Core Response: Week 5

Anna McCarthy’s piece for this week on TVs in waiting areas really reminded me of my own

experiences in waiting rooms. Specifically, however, I began thinking about my dentist and how there

is a TV in the waiting room, but also above the chair itself. I then began thinking about the theoretical

implications of that TV, the one meant to be watched as we endure the pain of teeth cleanings,

cavity fillings, and even wisdom teeth extraction (I watched Friends during mine). I found it ironic that

McCarthy emphasizes the informative and medical nature of programming in the waiting room, when

my time in the chair itself is spent watching anything but informative medical segments. In both

cases, there is a clear disavowal going on so that the patient never thinks about their current

moment. While in the waiting room, I consume information on what is about to happen, during the

procedure, I am encouraged to leave behind my current bodily sensations. 

While the latter scenario aligns with Margaret Morse’s understanding of TV as fantasy,

distraction, and spacing-out, it also distinctively connects the TV’s “nonspace” with pain. Rather than

seeing the TV as just being a distraction for pain, I am interested in what kinds of theoretical

conclusions can come of this strange synthesis. I thought about how, in the case of distracting a

patient from pain, the fantasy of TV becomes somewhat of a necessity. The dislocation and

derealization of television is necessary as a coping mechanism, dialing patients into the mundane

routines of daily life, even when the TV is taken out of that context and associated with a sensation

that is far from regular (at least for those of us with relatively healthy teeth). The TV is almost treated

as a drug, considering how quickly my dentist gives me the remote, as if it was a crutch that helped

minimize the pain directly. And with the remote in hand, it’s as if the dentist can now do their worst

while I remain in the zombie state. TV thus becomes a productive tool that helps get something done

by paradoxically taking something away. It acts as an anaesthetic; though it seems fantastic and escapist,
it is very much still tied to bodily sensations, which seem necessary in justifying the television's presence
so that it can provide us with something we do not have in the current moment. In other words, despite
the disembodying effect of TV, it also requires ample embodiment in order to have this effect in the first place.