Experiencing Television

Hey Everyone! I’ve been super busy with summer classes, so I asked my super talented friend Jordan, a film student at UCLA, to guest post on Next Time On! I’ll be back with more recommendations soon, but in the meantime, enjoy!

-Shalinee

A few weeks ago, I made my 13-year-old sister watch The Twilight Saga because she had never seen them. I wanted her to watch them while she would still like them (y’know, since they were made for her age range). I knew if I watched the Twilight movies now for the first time, then I would probably hate them. But because I read, watched, and loved them in my childhood, I can still enjoy them now. I wanted my sister to have the same experience. 

It’s not just Twilight. Since the start of quarantine, I have found myself rewatching a lot of shows from my childhood. From Modern Family to Hannah Montana, The Vampire Diaries, Teen Wolf, and That ‘70s Show, I seem to be rewatching more than watching. 

After talking to some friends, I realized that I wasn’t the only one. Many people were also rewatching shows and movies that made them feel nostalgic. This made me wonder two things: a) why do people like media from their childhood even if it’s bad—as in, they wouldn’t like it if they watched it for the first time now—and b) is there a reason everyone seems to be rewatching things right now? 

philosophy

These questions made me think of the Philosophy of Mind class I took in the winter. We spent the whole quarter discussing what is called the “hard problem of consciousness,” which is the problem of human experience. Basically, the hard problem of consciousness is that unlike other aspects of consciousness, nothing that happens in our body easily explains why we experience things. It’s called the “hard” problem because it is not answered through the explanation of a cognitive ability or function, like the “easy” problems of consciousness are.

We talked about a lot of different philosophers’ opinions but I want to focus on Gilbert Harman’s structure of representation. The short explanation* is that there is a difference between objects and representations of objects. Objects are the thing itself and the representation is when people think of other objects in relation to that object.

objects and representations of objects

Take Modern Family and my relationship with it. Modern Family is the represented object, while the representation of that object is everything I think about in relation to Modern Family. When I think of Modern Family I think of the show—but I also think more about other things like how I started watching it with my family when I was 10 and we still lived in the town I was born in and in my first house and how the living room was big and brown; I think about Parks and Recreation because my mom was obsessed with those two shows my mom at the time—and specifically the gay penguin episode (which is her favorite, of course. We still watch it about once a year); I think about how their family reminds me of my family and we always make jokes about it; and I think about how Sarah Hyland was in that Disney Channel Original Movie Geek Charming and I always picture her giving Matt Prokop a haircut—oh, and also, didn’t they date and he was an a-hole to her?; and on and on. You get the point.

So just like this, according to Harman, experience is something of representation.

the experience of rewatching

In other words, we don’t just rewatch shows from our childhood to re-experience them, we watch them to remember what childhood felt like. Of course, we like the stories but we also like the representations of remembering what it was like to watch that TV show for the first time when we were younger and had fewer worries in the world. Rewatching something is like a time capsule in our brains!

Obviously, not everyone looks back fondly on their childhoods. I do think, however, that the concept itself applies to why people like movies or TV shows more if they watched them as kids. 

When it comes down to it, this idea, that the representations people create of objects is experience, explains why people are rewatching during lockdown. We are remembering better times by watching old TV, literally putting ourselves in the same mindset from the first time we watched it.

Yes, sometimes TV can be escapist—but escapism does not have to be looked down upon. Watching Hannah Montana brought me some comfort during the depths of lockdown because it reminded me of when I was a child and had different worries, specifically ones that were not about the largest global crisis in decades. It was not the show itself but remembering my own happy times that helped me process my circumstances and get through it. I reminisced on the times when a real concern for me was which boy Hannah was going to choose: Jake or Jesse? To be honest, I was genuinely shocked that plotline only lasted two episodes because it felt like such a large chunk of my childhood when I was 9! 

so what?

I think this theory is cool because, to me, it demonstrates that stories really do matter. A TV show may stay the same over time but people don’t. The connections people make with a TV show change as they grow and have more experiences they can relate to the show. In this way, then, TV shows are unique to every consumer because everyone has different connections and therefore, experiences, when watching and rewatching it. Your favorite TV show is your favorite TV show not just because you like it but also because of what connections go hand-in-hand with it. So, at the end of the day, the meaning that people put into a TV show is what makes it matter. 

The next time I watch Twilight, I’ll also get to remember the time I introduced it to my little sister and how she loved it so much that she rewatched the movies a few weeks later because she wanted to introduce it to her friend—and she actually started reading the books (if you know my sister, then you know that’s a miracle)! Now, I get to associate my love for my sister with these movies. And isn’t that great? Isn’t that what it’s all about? I certainly believe so.

Have you been rewatching old TV shows lately? How do they make you feel? I’d love to hear your thoughts! 

Thank you, Shalinee, for giving me a platform to get my thoughts down and out, and shout out to the UCLA Philosophy Department.

*For more information on Gilbert Harman’s philosophy, read his work The Intrinsic Quality of Experience here.