Post by Observer2 on Mar 31, 2005 10:54:23 GMT -5
In the past, going at least as far back as the original discussion of Cherry Red on the old USA (now Universal) forum, Metella and I, and some others, have talked about some of the significant value we think high quality television and movies have, above and beyond mere entertainment.
On the Universal forum, in the discussion of Death Roe, someone made the comment – apparently referring as much to discussions on this forum as on that one – that “...people seem to seek self-knowledge from what is really just fiction. TV cannot heal us.”<br>
Though some of us frequent both boards, others, including Metella, do not, so I’m posting my reply here, as well. And although it came up in the discussion of Death Roe, my reply doesn’t mention that particular episode. Besides, the discussion has always been about the potential, and actual, effects of the series as a whole, along with other examples of high quality writing, directing and acting, so this section of the board seemed a more appropriate place for it.
I disagree.
Obviously, nothing can heal us by itself. But TV (and movies, and other forms of art) can have a profound healing effect – just as they can also do harm.
Actually, the ways they can do harm have been studied to a much greater degree than the ways they can help – TV’s potential to reinforce negative stereotypes has long been recognized, and it has more recently been found to both increase violent ideation and produce a level of desensitization to violence that in some cases is comparable to people living in a war zone.
But that ability to affect people on deep emotional levels can also be very healing. I don’t have study data that shows the healing effects; but I have my own experiences, and those of other people, both those I’ve known personally and those I’ve read about. Perhaps TV has no particular healing benefits for those who have not experienced serious trauma in one form or another; but for many who have – whether in the form of childhood or spousal abuse, the death of a child, cancer, or even traumatic or crippling injury – television and movies can sometimes have a profoundly healing impact.
Though I’ve read some examples that have been shared publicly, my memories of them are very general. Of the examples I remember well enough to describe clearly, my own are the only ones I have a right to share.
I experienced abuse, including sexual abuse, from a very young age. My first conscious memory of it was when I was two years old, but that was not the first time it occurred, because I already knew that I had to hold still and be silent to avoid something even more terrible (the feeling of a hand over my mouth, not being able to breathe, then darkness, then nothingness. I didn’t have a memory of regaining consciousness, so it felt as though the threat of nothingness was total – I would be annihilated).
My mother loved babies, but had progressively more trouble relating to kids the older they got. By the time I was three I was aware of her beginning to pull away from me emotionally.
I would not have survived if it weren’t for my older sister. She loved me and took care of me as best she could. She was the only person I trusted, my only ally aside from the animals. But even she didn’t know how bad the abuse was; so when I was 11 years old and she was offered a scholarship, she went away to college and left me there alone.
I felt totally devastated and totally alone – and I thought the pain and terror would never go away.
I cannot possibly convey how precious – and how difficult to find – hope is to someone in that position. And something happened that gave me hope – that gave me the concept that it was possible to go from being completely broken to being whole and strong. That hope was a large part of what kept me from finding a way to die. I was given that concept, that hope, by an episode of I Spy.
It’s an episode in which Robert Culp’s character, Kelly, is tortured and broken. Long before the disorder was accurately identified, Culp gave a convincing portrayal of someone with acute PTSD, right down to the paralyzing terror. I couldn’t help but identify with him. So when he was captured again, and found a way to face the pain and come away whole, it became an incredible image for me of the possibility of healing from my own pain and terror, my own broken-ness – something I had never even imagined before.
And as for ‘seeking self knowledge...’ Well, that image, my first template for recovery, contained within it the most important rule I’ve ever found for recovery: healing only comes when you are willing to face the pain.
Over the years, especially when I’ve been in support groups with other abuse survivors, and with adult children of alcoholics, I’ve met a remarkable number of people who cite Robert Culp, Bill Cosby and I Spy as having helped them get through their childhoods.
Shows that have the potential to have that kind of impact are rare – usually requiring a particular combination of acting and writing. Two of Sidney Poitier’s movies – A Patch of Blue and To Sir, With Love – affected me deeply enough to help me learn to believe that even men who were attracted to a woman could sometimes be trusted to act based on the woman’s needs, instead of on their own desires. What an amazing thing that was, to begin to believe that there were men who could be trusted in that way.
Sometimes the healing is harder to define.
One of the most amazing things to me about D’Onofrio as an actor is what he did in order to portray Carl Stargher.
