Raising the Bar

Over the years it seems to be getting harder and harder to scare people, harder to shock them. This is evident in so many ways to those who have enough perspective to stay calm during the constant onslaught of challenges from all sides. It shows up in movies and television, in literature, in daily life and in national and local news.

Violence on television and in the movies is getting more graphic. In the Psycho shower scene (1960), we hear scary music and see a butcher knife slashing the shower curtain as blood washes down the drain. It’s enough to hint at something very gruesome. Today with improvements in special effects the blood often comes spurting directly out of people before washing down the drain leaving body parts behind. They must use more graphic portrayals to hold our attention.

Many years ago George Carlin had a routine he sometimes called the “heavy seven,” the seven words you can’t say on television. In July of 1972 when he performed the routine in Milwaukee, he was arrested and charged with violating obscenity laws. About 10 years later I attended his show at a local club – by then it was a classic, and the audience called out for it. Today those words still don’t appear on network television, except as initialized abbreviations, but are common in movies, on cable, on the stage and all over social media. People are getting more desensitized about the language they hear.

This phenomenon of desensitization spills over into the daily news as well.

A staple of the national news is telling everyone what to be afraid of. The networks apparently think these scare tactics will guarantee higher ratings. People will tune in out of curiosity or perhaps wondering what should be added to the list.

It has finally gotten to the point where attempts to scare us have reached ridiculous levels. Diseases that affect a miniscule number of people are labeled as epidemic and something to guard against. In 2014 as Ebola ravaged western Africa, the news was so intense that some people cancelled planned trips to safaris in countries in eastern Africa, half a continent away. After the final count was in, media reported that only two people had contracted Ebola in the US.  Both were nurses who had treated an Ebola patient and both recovered, but panicked voices had warned us for months of an imminent danger.

Three weeks ago they gave us news of beaches in Florida being closed because two people suffered non-fatal shark bites. But two weeks later the danger was not from sharks but from beach umbrellas.

USA Today ran a story about the problem of flying beach umbrellas turned loose by high winds. They reported that “at least two people have been impaled by the colorful sun shades in recent weeks” one in the ankle and one in the chest. Both were recovering. “According to the Consumer Product Safety Commission, about 3,000 people each year are rushed to emergency rooms for injuries involving umbrellas.” (Notice that they weren’t driven to emergency rooms or taken to emergency rooms – no, they were rushed, after being impaled!) They warn us to take precautions against this unexpected danger.

When we hear news like this we must remember a few things. Among them is that the news media are trying to upset us. That is what keeps us coming back – like to a soap opera – to find out what happens next or where this all leads! Another is that with over 300 million people in America, the incredible speed of communications and cameras everywhere, there will always be a crisis or a disaster within easy reach. They can’t tell it straight; they must build it into a shocking drama. (As politicians and social media jump on board to reinforce dire predictions, it's no wonder so many more people seem overly anxious today about every episode in Washington!) 

As all the entertainment and news media continue to raise the bar on shocking stories and images, take a deep breath and don’t be manipulated. Perspective.