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MEN AND THE REMOTE CONTROL - By Eugenia Abu
I recently read a magazine clipping I have kept since 1994 titled “Watching TV With a Man” by Andy Valuur taking from the international magazine, cosmopolitan of October of that year.
In it, Mr. Valuur admits that “Men have very short attention span and … nowhere is this more evident than in our addiction to channel surfing”. He adds for a laugh that “Another problem you face is that when men are watching television, we become lost to the world. All life around us stops. I think this stems from our being descended from Neanderthals, bright, shiny objects still mesmerize us.” He says in addition that, the “remote renders us fleeting rulers of our own kingdom” I could not agree more.
Men treat the remote control like a conquest and they are very territorial about it like all conquerors are of their findings. Visit a home, watch the men in the house, father, son or brother. They handle it deftly with the master stroke of a conqueror and his kingdom. This is the brain of the Entertainment Centre and he is not ready to share. This is the button that decides what comes on television, what channel, what programme, what music. In other words, they decide what we all watch and hear.
If you are a woman, have you tried to take possession of the remote control? This is definitely an offence met with a hard stare and brimming anger. Who took the remote control from here? Please let me have it!
Have you also observed that while the man has possession of the remote control, no one else in the room matters. He is particularly anti-social at this time.
Believe me, sometimes, I am going on about how TV producers have lost it and are showing a mishmash of all kinds of programme, mixing oil with water. Then I suddenly realize that my spouse has changed the channel without recourse to me. In all of this, my brain does a double take and I am wondering why an insert has moved from health to education with no bridge. Does this happen to any of you? I wonder, or is this happening only to me? But I am pleased that I read that article many years ago, otherwise I would have concluded that I have lost my mind.
I watch my son now, with his hand on the remote control completely oblivious of others in the room. As soon as he moves to the dinning area, he takes it with him and places it beside his tray of food. It does not matter who else is in the living room and during this period he dominates the remote control albeit programmes on TV like a predator in his domain and protects the little TV gadget with all his might. His younger sister is truly half dead if per chance when he goes to the loo, she takes possession. The only person he defers to in this power tussle is his father, a bigger “Don” than himself in the remote control field of play.
By the way most men unlike women loathe moving around the house. They prefer the couch with crisp well grilled fish fingers and a drink in hand, they hold the gadget, thereby perpetuating the dominant ideology of the remote control. This is home enjoyment on top of home entertainment.
In my view, because they don’t like moving from the couch, the inventors of the remote targeted the men and disenfranchised the women. If there were no remote controls, women who are out and about will access the TV first and change the channel. But those who invented the remote control knew in whose hands it will end and knew quite well what sociological dimension it will take in the domestic enclave.
A newly married couple can come to blows on account of the remote control. The young bride thinking “we are all equal in this marriage” does not realize that the remote control, the bridegroom’s car and any daughter born into the marriage are the three things that she will have to compete with for her husband’s attention.
The remote control is also a veritable tool for strained relationships between father and daughter, father-in-law and son-in-law. If an ailing father-in-law visits, watch the power play between him and his son-in-law concerning the remote control. The sick man wants to watch a soap opera re-living his hey days as a young man when he toasted his wife. His “nom de geure” in this respect is his daughter who from the age of 17 had been reading Mills and Boons and therefore knows all about the knight in shining armour and ultimately the slushy soap operas.
The remote control Don is the husband who decides everyone must watch football, boxing or Tuesday Live. In the meantime, his own brother wants to watch “Who wants to be a Millionaire” or Channel O. The battle of the titans has begun. Check the pulse, the pressure or the tension soaked atmosphere. It is palpable, no one wants to watch the TV upstairs, everyone crowds around the TV downstairs, the comfort of the chairs and the proximity of the kitchen – an ally to the most ardent TV addict.
Let me add for good measure that there are very few women who act like men when it comes to the remote control. My eldest daughter Sophie finds herself on that side of the divide and I marvel at how territorial she can be when she lays her hands on the remote control.
I dare screenplay writers to put out a 13 episode top of the range soap titled “The Remote Control” I have no doubt that it will be a run-away success. The Amaka Igwes, the Eme Isangs, the Nne Ukohas, the Cordelia Ekes, the Murtala Sules, the Eugenia Abus, the Deborah Ogazumas, and with Mr. Peter Igho NTA Executive Director Programmes, pushing the envelope. Under the circumstance, Ene Oloja, Sadiq Daba, Salome Eferemo may be invited. I will definitely miss my friends, the late NTA chief script writer, Kalu Okpi and the ubiquitous Mr. Lai Arasanmi (also late) pooled together, this will be a formidable 13 episode most-watch programme around the world’s most interesting discovery since bread. (The Remote Control).
While this is running, guess who will be holding the remote control in real life. Your guess is as good as mine and the programme may be missed by exactly those it is directed at. They may opt for …. You guessed football, if it shares the same air time. Aah!
Excerpt from Eugenia Abu’s Book “In the Blink of an Eye” available at NTA TV Guide offices, NTA Area 11, Abuja.
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