Pardon me for distracting you from frivolity, but I must.
Here we are on a Tuesday in early September. It is just before the start of the new network TV season. Look at the schedule tonight and you'll see all sorts of frivolity, ardently presented as gripping TV.
Fashion Rocks (CBS, Global, 9 p.m.) is a "star-studded concert that honours the extraordinary relationship between fashion and music." Extraordinary, indeed. Ryan Seacrest hosts and performers include such "innovative trendsetters" (CBS's term) as the Band Perry, Duran Duran, Kiss, Miranda Lambert, Jennifer Lopez, Pitbull and Usher. It goes on for two hours.
The finale of Extreme Weight Loss (ABC, 8 p.m.) features "a father and daughter team with a strained relationship that try to lose weight." It goes on for two hours. America's Got Talent (NBC, CITY-TV, 9 p.m.) has the top 12 performers proving they have, you know, talent. Two hours of that is offered, if you're inclined. You could also indulge in the delights of the season finale of Food Fighters (NBC, 8 p.m.), a competitive cooking show that presents, "A retired fashion apparel executive tries to win $100,000 by competing against culinary professionals, including acclaimed chef Elizabeth Falkner." According to Variety magazine, the show is "as fresh as last week's leftovers."
Guilty pleasures, all of these shows, perhaps. But "guilty" is an odd word, isn't it? We are, in this part of the world, guilty of ignorance, guilty of solipsism. As we watch these frivolities, meanwhile in West Africa, unimaginable horror unfolds. We could, and should, pay attention to that for a while.
Frontline (PBS, 10 p.m.) has two gripping, stunningly vivid reports tonight. First there is an on-the-ground look at the Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone. Then a look at the Nigerian government's efforts to fight against Boko Haram. I'm obliged to warn you on behalf of PBS that the program includes graphic footage documenting arrests, torture and summary executions of alleged Boko Haram suspects.
The Ebola outbreak has, according to the World Health Organization, killed 1,900 people in West Africa, and the organization Médecins sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) has called for a global military and civilian response. Not much is said in this Frontline report. The footage tells us everything.
"People are dying left and right here," a doctor says. We see him carrying the body of a nine-year-old boy who has just died. His body is still highly infectious. We see nurses on the street simply telling people, "If you touch the sick, you will die."
The scale of the calamity is breathtaking. The frustration of doctors is hard to watch. We see teams trying to locate the sick in order to isolate them. But we are told, too, that the protective clothing worn by doctors and nurses terrifies some locals, who run away at the sight or attack those wearing that clothing. We see the riot inspired by rumours that Ebola is a hoax to collect blood from people. We come away numbed by the final statistic presented to us – the WHO expects that 20,000 people will be infected.
In the second report, we are first reminded that earlier this year the violent fundamentalist group Boko Haram kidnapped 300 schoolgirls. Then we are taken into the Nigerian military's campaign against Boko Haram. The campaign has gone awry.
The upshot of the report is that state-sponsored militias unleashed to counter Boko Haram have committed brutal atrocities against civilians. On the one hand there are the bombings, shootings and beheadings by Boko Haram and simultaneously there are the militias who, according to one former member, have turned into "monsters."
The warning from PBS about the content is warranted. We see savage beatings and torture. In some towns and villages militias searching for Boko Haram have tortured and killed an area's entire male population. The result, we're told, is that in some areas there has been a complete disintegration of civil order.
In both reports the number of corpses seen is staggering. The deaths just don't stop.
Not easy viewing, any of it. But a reminder of what privilege we have in the copious frivolity that exists to distract us. Pardon me for pointing it out, but I must. Sometimes television's job is to deliver us from solipsism, not just deliver silliness to us.