Not for nothing has been TV been called an “electronic babysitter.” The calm and soothing cathode ray tube (and its successors) has a powerful capacity to induce a state of quiescence in all but the most unruly of children, which is one reason overtaxed parents are often grateful for its effects.

Children in America watch in excess of 24 hours of television per week, which I assume to mean 24 hours of television programming, regardless of the device used to watch it. That doesn’t include the time spent playing video games or surfing the web. It’s a lot of time. Brooklyn-based photographer Donna Stevens recently put together an intriguing and disturbing series of photographs under the heading “Idiot Box” in order to get us to think about televsion’s most eager and impressionable audience: children.

Every shot is taken in a dark room lit only by the glow of the television screen. The camera is positioned near enough to the television set that we can regard it as a TV-POV shot. The portraits emphasize the children’s vacant eyes and unexpressive facial expressions. It’s enough to make you want to research television addiction and its effects.

I’d like to see the same series done with adults!
 

 

 

 
More after the jump…

 
Dangerous Minds pal, Chris Campion writes from Berlin:

“With all the sensitivity you’d come to expect from the creator of The Day The Clown Cried.”

Witness the enigmatic short “BOY” made in 1993 by Jerry Lewis. Part of a portmanteau film produced by UNICEF with different filmmakers (Jean-Luc Godard made one, too). Here’s what Temple of Schlock had to say about it:

BOY is the story of the only white Jewish-looking kid in an otherwise all black world. In school, the teachers applaud the efforts (all excellent) of the other students, but Boy cannot excel. His teacher seems to be teaching the entire class, but it appears that Boy just can’t grasp the lessons. For this, he is ridiculed and humiliated by all.

That the entire scene (and the remainder of the film as well, except for one line at the end) is pantomimed recalls a similar scene from THE PATSY (1964)—a flashback to Lewis’s character being humiliated at a school dance by all the other students. Ahhh, that old Lewis bag of psycho-autobiographical tricks sure comes in handy.

In the end, the punchline is that Boy’s family is black, too. I have no idea what the fuck this is really all about and I doubt anyone else does, either. No one save for Jerry Lewis himself, that is. Presumably it would have to mean… something, wouldn’t it?