Although it may offend a high percentage of the Guy Page readership, violate some unwritten Man Code and provide ammunition for wives as they argue with husbands in the electronics aisle of department stores, I need to address a growing problem in American homes:
Our televisions are getting too large.
A Best Buy advertisement I saw Monday hawked a 60-inch screen with a stereo system boasting a $4,000-plus price tag. That reflected more than $600 in savings, which the buyer presumably can direct toward his optometry bills.
Elsewhere in the flier were other televisions for sale. The large screens were pictured broadcasting an image of the “X-Men’s” Wolverine, while the little 19-inch jobs showed the visage of “The Little Mermaid.” The none-too-subtle message? Big televisions are for big men; little televisions are for lovers of animated romances between fish and pubescent boys.
It’s one thing that sports bars are now so cluttered with screens that it is physically impossible to avoid watching the game; when the animated SportsCenter logo appears, it’s enough to give you seizures.
And our homes have followed suit. My brother recently bought a plasma screen that is wide enough to broadcast a marathon with a single camera shot. My parents purchased a massive flat screen last month that lends an Orwellian feel to the living room. And I am the proud owner of a 32-inch model–but big enough to make the evening news seem as though it’s being announced by giants wearing rouge.
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My television (it’s the only home appliance that gets the singular pronoun) sits inside an armoire, towering over our little living room and blanketing all inhabitants with a numbing blue light. It mesmerizes our 7-month-old daughter whenever it’s turned on in the same way it mesmerizes me whenever there’s a “Cops” marathon.
“For the best viewing experience, your TV should provide the right-sized picture for where you’ll sit relative to the screen,” reads Best Buy’s Web site. “The farther away you plan to sit from the TV, the larger the screen size should be.”
As my television is a mere 6 1/2 feet from the couch, a 19-inch screen would suffice, according to the retailer’s optimal-viewing chart posted online. But sufficiency loses out to overwhelmancy when it comes to our televisions, doesn’t it?
As movie starlets’ lips and breasts continue to grow, so, too, do the screens we watch them on. As athletes bulge out of their uniforms, so, too, do the televisions that broadcast their feats.
“Is bigger always better?” asks the Best Buy Web site, before offering countless answers–on sale!–in the affirmative. When it comes to our home televisions, I think not. Of course, I’ll consider the hypocrisy of that stance when I flick on my flat screen this weekend while a stack of books and newspapers collects dust.
And if you’ve discovered this column because your wife has clipped it out of the newspaper and taped it to your television screen, I apologize. But if it took you until the second half of the Bears game to notice that the clipping was there, she might have a valid argument.
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