Reality Television


I am going to try to talk about something other than film, but do not despair my film criticisms will soon be returning. I am going to write about reality television because it is an oxymoron by definition alone. It is a full-functioning, highly-lucrative conundrum. The thing that bothers me the most is that people, most of the American public anyway, has become so engrossed in these shows that they cannot imagine their own reality without the shows. But the most obvious fact remains a mystery to most. Reality television is NOT reality. In fact, it represents the polar opposite of reality. I will give a few examples that I have thought about recently. I suppose I should start with the grandfather of all reality television and that is MTV’s The Real World. The premise of the show is innocent enough. Gather seven complete strangers from varying backgrounds and put them all together in a house and see how they function. The problem with this social experiment is that it has become regimented by the same kinds of people that the experiment is now has a forgone conclusion. Anyone who has indulged in the pseudo fantasy can pick out the stereotypes that the casting director perpetually searches for. Every season has at least one of the following. The bitch who is generally someone who looks for and relishes confrontation so that they can appear to be domineering on camera. The bitch generally tries to gather sympathy from the audience by blaming others for their own personal defects in character. Their mercurial nature also does not bode well for relationships, although they do take part in the occasional hook-up. Then there is the partier who wastes away in whatever alcoholic beverage they can crawl their way into. The partier usually functions to draw the audience into the show by displaying the realism of being a functional alcoholic. The rest of the group rallies to strive and show that the consequences of alcohol abuse far outweigh the momentary bliss of drunkenness. The innocent is usually a person from a small town who is leaving for the first time in their life and goes to “find themself.” The innocent is often tempted by varying forms of sin but never fully relinquishes the firm grip that they have on their morality. The innocent is the catalyst to try and demonstrate that the show is concerned with being a coming of age piece of drama and not just an excuse to exploit the naïve in a very public venue. The player is the person who is on the show for one reason and one reason only: to get more ass than a toilet seat. The player usually rationalizes their behavior by saying that morality and fidelity are mutually exclusive terms. Since they are in a non-exclusive situation they take it upon themselves to try to spread more DNA than a biology lab. The audience usually does not judge the player too harshly because most secretly covet the opportunity to be promiscuous without the fear of repercussions. The token is the sole minority that is chosen to represent their entire ethnicity on television. The token sometimes perpetuates some negative stereotypes but their true function is to validate MTV as a “race-friendly” network. When the token does not function as a caricature of pop culture’s public perception of a ethnicity then they are usually only seen as window dressing. The homosexual is also built into the show in order to further validate the network and also to give greater insight into the gay/lesbian lifestyle. The homosexual tries to battle bigotry but usually only reinforces the negative stereotypes and induces a greater fear of gays/lesbians. The real world is a combination of many different cultures, experiences, colors, goals, dreams, and passions. When television markets The Real World as reality television they are pretty much telling America what their corporate vision of modern America really is. The real world is not a formula. There are no easy answers or commercial breaks. The sad thing is that the people don’t even look real. You can’t put several Abercrombie & Fitch models together in a post-modern bachelor fantasy home in a major metropolitan city, equipped with every convenience known to man, set them up with a relatively easy job and call it entertainment. It is wrong! The real world has bills, taxes, shitty apartments, blemishes, scars, wrinkles, dead-end relationships, unrequited love, stretch marks, awful jobs, and perpetual disdain for the station in life in which most have landed.
The next show I want to address is The Bachelor which bothers me because 1. The pretty boys they pick really don’t need help finding a mate, 2. The women they pawn off are pretty much legalized escorts who try to evade/distort their alternative objective for financial sustenance by saying they are looking for love, and 3. The idea of love is so warped and twisted that it has become a competition and I don’t think America should be under the delusion that love is a game to be played for the amusement of the masses. When networks try to make shows to try to show the “reality” of dating and give hope to those who are less fortunate than to be attached. Dating is already hard enough as it is and said difficulty is only heightened when a camera and a audience is added. The real question that should be asked is why would someone who is looking for a genuine connection with someone prostitute themself and their potential mate for ratings? Maybe intimacy means more than just words?
The last show I want to address is American Idol. I have a couple issues with the show. The first is the fact that people have a sadistic fascination with seeing those people who are not talented get rejected and fail on live television. While some people are obviously less gifted than others, the joy that people receive from watching pompous, obtuse judges verbally molest the potential contestants is bizarre and kind of sad. There is nothing humorous about failure and losing one’s dreams. The next is that more people vote for the contestants than the presidential nominees. I would hope that people take more interest in affairs of state than something as superficial and objective than musical prowess.
Reality television reminds me a lot of communism. In principle the idea is great but in actuality the great social experiment is a monumental disaster. The scary fact is that America has become a nation of voyeurs, who obsess over the meticulous details of other people’s existences while losing touch with their own. Human existence is predicated on having as many experiences as possible and wasting it by watching programming built on a fallacy is unproductive and dangerous.