In “Television While you Wait” McCarthy analyzes tv’s presence in public places, around the condition/experience/commodification of waiting. McCarthy writes, “…it would be wrong, therefore, to associate waiting solely with passivity and implicate television in this passivity, despite the fact that it is a medium persistently associated with passivity in certain kinds of cultural criticism,” (199). Instead, McCarthy argues, “often associated with wasting time, watching television is a way of passing time suddenly legitimized when it takes place in waiting environments,” (199).
McCarthy asks us, “is waiting a ‘deep structure’ of television spectatorship regardless of where we watch TV? (219).” This immediately brought me back to Gitlin’s piece, and how he articulated the industrialization of time under capitalism. Gitlin argues how tv broadcasting is synchronized with the industrialization of time, specifically how capitalism dictates leisure time that is thus spent watching television. It made me question, are we always waiting for leisure time, the time to indulge in watching TV? Also, is this affective state of waiting a product of capitalism? These are larger theoretical questions the piece made me think of.
But considering how TV shows and entertainment can be accessed through our smartphones, I’m curious how McCarthy would describe waiting in this day and age. How has the experience of waiting changed given our access to smartphones? We have instant and endless access to TV shows from our devices. I am also curious about whether the concept of “nonspace” can be applied to the experience of waiting. I wonder if McCarthy would argue that consuming TV in public places is entering the “nonspace,” which as Morse describes is “dreamlike displacement or separation from its surroundings” (Morse 197). McCarthy acknowledges the different experiences spectators had, like in the doctor’s office and how the repeated video exacerbated the feeling of waiting in the office. But, she also argues how other spectators, like the regulars who went to the Video Diner during their lunch break to watch movies, used TV as a way to legitimize their (waiting) time. Are these regulars entering the “nonspace” through TV as they wait for time to pass during their lunch break? I think about how whenever I wait in line, especially during COVID to enter grocery stores, I find myself grabbing my phone to pass the time, but could this action be considered entering the “nonspace”?
You bring up some interesting ideas in your response in regards to McCarthy. You ask, " are we always waiting for leisure time?" and the first thing I thought of was McCarthy's description of the "serialized" nature of waiting rooms-- how we move from one area of waiting to another. Perhaps this is life for many people: waiting to wait. When I watch television on a leisurely Sunday a part of me is in a anticipatory state-- waiting for Monday to begin and the leisurely period to end. Then, to a certain extent, the difference between watching the television in my living room and the one in a doctor's waiting room becomes more about control (in my living room I get to choose what I watch and in the waiting room I wouldn't). There is a difference in how we watch television when it's on versus when we turn it on ourselves. In this difference might lie the chasm between the waiting room televisions as described by McCarthy and the content you bring up on your phone while waiting in line at the grocery store. You brought the phone out of your pocket and chose (to a certain degree) what would be distracting you as you waited while the television in the doctor's office was on before a single patient arrived.
ReplyDeleteSupplemental 3: This is not an answer to your question by any means, but your comment about the smartphone and entering "nonspace" reminded me of the new phenomenon of made for smartphone television, specifically now defunct app Quibi (Quick Bites). How does changing the medium change the massage? What is the purpose of a television made for a smartphone, and could it even be called "television" at that point? How is this different from "content" produced on YouTube, TikTok, Vine, or other app based content sharing websites? I am intrigued by your comment of the public nonspace, and I would say yes the nonspace can be applied to waiting. It seems like this is exactly what Quibi wanted to do, create one way for consumers to enter the nonspace while waiting. "Unlike many streaming video platforms, Quibi's content was made specifically for mobile devices and could be viewed in either a traditional 16:9 horizontal aspect ratio, or a 9:16 vertical frame (with the user able to shift between them in the same video). Instead of half-hour TV episodes or two-hour films, content on Quibi was delivered in episodes of 10 minutes or less." This seems ideal for waiting somewhere, and I feel like the thought they could capitalize on the amount of time people spend waiting, you know?
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