Morgan Rowland
Most have heard of the book Fahrenheit 451. A book so aptly named based in a society where books are burned in mass and the temperature they burn at being 451 degrees. Many people think that the book is about censorship and that Ray Bradbury, the author, was writing a scathing case against what a world without books is like. This isn’t really wrong considering the author himself said that people could interpret the book anyway they want but this isn’t his intent with writing it. Bradbury’s purpose with writing the book was to warn about what he thought were the dangers of television.
Bradbury thought that television was turning people into morons, stating that ““Television gives you the dates of Napoleon, but not who he was,” Bradbury says, summarizing TV’s content with a single word that he spits out as an epithet: “factoids” (LaWeekly).” He believed that people who watched television were also at fault as seen in the book where TV is a “drug” and it’s the people’s fault for falling victim to it. This is an extremely warped way of looking at television and would go as far as to say it’s inherently classist in nature. According to Regis College, “About 27% of eighth grade students are below basic reading level, per NCES. (Child Illiteracy in America: Statistics, Facts, and Resources).” This doesn’t begin to mention the “About 130 million adults in the U.S. have low literacy skills” who are reading at or below a 6th grade level. (APM Research Lab).” These numbers are harrowing and speak to a large problem in the public school system however I want to talk about what this means. Because what this means is that millions of children and adults can not interact with books. They can not read to the level that they are supposed to be, to no fault of their own, and thus can not engage with the books they want to. This is a direct result of a failing US public System that poor children have no choice but to be apart and thus face the consequences.
These children then turn to other media like movies, TV, comic books etc, etc to keep themselves entertained and be able to engage with media like their peers. To say TV is dumb Media while there are children who can only engage with media through it is classist. But not only that it is simply pretentious to act as though long drawn out epics are the Only valid media and are things else is just mindless entertainment meant to keep the Masses at bay. TV and Movies are necessary parts of our modern society. They are keeping people informed and entertained at the speeds not previously seen. Yes, there are negative effects like with anything but in this case the good outweighs the bad.
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