Reality vs. TV

[trekkiedane]

You're in the park, your dog/kid drags you into the bushes somewhere and you find...

Or

Playing ball at the beach you run off after a ball someone threw/kicked a bit too far. In the long grass, right next to the ball, you see...

Or

As you leave your workplace you take out the trash. As you open the big bin out back you spot...


... a human skull.


Do you scream and run away?



Everyone on TV does!



That I just can't relate to; I simply cannot see myself being scared enough to let the initial shock, of seeing something like that, make me scream out loud and run away.

I might gasp and take a closer look. Am I weird or is TV simply exaggerating the shock-value of human remains?


(Having watched Bones from ep 1x1 to (currently) 6x5 over the past week or two might have inspired this question )

 

[Finn]

^Why not. I've seen people really freak out over nothing.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

I'd probably do a double-take and then lean in closer to confirm what I think I saw.

If it was an actual dead body, I'd probably make an ick face and back away due to the smell, but I don't see myself screaming and running.

Maybe if somebody jumped out of the bushes with a knife I'd yell "FUCK!" and start running.

 

[Holdfast]

People have weird - and sometimes unexpected - reactions to situations all the time. All the ones mentioned in the OP are potentially realistic for some people.

Having said that, it's rather more relevant to remember that TV (like movies, or painting, or speech, or indeed any form of communication) works through symbolic short-cuts as much as it does through actual content. Overused, they become cliche (the violin screech in a horror movie, for example), but the art of good communication in any field (whether reality, or a creative medium, and reality is in fact actually just as much of a creative medium as a TV programme) is deploying just enough familiar symbolism to get the message across without it become hackneyed.

Too much familiar symbolism and you get ripe cheesiness which can only be cut through with knowing irony, but too little and you get confusion, or time-wasting elaboration of dull detail.

The "scream and run" works pretty well to indicate surprise as a one-off... seeing it repeatedly in a marathon of viewing renders it cliche. It's an interesting question though, if more and more people avoid first-run TV, and watch series in marathon format. Will programme-makers have to deploy these familiar devices less frequently, in order to maintain their value, if viewers are seeing episodes back-to-back as opposed to a week apart?

 

[Agent Richard07]

^ Good post. I was about to say that characters that just stand there and scream continuously seem too inauthentic and that a more natural reaction might involve a simple yelp and/or a sudden jolt.

 

[RJDiogenes]

Well, the people on TV don't watch TV and so have not become as jaded about putrescent human corpses as we have. If they watched as much TV as we do, they'd probably just stand there and try to determine the cause of death.

 

[Mr Silver]

What I hate is when a character is trying to tell another character something important but the recipient character won't let them say it and then walk off. That really annoys me because in real life if somebody needs to know something and they are being like that I will shout it at them until they get the message. I'd rather they knew and risk our friendship or whatever than just accept their difficult nature.

As for the OP's question. I'd probably freak out a little but not run off screaming. I'd double check just to make sure i'm not going crazy and then I'd call the police, etc and try to keep others away from the area (to avoid hysteria) until the authorities arrived.

 

[thestrangequark]

I found a head once and I screamed. I didn't run, though, I just sort of backed away. I don't think I'd freak out if it had been a skull -- after all, a skull could be hundreds or even thousands of years old, and (illogical though it may be) a body that's been dead long enough to reach that level of decomposition isn't as disturbing as one that still has the flesh. The head I found was from a motorcycle accident, and was still in the helmet. It was awful.

 

[SVD]

In the event that I uncover the skull of some poor sap, or some such thing, I'd probably double take to confirm, grimace in sorrow, and might faint.

 

[Ghost07]

I wouldn't scream and run... When I was a Home Health Aide, I went into the house of one of my patients, only to find her dead. I just called the office to report it and then waited for help to arrive.

 

[captcalhoun]

i'd pick it up and say "Alas, poor Yorick. I knew him, Horatio. A fellow of infinte jest."