--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: <snip> > In college I discovered foreign and art films, and > from that point on I've been a goner. I think film has > been the most important medium of art on the planet > for most people of our age. For the newer generations, > TV has been more important. But there is a big differ- > ence between film and TV -- hot vs. cool. You'd have > to have read McLuhan to get the difference, but I > think it's a real one. <snip> > It's the hot vs. cool thing. Hot media suck you into > them and demand more of your focus. Cool media don't, > at least not as much. TV is cool, film is hot.
Actually, you don't have to have read McLuhan to get the difference; it's fairly simple and straightforward. However, you've got it wrong above, so perhaps you should read *something*. "Hot" media, basically, are high-def (film, radio, print). "Cool" media are low-def (TV, telephone, comic books). They are *more* involving, *more* participatory than "hot" media because the viewer/ listener has to fill in the details mentally. They thus demand greater focus, not less. (It would be interesting to know what McLuhan would have made of today's high-def TV.) > You > can talk with a TV on in the background, but it's > inherently more difficult to talk with a movie on > in the background. A lot of the talkers in the theaters > these days are members of the TV generation. Actually, people tend to talk more with TV on in the background because they're watching it in a home with only a few others present, usually friends and family, not in a theater with a large audience of strangers. The TV generation talks more in movie theaters simply because, having grown up talking over background entertainment, they're used to doing so; it simply doesn't occur to them that they're disturbing other people. Has nothing ot do with "hot" vs. "cool," it has to do with the environment. If it were because film is "hot" and TV is "cool," you'd expect exactly the opposite effect.
