See What We See

I’m newly addicted to HOUSE (thank you Netflix for allowing me to indulge this craving at any time, affording me the opportunity to waste countless hours, and deprive myself of precious sleep and productive wakefulness), and I just watched the episode: UGLY. Almost as much as I love time-travel stories, I appreciate parodies, especially when TV makes fun of itself. In this episode, House’s team is forced to work with a film crew following their every move. Watching House duck the camera crew is fun in of itself.

What hit me directly was House’s line: “Suddenly, I don’t feel like I can trust Michael Moore movies.” He says this in reference to the masterful editing the production team uses on his own footage. In the final product, they credit House as being a compassionate Doctor, with the best interest of the patient his primary concern. The images of Dr. House watching the film, his sarcastic wit morphed into true concern, was beyond priceless.

This idea of media manipulation is far from revolutionary, but as much as we know, it’s impossible (in the literal sense) for anyone to be inundated with anything, and truly stay detached from it; to not allow that thing to seep into our subconsciousness and manipulate us unknowingly. This episode was great at pointing that out because of it’s expression as parody. The point of the form is to exaggerate the theme, making the journey from point A to point Z clear in a way as to be comically obvious. Real TV, or any informative media, is rarely so obvious.

Another point I drew, was how easy it is to see what you want to see. Personally, I love conspiracy theories, mostly from the idea that they stretch the norm in their alternate point-of-view. Not getting tunneled into one side is important to me, so I do a lot of reading and viewing of things I don’t necessarily agree with, because I’m curious about that side. I want to know, legitimately, why (how, in some circumstances) my thoughts are so different from another’s. But, even in my search for balance (or simple obsession with information), I can get tunneled into extreme opinions. I like, on a level that has nothing to do with truth, the idea of the unbelievable, so I’m naturally going to migrate to those sides, and find more validity in those arguments.

True objectivity is only achievable for Dr. House, it seems.  

• How objective do you think you are?
• What’s your favorite movie, or television, story or style?