Comments on: David Simon on how good television is like travel http://www.vagablogging.net/david-simon-on-how-good-television-takes-on-characteristics-of-travel.html Sun, 12 Feb 2012 07:10:26 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1 By: jquaglia http://www.vagablogging.net/david-simon-on-how-good-television-takes-on-characteristics-of-travel.html/comment-page-1#comment-7346 jquaglia Mon, 26 Jan 2009 17:34:59 +0000 http://www.vagablogging.net/?p=3216#comment-7346 “And the only difference between what we’re doing and a world traveler getting off the beaten path is that our viewers don’t really have to play the fool." This seems like a pretty ego-centric thought process in his belief that what he is providing is comparable to travel. I would say that TV is completely the opposite of travel. Travel requires self-sufficiency, knowledge, open-mindedness, understanding, effort. TV seeks to put you there without any of the above. And you are subject to the interpretation of a place through the director, actors, and producers. Travel is about taking the effort of experiencing real people and real places ourselves rather than having someone tell us about them. Travelers are willing to make this effort because they recognize the incredible reward of experiencing things themselves, while TV viewers (who don't travel) are expecting a cultural handout of sorts within their own relative comfort--impossible. Mr. Simon is crazy if he thinks he can offer an authentic cultural experience to someone from the comfort of their living room couch. “And the only difference between what we’re doing and a world traveler getting off the beaten path is that our viewers don’t really have to play the fool.”

This seems like a pretty ego-centric thought process in his belief that what he is providing is comparable to travel. I would say that TV is completely the opposite of travel. Travel requires self-sufficiency, knowledge, open-mindedness, understanding, effort. TV seeks to put you there without any of the above. And you are subject to the interpretation of a place through the director, actors, and producers. Travel is about taking the effort of experiencing real people and real places ourselves rather than having someone tell us about them. Travelers are willing to make this effort because they recognize the incredible reward of experiencing things themselves, while TV viewers (who don’t travel) are expecting a cultural handout of sorts within their own relative comfort–impossible. Mr. Simon is crazy if he thinks he can offer an authentic cultural experience to someone from the comfort of their living room couch.

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