TV is Better Than Movies, Just Accept It

Slate magazine has offered a polemic against this notion that TV has superseded movies on artistic merit. It is obviously hilariously bad, wildly uneducated, and is guilty of an incredibly narrow perspective reinforced by spending too much time talking to his own in-group. It shows a distinct lack of understanding of even the basics of the argument as presented.

To begin with, he has a repeated problem of assuming the Emmys actually are a reflection of artistic and qualitative merit. They aren't and they never will be. Also, he seemingly has a rather intense bias against comedy, given that he never mentions a single one the entire article. In fact, the only genre he considers at all when making his argument is drama, even though TV is a rich with genres (including several that do not exist in movie form) as the movies.

On some level, of course, the whole argument is absurd. People will tell you that the dozens of hours TV shows devote to their characters make those characters richer than their cinematic counterparts—but dramatists have known for literally centuries that you only need one night to create a character people will never forget.

Oy vey. Talk about an irrelevant non-sequitur to cover up a flawed argument. Being memorable is not the same as being a rich character. The Room has plenty of memorable characters, I would never call them particularly rich though. Television allows long term development and transformation to occur. A movie could have Walter White go from sad-sack teacher to "I am the one who knocks" in two hours, but that would never be as satisfying or startling as seeing that play out over dozens of episodes.

But generally the TV-is-better argument is a way of saying, 'I don’t have to keep up with the movies anymore, and neither do you.'

First off, no one is making that argument. Secondly, no one has to keep up with the movies or TV outside of actual film and TV critics. The author has this weird through line that there is some sort of moral obligation to watch movies. The TV-is-better argument is a commentary on how television, in general, is more a more emotionally  and artistically satisfying experience than going to the movies.

"Ask nearly any professional critic—not to mention many amateur ones—for the best TV shows of the last decade or so, and you will get a very familiar list, starting with The Sopranos and ending, probably, with Breaking Bad, or maybe, say, Homeland or The Americans."

Seriously? Breaking Bad premiered six years ago, and in that time the author is willing to concede only two more recent shows might appear on a best-of list? That would be a really awful critic. Not to mention that is a good chance The Sopranos would not make the list (I certainly would never place it on a best-of list), along with any of the other given shows. They are not universally beloved.

You are not likely to encounter the sometimes bewildering variety that a collection of film critics is likely to present you with.

Again, the author is engaging in sloppy intellectual bias. He is comparing an actual survey of film critics to a singular, hypothetical TV critic. Get enough TV critics together and you will have exactly the same bewildering variety as appears on that over-100 movies long list. In fact, if someone wants to see bewildering variety, all they have to do is look at the annual AV Club's top 30 list. Everything from Childrens Hospital to RuPaul's Drag Race to Adventure Time to Comedy Bang Bang to Breaking Bad is on it.

And there are good reasons for that. For one thing, when we talk about television, we are almost always only talking about American television.

No, what the author means here is that when he talks about television, he almost always is talking about American television. Just because he does not participate in discussions about Japanese anime or Korean soap operas, does not mean that they do not exist. There is a bias, in the English speaking world, to discuss English language television, most of which is produced in America. But that is no different than the movies which are similarly biased.

So while the best movies come from an intimidating diversity of sources, and present a similarly wide range of aesthetic approaches and aims, the best TV shows tend to come from three or four American cable networks and frequently follow a familiar model.

 Again, rampant bias coupled with complete ignorance. In fact, this entire article is merely a stealth polemic against the male anti-hero. But the worst element of it is the author is seemingly completely unaware that is what he is writing, as he is seemingly unaware that other types of shows (critically beloved shows, in fact) do exist. Somehow he does not realize that Community or Enlightened or Girls or Spartacus all exist. And those massive, massive blindspots result in someone who is making a self-evidently ignorant argument.

Take today’s Emmy nominations, which, though there were, as always, a few surprises and snubs, generally rewarded the prestige dramas—House of Cards, American Horror Story, Game of Thrones, Mad Men, Breaking Bad, Homeland—that most people regard as the best stuff on TV.

Why no, people do not consider House of Cards or American Horror Story to be the best stuff on TV. House of Cards is essentially the definition of mediocre. American Horror Story managed to pull out a pretty great year, but its first season was atrocious. Not to mention there was a rather stiff backlash against both Homeland and Mad Men this year. But more importantly, this is only half the picture. What about the comedy Emmys? To include them would destroy the author's argument, so he conveniently pretends they don't exist.

Compare that to any year’s Oscar nominations, which encompass multiple filmmaking styles and span the studio and indie world and still rarely scratch the surface of what critics and serious moviegoers consider the best of the year.

Once more comparing unlike things. That's because the Oscars do not differentiate by genre. With the Emmys, drama, comedy, reality, variety, ect. all get their own unique categories. That's simply the basic nature of the Emmys. Complaining that the all the nominations for Outstanding Achievement in Drama are dramas is startlingly stupid.

What bothers me most about the TV-is-better line, finally, is that TV could be better.

 It is, and the author has provided no evidence that it isn't. In fact, all he has provided is that he does not understand television, nor the critical conversations about it, at all.

there’s no reason, theoretically speaking, that the adventurous approaches to visual storytelling that we see in certain movies couldn’t come to TV, too.

 You mean like Hannibal?

Really this is a monument to one man's ignorance of his own subject matter. It is hard to take this article seriously when it makes so many sloppy arguments and has ever so many biases and blindspots. Simply put, there are movies that are great, there are TV shows that are great. If you are going to argue that the one is superior to the other, then you should at least possess a passing knowledge of the fields you are comparing.