Generally, abusers hurt children in an attempt to make themselves feel better -- in an attempt to relieve some inner pain, pressure or need. The abuse may take different forms, but that underlying pattern is generally there. And usually the abuser demands that the child maintain silence about the abuse, to hide the terrible truth.
What D’Onofrio did is the exact opposite of what an abuser does. He immersed himself so deeply in the experience of abuse victims that he ended up describing symptoms in himself (in interviews) of something called vicarious traumatization – a condition where someone, usually a rescue worker or therapist, internalizes some of the pain and trauma of the victim. And he did that, deliberately immersed himself in that pain, in order to portray the truth about what it was like to be an abused child – in order to give that child a voice.
And he did. In the only fully convincing portrayal of an adult victim of severe abuse I have ever seen, in the scene with Stargher’s first victim, not following the script, but, as he said, “riffing on it,” he portrayed and gave voice to what it’s like. He wasn’t just describing the moment of the near drowning, but a lifetime of suffering, while dozens, or hundreds, of adults find ways to not see, not admit, not believe, not do anything... he captured that with, “...everybody just looked at me. Nobody helped me.”<br>
That’s the voice of all chronically abused children.
I don’t know why, or how, but I can tell you that knowing what he put himself through – that incredible reversal, that someone would deliberately try to take on our pain in order to speak our truth, instead of projecting their pain onto us and keeping us silent – that healed something in me.
There have been “simpler” things, as well.
I grew up with terrifying expressions of rage. So I’ve always been afraid of my own rage – afraid that I would loose control and hurt myself or someone else if I ever allowed myself to feel the depth of my own rage over the abuse.
But in A Murderer Among Us, D’Onofrio gave me a completely convincing image of absolute rage without loss of control. It was the first time in my life I’d ever seen anything like that (most actors’ portrayals of “rage” are really not very convincing to someone with hypervigilance to emotional affect).
The effect was to form something that psychologists call a template – an internalized image or format for a psychological process. For the first time I had an internal sense that such a thing was really possible. And so, for the first time, I began to let myself feel, express, and release the deepest levels of rage that I had kept bottled up inside for decades.
That’s healing. And I got it from a TV show.
On the Universal forum, in the discussion of Death Roe, someone made the comment – apparently referring as much to discussions on this forum as on that one – that “...people seem to seek self-knowledge from what is really just fiction. TV cannot heal us.”<br>
Though some of us frequent both boards, others, including Metella, do not, so I’m posting my reply here, as well. And although it came up in the discussion of Death Roe, my reply doesn’t mention that particular episode. Besides, the discussion has always been about the potential, and actual, effects of the series as a whole, along with other examples of high quality writing, directing and acting, so this section of the board seemed a more appropriate place for it.
Originally posted on the Universal Forum:
...people seem to seek self-knowledge from what is really just fiction. TV cannot heal us.
...people seem to seek self-knowledge from what is really just fiction. TV cannot heal us.
I disagree.
Obviously, nothing can heal us by itself. But TV (and movies, and other forms of art) can have a profound healing effect – just as they can also do harm.
Actually, the ways they can do harm have been studied to a much greater degree than the ways they can help – TV’s potential to reinforce negative stereotypes has long been recognized, and it has more recently been found to both increase violent ideation and produce a level of desensitization to violence that in some cases is comparable to people living in a war zone.
But that ability to affect people on deep emotional levels can also be very healing. I don’t have study data that shows the healing effects; but I have my own experiences, and those of other people, both those I’ve known personally and those I’ve read about. Perhaps TV has no particular healing benefits for those who have not experienced serious trauma in one form or another; but for many who have – whether in the form of childhood or spousal abuse, the death of a child, cancer, or even traumatic or crippling injury – television and movies can sometimes have a profoundly healing impact.
Though I’ve read some examples that have been shared publicly, my memories of them are very general. Of the examples I remember well enough to describe clearly, my own are the only ones I have a right to share.
I experienced abuse, including sexual abuse, from a very young age. My first conscious memory of it was when I was two years old, but that was not the first time it occurred, because I already knew that I had to hold still and be silent to avoid something even more terrible (the feeling of a hand over my mouth, not being able to breathe, then darkness, then nothingness. I didn’t have a memory of regaining consciousness, so it felt as though the threat of nothingness was total – I would be annihilated).
My mother loved babies, but had progressively more trouble relating to kids the older they got. By the time I was three I was aware of her beginning to pull away from me emotionally.
