nothing I gained from watching the drama on reality TV unfold, but I couldn’t take my eyes off the flashing screen. I was dazzled. Some days I would watch marathons of reality TV shows, the entire season consumed in one full, wasted day. But I used to feel lucky that in one day I would be able to catch up on all the episodes I had missed throughout the season: I could watch the whole drama evolve, and with all the messy details. And I can’t even tell you today even the main themes or messages of all the reality shows I watched. They all blend together now in my mind as an endless flow of filth and flare: yelling, bleeping out curse words, throwing full glasses, pulling hair, heavy makeup, rushing, legs kicking after the body has been pulled away from a fight, expensive trips to foreign lands, homosexuals, weaves, excess, divorces, rebound relationships, cleavage, jewelry, fashion, tears, and deceit.
But before that, and before I was even a teenager, I remember having access to endless channels on the box TV. Cable was something new and exciting to me. We didn’t have it at home because my parents were careful and saved their money, not spending it on frivolous things. But the grandparents could afford it, so I used to enjoy going to their house to watch cable television. I could sit in front of that TV all day if allowed to and just consume the entertainment, which held my attention and made time disappear. And when it didn’t, I could easy flip to another channel that did. At that time, I really thought my parents’ home lacked something important: cable. The like six working fuzzy channels at home had only limited, mostly bland programs, and the 21 Jump Street show was the highlight of my week, and I can’t even tell you the theme or subject matter of the show. It is just all one dark blur now. But it was exciting while it lasted.
There was never any nudity or even cursing that I remember seeing on that old fuzzy TV at my parents’ home in the den, with all the available channels as buttons down one side of the box, nothing to severely corrupt my mind. But that would all change as I got more access to cable at the grandparents’ house. And after my grandfather died, my grandmother didn’t want to stay in the house alone, so the grandkids would spend the night often. And it was there that I came across what appeared on cable TV late at night on HBO: nude mostly white bodies having sexual intercourse. I quickly became addicted to it, going into the TV room late at night to flip through the channels and find the ones that showed naked bodies. Still not yet a teenager, I could not process the fact that I was being polluted by the content I was consuming.
In a recent dream I was shown an old room in a house from like the 1980s, similar to a TV room in my grandparents’ house. A large L-shaped sofa set wrapped around its walls. But there was no TV in it. Instead, there was an old vending machine with snacks still inside and what appeared to be an old soda machine beside it. And every choice available was a plastic-wrapped artificial food, and therefore every choice would be bad for the consumer. But the idea of having many choices would cause a person to stop and stare at the excess. In college I used to love the convenience of having vending machines right in my dorm with rows and rows of choices. They were lit up on the inside behind the plexiglass, multiple colors of plastic wrapping to tantalize. I liken that to what cable was for me: many choices of junk food, all bad. And I remained overweight in college.
Now I look at this vending machine in the dream, however, and the artificial, plastic-smothered food in it looks old and stale, not appetizing. The machine looks at least 35 years old, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the snacks left in it were close to that age as well. The spell is broken. I no longer look at a brightly-lit vending machine with seemingly fresh delicious snacks to choose from. Instead I look at my youth, an old box screen that gave me an endless flow of filth, polluted my mind and soul. The vending machine in my dream was dull, old, seemingly abandoned, and therefore no longer kept fully stocked; the artificial snacks that remained were left to rot. It didn’t even look like the machine still worked. I know the TV no longer works on me because I know now that it is a spellcaster that dirtied my soul and was leading me in a trance to my doom. But the freely available naked white bodies on channels that I could conveniently flip through using a remote control in a dark room late at night were not free.
There is a cost to getting a cheap, unhealthy, artificial snack out of a vending machine with many choices. And the upfront cost might seem like a bargain. But over time your health will slowly deteriorate. And after you’ve tasted and consumed the powerful artificial flavors that draw you to the artificial over the natural every time, the artificial remains, incorporated into your very being, indistinguishable in your stomach, subtly influencing the processes inside your body. Satan captivates us with endless, colorful, flashy choices through which to sin. But what he didn’t tell us was that every channel, every unhealthy food choice he gives us ultimately leads to death.
My vending machine is no longer in service. I don’t have cable and don’t watch TV anymore. The endless exciting choices have turned into stale junk that I can tell is artificial from a mile away. But what are you feeding your soul?