Perhaps we are seeing the decline of an era. (I certainly hope so.) Fox is launching a new show called “The Littlest Groom,” featuring a 4-foot-5 man searching for a bride. Reality television encourages rubbernecking on the roadside of life. It appeals to the basest part of human nature, the voyeur in us who takes pleasure in others’ discomfort and humiliation. Granted, the participants on the shows volunteer. Yet just because someone is willing to be used in this way doesn’t mean we should do so.
Reality television, however, demands novelty. So the networks, eyes fixed firmly on the Nielsen ratings, became eager carny barkers, beckoning audiences to increasingly lurid variations on the theme.
This is a sore subject. It forces me to say this yet again: Reality TV if as far from being real as a TV program can be. It’s as if the network executives got this cynical idea: “Hey, why don’t we set up some totally bogus situations. You know, stuff that would never happen in real life. We could script it and use out-of-work actors and we could hype it as being real life. If we call it Reality TV, we could do some really preposterous situations, and viewers will still think it’s real.” The sad thing is, they were right. I’ve given up trying to convince otherwise intelligent people that this shit isn’t real. I feel like an alien on my home planet, a stranger in a strange land.
Well, we’re agreed on one thing, at least. It is shit.
I’ve not given much thought to the issue, since I watch as little t.v. as possible anyhow. But assuming you are correct and these shows use out of work actors working from scripts, the fact that it’s being passed off as real aggravates me.
Real or not, there is something cheap about reality television, and I’m not referring just to production costs. I hardly watch sitcoms either, because most of them are blatantly stupid and I lose patience with them. In fact, pretty much all of major network programming leaves much to be desired.
This is why I think Tivo is possibly the greatest invention since sliced bread. 🙂
‘Reality’ TV aims itself at the lowest common viewing denominator, with the assumption that there are enough lowest common demoninators to make a business case to air this crap. Sadly, it appears they’re correct in their assumptions.
The longer I go without a TV, the less I consider ever getting one again. Feh.