In Defense of Reality Television

Reality television is a social equalizer

Read: reality television brings us all to our lowest common denominator.

Because in the grand scheme of things it doesn't matter.

That's what we're striving for? We want to spend as much time as possible absorbing this sort of useless pap? We want the programming on our televisions to numb us into zombiehood?

It also gives me two or three hours a week in which I can shut my brain down and watch a group of strangers make themselves miserable.

Apparently, that is what we want. Even though it means we're making celebrities out of people who offer absolutely nothing to our culture. Even though we're reinforcing the networks' thought that they can sell many more dollars of advertising by producing shows that don't cost them the premium of talent (writers, actors) based simply on the fact that we all want to watch idiots make fools of themselves on TV? We want to give up high quality fictional shows in favor of psuedo-celebrity dance competitions and manufactured marriage proposals?

What a sad state of affairs.

And I have to add just one more thing:

Because in the grand scheme of things it doesn't matter... It also gives me two or three hours a week in which I can shut my brain down and watch a group of strangers make themselves miserable. Life itself is too real for me to avoid skewed versions of it on occasion.

Isn't that exactly the purpose sports are supposed to serve? At least then the games themselves are interesting and the participants are exceptionally talented.

I see where the author is coming from, it's just that one has to see this on a much more grand scale--the point is that it's like a tabloid, but worse. Things like that don't try to clarify that they're dramatizations, and the sad part is, people believe them--and culture affects people.

So we have large amount of people who believe these things are relatively real, albeit funny, and their general view of reality is distorted. Now, one could say, 'that's not a bad thing.' But having ones view of reality out of focus can affect almost anything down the line (making it untraceable, but still deadly).

If reality shows were dramatizing events in order to expose real...*problems* in the world, maybe I'd agree, but it's insidious marketing garbage, tricking an entire demographic into *wanting* to dumb themselves down.

In the end, I know, from me to you, I can't change you--you like reality shows. I'm a nerd; I know how those things work. Hell, I even had an ungodly love affair with Three's Company for a time.

But I do agree that it's a sad state for art.

@Brian: I think the problem with Frey was that he was successful only because he lied in pretending that the events were real. It was his lies that got him published, not necessarily the quality of the work. If the story was good enough, then he could have sold it as a novel -- which he originally tried to do. When selling it as fiction didn't work, he played on peoples' sympathies and our innate love of rooting for the self-made man and proclaimed it as all true. Publishers could then overlook the fact that the story wouldn't sell the book, but the PR they could associate with it would. Dishonesty wins where honesty couldn't.

Same thing with reality shows. The reason they became so instantly and overwhelmingly popular is that viewers believed that -- unlike the parts reserved for the unreachable denizens of Hollywood -- these were just "regular folks," and thinking about how they themselves might react in that situation was a lot more likely than wondering how they might analyze that synthetic fiber in the scanning electron microscope on CSI. But, those shows are -- shocking! -- just as scripted, edited, faked and concocted as Frey's book. So, while it might be fun to watch, and it might be pure escapism -- which is fine -- I wish the producers and the audience would just drop the lies and admit that there's nothing real about reality TV.

One more thing: Not only do the reality shows profit by attracting an audience who is willing to accept that there's some reality to it, but by pretending to be real and unscripted, they keep their costs down. One of the reasons for the enormous number of reality shows on the air is that they're cheap to make. And one of the reasons they're cheap is because by pretending they're unscripted, they don't have to pay the writers the union wages demanded by the Writer's Guild. So, by lying, reality show producers get to do some union-busting and fatten their profits. I wonder how many Joe Sixpacks realize they're crossing a (virtual) picket-line when they turn on their favorite shows.

Hope I didn't lay the guilt on too thick...

Didn't mean to insult you with the CSI reference. :) I've actually never watched that show, mentioning it only because it's one of the most popular shows on TV.

Unfortunately, I think you give our fellow citizens a little too much credit for being able to distinguish the edited state of reality shows. I think -- and maybe this is just my low opinion of many of the people I work with, as an example -- that if you asked them, "Are reality shows manipulated?", many of them would answer that, the people are chosen originally because the producers expect there to be conflicts and alliances and other interactions between these people, but that the things that actually go on after they're thrown together are real and unscripted. And if you asked most memoir readers whether they believe everything in the book is true, they'd tell you that while names and dates might be changed to protect other people and some events might be inaccurate because of personal biases or points of view, most of it is true. They wouldn't expect that entire events, situations -- or in the case of JT Leroy -- authors would be invented out of whole cloth.

