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Act II, Scene 3, in Which an Aging Game Show Host Rails Against Modernity
I was watching the 1982 film Tootsie the other day when I was struck by the iconic scene in which Dustin Hoffman’s title character makes his first appearance as a “woman” walking down the streets of Manhattan. There was something odd about the scene, and I had to look at it several times before I figured out what it was. It turns out the people around Hoffman were interacting with each other and their surroundings. They were talking to each other, admiring the skyscrapers, watching for traffic and taking in the various sights and sounds of a beautiful New York City day. What they weren’t doing was texting, listening to music, talking into a phone, or checking their email.
I know it was over 30 years ago, and life is always changing, but everything looked so—I don’t know—alive, I guess. There wasn’t that zombie-esque atmosphere where what’s happening in the real, living world takes a back seat to the allure of high-tech devices and disembodied voices. I always worry about wading into the “things were better back then” waters, because I know it’s just a small step away from chasing kids off my lawn, and I’m also aware that there are some advantages to being “connected.” So, is it just approaching geezerhood that made me look so longingly at that scene?
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Modernity? Modernity ended ages ago. This is post-modernity, maybe even post-post-modernity.
That sounds … exhausting.
Is it really that bad? I don’t make it to the big city all that often. Sounds a little exaggerated.
I don’t think that feeling of longing was for the people interacting with each other. It was for a well crafted, well acted, genuinely funny movie. If you look at that scene again, its actually a full 30 seconds to watch Hoffman walk down the street. Not only don’t they make ’em like they used to, they don’t hold the shot without cutting like they used to.
They aren’t texting. They’re playing the mobile version of “Wheel of Fortune.”
(Replacing geezerdom index with guilt complex.)
Feel better?
Pat – embrace your Inner Geezer. It is remarkably freeing.
Gee. Every time I go to the big city (well, Pittsburgh), there’s almost nobody there, the streets are pretty much empty, the shops, restaurants and coffee shops are mostly either gone or closed, and if I want something decent to eat after my trip to Heinz Hall I have to retrieve my car from the inordinately expensive parking lot close by, or walk to the cheaper one a mile or so away, and drive to the outskirts. What city were you in, again?
Just don’t save the photos to iCloud.
What in the world is wrong with chasing wayward youths off your lawn?
You don’t have to shoot at them… the first time.
It is indeed a brave new world, Mr Sajak. One worries what will happen when these text addled young people are running the country. Will they continue to do a great job as the baby boomers like Obama have done? Oh wait…
You don’t have to go into the big cities to find people in their own little world. I’m learning to dodge the teens on their phones at Walmart in my own little town. By the way, the picture of people waving and smiling in NYC is not my image of the big apple.
“What they weren’t doing was texting, listening to music, talking into a phone, or checking their email.”
The interesting thing is that back then when you walked down the street and had no way to interact with your family, friends or colleagues, you had to be thinking of something. Now we interact all the time, then we go home and sit in front of TV or the computer. The new generation never THINKS, basically, because the time alone needed to think has shrunk to zero. Instead they just respond to the most positive stimulus (for example Obama saying pleasant-sounding things, instead of Romney talking the hard truth).
Until recently, the subway here in NY was a place to escape from all this. You could ride and just look at people and think. But now they are introducing wifi in the subway, so you will no longer be disconnected for 15 or 30 minutes.
I had a colleague who refused to get a mobile phone. If you asked him, how will his family reach him in an emergency? He said they could wait 30 minutes or an hour to call his office and that since he is not a doctor, policeman or firefighter, it is not him they need to call first in an emergency.
How will wifi on the subway prevent you from looking at people and thinking?
It sounds like right now there is NOTHING to do but look at people and think. Adding another option does not eliminate the previous option.
It may not eliminate the previous option for you and me but it would for many people who are addicted to their devices and will be on them whenever they can.
Why should that choice automatically be a lesser one? You don’t know what they are looking at on their screens. They might be reading news, or classical literature, or listening to podcasts about quantum mechanics. I think the assumption that someone working on a mobile device is an “addict” doing so frivolously, and they they would automatically be better off staring at the opposite windows doing nothing, is pretty ridiculous.
