Disclaimer: I must admit that my entire reality television viewing experience consists of two episodes of the original Survivor series plus an added 20 minutes of Big Brother.
The reality television revolution is closing in on a decade long while I continue to ignore it fervently. Unfortunately, news and entertainment programs dedicate sufficient time to ensure even non-viewers are involuntarily subject to reality drama. It all started with Survivor where a couple dozen random people were dropped on an island near Borneo and expected to fend for them. Well, not exactly. 50 network cameras along with a full operating crew were housed right next to them. The idea was intriguing enough for me to watch a complete episode during the inaugural season. After a couple weeks of media hype I sat down with my girlfriend to share the experience. As the show began she began rattling off the evident plot, “Jenny does not like Bill because Bill never cooks for the group, but Bill cannot stand Jeff because Jeff lost the challenge for their team. But Jeff and Jenny really like each other, so they think that Bill does not like Jeff because he is jealous . . .” -WAIT!
“That is what this show is about?”, I responded in a disappointed voice. I had assumed a program named Survivor - on a deserted island - would have something to do with outdoor survival skills. Instead, I found myself watching a drama-filled popularity contest. Big network television had no desire to create a weekly competition dominated by backwoods rednecks, as one of them already exists, the NASCAR cup series. Instead, they fashioned a game filled with office drama, west coast backstabbing and east coast snobbery. It is a game less familiar to flyover country, but right on par with the Hollywood culture.
Topping it all off was the twist on popularity. The weekly climax is not about the winning team or even the losing team. Rather, the template for all reality television programs would be singling out an individual loser each and every week. This person did not necessarily lose a race or score lowest on some sort of test. No, this person is singled out for simply being unpopular – different – unyielding to pure pressure.
Imagine if at the next Olympics, ABC waits for the last runner to cross the line and then shoved cameras in her face. "You finished half a lap behind the leaders, what were you thinking as the field pulled away from you in the backstretch? How do you feel about training for four years only to place dead last in this event? I could have finished last!” The public would demand an apology; the athlete would sue for deprivation of character, and the ACLU would demand such questions be defined as torture. Yet humiliating individuals is the entire purpose of reality television. For the good of the younger generation I assume. You know, the ones we teach not to be judgmental of others for superficial reasons..
Simply getting kicked off the island would not reach the level of humiliation the target market enjoys. Therefore, the host must speak slowly with dramatic background music while the camera focuses on the potential losers. Then comes the extreme close-up required to see the tears flow as one person is informed everyone on the island, and possibly everyone on this planet, would be better off if he/she had never existed. I assume the ones who cry satisfy the inner bully in the Neilson Family.
Survivor forever changed primetime television. Why waste money on extravagant sets and professional actors? The networks realized you could win primetime ratings by simply tossing average people into a maze with a chunk of cheese at the end then turn on the cameras. It can be a talent contest, evicting the unpopular from a gossip infected mansion, or speed-eating gestating insects; the phlegmatic American public is couch-bound awaiting the next episode. The only universal requirement is humiliation of contestants for viewer entertainment.
The past decade of reality television success seems to bust one myth without question – the often repeated assumption that life today is much more stressful than that of past generations. If daily life were really so stressful, would so many Americans have time to invest their time and emotions watching other average Americans live their lives on television? Such claims of excessive stress define the baby-boom generation, a generation that tried everything possible to separate themselves from their parents. These intolerant parents, who endured WWI, the Great Depression, the Polio outbreak, and WWII yet still believed in hard work and the American dream. The baby-boomers are now staring down their own mortality, and are now beginning to compare resumes with their parents.
I believe the weakness of that resume is what motivates an entire generation of Americans to exaggerate modern day problems. Every recession is turned into the Great Depression, every enemy into Hitler, and every flu bug into a pandemic. Boomers in science and journalism pair up to give us daily warnings over the newest, deadliest scare. Whether it be second hand smoke, trans-fat, or theater popcorn – the dangers are always greatly exaggerated. I suppose a generation that already spends too much time looking inward needs little more than daily warnings to feel greatly stressed. Still, I doubt the stress is as real as the attempt to write a legacy. I believe this, because nobody in their right mind could possibly believe carbon dioxide is a greater threat to the planet than insane dictators with nuclear weapons that have vowed to wipe other off the map.
If manufactured stress is a product of the Baby-Boom generation, then reality television is their legacy.
Darrin Barker
Drive Bias
5/18/2007 |
