When I was younger I loved courtroom dramas on television. I‘d love the suspense, the case-solving discovery by the local policeman, or the surprise witness in the back of the courtroom. It would wrap up neatly in 60 minutes time with the evil party receiving the punishment they deserved. When I got older, I was surprised to discover that real-life courtrooms look very different from Hollywood courtrooms. There are no surprise witnesses called to the stand from the back row of the courtroom or smoking guns found the night before a defendant takes the stand. Hollywood has changed the scene to create better drama and television.
But this is not uncommon for television to shift our view of reality.
Consider these other 51 Untruths That I’ve Learned From Television.
- Law enforcement departments hate working together. Someone will always pull rank or jurisdiction.
- Dumpsters prove to be amazingly soft landing zones.
- Good guys always win in the end.
- Everyone in America lives in a 30′ X 30′ bedroom.
- It is entirely normal for groups of complete strangers to spontaneously burst into perfectly choreographed but entirely random song and dance.
- Bad guys have terrible aim.
- The best chefs cook with exact ingredient portions stored in glass bowls.
- Most police forces and hospital staffs are full of sexual tension.
- Families typically sit on just three sides of the table.
- Republicans and Democrats never, ever work together.
- Most arguments can be quickly settled by delivering a really big kiss on the mouth.
- Chicks fall head-over-heels for guys who use the right deodorant or hair product.
- This week’s sporting event is absolutely going to be the biggest game of the Century.
- Promiscuous sex has incredibly few negative side affects.
- Cars always stay clean, turn sharp, and start on the first try.
- Homicides are far more entertaining than you’d think.
- Reality TV stars live a far different ‘reality’ than I do.
- Ventilation systems prove to be great hiding spots.
- A better credit card is the best answer to my personal debt crisis.
- Explosions look spectacular, but rarely cause harm to actual persons.
- When you’ve gotten the information that you need from a phone conversation, you can just hang up without saying goodbye and nobody seems to mind.
- Parties are always better with Coca-Cola, Pepsi, or Dr. Pepper.
- Babies are born the size of 5-month old infants.
- Heartbroken girlfriends always return to the place you first met.
- Kids will play all day long with plastic toys… especially ones modeled after TV characters.
- Fast food restaurants are typically full of slender, attractive patrons.
- The best way to get work done in the office late at night is to order pizza.
- The more blades on my razor, the more often my wife will caress my face in the bathroom.
- The newest kitchen gadgets will automatically improve my cooking.
- If you aren’t seeing cars fly off cliffs, you’re not looking hard enough…cause there’s apparently a lot of ‘em.
- You won’t get in trouble if you are sincere about your intentions.
- Any woman running for her life in high heels never thinks to take them off.
- Cars and trucks that crash will almost always burst into flames.
- Broken families are more comical than tragic.
- My friends and I can always meet at the same restaurant and get the exact same table.
- The older brother is always unintelligent… just like his dad, while the youngest child is always the cutest.
- Television can teach my children the A-B-C’s better than me.
- While running for your life, there is always time for a romantic moment.
- Lawyers always have a surprise witness up their sleeve that nobody in the courtroom knows about.
- It’s apparently not awkward for 1 guy to be dating 25 women living in the same house.
- This current bill being debated in Congress will ruin our country forever.
- Alcohol only improves life… never ruins it.
- Villains love explaining their detailed plans to heroes caught in traps.
- Your health problems can be easily cured with new prescription medication.
- New cars are totally worth the investment.
- During the day, it almost always rains in cemeteries.
- Back taxes are apparently pretty easy to get out of… if you just call the right people.
- Rich people have more fun.
- My teeth would be whiter if I switched toothpaste.
- Non-married couples have better sex.
- This next purchase will make me happier.
Perhaps courtrooms are not the only examples of television misrepresenting reality… perhaps it has been shifting our view of reality all along… and perhaps these untruths have been affecting our lives far more than we’d like to admit.
Perhaps their greatest success is making us believe it’s just harmless entertainment.
Here’s a helpful article I wrote on how to limit screen time for kids.
About Joshua Becker
#5 teeters on suggesting that musical theatre is not real life.
Tread lightly, Becoming Minimalist. Tread lightly.
:)
You need to add that TV characters can be underground, in a concrete building etc…and they will still have perfect cellphone service. And the same groups of friends hang out together everyday and never see to have to work.
Or how about this one?
Children, typically under the age of 14, have free range of the town and neighborhood. Especially if they have a bike.
