“Terry Teachout published more pieces in Commentary than any other writer in the magazine’s 76-year history,” wrote John Podhoretz in January of 2022 after Teachout passed away at 65. “The loss to his loved ones, the loss to the American theatre he both championed as a critic and mastered as a playwright, and the loss to the broader American culture he knew more fully than anyone else in our time cannot be overstated.” Consider Teachout’s take on television.
From the days of Newton Minnow’s “vast wasteland,” television was the force that made America stupid. For Teachout, television was the force that made America’s stupid people powerful. That reality is now on display, big time, in television. Recall the farcical performance by David Muir and Linsey Davis in the Trump-Harris debate. That was a possible foreshadowing of the Vance-Walz debate Tuesday, “moderated” by CBS “news anchor” Norah O’Donnell and Margaret Brennan, billed as a “chief foreign affairs correspondent.”
Recall the scene in Die Hard, where Dr. Hasseldorf, author of Hostage Terrorist, Terrorist Hostage: A Study in Duality, explains the Helsinki Syndrome. “As in Helsinki, Sweden,” the news anchor helpfully explains. In the more topical Network, Diana Christensen (Faye Dunaway) tells Max Schumacher (William Holden) “TV is showbiz, Max, and even the news has to have a little showmanship.” Mad prophet of the airwaves Howard Beale (Peter Finch) is on to it:
So, you listen to me. Listen to me: Television is not the truth! Television is a God-damned amusement park! Television is a circus, a carnival, a traveling troupe of acrobats, storytellers, dancers, singers, jugglers, side-show freaks, lion tamers, and football players. We’re in the boredom-killing business! So if you want the truth, go to God! Go to your gurus! Go to yourselves! Because that’s the only place you’re ever going to find any real truth.
For Terry Teachout’s views on television, film, opera, and a lot more, see A Terry Teachout Reader. For his works in Commentary, consult Terry’s contributor page.
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