Television is not solely an American phenomenon. In the movie, The Tube, journalist Peter Entell and actor Luc Mariot travel to three continents to uncover the history of television and its effects on the human brain. Entell and Mariot's search is to find out the effect of television regardless of its content. Overall, this is an outstanding investigative movie that begins to present interesting questions about the true nature of television.
The movie starts off in Geneva,
Switzerland with Mariot's young daughter, Zoe, crying because he had turned
off the Pokemon cartoon. Mariot notices Zoe's fixation on the TV while she watches.
He is disturbed by her unblinking gaze. He then begins to 
investigate
on the Internet a little about the Pokemon cartoon and comes across articles
describing an incident in December, 1997 when between 600 and 700 children and
teenagers were hospitalized with convulsions and eye problems because of a Pokemon
episode.
Mariot then travels to Tokyo, Japan to visit the hospital where many of the children were treated and the television station that broadcast the episode. At the hospital, the doctor explains that 1 in 4,000 people posses a hypersensitivity to light and therefore is "at risk" when watching TV. It makes sense that an unusually high rate of television "flicker" would effect people's minds and induce epileptic-type reactions. At TV Tokyo, the home of the Pokemon cartoon, Mariot discovers that because of outrage after this incident, the station now employs an Animation Flicker Machine which monitors each episode.
The film then travels to Schenectady,
NY and visits the television research and development section of General Electric.
There, the Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) and electron gun which make television work
is explained. Television screens are made up of Red, Green and Blue pixels which
flicker at a high rate when bombarded with fast moving electrons. This method
allows the TV screen to give off colors of nearly infinite shades. Mariot asks
the men working at GE why this machine seems so hypnotic and 
addictive?
They don't have an answer.
Lunenburg, Massachusetts is the next stop for the film crew. There they visit with Dr. Thomas Mulholland whose experiments with electroencephalograms and alpha waves with children was some of the first indications of an actual physical reaction to watching TV. Alpha waves are brain activity which increases as brain work decreases: closing your eyes and relaxing produce more alpha -- looking around the room decreases alpha. Mulholland discovered that children watching TV had more alpha -- which means less brain activity.
The Tube crew then visits with Eric McLuhan at the University of Toronto who demonstrates in an experiment, that because of the nature of television (beams of light being fired at the viewer at a high rate), it gives off transmitted light. This is unlike reflected light, where light is reflected on the viewer, like in a movie theater. McLuhan says that with transmitted light, "you are the screen." The brain responds to the medium, not the content.
Finally,
Mariot tracks down former researcher Herbert Krugman of the Advertising Research
Foundation. Krugman's experiments on the effects of television led him to conclude
that TV induces some type of "sleeping awake" activity. Why are people
so mesmerized or hypnotized by the TV. Krugman used this power of TV to help
the advertising community. Krugman says that with TV, "when you lose touch
with the body and the brain will play." You're not asleep and not awake.
It's midnight and you are staring at the TV and can't turn it off. You sit watching
commercials blankly and unthinking. You don't turn it off.
"The television is the easiest, quickest and cheapest way to distract yourself from how you already feel that's ever been invented," says one psychologist in the film.
A worker at a TV station says, she thinks "TV is like a drug. . . Sure, just try taking it away from them."
The Tube is a well done film.
It presents many compelling facts and questions about an activity that most
people take for granted. Unfortunately, many questions still remain unanswered
as some continue to question the benefit of staring at red, green and blue flickering
light.
© 2002 by Ron Kaufman
The Tube can be purchased from:
First Run/Icarus Films
32 Court Street
21st Floor
Brooklyn, NY 11201
718-488-8900 and 800-876-1710
www.frif.com
