Sep 20, 2005 08:25 PM
6477 Views
(Updated Sep 20, 2005 08:55 PM)
It’s time to pull the plug on this one - reality TV has gone way too far, consumed way too much time on the telly, wasted far too many resources and corroded too many brains than the worst of scripted television put together. It’s amazing to see how many people are willing to sing, dance, lose weight, date, marry, and conceive, all while swallowing their pride and trampling on their self-esteem, on national television for little to no money and 15 minutes of fame!
Let me first validate my point against the misleading nature of the genre itself. They call it reality TV, but how much of it is real and what is real? Isn’t it all “constructed reality”? We know for a fact the producers exercise enough discretion and judgment to edit out unwanted segments and squeeze in juicy bits that are likely to send the TRPs soaring. How can they then call it reality television when they have tweaked around with reality and pulled a stunt or two on viewers?
D'Après moi, le deluge!
The reality mania started with Allen Funt’s Candid Camera in the 1950’s. It was fun having unsuspecting real people react to bizarre situations on hidden camera. Although it got trite and cancelled eventually, it had spawned enough illegitimate spin-offs, the worst of the lot being America’s Most Funny Home Videos.
However with the debut of Cops and America’s Most Wanted in the 1990s, reality TV suddenly became more gripping than all the well-written crime dramas. Cops was riveting in the beginning because of the thrill of chasing and hunting down the bad guys and the theme music by Inner Circle(Bad boys, bad boys!). But after some 15 years on air and clearly running out of steam, they now have Cops: Domestic Disturbance, how very exciting! The one thing still working in favor of AMW is that people do care about fugitives getting behind bars. That explains the show’s success.
The foray into soft porn:
Reality TV nosedived into unadulterated filth when there came to be such programs as Paradise Hotel, Temptation Island, Bachelor and its ilk, Blind Date, Meet my Folks and the Joe brigade that clearly belonged to the sleaze-smut genre. Their sole purpose seemed to be to titillate the audience in the name of entertainment. And they successfully achieved this goal with help from hot tub manufacturers, more-than-willing-to-dare all- and-bare all participants and lascivious camera work. But how long before we say it’s not okay to spend tax-payer money on promoting unabashed debauchery and moral dilapidation as must-see TV?
The rat race:
From Survivor to Big Brother, all the shows pit people against people, encourage them to connive, cheat, plot, bi*ch and backstab and eventually vote off one another for prize-money. I guess it’s futile at this point to argue about the ethical repercussions of such shows since they are a big hit the world over. Then there are gross-out shows like Fear Factor that have participants jumping off buildings(thankfully harnessed of course!), performing dare-devil stunts under water and eating tripe, literally. Are people so hard-up for money that they will stoop to eating cow eyeballs and pig intestines for a few bucks? I cannot imagine the health hazards of such stunts. I draw the line though at Family Fear Factor. Stop subjecting children through such trauma and school them in good behavior, not trash talking and eating live roaches!
Simoned and Trumped!
Apart from the hugely successful game shows(Millionaire, Jeopardy and The Price is Right), two other programs that have captured the imagination of viewers are American Idol and The Apprentice, both of which entertain albeit in a predictable sort of way. There are way too many injected-for-TRPs episodes in these programs for them to do justice to the title “reality television”. Cases in point: William Hung’s(and legions of other bad singers’) auditions. If they are sooooo bad, how come they make it through the initial rounds of audition? Ditto with Omarosa: here’s a woman with a PhD that has worked at the White House, but when entrusted with the task of getting artist Jessica Simpson from the airport, she bungles up. How? Even an 8-year old would have performed the task without much effort. And knowing fully well that her name spelt trouble with a capital T, why did the producers even bring her back for the finale? Clearly rigged for shock value.
Not jumping to conclusions:
Celebrity “ego-trip” shows(more appropriate to call them a personal video journal) take the bakery and the cake. These shows(example Jessica Simpson’s Newlyweds and Britney Spears’ Chaotic) are nothing more but an exercise in self-promotion and self-indulgence. “Oh look at me; I am so important that people have to know the most boring minutiae of my life, what I wear on Mondays or how I do my laundry or what I do when I am not in front of the camera(which is when?)!”
En fin:
I am stating the obvious when I say that the producers and networks have milked this cash cow dry, meaning it’s time to put it out to pasture, given the fact that reality television is putting trained actors and seasoned writers out of work. Just because it is a cheap alternative to scripted television(which has its own flipside) it’s no reason for mindless ‘unscripted’ garbage to keep clogging our airwaves and our drawing rooms. Barring the few good game shows and talent shows, the rest of the reality trash has to go. “Who wants to pull the flush chain?”
Note: The names of programs I have used are the ones beaming in the US. For want of space and fear of repetition, I did not use the names of Indian or British equivalents/ spin-offs.
