Posted by Gail V on March 28, 2007 at 21:17:08:
Not being a TV watcher, I was shocked when somebody told me the three most popular TV shows are (1) celebrities dancing, (2) celebrities listening to people sing and then hitting a big gong if they don't like it, and (3) "news" about celebrities (currently about some blonde lady who died a while back).
Whatever happened to American art and culture? How many Americans know who was the last Pulitzer prize winner for fiction (March by Geraldine Brooks) or which Americans have won the Nobel prize for literature (Toni Morrison (1993) Czeslaw Milosz (1980), Isaac Bashevis Singer (1978), Saul Bellow (1976), John Steinbeck (1962), Ernest Hemingway (1954), William Faulkner (1949), Pearl S. Buck (1938), Eugene O'Neill (1936), Sinclair Lewis.
But the more I thought about it, it made sense: how would they find out, even if they did want to know? Certainly not on American TV. American TV is all about making money or pushing a political agenda (which I guess is also about making money). Why would they waste time with art or culture?