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Hesitating I enter my house, the light outside is
dimming and the shadows make everything appear unfamiliar.
I know that my husband has not returned from
work yet, simply because his car is not in the garage.
I am alone. I carefully check all the rooms, almost
expecting something to happen suddenly. I hold my
bag in my hand as if it were a weapon. After the whole
house has been declared “clear,” I start to breathe
normally again and a smile appears on my face as I
realize, once again, how a simple movie seen at the
cinema a week earlier can modify my actions.
Sometimes I wonder if I should watch TV, with all
its shows that make me wonder whether I exercise enough,
whether I am slim enough, or whether I treat my pets
with the care they deserve: am I really concerned
about their mental health??? Not to mention the hundreds
of commercials that try to make me believe I need
a water purifier to remain alive since the water I
am currently drinking is heavily polluted! And countless
are the times when I have heard people talking by
quotations learned from movies… We need to watch shows
and films to know what to say, how to be, how to act.
We are so addicted to all this that it almost seems
like we cannot think on our own.
I cannot help thinking about what happened to me
some days ago, an example that clearly shows what
kind of power TV has over people. My husband and I
were in a restaurant when I heard my young neighbor
pronouncing violent words in a low angry voice. Surprised,
I turned to better understand the situation and I
saw that he was holding a fake military device and
was acting as if he were filming a war movie. I am
sure that if I had been a little be more updated about
this type of movie, I would have recognized what he
was saying as a quotation. Now, I wonder if he uses
such a language also with his friends and with his
parents, if he is aggressive, and if so, whether his
attitude has really nothing to do with what he watches
on TV.
That same evening on the way home I saw two cars
stopped one next to the other at a traffic light and
as soon as the light turned green they started racing,
in the middle of town. In this case not even a major
knowledge of movies and TV programs would have helped
me: there are just to many of them on the market showing
the exact same thing: people racing with cars.
I am sure that everybody, if asked, could easily
list many other examples of how TV and movies can
modify our behavior and therefore our life but, I
wonder, if we will always be able to draw the line
between a TV show and real life, between what they
make us think we want and what instead we really need
and are and believe.
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