Or everyone on tv is beautiful, successful, intelligent or positive is white. TV can be “unintentionally” biased. As a married, employed, successful and beautiful brown skinned African American female with children I have to constantly find ways to explain to my children that everything they see on tv is not true and that images they see don’t represent the reality of their ethnicity. We are not all drug dealers, prostitutes, incarcerated, addicts, rappers, slang speaking, buffoons that are so readily represented on tv. So many times all our children try to live up to this fake life they see and they can be so much more. We really need to look at what we as a society is creating for the future.
Thank you Nik for that info. I imagine that is hard for your children and it has to be so confusing for them. So many groups are stereotyped-races, sexes and ages. Besides TV, the media is to blame for what they choose to show on our TVs, newspapers and on line.
It only takes a bad apple or a group of them to make everyone
develope opinions that aren’t accurate. Our country needs healing so your children and others aren’t treated unfairly. Our country needs prayer and Jesus in their lives.
Anti wrinkle creams will make you look 16 again
I thought this was hilarious. But you forgot my favorite: When the toilet seat is up, a woman will always fall into the bowl, because they never, ever check before they sit down.
A lot of these are shortcuts that screenwriters make because real creativity takes too much time and effort.
Love this! While is it humorous to read, it’s incredible the message that TV programs try to convey.
15: Unless there’s a bomb wired to the ignition! Without fail, if your car doesn’t start on the first try, YOU NEED TO GET OUT!
And to go along with the phone call one, when the character on screen is hung up on it is always very obvious, you can hear the disconnection tonne. Yet they will always say “hello? HELLO???” into the phone like there is a chance the speaker is still there.
Other ones I have noticed. Its fine for guys to be over weight, abnoxious and have physical flaws they will still land themselves drop dead gorgeous wifes who keep a models waist line even after having 3-4 children (usually including twins).
Or to put it more simply, its ok for guys to be flawed and to look like average Joes, but their wifes must always be stunning.
So funny!
Also…
Grandmoms are always hip and may rap or hit on your boyfriend.
Bitter cops have all lost their partners in a bad undercover deal.
Streetwalkers are gorgeous.
Deans of community college are flamboyant, Principals lonely and single, and twins can pull the switcheroo and no one can tell them apart even if one has an English accent!
It was a BAD IDEA to read this before the children woke up.
I began laughing (snorting into my tea mug, actually, in an attempt to be quiet) and now I hear them shifting in their beds. I am very ineffective at laughing quietly. If you don’t mind, Mr. Becker, I’m going to share this list with two of my friends: one fanatically anti-TV, the other turns it on at 8am and off at 10pm. I think both, in their way, will get a kick out of this.
Thanks for the morning laughter! (My children also say thank you, although they don’t get the joke.)
The untruth under the untruths: Your life is boring. You are not beautiful/strong/smart. You are not good enough.
Oh, this made me giggle so much! All so true, thank you for this! A great tongue-in-cheek way to remind us to actually THINK about what we’re seeing on screen sometimes…
Just recently I watched an episode of a TV show I deemed to be “harmless”, “safe”, “realistic”. I’m very picky at this point. With two young kids and in a rough patch in my marriage. I know I’m easily influenced. (Dare I say we all might be with some unwilling to admit, having grown a hard heart in a hard world?) Along came an episode I did not agree with, and it was much harder to shake off than I thought it would have been, I carried around a bitterness for like two days afterwards. You have to be careful what you let in, it will effect what comes out.
You forgot another #52: Children are much smarter than their parents – especially the father.
I actually think #11 could be true if my man would follow that advice!
It is not television that is bad for kids, it is being left unsupervised, not just with the television, but anywhere, that is bad for kids. Television is just Fiction!!! It is not real!!! Children need to be taught this!
#52 All problems in life can be solved in 1/2 an hour.
how about, a woman running from an attacker will always trip and fall even if she is wearing running shoes!
@Diedra: Indeed. Growing up in the 80s I always thought that was one of the stupidest things I ever saw in movies. I mean a “G.I. Jane” character for your average woman isn’t realistic either, but c’mon! What woman with a lick of sense wouldn’t kick her heels off and run like crazy if Michael Meyers or Jason were chasing them?!? Not to mention both these nutjobs walked so slow towards their victims most could get away just by doing a fast walk in the opposite direction. Then of course there’s sex. It’s also a truism that if you have sex in one of these movies, unless you are the hero of course, you are instantly marked for death. Hmm… could be a good argument for abstinence I suppose.
I really liked this list. We just went TV and cable free. There are so many things on TV that give life an unrealistic perspective. Yes, we all know it’s “just TV” but if we are watching it for our whole lives we are bound to pick up ideals and suggestions about who was should be and how we should act.
