This is a reprint of one of Alex Bennett's columns for Hustler Magazine. As usual it is edited by Bruce David.
by Alex Bennett
Will somebody please sue the TV networks. What television passes off as “reality” isn’t reality at all and the way it alters our perception of reality is dangerous to the national mental health. I remember the movie “The Running Man” with Arnold Schwarzenegger as a criminal who was made to fight for his life on National TV. I laughed at the preposterousness of it all. But I’m not laughing anymore.
The first reality show as we now know them wasn’t by any of the major networks but on PBS. In 1973, the network covered the day to day life of the Loud family titled “An American Family”. The idea was to follow an American family and catch their real life and travails. It was successful in catching an audience, but real life was a bit more elusive. The presence of crew people no matter how unassuming, didn’t keep the family from acting to them. As a result the wife announced to her husband that she was getting a divorce. Years later she said she might not have gone for the divorce if the cameras weren’t there. The frosting on the cake was their son Lance announcing to the family that he was gay. He later tried to monopolize on his fleeting fame by trying a show business career that failed. He died in 2001 of Hepatitis C and AIDS. There were a number of send-ups of the show the most notable being the first film by Albert Books called “Real Life”.
It took 19 years before the next reality show to hit TV. “The Real World” was the concoction of MTV in which put a bunch of young people in a house together for several weeks. The new twist was that the participants were cast rather than trying to mirror reality and the producers would create conflict by doing things like cutting off their power or water. The more conflict the better. Much like “An American Family” the participants in “The Real World” created conflict on their own in the belief that the more outrageous their personalities the more famous they would become, so their actions became anything but natural.
The next entry into the reality sweepstakes came in 2000 when a TV producer named Mark Burnett convinced CBS to take a program based on a Swedish hit “Expedition: Robinson”. He changed the name to “Survivor” and the rest is history. Castaways on a deserted island fight each other to win a million dollars. It was on “Survivor” that one of TV’s low moments was reached. Contestant Michael Skupin stood out by being so hungry that he killed a wild boar with his bare hands, but those hands became famous in their own right when he got woozy one night and fell into a fire burning them so badly that he had to be airlifted to a hospital and out of the show. What made this whole situation so disgusting was that a cameraman kept filming him rather than help or prevent the problem altogether because the producer admonished them previously to keep rolling no matter what happens and not to interfere. Remember “Network” anyone? In the end modern medicine saved his hands but “Survivor” aired the grizzly footage of the skin peeling from them while he gave out with agonizing screams.
Reality has become a favorite fare of the networks due to their low cost and big ratings potential as opposed to the scripted shows. There are some things that are not as well known. If you wonder why these people allow their lives to be bared on television, the answer is simple, they get paid. The more episodes of the “Survivor” you do the more you get paid in talent fees. It’s even been rumored that one of the Nanny shows pay as much as $50,000 and episode for the parents and $25,000 a child.
The there are the personality reality shows like “The Osbournes” with Ozzie the musician and his wife and two kids. Reality my ass! You never saw the other Osbourne child, that’s because she refused to be on the show and was treated as if she didn’t exist. Once and again she did show up in a shot.
The problem is some people think that what they are seeing really exists and then compare there lives to it. Society becomes what the mirror reflects back at them. These days, that mirror is TV.
Suddenly all those programs we saw as a parody of TV in futurist movies are coming to pass. I suppose we are only a few years away from “The Running Man” or better yet, “You Bet Your Life” for real.
1 comment:
There was a satre of a reality show on a short lived series on the Comedy channel called "Strip mall". It was called murder house and the premise was that the house was sealed with mass murders with weapons of mayhem and murder all over the place. Last one left alive won the Million.
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