Tuesday, July 19, 2005

Reality TV pisses me off

Somebody please stop the reality television. There seem to be six hundred reality shows on television today, each with their version of reality. There’s one with Hulk Hogan and his family, there’s one with a fat actor from Predator 2 trying to lose weight, there’s one where a bunch of hicks are un-hickified by a rich lady, whose only claim to fame is that her daughter is a dirty ho and there's one where teenagers get plastic surgery.

I'd like a channel where they aren't looking for the next big pop star, and aren't interested in the reactions of attractive people to the knowledge that they are going to be eating maggots. A channel where I do not have to see the inner lives of drunk and stoned celebrities, their spouse(s), their mutated spawn and their disgusting pets. A channel where reality TV means the News.

One exception. FX is running 30 days with Morgan Spurlock, a reasonably good fish out of water series. It takes people out of their normal milieu, dumps them into a lifestyle far removed from that and lets them squirm for my vicarious pleasure. I’ve seen a couple of episodes so far, one with a homophobe living with a gay roommate in San Francisco and another with a conservative heartland Christian living with a Muslim Family in Dearborn.

Predictably, both the subjects undergo sea changes in their attitudes at the end of their respective months.
Were the changes genuine or were they hammed up for the camera? I haven't a clue. However, it's good entertainment. I suppose that that is all that matters.

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