The traveling television watcher
Like Eugene Levy, I am a reluctant traveler—I may prefer televisual tourism.
“Europe. Europe. EUROPE,” I keep texting my friend. We’re planning our potential summer getaway, an escapist fantasy as of late, as it often is when the days turn permanently overcast in Vancouver and we wait impatiently for the sun to come out after weeks of hiding. We’re planning my first trip to the Eastern Hemisphere since I was 13. The problem? She’s a wanderlust, and I’m whatever the opposite of that is. I mostly dread traveling.
I’m trying to stay relaxed about it, although I suspect from previous texts complaining about how cramped I feel in any mode of transportation, she knows. I hate paying exorbitant amounts of money to attempt sleeping while sitting, I despise busy itineraries and my feet’s skin peeling off, I hate crowds and the anxious uncertainty of trying to make it to your destination in one piece and on time. I do love food and wine, but don’t get me started on traveler’s diarrhea. My idea of a vacation—which is by definition, an extended period of leisure—is similar to what I did last week, on PTO from my day job: staying home with my cat and catching up on my shows. I suppose I’m a televisual tourist—experiencing the world from my screen.
I stumbled across the term “televisual tourism” recently while researching for some other writing. It appeared in Lynnell L. Thomas’ 2012 article for a special issue of Television & New Media dedicated to David Simon’s Treme, a Peabody-winning series that ran for four seasons on HBO from 2010-2013. The peer-reviewed article looks at how the show represents New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. “Treme illustrates the tension between the welcome recognition and celebration of New Orleans black expressive culture and its spectacularization and commodification,” Thomas, who’s from New Orleans themselves, writes in the abstract. They problematize televisual tourism and pick apart the narratives through which the neighbourhood of Tremé is represented.