This is a nice list. #37 is so true. My kids learn ABC just by watching TV. They do have some great programs for kids. Can we really live without TV?
I’ve not had a TV for eighteen years now – it got so that I felt I was living life at second hand..we found ourselves without and had so much time!
I soon realised I’d rather have the time than have the television, and live my own life, my real life.
Simple decision for me, and no regrets..
spectacular list. i’d have to say with knowledge like this, it’s hard to understand why you’d turn the TV off!
This looks like 51 perfect reasons to limit or eliminate tv watching. What a fun post you put together here. I found myself laughing and interrupting my honey to read some of these aloud. I am so happy I’m not attached at the hip to a television set. ;)
If these are untruths, shouldn’t “Reality TV stars live a far different ‘reality’ than I do” be “Reality TV stars live the same reality that I do”?
(I haven’t read all the comments to see if someone already said this)… but I completely agree with your post: these things have changed our society’s view on issues. But I think the bigger issue is that we watch things mindlessly, and parents dropped the ball by not explaining WHY what they saw on tv was wrong. Children are growing up seeing the lies but not hearing the truth from their parents. If parents would do their part, children might not only avoid the bad things they get from tv, but they would know WHY they avoid them and how to tell others. Thanks for this post, it’s a good reminder to me.
#10 is being proved out all over the nation, not just on the television. That’s why we’ve got to ditch this rotten, broken two-party system.
I hate it how they never say “bye” on the phone! Who does that??
That drives me crazy! What is up with that?
Something I always notice and it has always bugged me too!
and no extended greetings, hows the family? did you see the match? that kind of thing, so rude..
That was hysterical and so true. Fantastic. So great. Thank you
22 years without TV and reading your post has me certain it will be 22 more . . .
Debra F’s comment is funny and accurate. I see this scenario in movies and just roll my eyes . . .
My favourite is 32. Any woman running for her life in high heels never thinks to take them off.
Now maybe it is because I don’t wear high heals, but that is the first thing I notice in any chase scene and it annoys me greatly.
Great list! Oh, but wait. The car NEVER starts when someone is trying to get away from a crazed psycho who is trying to escape from a rapist, murderer, cannibal, etc.
Oh, and you forgot, when a character has finally “killed” the rapist, murderer, cannibal, etc., he or she NEVER double-checks and makes sure the person is really dead. Just when you think it’s safe….well, you KNOW what happens! :)
Joshua,
This had to be a fun post to put together! I can imagine trying to come up with one or two and first, and then once you start, they just keep coming! Even though we watch our fair share, I am glad that we greatly limited TV when we had kids at home.
Bernice
Whoever wrote this has watched an awful of TV.
an awful lot, I men!
It was a group effort comprised of myself and a large group of Facebook friends. It was definitely fun to get a few chuckles during the brainstorm session.
I wondered how long it took you to write this! That makes much more sense.
28 was hilarious.
This was the most hilarious, and insightful post I have read recently. Brilliant.
Wonderful post! Funny but unsurprisingly very true.
Love this! My favorite is #48! I am by no means rich and I am living my happiest life here on the pacific coast of Costa Rica, living off a measly $1000 a month. Life is grand when you don’t buy into TV fiction or convention for that matter. :-)
I love this post. Some of these TV ‘untruths’ are funny, and some are just plain sad, and it’s even more sad when people buy into them. It’s so good to be reminded it’s FICTION.
Articles like this really grease the shafts of knowledge.
That’s a smart answer to a tricky question
I work in a critical care unit and can honestly say that after what we see and deal with on a 12 hour shift the only thing any of us wants is a nice, hot shower alone! And lots of uninterrupted sleep, also alone!
I crack up at the fitted, low-cut scrubs they wear!
52. If you want to transform the Ugly Duckling into the Prom Queen, remove her glasses.
I absolutely loved your comment. Isn’t it so funny how they take a beautiful girl, throw an ugly pair of glasses on her, and think that the world can’t see that she’s beautiful even WITH the glasses?
Wait! You have to pull her hair down from her ponytail!
and change the sack tee shirt for a dress.
Thanks for this. It made me laugh, pause, and consider giving away the tv.
34. Broken families are more comical than tragic.
Sorry, but my family was far more tragic when my parents were married. Neither of them were bad people, but they were not good together. The best decision my mother could have made was to divorce my father, and I’m glad she had the strength and wisdom to leave. Her leaving my father taught us that all actions have consequences, and also taught us how important it is to be able to take care of yourself.
52. Killing someone is easy, so neat and clean. Just a bullet or two is all it takes, or just strangle them for a few seconds. In reality, I know of a person who was shot with 83 bullets, and LIVED. It takes up to ten minutes to strangle a person to death, not ten seconds. People usually do not die easily.
