Captured Thought: The Media Loves a Bad Story

As I was watching a recent episode of the Simpsons in which Homer and Marge went to the winter Olympics and won the gold medal in curling, a sarcastic comment was made by a sportscaster. "This is the sort of bittersweet melodrama Olympic coverage feeds on," is what he said after Marge hurt her shoulder sweeping too hard. Then it dawned on me how one of the few things I remember about the last winter Olympics is Lindsay Jacobellis's showboating incident that cost her the gold medal in snowboard cross. But it's not only sports, but all types of media, magazines especially, that envelope themselves in what is considered "trash". But then if it's trash why do people keep wanting to read about the latest development in Brangolina's relationship status? An then it occurred to me that all the people on the news are famous and have an aura of perfection surrounding them and that when these people act like normal people and make mistakes, we can relate to them. We want to see these people act human. In a sense, the media is doing us a favor by broadcasting this "trash". The media is giving us what we want, what we need. And even though we know that we shouldn't find pleasure and comfort in another's misfortune, it's what we want to read, and we get it.

Connection: Postmodern View of Memory to History

As we were discussing memory and why there is a frame narrator in The Heart of Darkness in class it dawned upon me how just like the frame narrator is making Marlow a part of memory, so to are we a part of history. Marlow needed to be a part of the memory because this memory was too important to be one person's memory alone. His story and similar stories were all experienced in the jungle he calls the heart of darkness. We, and all the people of the past are a part of the great memory referred to as history. But, all history is based upon the writings and discoveries of those that experienced it, so it is not truly postmodern memory. Where is the purely objective history? Where is a record of all the events and cultures of the past without judgments or a point of view? The answer quite simply is that it doesn't exist. History is from everyone, and although everyone is a part of history, the vast memory called history is shaped by the ones that are a part of it. It is in the gray area between the modern and postmodern views of memory. But as I reflect back on The Heart of Darkness I realize that Marlow's feelings and observations are a part of the dialogue of the frame narrator, therefore the frame narrator is not entirely postmodern because an entirely postmodern frame narrator would eliminate the feelings of the people that are a part of memory because it is not a personal memory.