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Jewish World Review June 1, 2009 / 9 Sivan 5769 Pity the ‘reality’ fools? Not me By Mitch Albom
No, I said.
"Everyone's talking about it. It's huge!"
I don't doubt that. But "huge" is not the same as important.
"It's a reality show!"
That's particularly true of reality shows.
"It's unbelievable!"
No. Sadly. It's very believable. Reality TV has now done what we once feared robots would do. It has created its own world, with its own rules, and is now infecting the very society that created it.
Take Jon and Kate Gosselin, a Pennsylvania couple who tried fertility treatments, had twins, tried again, and had sextuplets. They soon become the center of a TV reality show that followed their harried lives. That show, "Jon & Kate Plus 8" is now in its fifth season, and is bigger than ever.
"Huge!" as my colleague says.
However, it is huge because the couple is fighting, the husband is suspected of having an affair, the wife is suspected of wanting to have one, and — gasp! — who knows? Maybe they'll split up! There's so much tension!
"This is certainly not what I envisioned I was signing up for," Kate recently told an audience during an appearance in Muskegon, Mich. "When I see magazines in stores it's really difficult. It amazes me there is an industry that follows you around and writes stories about you."
EXPLOITING THE CHILDREN
What did she think? They were making home movies? The fact that she, her husband, and pretty much anyone else on a reality show morphs from "normal" looking people to better-coiffed, better-dressed, better-made-up looking people quickly tells you they are all for being followed around. It is, in fact, their job to be followed around.
But I can't accept, spend time or engage in conversation with people who want to debate whether Kate or Jon is the wronged party. Or whether they feel sorry for all those kids, who sometimes use the words "p-people" to describe paparazzi. (Personally, I would have those children removed from the home out of concern that five years in front of TV cameras is reckless endangerment to their well-being.)
But I can't give the subject real time, because it's not a real subject. These are not real problems. Signing up for a TV show, then complaining that the cameras are ruining your life is not a real situation. It's like dressing up as Cinderella and then complaining that everyone wants you to try on slippers.
A FAUX REALITY
Now, whether she did or didn't isn't, to me, a real subject. Like everyone else on a reality TV show, at no moment did someone put a gun to her head and say, "You must be on this." She did so willingly, even excitedly. What happens as a result takes place in a bizarre world, where you only have famous people's problems because you signed onto to trying to be famous. You are, whether you realize it or not, getting what you wanted.
The same can't be said of laid-off auto workers, young widowed mothers, abandoned children and unable-to-find-a-job graduates. No one is making reality shows about them. Unless they want to go to an island, eat bugs or have multiple births.
So you'll excuse me if the reality of the real world renders the reality of the reality world pathetic. The old expression was "penny for your thoughts." Now its dollars for your privacy. But you couldn't give me a million bucks to make my daily life a conversation about the problems of publicity vampires like Jon and Kate.
I don't care how "huge" it gets.
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