53. It’s easy to hit your target with a handgun, just hold up a gun (sideways is best) and pull the trigger. Everything about that statement is false.
I think my favourite one is:
A guy can be an absent-minded, uncaring lover for the majority of a relationship, but as long as he makes one big romantic gesture, the girl will stay with him.
And ad concept that make me crazy is…
Husbands/Dads are dumb. They don’t understand how life (or wifi) works and need it explained to them by their wives and children.
So true! Dumb Husband can’t figure out Turbo Tax and wife verbally berates him… Dumb Husband walks in with muddy feet so wife rolls her eyes and makes fun of him. The most influential thing to me (for kids) is how disrespectful and sarcastic they speak to adults and teachers in these shows. The kids run the school and the Dumb Principal is a joke. It only seems harmless until you hear sarcasm and disrespect in real life and suddenly it’s not funny any more.
I think that we need to remember what is harmless, or nearly harmless, in small doses can be fatal in larger and more frequent doses — Arsenic comes to mind.
Funny post, the untruths, but I would say most of that *is* harmless. As someone who’s lived the past 3 years without television, I agree that it definitely has the ability to negatively impact your life. But the recent rise of Netflix and Hulu streaming, I’ve found myself enjoying a show on-line from time to time, and do believe that – in moderation – it is pretty harmless and quite entertaining. It’s easy to blame a big glowing box for a skewed view of reality, but for those who don’t allow themselves to be sucked in, it can be fun to watch every now and then.
Amber,
We are the same way. We have not had access in years, but now watch a few shows via Hulu and Netflix. I enjoy being able to control what I am watching, although we do still have some commercials to contend with.
Bernice
Hey Amber, I was a total tv junkie growing up. I think it did affect my perceptions because it was what I knew of reality. All the kids in my school were tv junkies too, so we were all learning from the same teacher.
I do watch netflix in moderation….I’m currently working through some ancient x-files episodes. ;)
Oh Scully and Moulder!! That was a great show!
…and sometimes I have to remind myself that my severe limiting of screen time for my kids is ok. Sometime I get the strangest looks when my kids tell people…only on weekends.
–Angela’s …{As a parent, I realize now why my parents took an active role in monitoring what we watched on TV. Shows (or books) are not evil, they are fiction, and as long as parents explain the difference between fantasy and reality AND let their kids pretend on their own} is right on for me!
Along with #23 “Babies are born the size of 5 month old infants”, there is also the perception that all labours are excruciatingly painful, and all women having babies yell and scream at their partners.
As a parent, I realize now why my parents took an active role in monitoring what we watched on TV. Shows (or books) are not evil, they are fiction, and as long as parents explain the difference between fantasy and reality AND let their kids pretend on their own, the TV is not the negative thing it might be if kids draw their own conclusions about what is real.
Most things we learn from TV are not true, just look at your last two points:
Non-married couples have better sex.
This next purchase will make me happier.
Not True!
We tend to swallow everything because it has been on TV, it is when we learn to see what is real and what is fiction that we really start to learn.
you do know that this is not a serious article don’t you?
I agree with all of the things about commercials. However, all of the ideas about characters and plots is also true for books. I hate that TV always gets the blame when books are just as guilty for providing an altered sense of reality.
The real problem is to be smart than the the TV show/movie/book. TV shows/movies can be seen as art, if you let them. The acting. The writing. The wardrobe. The lighting. The sets. I just wish others could see the beauty they hold instead of blaming them instead of themselves for getting so wrapped up in fiction.
I see both sides of this. Variety and quality abound in movies and books, but actively searching is a requirement. TV itself does not provide copious quantities of quality viewing for me. I purchase inexpensive books and movies online and bypass commercials and mindless viewing time.
Too funny! Although I’m ashamed to say that #37 “Television can teach my children the A-B-C’s better than me” was true in my case. At least my oldest managed to pick up the ABC’s as well as some Spanish (thanks to the annoying repetition of Dora the Explorer) before I even realized it.
Definitely passing this lost along. Thanks for the smile!
“before I even realized it.” you said. That’s the SCARY part of TV and children. I’ve learned that NOW, 22 yrs and 2 boys LATER. My view of child rearing has taken a U-turn concerning what’s ‘important’ and what isn’t. May all young mothers realize the HUGE impact even a word spoken has on the young minds that are intent on learning everything they come in contact with. In the first two years of life, a child learns thousands of times faster – they are living informational sponges – no wonder the Scripture teaches “Train up a child in THE WAY he should go, and when he is old he will NOT depart from it”.