This Is Your Brain on Television
Press Action
Monday, May 26, 2003
http://www.pressaction.com/news/weblog/full_article/hand05262003/
Book Review by Mark Hand
Brian Gage, The Amazing Snox Box, Soft Skull Press, June 2003. 44 pp. $20.
As long as you please your corporate masters, you can go a long way in life as a politician. Just ask those government leaders around the world who bend over backwards to please the economic elite in their own country and make sure not to anger world economic powers in Washington, New York and London.
The same rules apply in far-away galaxies, according to a new book written by Brian Gage and illustrated by Tom Ellsworth. In their The Amazing Snox Box, Gage and Ellsworth tell the story of poor King Locks from Zanic who didn’t learn that even powerful sovereigns must follow the marching orders of their corporate paymasters. The king didn’t read the fine print when the corporate pimps came calling. It was a time of tremendous turmoil. King Locks’ kingdom was under assault by the millions he had exploited. The crisis had reached a boiling point and the barbarians had reached the gate. King Locks knew his reign was about to end and he had reconciled he would die a terrible death.
Gage uses rhymes to tell this cautionary tale about the dangers of corporate-controlled mass media and how even the most wicked of rulers cannot stand up to the power of a strong-willed and deep-pocketed corporate sponsor.
In the story, a smooth-talking corporate honcho bursts into the king’s chambers and outlines a plan to tame the masses and save King Locks from an unseemly death. What could prevent the angry slaves from exacting justice on their evil masters? It’s a moving picture box that slick Sammy Sopkins wants to sell to King Locks. Sammy guarantees the box, named after his company Snox, will serve as the perfect antidote to an anger searing the kingdom.
Skeptical at first, King Locks relents and signs the contract that will put a Snox Box in the home of every citizen of Zanic. For his safety, though, Sammy recommends the king take a rocket ride into space. And once the Snox Box succeeds in pacifying the masses, King Locks will return a hero.
True to his word, slick Sammy’s Snox Box wins over the masses rundown by years of toil under the repressive regime of King Locks. Access to the 500 channels on the Snox Box rapidly transforms the thinking of the masses. The Snox Box tells them what they need and how they should think. Within no time at all, the Snox Box has succeeded in conveying the greatness of their society and the heroism of King Locks.
The time now is right for Sammy to alert King Locks that he can return to his kingdom without fear of turmoil. When his rocket lands, the freed “danced and cheered. … They yelled at the top of their lungs, ‘Long Live Locks, and Zanic, and freedom, and long live the Snox!’”
Sammy’s job was done and now he needed one last thing from King Locks – payment for freeing the minds of the masses and quelling their urge for rebellion. Ever the dictator, King Locks defies Sammy and calls the contract that he had signed a “trick” and “absurd.” The king tells his minions to imprison Sammy for attempting to swindle the kingdom.
Unbeknownst to the king, Sammy still has control of the Snox Box. He uses the box to send the brainwashed masses of Xanax, I mean Zanic, into a frenzied revolt against the king. The next morning, the king meets an ugly fate at the hands of his slaves who execute him based on the orders disseminated by the Snox Box. Knowing he won’t get paid for his powerful product, however, Sammy cuts his losses and confiscates all of the Snox Boxes and heads back into space, hoping to find another kingdom in the galaxy seeking a potent narcotic to tame the masses.
Gage’s tale of King Locks parallels the rise and fall of Romania’s Nicolae Ceausescu. In late 1989, as anti-Communist rebellion was sweeping across Eastern Europe, Ceausescu responded brutally to demonstrations that had made their way to Bucharest. Eventually, the Romanian army turned on Ceausescu, who was arrested and quickly tried in a military tribunal. After being found guilty, Ceausescu and his wife were executed by firing squad.
In this new free world, Romanians have their own Snox Boxes where they can view the power and glory enjoyed by those in Western Europe and the United States. A Romanian friend who now lives in New York City recently expressed awe in the U.S. military’s power as displayed on television during the recent invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. After years of repression under the regime of Ceausescu, my friend’s compatriots in Romanians have seen the freedom of the West and have been lobbying for several years to join NATO and the European Union. Romania and other members of New Europe (mostly Eastern European countries) got their wish with their recent admission to NATO after supporting the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
Starry-eyed over the prospects of U.S. investments in their country, the Romanians also have given the Americans permission to move some of their 80,000 troops in Germany to new bases in Romania. The Romanians are providing these giveaways to the Americans as a way for the world economic masters in Washington and New York to take notice that Romania can be a faithful lapdog.
Almost 14 years after Ceausescu’s death, Romania is still an economic mess and the country now is desperately seeking to enhance its condition by offering Americans a low-cost alternative to their military bases in Old Europe’s Germany. Instead of working hard to build their own institutions and economy, Romanians are drawn into America’s get-rich-quick schemes. The Romanians are told by the Americans to show allegiance to Washington and everything will turn around for their impoverished country.
Just like Slick Sammy Sopkins who left Zanic with the Snox Boxes in hand after he knew he wouldn’t get paid, the Americans will exploit the vulnerable and brainwashed Romanians, leaving them free from dictatorship but dependent more than ever on outside sources of capital.
Gage’s 44-page graphic tale teaches us more about the power of television than many of the dense academic dissertations penned by tenured professors at prestigious universities. The arrival of the Amazing Snox Box couldn’t have been timed more perfectly. Television in the George W. Bush era has grown ever more propagandistic, as displayed by the networks’ celebration of the U.S. government’s invasion and occupation of Iraq.
Let’s hope both adults and children will rush to read the Amazing Snox Box so they can be taught the deadly dangers of a television addiction before it’s too late.