I have seen TV programs that developed something like this: The Master of Ceremonies walks out on stage. The audience breaks out in wild shrieks. The man has not said anything yet.
“Welcome to the show on this hot evening”, he now says. Again, the audience shrieks wildly.
It is indeed hot in the auditorium. Had he said ‘Welcome to this icebox’ that would have been ironic and thus funny and the shrieks would have been justified, proof that the audience “got” the joke. As it was in this hypothetical case there was no joke. So why did the audience shriek?
Next, the MC introduces a performer by name. The audience shrieks, of course, as they should because they all know the performer and show their eager anticipation. At the end of the performance there are more shrieks, signifying applause, the reward for a good performance. So far, so good.
The MC comes on stage again. Wild shrieks. He says “Our next performer…” The audience interrupts with wild shrieks. “Has broken his collar bone during rehearsals and …” The audience shrieks wildly. “And we have asked this young lady in the audience…” Wild shrieks. “To sing for us the Star Spangled Banner”. Wild shrieks from the audience.
Are these screams the applause, the reward for a performance well done? But she has not sung yet. That cannot be it, then. My guess and fervent hope is that none of this hilarity has anything to do with the broken bone. Apparently these are just emotional outbursts in anticipation of a performance, any performance. They express the fun of being there, the thrill of being on TV, and thus of being part of the medium.
Perhaps that is what Professor Marshall McLuhan of Toronto was driving at, years ago, when he coined the phrase “The Medium is the Message”. The shrieks and screams are an essential part of the show, a part of the medium. The performance, the speech, the joke, the song, whatever, are meant to be the message but it really does not matter. There needn’t even be a message as long as there is an audience prepared to make a lot of noise. It is at this point, I think, that we become aware that medium and message have in deed become the same thing, that applause, namely the reward for a performance, is actually the performance!
Had McLuhan been an Ashkenazi he could have said it even simpler: A shriek is a Shrek!
(c) 2017 by Herbert H. Hoffman
Picture credits: Printapattern Blog