A fictional exploration of the mind-numbing effects of voyeuristic TV, namely reality TV and, err, something else…
We join with Guy sitting in his lounge, poised on the edge of his couch. At present he has his back to us but he appears to be getting worked up about something. The TV is on. If we zoom in just a little closer we can see how his shoulders shake, how the couch quivers from his movements. There are continuous noises emanating from the TV. There is something unnatural in them. They sound exaggerated, forced, almost certainly put-on. Synthetic sounds of human passion, completely hollowed out, essence gutted. Yet they seem to be having a commanding effect on our Guy here, for with each moan of polystyrene pleasure there comes a fresh gyration from the sofa region of this dingy living room.
To be fair, this angle isn’t the greatest. The TV offers our only light and with the couch pulled almost right up to it Guy’s jittering bulk obscures it from view. Any flickering glimpse we get is quickly denied us, with Guy’s jerks seemingly programmed to cloak us in darkness.
Well, we’re not getting much of a show from here. If we want some light shed on the current bond between the TV and its owner we’ll have to shift our position. And fast, because the floorboards are now tremoring. We’ll see if we can get a shot in the far right corner, above the table to the right of where the sofa is now, maybe peeping over the necks of those lager bottles; we should get a good shot from there……….there we are, though a touch out of focus, steady…there, oh shit! Cut back! Cut back!………okay, erm, perhaps this isn’t the best point to come in. Maybe a touch too real. Guy isn’t exactly covering himself in glory at the moment; although, judging by the pressure of his grimace, he may well be doing just that very soon. It’s alright, we’ll rejoin in half an hour…it should be safe then…
…and so we return. Still the TV gives our only light and still the sofa is square in front of it, only now there is no Guy screening us and we can allow ourselves to be pulled into its magnetic gaze. Big Brother is on now. One of the people in it is sleepwalking, only none of the other two-dimensional characters has realised it yet. One of them even appears to be having a disagreement of some sort with the sleepwalker, and is apparently taking monumental offence to their dead-eye response. All very riveting.
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