Reality TV loses validity
By: Sarah Kelly
Issue date: 4/2/08 Section: Opinion
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Our generation definitely has a fascination with reality TV. OK, so it's more like an obsession than a fascination.
The obsession most likely started on March 11, 1989 with the premiere of the show "COPS." The show is still going strong, and according to cops.com at
8 p.m. Saturday the 2,027th episode will air on Fox. I guess we just can't get enough of that song "Bad boys, bad boys, whatcha gonna do?"
"COPS" helped reality shows such as "Survivor" achieve TV success. The show stranded 16 strangers in a desolate place with little but the clothes on their backs. This created so much drama every network wanted a piece of the astronomical reality TV ratings.
"Survivor" was pretty much the beginning of the end for TV. Now no idea is deemed "too stupid" to launch as a multiple-series reality show. In fact, it's starting to look like the more stupid an idea is, the better chance it has of surviving (no pun intended).
MTV's show "The Real World," going on its 18th season, will again pick seven strangers to live in a house where people stop being polite and start getting real - "real" being the inoperative word. Most of these reality shows have become obviously scripted and predictable.
Of all the networks that broadcast reality shows, VH1 has hit rock bottom. The producers seem to have a perpetual interest in making sure the most outrageous people on earth find love.
Flavor Flav is now in his third season of trying to find love, rocker Bret Michaels is in his second season and luckily, it only took "New York" four times to find true love - striking out twice with Flavor Flav on his show "Flavor of Love" and then finally finding her man, Patrick "Tango" Hunter, on the second season of her own show "I Love New York."
These "love" shows are filled with alcohol-induced makeout sessions, yelling, skinny dipping at all hours of the night, throwing objects in the general vicinity of other people (usually a full glass of wine), spitting, hair pulling, name calling - the list goes on.
I would like to think most people would have the common sense to change the channel when they see people are acting so absurd, but that's simply not the case. Senior Becky Drake, 23, finds she can't look away.
"Watching those people's lives makes mine seem a whole lot better than I thought," she said. "They are all train wrecks."
This might be the answer to why we watch these shows. We seem to be fascinated with other people's lives because they have things most of us don't - fame and fortune.
"The girls on the 'The Hills,' are famous for just being themselves," Drake said. "They have no claim to fame other than that. Because we give them so much attention, they're all rich and successful."
Lauren Conrad, star of "The Hills," has snowballed her success from when she was just the jealous girl in high school on another MTV show called "Laguna Beach," which popularized the sunny beaches and dramatic rich kids of Southern California.
Whatever you think of these reality shows, they've created a new definition of the word success. Conrad now has her own fashion, jewelry and handbag lines, and soon she will have her own furniture line.
Conrad and other reality TV stars show you don't have to be anybody to become a somebody.
Sarah Kelly can be reached at
skelly@theorion.com
Viewing Comments 1 - 3 of 3
Kelly
posted 4/01/08 @ 10:32 PM PST
Real World is actually on its 20th season.
JB
posted 4/01/08 @ 11:37 PM PST
Dude, and I thought that Bug Juice was surely the beginning of the end of TV. How I longed to have enough money to go to summer camp where I could get passed a note in which I could check the "yes, I like you" box. (Continued…)
Geneva
posted 4/02/08 @ 6:30 AM PST
Real World NOT Cops started reality tv. Also as stated by Kelly The Real World is on its 20th season. Last but not least Tiffany "New York" Pollard was dumped by Patrick "Tango" Hunter at the end of the 1st season of I Love New York. (Continued…)
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