Friday, April 18, 2008
Cultural Studies - Doctor Who
Doctor Who is a long running British science fiction show about a time traveler known as the Doctor. In this particular episode, the Doctor travels to earth's far future and discovers that instead of finding the earth in a golden age of prosperity, people live in a constant state of poverty and haven't yet reached enlightenment. After doing some digging, the Doctor finds out that the world is in this state because an elite group of aliens had infiltrated the timeline and had used their money and power to replace the television programming with reality television shows that kill off losing contestants. This programming sends the message that human life isn't important. With this message in mind, many of the breakthroughs in science and medicine never occur and neither does the golden age of humanity. When the humans fail to reach their golden age, the aliens use this period of weakness to go through with their full scale invasion. Above is a clip of a reality show that killed off its losing contestants.
Beyond the fact that the name of the show shares its name with our professor, this show syncs up with what we've been learning in class really well. The rich and elite aliens use our television as means to send out a message to oppress the general population. Although this show exaggerates the issue considerably (to the point of potentially parodying the issue), the powerful aliens in this episode really do use television's messages as a way to dominate society, leading up to a plot to make themselves even more powerful.
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5 comments:
This is a very interesting point. I too watch Doctor Who but I never would have thought about it in this context. Because the aliens were able to control a major corporation which ran the media, the media became a means for killing off humans. And everyone just accepted that that was what happened. It's amazing how the media can affect our culture.
I think that it is very interesting how even an alien culture has the desire to dominate through media just as much as human kind does.
Thanks for introducing this seemingly interesting show. Simply because of the name of the doctor, I will have to watch this show :P
That you put this show in Cultural Studies context is creative as well as enlightening.
I'm surprised that you haven't heard of it (especially given your name). I guess it because it aired only on the British channels (BBC). It's one of the longest running shows in the history of television. It's so old that when it started in 1963, it was in black and white. It was aired weekly until 1989ish, when it was canceled. In 2005, they restarted the series. I really think that 3 new season have been amazing. I strongly suggest that you start with the 2005 version of the show and watch the newest 3 seasons because the creators of the show made show really accessible for people like us who had never seen the original program.
I think this clip exemplifies the perceived power of television. The writers of the episode probably chose television for the aliens to take over because of its ubiquity. Thus, having complete control of television programming from the beginning would indeed allow for greater control of the viewers. It also shows the fact that a change in the media, such as the show creates a profound effect on the masses in that it changes their code of morality. The population no longer cares for human life and subsequently stops advancing medicien and science for humanity.
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