I have a confession to make.
Lately, I’ve been gripped by an inexplicable, irresistible urge to watch reality shows. I honestly don’t know what’s come over me. All I know is that, hand on my heart, I have to admit that – much like those women who need their daily fix of their favourite soap – I’m hooked.
Is this, I ask myself, the beginning of that downward spiral that people fondly like to call “middle age”? You know: where you go around wagging your finger, admonishing youngsters about the time “when I was your age” and shaking your head in disapproval at the sight of belly rings and exposed navels?
On second thoughts – nah. It doesn’t add up.
Middle-aged behaviour usually scorns the kind of shenanigans that we’ve been witnessing on L-Ispjun (the local version of Grande Fratello and Big Brother), plus the other countless reality shows you can catch on cable (eg The Real Housewives of Orange County, America’s Next Top Model, Jade’s PA, The House of Carters, etc., etc.).
In between zapping from one to the other and chiding myself (“what on earth are you watching this for?!), I have given myself a good talking to (“you really must stop this and watch something more intellectually stimulating!) as well as tried to come up with an explanation for
my questionable taste in
television.
After a thorough self-analysis I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m hooked because I simply love to observe human behaviour. And, I might add, I seem to have developed a horrible fascination with the absolute worst traits of such behaviour. The more awful the people are, the more I’m glued, awestruck by their awfulness.
It reminds me of when the late Anna Nicole Smith used to have her own reality show. There she was for the world to gawk at, hugely overweight and not caring one bit that the camera was filming her from the most unflattering angles (actually she was so large that any angle would have been unflattering). She really had me captivated by her sheer vulgarity. Sadly, she didn’t even manage to retain a modicum of dignity in death, with everyone fighting over where she should be buried and numerous men claiming to be the father of her daughter.
Coming in at a close second, of course, is Jade Goody – the British equivalent of Anna Nicole – who achieved notoriety for participating in one edition of Big Brother, went on to star in several of her own reality shows, and became infamous for creating diplomatic havoc with her racist remarks to an Indian Bollywood actress in the UK’s Celebrity Big Brother.
Are you seeing a common thread here?
Since the phenomenon of reality shows started, it’s pretty obvious that the kinds of people who accept having a camera thrust in their face 24/7 are usually of a certain “type”. This makes sense, of course, because to begin with, you have to have the kind of job that allows you to take three months off – I hardly think that a high-flying executive has that kind of luxury.
More importantly, you have to be willing to coop yourself up in an isolated house with strangers who are literally in your face all the time. You are also at the mercy of the television producers who manipulate you and sometimes even humiliate you for the sake of ratings. You are encouraged to lash out at fellow participants and backstab them in the “confessional” while the viewers sit in judgement with fingers poised on their phones. It’s the Christians vs the lions in the Coliseum all over again.
Once I was asked whether I wanted to take part in a local reality show. I blanched and my look of abject horror must have spoken volumes. I think I would rather poke pins into my eyeballs than live with people I don’t know while cameras followed my every move. Much as I enjoy being with people, I have my moments when I really need to be left alone. I would probably lock myself up in a room for much-needed privacy or cheerfully strangle anyone whom I found particularly irritating.
Either way, it wouldn’t make for the kind of TV the producers want.
Because, in the end, this is what reality shows are all about. The people are chosen because they are loud, colourful, often obnoxious characters who speak their mind, cannot control their emotions and seem to forget that the whole country is watching what they’re doing. This is what I find the most astonishing of all – how can you forget this very crucial element?
Like the girl on L-Ispjun who was sobbing because a newspaper reported that she had slept with one of the guys in the house (hello! You are in a house filled with cameras honey, what did you expect?).
The reality of reality shows is that there is nothing “real” about them. The presence of a camera always changes the nature of a situation, turning it from a private into a public event. By agreeing to be in a house where numerous cameras are prying into your behaviour you are effectively no more than a curiosity under a microscope, to be talked and gossiped about as the nation eavesdrops into your most intimate conversations.
You have, effectively, become public property, which means you have exposed yourself to the possibility of scathing remarks for the sake of a few minutes of local “fame”.