{"id":2199,"date":"2026-06-30T10:40:41","date_gmt":"2026-06-30T10:40:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/interstatelogisticshubs.com\/?p=2199"},"modified":"2026-06-30T10:40:41","modified_gmt":"2026-06-30T10:40:41","slug":"modern-society-formatted-to-fit-your-screen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/interstatelogisticshubs.com\/?p=2199","title":{"rendered":"Modern society: Formatted to fit your screen"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

When I was younger, one of my biggest pet peeves was watching movies on television.<\/p>\n

Read more Trying to Think Wise Thoughts after DSA Tuesday<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThis movie has been formatted to fit your screen,\u201d the disclaimer would cheerfully announce.<\/p>\n

That was Hollywood\u2019s way of saying, \u201cWe\u2019ve chopped off a third of the picture.\u201d<\/p>\n

Back then, most televisions were nearly square. Movies were wide. Rather than ask viewers to tolerate the black bars at the top and bottom of the screen, television stations simply sliced off the left and right sides of the image. Directors carefully composed every shot, only to have someone decades later decide audiences would be happier if part of the picture disappeared.<\/p>\n

I hated it.<\/p>\n

When DVDs arrived, sanity largely prevailed. Bigger televisions made letterboxing less objectionable, and suddenly people could watch films in their original aspect ratio\u2014the way the director intended.<\/p>\n

Or so I thought.<\/p>\n

Now we\u2019ve done the opposite.<\/p>\n

Classic television shows from the 1980s and 1990s were filmed in the old 4:3 television format. But because modern televisions are 16:9, many studios have \u201cupdated\u201d those shows by cropping off the top and bottom of the picture. Every episode is examined shot by shot so the missing image isn\u2019t too distracting.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s still missing.<\/p>\n

The audience isn\u2019t seeing what the director, cinematographer, and editors created. We\u2019re seeing someone else\u2019s revision\u2014a version altered not because it is better, but because someone decided modern viewers shouldn\u2019t have to adjust.<\/p>\n

Shows with smaller audiences, like Columbo<\/em>, have largely escaped this treatment. But many of television\u2019s biggest hits\u2014Seinfeld<\/em>, Friends<\/em>, Everybody Loves Raymond<\/em>\u2014have been quietly reformatted into something they were never intended to be.<\/p>\n

Read more The Information State: Its Impact On Freedom<\/a><\/p>\n

Of course, I\u2019m not really writing about old television. I\u2019m writing about a culture that increasingly believes the original should be altered whenever modern sensibilities find it inconvenient.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re told men should become more feminine and women more masculine. That fathers are optional. That marriage is whatever we say it is this week. That boys can become girls through declaration and medication. That biological reality should yield to personal preference. That long-established moral standards are oppressive while behaviors once considered shameful are celebrated.<\/p>\n

The Constitution is no longer read according to what its authors meant, but according to what today\u2019s judges wish they had meant. History isn\u2019t studied so much as edited, with statues toppled, names erased, and historical figures judged exclusively by twenty-first century standards. Even language itself is under constant revision as familiar words are assigned entirely new meanings.<\/p>\n

Every generation makes improvements. That\u2019s not the problem.<\/p>\n

The problem comes when we stop believing there was any wisdom in the original design.<\/p>\n

Whether it\u2019s a television show, a marriage, a nation, or the created order itself, we\u2019ve become convinced that we can improve almost anything simply by trimming away the parts that no longer fit our preferences.<\/p>\n

But cropping doesn\u2019t add anything. It only removes.<\/p>\n

The result may fill the screen more completely, but you see less of reality than you did before.<\/p>\n

Read more Celebrating American Greatness<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I was younger, one of my biggest pet peeves was watching movies on television. Read more Trying to Think Wise Thoughts after DSA Tuesday \u201cThis movie has been formatted to fit your screen,\u201d the disclaimer would cheerfully announce. 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