Who has the Stomach for It?

(Finally got a chance to post this during a late lunch.)

I Don’t Have the Stomach for it Anymore

A few weeks ago I was surfing television looking for something to distract me and help wind down the day. I came across “Into the West” on TNT. This short series was produced by Steven Spielburg which certainly lends some cache in terms of credibility and entertainment. So, even though the series has started the week before, I was intrigued and decided to watch Chapter 3 and Chapter 4. Beginning credits were attractive and set a gentle western scene. Everything is filmed in gentle sepia tones creating a historic mood. Costumes and props are clearly made to look authentic. The actors themselves are well cast and in some instances represent actual historic characters. The actors’ faces, for the most part, are not common to television viewers and so the character is allowed to come through. The history of the development of the western territories is told following the lives of two families.

OK, enough background. Why didn’t I finish watching Chapter 4? I frequently stop watching a movie, TV Show, sports game when I think it is getting late and I need to go to bed, old grandmother fart that I am. It drives my husband nuts that I can get up in the middle of a show and head to bed without wondering how the episode ends. (Of course most of television is so derivative that there is no time lost pondering the ending on my part and I’d rather get to my book.) But, this is not the reason I didn’t watch the finish of this show. I turned off the set because I was crying so hard, I just couldn’t watch any more. The blatent violence and loss of innocent elderly and children just kicked me in the gut, and, Spielburg makes it all so real…the fact that is was real history…just couldn’t do it. It was a beautiful and tragic story of our history. I really wanted to watch it all, but I couldn’t.

I don’t know if this has to do with aging or just the years of images that have been burned in my mind, or 9/11, but I don’t have the stomach to watch such violence—even in the news anymore. I was watching BBC last night, because they actually report the news (not just the stories about beautiful white girls that are missing or pedophiles gone amok) and they were showing the genocide and starvation happening in Darfur. I looked for 10, maybe 15 seconds, and I had to change the channel. I could not bear it. Switch to “Friends” or “Everybody Loves Raymond” as something totally mindless to cleanse the palate.

It just seems that my nerves are raw and fringed these days or there is too much reality on TV. Psychologists say that “Violent programs on television lead to aggressive behavior by children and teenagers who watch those programs. I wonder what it leads to in baby boomers such as myself?