I watch it quite often—but hate the game show, Jeopardy! (currently hosted by the perky Ken Jennings, for decades by the late, no-mustache-or-mustache? Alex Trebek.)
Hate binds you when you don’t understand it, but now I understand it, and I’m free.
I couldn’t understand why I found myself strongly disliking Jeopardy! champions. Why did I feel visceral disdain for every single one of them, especially the repeat winners?
What was wrong with me? Why was I so hateful? My wife summed it up for me, “Oh shut up. You’re jealous.”
I know stuff, but not as much stuff as the typical Jeopardy! champ. I can’t recall stuff as often, or as quickly, as successful Jeopardy! contestants.
A false line of reasoning betrayed me.
I believed the problem was simply my jealousy of Jeopardy!
“I know enough trivia,” I reasoned to myself, “it isn’t necessary for me to have the superficial, recall knowledge of these freaks, these nerds, on this silly “answer in the form of a question” (what the devil is the point of that?) Game Show invented by Merv Griffin.
But this thinking of mine was false—because it situated my hate in jealousy. Was my wife correct? Was I poisoning myself under the poison jealousy-tree, eating of its poison fruit?
At this rate I would end up inventing my own game show and calling it Jealousy!
And of course it would fail. It would never get on TV.
But this wasn’t the case at all. My dislike of Jeopardy! champs wasn’t about jealousy.
A few days ago, the poet Joyelle McSweeney showed up as a contestant on Jeopardy.
My wife and I both like poetry, and we couldn’t remember if a Jeopardy contestant had ever been announced as “a poet,” so we both said, “cool!”
I recognized her name (I had “Jeopardy! knowledge” of her, but didn’t know her work) and my wife looked up her creds on-line and was impressed, “she’s published a lot of books.”
My wife is impressed by stuff like that—when poets have published lots of books it just makes me vaguely jealous.
Anyway, we both rooted for Joyelle to win, and though she didn’t come across as a real Jeopardy! whiz, she did manage to win, and we were happy for her—and hoped she would keep winning.
This happened to me before. Here was a champ I wouldn’t mind seeing repeat for a while. (There is no limit to how many times a Jeopardy! winner can appear—they keep appearing until they lose.)
She lost the next day. Joyelle was quite photogenic. She held her head at a strange angle, which was kind of intriguing. Her manner was somewhat distant, like she didn’t really care if she won or not, and I wasn’t sure whether she was a little blissed-out, or what was going on.
On her second appearance (I hardly remember her first appearance) she seemed kind of stupid.
This is not to say she is stupid. Of course she isn’t stupid! She’s a writer and a professor.
It was only because she was a poet playing Jeopardy!
To be a good Jeopardy! player, you need to recall a great deal of facts, which, in themselves, have very little meaning. What poet has time to memorize thousands and thousands of facts—and not only that, be able to recall almost every one of them on command in front of lights and a crowd—in under 5 seconds?
I checked out Joyelle McSweeney’s poetry (some of it is available online) between her first and second Jeopardy! appearances and it is extremely dense, with teasing syntax, and plenty of very difficult words.
After seeing her on Jeopardy, I would bet almost anything, that while writing the poems which get into her books, she has never come up with her lines—or even many of her words—in under 5 seconds.
I can see her dreamily consulting a dictionary for hours in order to write one line—as the Ken Jennings of the world sprint on treadmills sipping a protein drink and reciting African and Asian capitols.
Poets are not supposed to be speedy—and the density of the poetry in this one (the not speedy Joyelle McSweeney) is the most characteristic aspect of her poetry.
I knew at once two things—which explained what it was about Jeopardy! champions which filled me with loathing.
Jeopardy! champions are “5 second” people.
There are two types of people—those of quantity and those of quality.
Knowing every capitol of Europe, for instance—is that impressive, or not?
And if it is, why is it more impressive than knowing one capitol of Europe?
It’s only a matter of quantity. Jeopardy! “knowledge” is entirely based on the number of facts which can be recalled—the number of index cards one studies—and the number of facts which stick.
Jeopardy! demands a certain wagering skill (which is part of the game) and I also notice some players are too stupid to look for the “daily doubles” (which allows a player to individually wager, and which is always an advantage to find)—these rubes will choose 200 or 400 (in the Daily Double round) even though a “daily double” is never found behind those squares. (I yell at the TV when this happens.) Joyelle was one of those rubes.
The Jeopardy! champions (the ones who keep winning—you can win once and be an exception) are boring people. There’s something about them which I can’t stand—and now I understand why; they are the quantity-driven, shallow, “5 second” people, no matter what else they bring to the table (they might travel around the world, they might have interesting pets, they might have any number of anecdotal details attached to them which are charming, or perhaps even tragic—none of this matters).
And finally, I have to keep looking at these Jeopardy! champions who keep on winning—when I would rather look at Joyelle McSweeney’s intriguing visage—even though, frankly, I don’t think much of her poetry.
And this opinion is not because I am jealous. I swear.
Scarriet 