eliminate it
“Okay, remember when I said that the whole “writers are special” thing was amongst other things, classist? This is why: “if you wish to watch TV, you do not want to be a serious writer.”
After all what could you possibly learn about a culture from its single most significant cultural outlet. What could possibly be on TV? Just a bunch of stupid shows for stupid poor people. Proper writers don’t watch television, only horrible people who drink lager and eat crisps watch television. Those people can’t be writers. Those people are too busy getting ASBOs and being single parents and scrounging off benefits. But it’s okay, because those people aren’t important enough to read my books anyway. I only write serious books for serious people.
Fuck you.
Mark Haddon, who I’m sure I don’t need to remind you (but might need to remind Mr Carey, who might unfortunately overlook lesser writers) wrote The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time said that he chose to write the book in the style of a murder mystery because that was the style of book his protagonist would have read. It was a notion he said he’d got from Jane Austen, who again wrote about people in precisely the medium that those people would have been most familiar with.
Real people watch television. If you think you can write something beautiful and true when you knowingly, deliberately and with an air of smug self-satisfaction cut yourself off from one of the most significant features in the lives of ordinary people then you are – not to put too fine a point on it – a moron. A stuck up moron.
It’s a cheap shot I know, but I seem to recall that four hundred years ago the primary means of entertainment for the common man was a little thing called “theatre” and that a gentleman by the name of Shakespeare who I understand is quite famous did a lot of interesting work in that medium. But perhaps his work would have been better if he’d ignored popular entertainment and focused on reading books by dead people. In Latin.”Eliminate TV?
But if I couldn’t foster an interest in pacing structures from The Vampire Diaries and grifting tips from Leverage and characterisation ideas from Parks and Recreation and timing hints from 30 Rock and willingness to take risks from Community and love for noir from Angel and insight into American political process from The West Wing and serial killer psychology from Criminal Minds and military ladies from Alias and character arcs from Avatar: The Last Airbender and pride in New Zealand content from Shortland Street and appreciation for Māori tales of the supernatural in Mataku and environmental concern from Captain Planet and the Planeteers and unfathomable amounts of feminist inspiration from Sailor Moon, I wouldn’t be the writer I am.
I might not be one at all.
I don’t know what it does for others, but TV makes me a better writer. Haters to the left.