If you have already spent 95% of your alone waking hours staring at a computer/TV/mobile, and then you spend the last 5% doing it again in the subway, then in my view it is a lesser choice because you crowded out the last smidgen of down time.
As a tall, wide guy, I try to walk without the distraction of the phone so that I don’t run into someone or something and do damage to my older, less flexible limbs and to avoid falling on someone’s pet or child or grandmother like one of those anvils in the Roadrunner cartoons.
I enjoying looking at everyone around me while I walk, particularly in cities with active street life or at the mall or at a sports event. As a young child, I was schooled in the ways of people-watching by my mother. We went to the Astrodome and sat in the cheap seats out in center field (mainly to watch the stars on the visiting teams), and Mom taught me to find amusement in watching others, For three years, my brother has a tumblr site where he sketches people he sees on the way to work, putting his people-watching skills to good use.
My advice–read your phone in your bits of down time–waiting at the bus stop or transit station or airport–otherwise, enjoy the sights and energy of those around you.
I noticed this about six years ago. I happened to need to walk across the center of the state university near me, and it happened to be early in the afternoon of the first warm sunny day after winter weather. Sure enough the campus was full of people.
Instead of talking in small groups as I recall from my own college days, everyone was focused on their own electronic devices. They were all connected, but they were not connecting with each other.
The battle now taking place in the Robinson household: Under the sly, and determined leadership of my oldest daughter, all five children are insisting–insisting–that I buy a new iPhone. My current cellphone, four years old, is something called a Panatec (see the photo). It sends and receives telephone calls and text messages, and that is all that it does. (Actually, it has a few other functions, but I disabled them so long ago that I couldn’t remember how to turn them back on if I tried.)
I will lose this battle, of course. But, like the Japanese soldier who refused to surrender until years after the Second World War ended, I intend to hold out. Oh, yes. I intend to hold out as long as I can.
And, of course, Garbo began in silent films which, I assume you believe, will return when this temporary infatuation with sound comes to a halt.
Here I am, trying to take Pat’s side in the argument–and, yes, to give him a little cover, just so he doesn’t get labeled the house fogey–and what does he go and do? Stick me with his stiletto wit.
From now on, buster, you’re on your own.
P.S. Which isn’t to say you aren’t right. I mean, what talkie has ever equaled this?
Great clip. But, buster?
“Buster,” like, for example, “keister,” is Reagan talk. (As in, “I’ve had it up to my keister with these leaks.”)
In other words, I’m dating myself again.
Peter will now entertain us with clips of Buster Keaton?
And he will date himself? Does that mean that he will be both the contestant and “Bachelor #3” on Sajak’s revival of “The Dating Game.” Then the three of them, both of Peter’s dated personalities and Mrs. Robinson will blaze new trails on the totally revamped for the 21st Century, “The Polygamia Newlywed Game.”
Another reason NOT to get an iPhone or similar device: it will be obsolete in a few years because the manufacturer is constantly upgrading the software and apps. Then you will be forced to upgrade to a new device, and on and on every few years. Don’t get on that treadmill. Stay with the Pantech which will probably work fine for the next decade.
I, myself, recently bought a new (well, refurbished) Motorola flip phone. While some apps could be downloaded to it when these things were new, those options get a “network unavailable” error if I try to use ’em nowadays, so it true is a “dumb phone”, and that’s just fine with me.
That being said, it’s not my primary phone. It’s my backup, for when I can’t use my work-provided Blackberry Q10 (which I love, by the way, even though the screen is kinda small).
Sadly, whilst on the BART ride home I typically have to stand. For my own amusement I do a survey of what folks are doing on their iPads or phones. It’s games about 8 of 10. Most of the rest are engaged in texting with a few readers here and there. You are right, we shouldn’t assume they are engaged in frivolous addict stuff, but in my experience they usually are.
Hot Tub Time Machine, right?
Why “sadly”? What’s wrong with playing games? Why assume that staring into space would be better for the person than playing games?
Games can be good for the brain. A recent study determined that playing Portal 2 (a puzzle-heavy game) did more for brain development than Lumosity, a popular “brain-training” website.
Source: http://www.nerdist.com/2014/09/im-making-a-note-here-portal-2-beats-luminosity-in-brain-training/