Television usually has dual use. It is a medium that can entertain or inform, and part of doing so in both circumstances has resulted in an emphasis on encapsulating semi-niche communities and lifestyles in effort to more closely engage with a targeted audience. However, a disparity arises within the dichotomy of what the television industry is trying to reproduce or repackage and the assumed recipient.
The result is the popularization of caricatures depicting the actual realities of everyday human beings in their environment, often with the goal of instilling some sort of comedic or intensified inspection of life’s various trivialities. However, there is still the same danger found in questions of whether art imitates life or life imitates, because people’s lives and struggles are being broadcast on a national or even global level to audiences with little to no cultural context for the media they are consuming.
TV shows such as IFC’s “Portlandia,” an arguably critical spoof of the so-called hipster culture in Portland, Oregon, and the HBO show “Girls,” which depicts the lives of 20-something millennials in New York City and is essentially cannon fodder for anyone wishing to make broad, detracting generalizations about millennials, are textbook examples of this phenomenon. Most recently is the FX television show “Atlanta,” the brainchild of rapper, actor, and comedian Donald Glover, which features an all-black writing team and on the surface appears to be the antithesis of this phenomenon. A Georgia native himself, Glover’s painstaking attention to detail is noticeable, but even the most authentic attempts of depicting life in a specific microcosm dictated by demographic and location have a near inherent flaw.
We live in a capitalist society in which the relationship between the media that are produced and the revenue that can be generated is indistinguishable. Television as we know it now is a direct byproduct of efforts to encourage consumerism. Granted, most television shows are more interesting than the commercials played between them, that still does not negate the fact that every image consumed on a screen is embedded with the intention to sell a product. The problem becomes more complex in a scenario such as Glover’s “Atlanta” in which the experience of a black man is intentionally, or unintentionally packaged, in a manner that is in theory appealing to numerous demographics by way of its supposedly unbiased description of a specific demographic.
Ideally, a television show should be made by people who would be watching, but there is no way to guarantee that, nor is there a way to guarantee the profitability of doing so. The idea is that the people depicted in “Atlanta” would not have the means to produce a show like “Atlanta,” and we shouldn’t forget to include the fact that Glover got his start on NBC sitcoms “30 Rock” and “Community.” This is not to cast aspersions on what Glover is trying to do with “Atlanta,” but it is important to acknowledge that intention does not negate the context on which the product is made.
