A Reader's Response to "Children of the Screen" by Hannah Baylon

Nested upon the rough carmine carpet amongst a tussle of blankets, pillows, kid’s meal figurines, and unnaturally colored stuffed animals, I lay in a pool of shifting lights and colors. Shadow diamonds were pinned to the wall behind the wide back of the great wicker chair in my oma’s living room. The dim light from a temperamental touch lamp illuminated the section of the newspaper that had long fallen from elderly arthritic fingers, and the half-moon reading glasses that still held their place over vestiges of great beauty.
A crocodile cruised the muddy waters of a river in southern Africa. Intelligence unbridled by emotion hardened its sharp pupils, preceded only by the end of its snout, and followed by its thick armored tail. An equally unemotional narrative played over the scene, whispering and commenting, falling silent only when it was thought the reptile might have heard. The second player arrived on the river banks. A herd of dully colored wildebeest had stopped along their migration route to steal stomachs full of water, manes lank and oily, horns protruding out and upward from their heads. The camera panned back to the crocodile. He slipped beneath the water’s surface. After a few moments, the water erupted in struggle, the river bank in fright, as the crocodile took the neck of a member of the herd, dragging it further into the river and beginning the finale: the death roll.
I believe I am very much a child of the screen, but of a screen that infused within me a greater curiosity about the outside world. I watched Animal Planet endlessly as I was younger, especially during the time I would spend at my oma’s house. This led me to write stories, go on nature adventures, and even spend hours upon hours in my basement mixing any household chemicals that I could lay my hands on.
Films that I have seen over the years have illustrated the importance of honor, the rewards for striving, and the undying nature of adventure. Of course there are films that some would say contain less savory values; course humor, overt sexuality, and violence. When Oscar Wilde’s novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, caused dissent and outrage in 19th century England, the author responded that the story did indeed have a value and a message, but one that the puritan will not be able to find, but will be open to all whose minds are healthy. The trouble is that much of the human population, at least in the United States, does not seem to have as pliant of a sieve as is needed to discern the actions that are healthy to emulate versus those that are not.
At some point in my middle school career, I entered into one of those proverbial social horror stories. It was also somewhere around this time that I began to tape a late night cartoon of Japanese animation called Inuyasha. My parents threatened to keep me from watching the program because they had begun to suspect a change in my behavior onto a more aggressive course and moody course. My denial was steadfast. But then I began to think. I distinctly remember taking one character into mind from the show to face what I knew was going to be a particularly difficult day at school. I used the character’s calm, calculating, uncaring demeanor as a shield, a mode of dealing with a situation in which I would, and had before, folded.
Many young adults absorb, in varying degrees, the television shows that they follow in this way. For instance, a large majority seem to exhibit a strong disposition toward creating dramatic situations and relationships for themselves. Their social lives begin to mirror dramatic programs such as The O.C., One Tree Hill, Desperate Housewives, and many others. They begin to search for certain characteristics in friends, in the opposite sex, and the way in which they present themselves and react to different situations may become all together scripted. This influence is further extended as the lives of celebrities have undergone a sort of osmosis into the daily news. When did that happen?
My mother and I were in the kitchen one day, probably deciding what to consume for a midday snack. The small flat screen television on the counter beside the sink was talking in the background, a few new highlights being rattled off by a trio of anchors sitting around a large wooden desk. Then, all of a sudden, I heard “…and Oprah continues to pack on the pounds…” I stopped what I was doing, listened more carefully. They had to be joking. My mother, already pre-disposed to disliking Oprah, snorted with disgust. Who cares? she exclaimed. I happened to agree. When indeed did someone’s weight become a newsworthy topic? When they became one of the richest and most powerful women in the world apparently. Perhaps the news station was simply curious because obesity is on the rise as a cause of fatality. What lucky S.O.B. would get all of that dough? Her cocker spaniels?
A few days later, my mother passed me, smiling, in the dining room. She giddily declared that the Obama girls had begun their first day at school. I laughed. “So? Oprah gained twenty pounds this week.”
I pondered over this extraordinary concept off-handedly some time ago. News stations would not spend their time and resources over something that would not broaden their basin of viewers. Thus, it follows that people are interested in these topics; the scandals, travesties, dalliances, and triumphs of the rich and famous, world-wide. So much conversation takes place around gossip centered on the lives of other people that I wonder if a percentage could ever be taken, and what the difference would be between the sexes, cultures, and the like. The part that I cannot quite figure is if the public truly has nothing else to talk about, or if these topics are the subjects of great fascination. Which conclusion would be better I wonder?


There is a distinction to be made here. Can one be a child of the screen without being a child of popular culture?


Upon seeing the portrait accompanying the text; the metallic tones, the vacuum of darkness, the blank unrelenting, unnatural hue of the television screen, I smiled at its cleverness and raw controversial potential. It is a limbo, a stagnant state between. One can imagine the chill of the chains wreathing the young child’s throat. The child’s appearance is androgynous, portraying a loss of identity, of gender, and securing the notion that this could be any child, your own, your sister’s, or perhaps even the interminably adorable neighbor kid down the street. Duct tape has been placed over its mouth. It cannot speak, either from a lack of remembrance how to, or from a loss of need, as the television does the communicating for it. On the screen is a miniscule reflection of what appears to be a window; a window to the outside, to fields and mountains, and to the limitless sky.