It’s been emotional

Given that most of the developed world can now access gas simply by pressing a button or turning a dial, rather than getting out the trusty old flints, it isn’t really news that we have long since passed the point of merely surviving. We like to be entertained. No time is this more apparent than during the awards season. But I hadn’t really given it much thought until yesterday. Upon connecting to the internet I was greeted with my usual homepage; emails, weather, news headlines, and the list of the current top ten searches on Yahoo. News of President Obama’s forthcoming state visit to the UK: number ten. Coronation Street: number one.

So why is it that we are so much more interested in the on-screen world, than the real world? I’ll admit pondering such a question in cyber space is a tad ironic. But seeing as the highlight of my day was finding a pencil sharpener in my house that actually works, I have my excuse. Meanwhile, a recent viewing of Home Alone that reduced me to tears, may have answered my question. Music. Surely, were John Williams and an entire orchestra to follow me around, finding that pencil sharpener could have been something akin to finding Nemo. (Whoops, spoiler alert). It’s no wonder that the glorious Mr Williams is among the top three most nominated people in Oscar history. It is also no surprise that top of that list is Walt Disney himself. A man who, despite having a target audience with an average age of about seven, seems to relish in killing off parents and leaving poor defenceless youngsters to fend for themselves.

However, John Williams, apparently not content with merely making millions of movie goers sob like the afore mentioned seven year olds, decided to also score the music for several Olympic Games. While I’ll grant you that the Olympics are in fact real, they seem to be responsible for more edge-of-your-seat and heartstring-tugging moments than are necessarily good for your health. So emotional was Derek Redmond’s performance at the 1992 Barcelona Games that they later used it for a Visa advert featuring the voice of Morgan Freeman. Apparently, causing you viewers to suffer an emotional breakdown will prompt them into taking out a Visa card.

So, it would seem that the reason we are all so engrossed in the lives of fictional beings, is because we are all masochists. And the absence of a powerfully sweeping score from our mundane lives leaves us to seek out films and programmes carefully crafted to have us all popping Prozac. This will no doubt be confirmed at the approaching Academy Awards, where the last ten years have seen films about war, racism, poverty, and mental health, walk away with the Best Picture award. However, I can at least understand that no matter how depressing the subject matter, so long as there are some outstanding performances, a masterpiece of a script, and the essential music, these films are often more engaging and entertaining than the real world. But that still leaves me with just one unanswered question, why is Coronation Street the most searched topic on Yahoo?