Literature has turned a page
TOBY SHAPSHAK: TV is the novel of today
TV is now the mainstream media, with excellent shows exploring human nature in the way novels always have
I studied English literature at university, and novels were the mainstream media that influenced thinking, dictated morality and offered entertainment. This media mainstream would evolve over the years through newspapers, magazines and radio into today’s golden age of TV. Now, with new streaming services emerging as alternatives to traditional broadcasters, and with an "unpresidented" splurge on the production of original content, television viewers have never had it this good.I was trained to think about literature through academic analysis and by probing themes and story lines, and watching the author create characters that illustrate some key part of the narrative or the moral lesson. Television is the novel of today. In it, we see ourselves as much as we see who we hope to become. Who doesn’t want to be the fastest man alive in The Flash or joke around on the couch of The Big Bang Theory? Or watch the moral anguish of a character such as 24’s Jack Bauer, and the complete lack th...
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