Listening While I Work (4)

New Zealand Listener, Volume 9, Issue 228, 5 November 1943, Page 12

Listening While I Work (4)

By |

Materfamilias

LETTER in a daily paper recently expressed concern at the effect of radio upon parental discipline. The lure of the serial is even stronger than the threat of the cane, and anyhow, nowadays many homes have discarded canes as instruments of warning. Going to bed has been one of the miseries of childhood since the beginning of segregated bedrooms for children. In the past it has been the threat of Might over Night that has sent the children scurrying off. If so, is it radio that is undermining our parental authority? Or is it that parental authority has been susceptible to undermining since parents began taking themselves seriously as parents? Did Mamma say to Papa 60 years ago "You know, my dear, what with these new-fangled ideas of publishing magazines for boys, little Eustace will read in bed, and I can do nothing to stop him!" Yes, she probably did, and Papa. having no squeamish psychological misgivings, probably went right ahead with the cane. And did that stop Eustace? Not if he was as tough as most small boys and as fond of stories, but it made him more skilful at concealing his magazine and his light and his sins, and if he no longer worried Mamma or set the house on fire, he probably ruined his eyesight. * * * NE trouble about listening in for the young is that they cannot hide their radio under the bedcover. Besides, the chances are that little Jimmy knows that after he has been tucked up in bed, Mum and Dad will go on listening to just that thriller that he wanted to hear. And that is an exasperating thought for little Jimmy. Does the problem arise to the same extent in households where the parents are anti-serial, and where the serial-minded young are looked upon as an inferior breed with deplorable taste? Upon inquiry, I find that in some households at least, serial listening is welcomed by parents as a new weapon. "If you don’t hurry with your bath you can’t listen to Coast Patrol." Or "You must tidy up all your things before tea if you want to hear Chuckles With Jerry to-night." I am told that it works as well as any other threat, or better. * * * UT that is only one side of the question. It may be good for manners to promise boys mince pies if they go to bed quickly and behave as civilised citizens instead of as little savages, but it is not good for their digestions. Nor are most-serials the best fare for their mental digestions. Thrillers at night may keep them awake and give them nightmares as much as mince pies. I would not like to imply that all that comes over the air in serial form is harmful. Most, I should say, is innocuous but without mental nourishment. I confess I enjoyed seeing a small boy roll off his chair with mirth the other night over the rather feeble jokes in Chuckles with Jerry. It was a new world of laughter, and so long as it was a new world, it was alluring. Serials need as little mental efforts as comics, and have the same popularity. I should expect a normal child to grow out of serial listening as he for she grows out of comic reading, provided other reading and listening (continued on next page)

(continued from previous page) fare is provided. Mince pies are pretty good in the right place, but not as a sole diet. I cannot say that I have heard any serial that I should ‘say was positively harmful, though I have heard parts of a good many that'I myself disliked. It is the lack of any literary of artistic merit, and the high pitch of excitement from episode to episode that is to be deplored. No one can doubt that.in the end love, courage, honour and virtue will triumph. After 150 or more episodes, the villain will get his nose rubbed in. the mud and the right man will marry the right girl. You do not listen to see a skilful plot unfold or a series of character studies built up. Youlisten for the immediate® thrill of an © immediate sensation: In brief, serials: may take Dad’s mind off office: worries (though to be honest, I don’t know any fathers who bother to listen). They may brighten Mum’s long sessions with the mending basket;' they may give little Jim and Mary something to look forward to be-

fore they go to bed: but it is nonsense to pretend that the fare is either satisfying, stimulating, or instructive. And if parents to-day quail at the rod, what is wrong with a turn of the knob? a oa %* MPROBABLE and exciting situations are not the special monopoly of thrillers. The ambition of the writer of short radio plays must be to spring as many unexpected situations as possible. You are jolted around corners and swung up and down with all the rush and excitement of a mental switchback. Take, for instance, the comedy thriller from 2YA the other Sunday night: A Passion for Emeralds. There were three unexpected turns planned to. give listeners an exciting mental lurch: the prince turned villain, the heroine changed from a dead body into a live police agent, the foreign potentate dropped his French-cum-German-cum-Italian accent for a charming Irish brogue. Surely a majority of listeners have now outgrown these puerilities?