To introduce this article, I feel I must also introduce you, the reader, to my flatmate, Flora.
Flora is a lover of all things Film and TV, with the only degree of separation being that she doesn’t study it. To put into context the depth of this love, Flora frequently watches films in different languages, by directors whose names I haven’t even seen on billboards. She is a culture vulture, a cinephile. She watched the Oscars on her laptop rather than waiting until the following morning when the results were aired on TikTok… which is what I did!
I think I can name maybe 2 films that you haven’t heard of that I’ve watched. Maybe less. In fact, definitely less. My favourite film is, proudly, Notting Hill, I worship Bridgerton, and though I haven’t done it yet, catching up on Emily in Paris is literally on my to-do list. I have a mental note of all my favourite ‘background tv’ shows to put on if I want to ‘switch my brain off’ at the end of the day.
I am what we call ‘the casual viewer’. I don’t have a salacious interest in new releases, directors on my roster include: Greta Gerwig, Nora Ephron. And maybe Christopher Nolan because everyone seems to love him.
But for some bewildering reason, many a new TV show seems to be directed, without seeming narcissistic, towards me?
This is the concept of ‘Background TV’, that I so love and value. Drowning out our inner-monologues and allowing us to just ‘relax’, with at least 3 other sources leeching our attention. Though proven by psychologists to curb anxiety levels and occupy our minds, this habit of “mindless TV” has lead to the big bosses, i.e. the heads of Netflix, HBO, Prime Video, NOW TV, dumbing down the content they serve us to keep up to date with this habit.
Poor Flora is not in the forefront of their mind as a viewer anymore, but somehow, I am?
The crux of this issue is of course, as it always is, profit. I am an incredibly profitable viewer to have. I will sit on the sofa, simultaneously painting my nails and scrolling through Instagram at a mile a minute. The episode of whatever I am watching will finish, and because of my mild addiction to this playground for attention spans, I will use that oh-so-handy autoplay button and continue watching. In turn, Netflix makes unbelievable profits off of my not so lovely habits, seen with their reduction of the autoplay timer from 10 seconds to 5 seconds. Big Brother isn’t even allowing you 5 extra seconds to make up your mind anymore!
The dumbing down of content for viewers, like myself, means that our feeds and inboxes and recommended pages are flooded with serials, with each requiring less focus than the last.
The Verge described Emily in Paris as “light television meant to be devoured and mostly forgotten”, which can be said for most new shows popping up on your home page.
The ideal viewer for Emily in Paris is overstimulated, algorithmically trained, and time poor but content rich – these shows are catered for the distracted viewer, leading to a decline in quality.
Jameela Jamil, when speaking on Romesh Ranganathan’s podcast, stated that writers are being informed to “dumb down” their scripts, with the reasoning being that they “have to acknowledge that people are on their phones the whole time they’re watching telly”, which is why tv shows and films seem to be spoon-feeding plot points to the viewer.
Modular plots, scenes written with the view that they can be missed and the viewer need not skip back in order to understand where the plot is going, static characters – this kills narrative density, subtext and slow-burn. The culture vultures are starving. They have no food.
The mise-en-scène, an art form, is depleting with each film released with ‘Netflix Lighting’, a term used to describe the uncanny feeling that there’s probably a massive ring light in front of your favourite ‘peasant’ character in 1810s London.
So what is there to do?
Firstly, the blame is not to be put on “lazy audiences”, like myself. Consume the content you wish to, as a starter, the industry is at fault, not us! Background TV as a concept is not a viewing habit, it is a design principle that some are happily subjected to. The distracted audience can continue consuming their ambience instead of straight up art, if background noise you seek then background noise you shall receive!
But for those frustrated by this decline in quality, and focus on retention metrics from an industry they adore, fair enough! Personally, I’d recommend the approach of my beloved cinephile’s – find the content you want to watch. Language barriers are non-existent in the world of modern subtitles, art forms exist everywhere, go out and find them!
Image Credit: Bicycling
