I just saw a commercial on TV for a new reality show called Intervention. Each week this show will highlight someone who has ruined their life with drugs and alcohol, and how their family and friends gather for an intervention right before they haul the intoxicated bastard off to rehab. Enough Already!!!
I will be the first to admit that I am a documentary junkie. I've always believed that real life is way more fascinating and stranger than fiction, but there's a world of difference between watching the woman with the 200 lb. tumor for a couple of hours where you witness her go from start to finish with her ordeal, as opposed to week after week of her drudging around with this huge thing attached to her body. A documentary has a beginning, an end, and a bit of shock value, after all, how does one end up with a 200 lb. tumor in the first place. However, reality shows just seem to drone on and on making big deals out of the littlest things.
Survivor was an interesting experiment, but I was never into it. If I wanted to watch a bunch of oddball people struggle to get away from a shithole, I'd move back to my hick town in Idaho. Jeff and I did get into The Apprentice for the first couple of seasons, because Jeff was going to business school, and I was at home with a newborn, which meant I had to live vicariously through others. It was an okay show until Donald Trump's ego took over, and the producers decided to focus more on the catfights and negativity turning it into every other reality show on the tube.
Now, the television has gone wacky with the sheer volume of reality television, and I'm convinced that there isn't anything they won't make into a reality show. Case in point, Little People Big World; a midget couple has three normal sized kids, one little person kid, they own a farm, run a business, go on vacation, and do the same day-to-day crap that everyone else does, but because they are midgets their lives are supposed to be more interesting? This show is a bit unsettling for me, because it harkens back to the P.T. Barnum/circus freak show days. I understand that this family's motivation is to increase awareness that people with dwarfism are just like everyone else, but there is something that just seems so wrong about it. Then again, it could be that I'm only 4'11", so I'm unable to appreciate the lives of short people as much as someone who is a more normal height, but I don't think so.
Most of the reality shows seem to boil down to fighting, whether it's two skanks fighting over Flavor Flav (why? no, seriously, why!), two guys fighting over the bachelorette, a person of size fighting over their addiction to donuts, or that asshole on The Amazing Race who spent every challenge yelling at his wife. How is this interesting? If I wanted to see a guy yell at his wife for an hour, I would show my husband the balance on my personal Visa statement.
Just when you think that perhaps the reality show craze is over, along comes a new batch of Andy Warhol disciples who want their 15 minutes no matter how much of an ass they look like on TV. The new crop includes a show called Monastery where it appears that five criminals are put into a group of monks. Is this a good idea? I'm not sure what the legal ramifications are when a monk gets beaten bloody with a sock full of batteries, but I guess we'll find out by episode three. Gene Simmons of Kiss has a show called Family Jewels that shows the day-to-day interactions of his common law wife and two kids. Although it's slightly more interesting due to Gene's celebrity status, I don't know if I ever wanted to have the mental picture of a 50-something, Jewish rock star bunking down to bed in footy pajamas.
I do find some reality television appropriate such as the home improvement shows on The Learning Channel, or the show about how gay people came out to their family on the LOGO channel, or even VH-1's Where Are They Now, because in the back of my mind I did always wonder what happened to the guy with the freaky hair from Flock of Seagulls. However, it seems these days that television executives have gotten lazy and will throw anything on the screen just to see if it sticks.
At this point, I should have hope. Reality TV has hit a low, and it appears to be on the way out, but that was the dream I had three years ago, and I'm still bombarded with commercials for the new season of America's Next Top Model. Maybe we just have to admit we are godless voyeurs, and wait for the inevitable day when one of the contestants from Survivor ends up getting eaten by a Gila monster. The family will sue for millions, and then this whole reality TV trend will be over. Until then, I'll focus on the most depraved, outrageous, disturbing reality show on the air, CNN's Headline News.
5 comments:
I call 'em unreallity shows. Yet to see anything resembling a sane human being in any of 'em. 'Specially the celebrity ones. It's like peering into a goldfish bowl full of schizophrenic goldfish.
I'll admit to watching Project Runway and Top Chef, on fast-forward. All I want to see are the clothes and the food. I don't even know the "storylines." It's actually kind of fun that way. Oh, the mute button helped on PR, too. I tried it on TC, but you kind of have to hear what's in the dish if you want to try to re-create it at home!
But yeah, I agree with you about "reality" tv. Except for those two shows.
Actually, this is their 3rd season. I think its a pretty good tool for parents because it shows just how disguting, demoralizing, and destructive certain behaviors can be. You can say how bad something is to a teenager until you are blue in the face...it doesn't mean squat to them if they don't see it for themselves. Also, it helped me explain to Blaine what I went through with my own drug problem, and why it is so important to me that she does everything in her power to avoid the same pitfalls. Although, I personally think that the religion based, "higher power", 12 step angle is a crock of shit, I must admit its powerful viewing.
Some reality shows are just great -- Survivor, The Amazing Race, The Apprentice, even ANTM -- but over here in the UK we are now knee-deep in "celebrity" reality shows, except for the fact that all the celebs are so Z-list you barely know who they are. Indeed, we usually have to import a few US stars to make up the numbers. Denis Rodman was in Celebrity Big Brother, for example. These shows are way worse than the non-celeb equivalents.
I absolutely love your blog, especially the weekly recaps! I live in HK and it's great to hear a sane perspective on all the crazy shit I see going on back home.
Post a Comment