Reality Television
August 27, 2007 by Diva Jood
It started innocuously enough with The Ted Mack Original Amateur Hour Almost 50 major stars of movies, records, stage, screen and television got their start on this series. This is the show that made the “gong” famous as well as “the wheel of fortune” and the phrase: “round’ and ’round she goes, and where she stops, nobody knows.”
And there was Allen Funt’s Candid Camera, which taped unsuspecting ordinary people reacting to pranks. It has been called the “granddaddy of the reality TV genre.”
And who can forget An American Family on PBS? A 12-hour documentary series on PBS, An American Family chronicled seven months in the day-to-day lives of the William C. Loud family of Santa Barbara, California. Margaret Mead said of the show:
[An American Family] is, I believe, as new and significant as the invention of drama or the novel - a new way in which people can learn to look at life, by seeing the real life of others interpreted by the camera.
Oh, voyeurism. Shiny.
And so we’ve waded through a whole host of “reality” shows, and I use the term loosely. Reality television shows a modified and highly influenced form of reality. Participants are put in exotic locations or abnormal situations, sometimes coached to act in certain ways by off-screen handlers, and with events on screen sometimes manipulated through editing and other post-production techniques. And don’t forget the Kraft Table that’s off-camera, laden with snacks and coffee for the crew.
But now we’ve got “summer camp” for kids: CBS’s upcoming program, Kid Nation. CBS took 40 kids and dumped them at a New Mexico ranch for six weeks without any contact with parents or tutors. And although CBS says an army of child psychologists and others was on hand to keep the peace, it’s unclear how many of these network-employed grown-ups were interested in the welfare of something besides a TV show.
The LA Times disagrees that it was like camp,
unless by “camp” you mean a place where the organizers won’t let you participate unless you sign a 22-page, single-spaced, legally exhaustive contract allowing them to whisk your child to unspecified “remote” and “inherently dangerous” locations. And wash their hands of any responsibility for the kid’s life or safety (including any failure to conduct thorough background checks or to keep kids free from HIV or other sexually transmitted diseases: Who says our society won’t give pedophiles an even break?). And, yes, stick a camera in the child’s face anytime except for bathroom breaks.
The entire show sounds more like “Lord of the Flies” than anything else. What parents won’t do to win a measly million bucks. You know what? We watch this stuff. Americans watch this drivel constantly, obsessively. Sorry. Me, I’m a Shakespeare kinda gal. This makes me crazy.
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Reality, my rosy red ass.
Perfect testimony for why we should dump our TVs.
divajood
pardon my lack of a right hand but myself i will not fall prey to what “yhey” call reality tv. i consider the news reality tv and will never stop trying to get people to see it as they never hear the truth from any side.
You’ve got that one right. There was a show started some years ago on MTV called…”Real World”…about young people all living together, sometimes they’d travel. I didn’t watch it, but my husband was addicted to it. I hated it…I would sit and read instead. I complained so much that he finally gave it up after about 3 years. Because of it, I worried about the generations coming behind us and how they would legislate as those younger people. The people on the program were vacuous and petty and I just had no patience for their behavior. It made me fear for the future.
And then I discovered blogging and found many young people to be articulate, quite intelligent and caring…which helped change my mind on the younger generation. Which was a good thing…because I was beginning to despair what it would be like to grow really old with “those” people getting into positions to make laws regarding my old years and the quality or lack thereof of my well being.
Honest to god, right when Ellie Bean was born and I was visiting my daughter, I learned that she and her husband watch American Idol. I mean, every week. Every show. They were Tivo-ing it. And I got hooked, in a perverse sort of way - because I could not believe how crappy it was. I also got hooked on the first three seasons of Project Runway, but I’m over that too. Now, I just barely watch unless it’s a great movie, or HBO - I was a Sex and the City fan; I adored The Sopranos, too.
But this new un-Reality show, Kid Nation, is really over the top. And like you, Sumo, I fear for the lack of thinking that this sort of crap fosters.
Lulu Maude, your rosy red ass, and my perfect pink butt. Amen, sister.
Jim, I’m sorry, but Televised News is FAR from Reality! It is biased, and focused on crime.
I watch very little “regular television” nowadays..I think there is far too much reality in real life to watch fake situations and how people ‘deal’ with them.
My love is CSPAN..I can’t get enough of it. I do enjoy Keith Olbermann and Countdown every night.
I will say I do watch Ugly Betty and Grey’s Anatomy..the only two tv shows I never miss without fail.
I used to spend hours and hours watching tv daily..now..I just spend hours and hours reading on the internets and writing about what I read. Most of my reads are out of the country, although I do read the NYT & WaPo..but i get tired of their ’spin’. McClatchy’s news service gives me info more on the level of how I view the world.
Like most everything else these days, this only makes one look into other directions and make more of your time in more productive ways. I’ve found lately a lot of my creative/productive side has slipped, ’cause I’ve spent too much time slummin’ on the internets! ; (