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| Welcome to our Reality TV Show Society! |
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| Arts & Entertainment > Movies & TV |
| Written by David Adam Seader |
| Thursday, 29 January 2009 00:00 |
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In 1993, Robert Redford asked Demi Moore if she would sleep with him for 1 million dollars. A lot of people started asking each other that question for fun in daily conversations. What would you do for 1 million dollars, or just 10 thousand per episode maybe? Would you let the whole world in to your bedroom, or house?
Can they come in to the bathroom with you, and party with you when you go out to a bar with some friends? Would you let them know the most intimate details of your personal life? Hey, you could be a celebrity, or pseudo-celebrity, or whatever today’s reality television stars are. Is it worth it, maybe? Will it, or has it ultimately led to severe negative consequences in today’s society? Does anyone realize that people edit the footage together, and people are given money either way to act like idiots? I don’t think that any of it is really that wrong, because just like most of you, I enjoy watching today’s human gerbil experiments to see what happens. The drama is exciting. The only problem is when people start to think that what some people do on TV is the right way to act if you want to be accepted, or maybe one day be famous. Back in 1989 “Cops” hit the airwaves, and it seems that American television has never been the same. Then on May 21st, 1992 “The Real World” premiered on MTV. We were introduced to an interesting group of individuals. Some we liked, some we didn’t. Some of them had different problems as the seasons have gone on, and we might have learned something from the human experiment as they’ve termed it. Season after season, we would meet people with AIDS, some who would fall in love with each other, some we might want to date, and even some we’d never let in to our house, out of fear that they might steal something. It seems like some people might have learned something in the past from some reality shows, but now it seems to have gotten out of hand in the desperate need for ratings, and simple to put together television shows. It seems like half of today’s television is like a bad version of Vittorio De Sica’s Bicycle Thief. Before “Cops” though, there was a more important reality show that might have inspired all of this. “An American Family” which aired on PBS back in the 70’s, is probably the match that started the fire. It featured a California family, and possibly the first openly gay television character, Lance Loud. It opened up for the general public, all the problems that a family might deal with. Not having been around back then, I wonder if some people looked at that show, and thought, well I’m better than them, or I could deal with those problems better. Maybe they said, hey, that would never happen in my family. The strange thing that most people sometimes figure out is that anything can, and sometimes does in all families. We all have our problems, the only difference these days, is that we can watch television and see people who might not look as good, or are willing to do things that we feel we never would, or will need to. But who says they might not for a million dollars, if I sold you the right pitch? Usually though, reality television shows look for a certain type of person for a show. A person who might be willing to go to certain extremes to achieve a goal usually fits the bill. Sometimes it’s worth it, and sometimes it’s not though. If you don’t win the money, or prize in the end, then all your hard work at doing something stupid wasn’t really worth it…unless you might have become a pseudo-celebrity, and maybe signed on for a reality show spin-off. Through the years there’s been a huge evolution of the reality show. What may have begun with “An American Family” in the 70’s, “Cops” at the end of the 80’s, and “The Real World” at the beginning of the 90’s now can be seen on all the main networks, and many of the cable channels. We’ve seen “Survivor,” “American Idol,” “Fear Factor,” “Paradise Island,” and all the interesting shows that have appeared on MTV, and VH1. On today’s television we can see former Rock Stars going on dates, people with drug addictions trying to get help (some are even celebrities already, or were.), and actors trying to get their big break. Can you avoid reality television might be the real question these days. Have Orwell’s, Bradbury, and many other sci-fi writer’s predictions about the future come true? Is the next reality show that we are going to see a real life version of “The Running Man”? Maybe we will, but it’ll be in a different incarnation then the book, or film. Maybe we already have if we ever saw one of a few different contest type reality shows? There is a question that I would actually like to pose, that some may not appreciate, and may also disagree with. Are we as a society now addicted to reality shows? Can we live without seeing other people going through hell, and turn our attention to our own lives, and maybe start living them, if we aren’t. I’m not here to say that people don’t live life anymore, but if we get to involved with other people’s lives, then we might start to disregard our own, and start acting like other people we may see on a reality show, and not every person is a role model. We might even start intruding in other people’s lives in reality, because we don’t realize that all we’re dong, is being conditioned in a certain way. Welcome to our new society, where your business is now everyone else’s because reality shows have overtaken television, and made us a society that has no regard for personal privacy. |
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