As far as the Writer's Guild goes, I think that in a visual medium like TV or film, the process of writing and editing are sometimes too close to be separated, and therefore, the editor is often more influential in crafting the story than the writer or the director. Witness the rise of the Director's Cut. When filmmaking was a more individual affair (I'm not sure when that actually was), the version of a film you saw was the Director's Cut. As the process of moviemaking got more and more complex and production roles were assigned to different people, the editor could use her own vision of the film to create the final product. One of my favorite directors -- although he hasn't done anything very worthwhile lately -- is John Sayles. One of the reasons a John Sayles film is a John Sayles film is that he writes, directs and edits the film, refusing to allow such a crucial step in achieving his vision to someone else.

A good example of "film editor as writer" can be seen in a couple of humorous clips circulating around the net. Maybe you've seen them: Someone has very cleverly taken the trailers for Kubrick's The Shining and Nora Ephron's Sleepless in Seattle and recut them into a happy family movie and a thriller respectively. The director and the writer may have created the source material, but the editors who put these together wrote a whole new story.

After spending over an hour in an uncomfortable position while working as crew on a reality show (hey they pay well!) while they did multiple takes of someone being kicked off the show, I probably have a skewed point of view about reality shows. I wish I could get multiple takes in reality. That would be great.

They try to make it look really gritty on the island, but if you saw the point of view from behind the camera with the half dozen camera men, mic guys, directors, go-fers... there is a small army of support that goes into most shows that they work very hard in post production to keep them off camera.

Survivorman has its moments, like when he's chewing on little lizards, or shivering his ass off after his fire goes out and it begins to pour rain... but ultimately, watching a guy try to find food, shelter, and water just isn't that exciting.

Yeah, that zooming in thing is really ridiculous. The first time I remember seeing it was in the movie Blade Runner, but I was ready to accept it, taking place in the future as it was. However, as a graphic designer myself -- although not for anything as cool as evidence displays -- I know how quickly images pixellate into random meaninglessness.

As far as editors v. writers goes, I think that the distinction is much less distinct in a multimedia/mashup/collage kind of world. I don't think that anyone would argue that Picasso wasn't the creator of one of his collages, even though all the material in the collage was created by other people. So, when a reality show editor/writer takes a bunch of random elements and links them together to form a coherent story, I think he is the author of the piece. Maybe we just need another term than "author" or "editor" when it comes to a multimedia production where they have so much control.

I'm gonna have to look for that Big trailer now!

Survivorman is the first reality show I've sat down and watched. I like it. What I want to know is the additional camera man you see in the credits, is he eating cheese burgers while Survivorman is starving? I mean how real is it. Does he really starve himself for the week? Has he ever called up on a satellite phone to have the rest of the crew come and get him because he can't take it?

If he really does play the roll of a survivor then I could care less how many takes he does of a scene. If he's having a cheeseburger when off camera and sleeping in a 0 degree bag then I'm disappointed.

Survivorman is the first reality show I've sat down and watched. I like it. What I want to know is the additional camera man you see in the credits, is he eating cheese burgers while Survivorman is starving? I mean how real is it. Does he really starve himself for the week? Has he ever called up on a satellite phone to have the rest of the crew come and get him because he can't take it?

Les Stroud is completely alone on his excursions with the exception of 'Lost at Sea', where he had a safety boat trailing him. The additional camera man most likely helps get shots in the first few minutes, before he is left on his own by the crew that picks him up at the end of the 7 days. Stroud shoots everything himself once he is alone, along with editing the video and scoring the music when he gets back.

There have been instances in the first season where all he ever had to eat for 7 days was 1 mushroom and maybe a handful of mountain berries. That was a rough one, but you can certainly last 7 days without eating. In the Georgia swamps, he was able to catch and eat a frog, a turtle, and an eastern diamondback rattlesnake (in that order.) Depends on the location.

Water is another story.