Is Reality TV That Great?

For the majority of my life, reality television has been a significant entity in the entertainment industry. The Real World, I believe, was the catalyst for all of this, and then when Survivor came out, it garnered more mainstream buzz for the budding genre. From there it has sky-rocketed, as millions of people world wide sit down every night to watch a show consisting of people that seem to be just like them that are given the chances to participate in privileged and unorthodox programs. Some of these are just people seemingly living their everyday lives while a crew of cameramen follow them everywhere.

Countless Americans regularly view reality TV programs,or at least I assume so since more and more keep debuting. So many have come out in the decade since their conception that it would take me an entire month to list them all.

Personally, I don't watch reality TV as much as probably the normal twenty year old, which I believe can be attributed slightly to the fact that I'm male (most of the shows marketed for my age group are directed towards women) but I've watched enough to form an opinion that there are a few problems with the shows, and these all interlock with one another.

Firstly, most reality TV shows are not, in essence, real. They're skewed so that they look as real as possible, but it doesn't take an honor roll student to recognize that a great deal of the situations that participants in these shows face are at least partially--if not completely--scripted.

Producers of MTV's The Real World have been under fire about this issue for years, and finally admitted that they would set up certain scenarios for the cast members to act out while they're on the show. This is something that was rather obvious, since younger people can watch the show and immediately realize that either all of these people are mentally insane in some way, or just totally irrational, and do not act the way that normal teenagers or college kids act.

I admit, I've pretty much stopped watching MTV, because they've become a reality TV network and are not at all clandestine about it. A station that is called Music Television shouldn't be cutting videos short on Total Request Live so that they can show a program that consists of eight potentially bi-curious men sitting in a bus waiting to get their crack at some d-list actress. Justin Timberlake is pissed about this, and rightly so. I am too. We agree on some things, like my previous statement and the belief that Jessica Biel should not be thrown out of bed for eating crackers. Ever.

Think about it. If I'd just come to this country from Iceland and was browsing my new digital cable set-up to get a peek at the new Spice Girls video that I'd been hearing so much about, I'd be mildly unsettled to come upon a show with an Asian woman who can't decide if she's gay, straight or bisexual. This absolutely has to be fixed. Who would want to try and marry a girl that didn't even know if she liked dudes or chicks and was experimenting with both while you knew about it? The most disconcerting concept of this show is it's name, Tila Tequila, which is supposedly the name of the sexually confused star. Tequila is not an Asian surname.

The shows on MTV that really bother me are Laguna Beach and it's equally popular spin-off, The Hills. The producers of these shows have admitted that they are not all truly non-fiction, that some of it is scripted and even re-shot. I don't enjoy reality television, but if I'm going to watch it, I want it to be what I'm told it is. I could watch the OC all day with no qualms at all, because I know that it's not billed as being based on real events, so I can become absorbed in it without sitting there and wondering whether or not the scene I saw actually happened (plus I'm weird and genuinely enjoy the show).

At first, whenever MTV started to be overrun with reality shows, one could switch to VH1. Then came Flavor of Love, I Love New York, and Rock of Love. I'll admit, I've watched a few episodes of these, and it took me a while before I became totally convinced that they were at least a little bit fake. I watched a few episodes of Rock of Love, but the ship really sailed for me whenever my friend's told me that Bret Michaels had attempted to become a polygamist in the series finale.

I do dig the show about Scott Baeo being a lifetime bachelor, though.

So, to put this all to an end, I'll revert back to my previous statements: I do not dig reality television. I watch TV to escape from reality, so the last thing I want to do is look at someone else's reality, especially if it's an exaggerated one.

Maybe I'll go back to just watching cartoons.