I just recently got to watch some old Bogart movies (Casablanca, The Enforcer) in juxtaposition with "Monk," the show about a detective who is very oddly wired. Bogart movies try to teach people how to think. There's this fine bit in Casablanca where Nick explains why he isn't leaving with his true love; having been invited to think for both of them, he lays out a clear and compelling argument. In the Maltese Falcon, he does the same thing, explaining why he is sending his true love off to jail for 20 years. The message: cool guys can think when they have to, and should think when they have to, and should do this way.
Nobody would ever take Monk to be cool; the only girl he gets is his nurse. But he also teaches thinking: he notices peculiar details because his disorders force them on him, and he makes use of what he knows that only he can know. He's not a public reasoner, like Bogart; he's a private and peculiar reasoner, but he gets the job done. He persists in his folly and becomes wise.
Television is sort of ok, except for Chains of Love and Big Brother and the part of Fear Factor where they eat things and Jerry Springer and the MTV countdown of hotties and ...
Posted by shea0017 at August 20, 2004 1:13 PMthis really makes sense thanx for posting
Posted by: trevor at October 20, 2004 2:23 PM