I would not have survived if it weren’t for my older sister. She loved me and took care of me as best she could. She was the only person I trusted, my only ally aside from the animals. But even she didn’t know how bad the abuse was; so when I was 11 years old and she was offered a scholarship, she went away to college and left me there alone.
I felt totally devastated and totally alone – and I thought the pain and terror would never go away.
I cannot possibly convey how precious – and how difficult to find – hope is to someone in that position. And something happened that gave me hope – that gave me the concept that it was possible to go from being completely broken to being whole and strong. That hope was a large part of what kept me from finding a way to die. I was given that concept, that hope, by an episode of I Spy.
It’s an episode in which Robert Culp’s character, Kelly, is tortured and broken. Long before the disorder was accurately identified, Culp gave a convincing portrayal of someone with acute PTSD, right down to the paralyzing terror. I couldn’t help but identify with him. So when he was captured again, and found a way to face the pain and come away whole, it became an incredible image for me of the possibility of healing from my own pain and terror, my own broken-ness – something I had never even imagined before.
And as for ‘seeking self knowledge...’ Well, that image, my first template for recovery, contained within it the most important rule I’ve ever found for recovery: healing only comes when you are willing to face the pain.
Over the years, especially when I’ve been in support groups with other abuse survivors, and with adult children of alcoholics, I’ve met a remarkable number of people who cite Robert Culp, Bill Cosby and I Spy as having helped them get through their childhoods.
Shows that have the potential to have that kind of impact are rare – usually requiring a particular combination of acting and writing. Two of Sidney Poitier’s movies – A Patch of Blue and To Sir, With Love – affected me deeply enough to help me learn to believe that even men who were attracted to a woman could sometimes be trusted to act based on the woman’s needs, instead of on their own desires. What an amazing thing that was, to begin to believe that there were men who could be trusted in that way.
Sometimes the healing is harder to define.
One of the most amazing things to me about D’Onofrio as an actor is what he did in order to portray Carl Stargher.
Generally, abusers hurt children in an attempt to make themselves feel better -- in an attempt to relieve some inner pain, pressure or need. The abuse may take different forms, but that underlying pattern is generally there. And usually the abuser demands that the child maintain silence about the abuse, to hide the terrible truth.
What D’Onofrio did is the exact opposite of what an abuser does. He immersed himself so deeply in the experience of abuse victims that he ended up describing symptoms in himself (in interviews) of something called vicarious traumatization – a condition where someone, usually a rescue worker or therapist, internalizes some of the pain and trauma of the victim. And he did that, deliberately immersed himself in that pain, in order to portray the truth about what it was like to be an abused child – in order to give that child a voice.
And he did. In the only fully convincing portrayal of an adult victim of severe abuse I have ever seen, in the scene with Stargher’s first victim, not following the script, but, as he said, “riffing on it,” he portrayed and gave voice to what it’s like. He wasn’t just describing the moment of the near drowning, but a lifetime of suffering, while dozens, or hundreds, of adults find ways to not see, not admit, not believe, not do anything... he captured that with, “...everybody just looked at me. Nobody helped me.”<br>
That’s the voice of all chronically abused children.
I don’t know why, or how, but I can tell you that knowing what he put himself through – that incredible reversal, that someone would deliberately try to take on our pain in order to speak our truth, instead of projecting their pain onto us and keeping us silent – that healed something in me.
There have been “simpler” things, as well.
I grew up with terrifying expressions of rage. So I’ve always been afraid of my own rage – afraid that I would loose control and hurt myself or someone else if I ever allowed myself to feel the depth of my own rage over the abuse.
But in A Murderer Among Us, D’Onofrio gave me a completely convincing image of absolute rage without loss of control. It was the first time in my life I’d ever seen anything like that (most actors’ portrayals of “rage” are really not very convincing to someone with hypervigilance to emotional affect).
The effect was to form something that psychologists call a template – an internalized image or format for a psychological process. For the first time I had an internal sense that such a thing was really possible. And so, for the first time, I began to let myself feel, express, and release the deepest levels of rage that I had kept bottled up inside for decades.
That’s healing. And I got it from a TV show.
Sure, that is kind of short term, but you can take that to TV like this - how about Friends? a nice warm glow that soothed the stress off the day (I didn't watch it but many did).
Patrick Roy, 2006 inductee into the Hockey Hall of Fame
