Why watch the in-flight movie when the world’s waiting?

To look out the window as you fly across this wide brown land is to see a vast dot painting, a landscape that’s as strange as Mars, writes Phillip Adams.

About 40 or 50 years ago, when I was editing the short-lived magazine Mass Media Review, I commissioned a cartoon from a young Michael Leunig – the original is framed on my office wall as I tap out this column. Mike drew a father and child staring rapturously at a little TV set (they were all little then) on which could be seen a classic sunset… oblivious to the fact that the real thing could be seen if only they turned their heads and looked out the window.

That cartoon proved painfully prescient as, these days, we spend our entire lives staring at screens in preference to anything hinting at actuality. Consider, for example, our devotion to that monstrous misnomer “reality TV”.

Which brings us to plane windows. As you may know, my contribution to Qantas was coming up with the motto The Spirit of Australia, and the suggestion that Peter Allen’s I Still Call Australia Home became the airline’s anthem. Since then, both slogan and song have lost all relevance. Moreover, I no longer fly.

Long before the added lure of Frequent Flyer Points, humans dreamed of being aloft. Da Vinci’s sketches of birdlike wings come to mind, and his musings on helicoptering. Since then we’ve learned to defy gravity on an industrial scale. I’ve flown in everything from Tiger Moths to Concorde – and was once lifted aloft by a big kite on a beach in Bali. In a long life I’ve circumnavigated the planet almost as often as a rusty communications satellite. And I always booked a window seat. So that I could, yes, look out the window.

Thus I saw the world as Leonardo yearned to. (Imagine what he’d have given to see the view! Probably the Mona Lisa.) But what do most other passengers do? They pull down the blinds and watch a crappy movie. I’ve always thought this was perverse to the point of obscenity. If not blasphemy.

To look out the window as you fly across this wide brown land is to see a vast dot painting, a landscape that’s as strange as Mars. I’ve flown over the vast expanses of the old Soviet Union in dangerously dilapidated Aeroflot jets, marvelling at the epic emptiness. Ditto much of Mao’s China. Despite our species’ fecundity most of the planet contains no people. I’ve flown all over the Middle East and Egypt and spotted hints of ancient civilisations – while the clowns beside me grumbled about my window blind being up while they were trying to watch a movie.

I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now, in their infinite variety. Seen them lightning-filled as the pilots made a detour to avoid them. Yes, it’s beautiful up there.

I have a theory why most passengers do a Leunig and watch a little screen rather than the real thing. It’s simple. They’re scared shitless of flying. They complain about late departures but in their hearts they wish the damn planes never took off – just taxied to the destination. Flying’s for the birds.

Well, Leonardo and I don’t agree. Nor did Orville and Wilbur Wright, Charles Kingsford Smith or the young Dick Smith.

I’ve got a dreadful suspicion that when Elon Musk and other spaceflight entrepreneurs pack the passengers into their rockets en route to Mars, the silly buggers will pull down the window blinds in space and watch a movie.