Fahrenheit 451 and Dora the Explorer

In Ray Bradbury's "Fahrenheit 451" and the subsequent movie, there was a scene in which the heroes wife is captivated by her television programs. She has a large screen on one wall which she watches constantly. The people in the shows she watches are her friends.

Her friends on the screen will talk and gossip and discuss all sorts of banal topics, and ever now and then they all turn to the camera and as if the are looking directly at the wife and ask, "what do you think?

The wife stutters an answer and is just thrilled to have been part of the conversation.

While visiting a friend the other day I had the opportunity to watch Dora the Explorer with his two 3 year old son.
So Dora is going on and on with her friends and all of a sudden the cartoon turns to the camera and says " what do you think".

There was a brief pause of several seconds allowing time for the child to answer, after which Dora exclaims something like "Wonderful" and continues on with the story line pausing now and then for more responses.

Our two and three year olds.

No wonder we vote for the best singer and thank God for democracy.

Good book but apparently it is less about the destruction of books and more about television.

Just about every critic and literary scholar on the planet viewed the novel as metaphor for the dangers of state-sponsored censorship. Can't see this as much of a stretch, considering it was about book burning (although, the title may have suggested that it was really about book warming, since, according to Bradbury's sources, the temperature at which paper combusts is actually 450 degrees Celsius, or 842 degrees Fahrenheit).


What it's really about:
Bradbury was actually more concerned with TV destroying interest in literature than he was with government censorship and officials running around libraries with lit matches. According to Bradbury, television is useless and compresses important information about the world into little factoids, contributing to society's ever-shrinking attention span. Like "Video Killed the Radio Star," television would kill the, uh, book star (he said same thing about radio too, by the way). An interesting rant from the author, considering that much of Bradbury's fame was a direct result of his stories being portrayed on science fiction shows.

6 Books Everyone (Including Your English Teacher) Got Wrong
www.cracked.com...

reply to post by ELahrairah


I agree. There is another scene where " the bad guy" is running from the authorities and the authorities are using the news programs on the tv to coordinate the viewers to look out their windows to see if they can help catch him. Oh what fun.

reality TV was the beginning of the end.
Now everybody can get there 15 minutes of fame.
Wave to the camera

Three thumbs up for using Cracked as a source.. That's awesome..

It is a scary scenario that has come to life..

I love the Aldus Huxley 'Brave New World' version of TV.. They're called feelies and they are so real that people get hooked on them much like a drug. Reminds me of HDTV and 3D and all that other crap people don't need..

I'm not knocking TV, lord knows I'm addicted to Justified, SoA, South Park and The Office, but i don't need the best television screen to watch.

reply to post by TerryMcGuire


Have you read 'The Running Man' by Stephen King?

It's basically about a reality TV show about murdering the contestants, where the viewers get rewarded for snitching on the contestants whereabouts

That's where reality TV will eventually end up

I haven't had a TV in years.
If I really want to watch something I can find it on the internet but I like books a whole lot.
I know very few people who actually read books these days.
I sometimes watch dish network if I go over to my folks house but I don't really get why anybody
would pay for cable or satellite it's 200 channels of dumbed down infotainment and reality show crap and commercials.
I laughed so hard when I read this onion article because it is so true with channels like the history channel and discovery.

Science Channel Refuses To Dumb Down Science Any Further

SILVER SPRING, MD—Frustrated by continued demands from viewers for more awesome and extreme programming, Science Channel president Clark Bunting told reporters Tuesday that his cable network was "completely incapable" of watering down science any further than it already had.

www.theonion.com...

reply to post by ELahrairah


I agree, cable is over priced especially when u can watch everything for free online, without mind numbing commercials.. Luckily for me, my cousin works for Direct TV so i only pay $10 a month..

But, there are some hidden gems on television, as long as you know where to look.. Most of it is garbage, but every so often a show comes out thats worth watching..

The same could be said of Music, Books, or any other medium of entertainment though.. I love reading, but badly written books like Twilight are dumbing down our nation, almost as much as reality TV shows


Funny article from Onion, BTW.. Don't you hate it when someone tries to argue with you, saying "I watched it on History Channel"