Recently I have attempted to watch Channel Ten’s new ‘dramality’, The Shire, but my recorder box keeps cutting off the show well before it is finished. It’s as though the recorder has deemed the show unworthy, preferring to record more substantial programs in its place. My recorder is getting more impatient with me too; the first week I think I managed to see about 15 minutes but the second only three or four minutes; maybe next time it won't even record?
As a resident of the Shire I'm curious to see how the place looks on the small screen. The free marketing provided by our own Mayor’s opposition to the show has also got me interested. But I am also curious to see what Australian television producers think is going to pull a crowd; what is currently deemed watchable.
Anyone who presents to the public cannot take an audience for granted; you have to win people’s attention. A preacher is no different, we have to earn someone’s attention and hold it so the message can be heard. We ought to be compelling, watchable. So as a writer and performer of gospel shows, I’ve usually got my radar up for any hints or ideas for engaging others.
The portion of The Shire that I have seen, I found difficult to watch. Some of it excruciating, other bits plain boring. I felt a sense of relief when the recorder cut the show short. There are some highlights: the location footage does justice to the natural beauty of the area; the effects used in transitions between segments where traffic speeds and slows or lights gleam and blur, are pretty cool; even the acting by non-trained actors is pretty reasonable. But watchable? Where is the story? It’s all heavily scripted and I don’t care about these characters. Am I supposed to? It was pretty hard to like any of the characters in The Slap, but at least there was a problem that was in need of resolution. A problem that resonated with many people. There was a compelling, watchable story. Usually that’s pretty important. But The Slap was fiction. We knew that. In The Shire, are we meant to believe it's all really happening, like a documentary? It would be better if it was farce, like the Office or Kath and Kim.
Watch-ability is what it is all about, as Gabrielle Carey noted in her SMH opinion column (24.7.12). We all want to be watchable. Many of us will maintain Facebook pages, preoccupied with making them watchable; disappointed when nobody comments or likes our latest post. So we keep trying harder to find that niche, that angle, that attitude, the resonance that makes us watchable. We project an artificial self, one that we think our friends and the public will buy, follow, tweet, and share. Of course others among us may try and remain true to ourselves, just as some of the cast have claimed in The Shire. The fact that there are boring bits and aspects of the cast’s lives that we find repellent suggest there are some things we just don't want to see reflected back or that our lives, a lot of the time are pretty unwatchable, dull.
I’m not a big fan of Facebook. Sure it can be useful catching up with what your friends are doing…it can help us stay in touch. I don’t get up in the morning desperate to check my page or crack on with my next blog. I’m uneasy about projecting myself out there; but wait till you see Anton’s Antics new website! ‘Liar, Liar pants on fire!’ I hear you say. But no, I am genuinely uneasy with it all. Why am I doing this? What end am I serving? In the end, all the posts, blogs, self promotion has to be worth something greater than self glorification, vanity, or the need for affirmation. As the book of Ecclesiastes says, ‘All the toil of man is for his appetite, but even so, his soul is never satisfied’ (Eccles 6:7). If being watchable is really about feeding your own appetite, then it’s a dead end. You’ll go hungry.
But as Christians, we should all seek to be watchable. Watchable for other people’s sake. Watchable but without the dissonance of a real self and a projected self. Watchable, not because we are insecure and need affirmation. But for the sake of others seeing the gospel at work in our lives. We need to be watchable as those who both speak and walk the truth. Some do it more publicly; others potter about being quietly watchable.
We need to be hungry, with an appetite for other people to know the love of Jesus. Which means, face to face relationships, watchable living, will always have more impact on others than any of our tweets or posts.