Now, in my rant, I will obviously be incredibly hypocritical because there are some 'reality TV' shows that I think are valid. However, I would argue that they aren't really reality TV. Reality TV should be a 'fly on the wall' look at a specific person or group of people as go about their daily lives. I would suggest that Strictly Come Dancing is hardly something people would do in their daily lives (unless you're a drag queen, a red coat at Butlins or are trapped in an endless loop of West Side Story ), so I'd be tempted to make this exempt. But then you could offer the same argument to "I'm A Celebrity..." and I don't want that piece of pointless eye-fuck to escape my tirade.
So, it's fair to say that I'm not a fan of reality TV. I watched the first Big Brother as I thought it was genuinely interesting as an experiment and it was original. Then as the shows went on, it became less of a social experiment and more of a puppet show where the most deluded and borderline mentally ill where confined in a space and made to drink, fight and fuck their way out of it. At times it felt like the Running Man. And at most times, I wished it was. I could count on one hand the number of Big Brother contestants I've seen since the first series that I'd save from being chain sawed to death on live TV. But even then I wouldn't vote.
Now, it seems that if anyone is slightly famous for having a 'leaked' sex tape, then they automatically get a series on MTV which follows them around and shows how vapid and pathetic their lives are. I don't need to watch that to know that's how they live. But obviously some people do. And my issue is exactly that. I don't blame the producers or the advertisers or the tabloid papers or, dare I say it, the contestants themselves. I blame the viewers. All the afore mentioned groups are merely providing the food and it's up to our proud nation whether they tuck in or not. And our proud nation has made itself critically obese (and as a side note, I reckon you could make a decent graph plotting obesity alongside whether they watch reality TV or not).
If we don't watch it, they won't make it. Simple. But people watch reality TV with a hunger that I just don't understand. Intelligent and interesting female friends are quoting phrases from The Only Way Is Essex, people whose opinions I value are commenting on I'm A Celebrity... and normally dismissive and sarcastic cynics (which I see as positive traits) were glued to Come Fuck One Of The Kardashians.
Even by watching 'ironically' which I've heard some people say, we are fuelling the fires and 'demanding' more of the same. So we have an endless treadmill of contestants, famous or not, being winched up to a pedestal and then ceremonially knocked off it for our entertainment. I don't feel sorry for the contestants. Just like crack, there aren't many instances where partaking has been portrayed as a 'positive life experience'. You deserve everything you get for putting yourself in that position.
Am I the only one that feels that money from producing this gash should be spent on something a bit more useful? Frozen Planet or a Life in Cold Blood are amazing examples of proper reality TV. Awe-inspiring, beautiful, scary, inspirational, motivating - all of the things that the current crop of reality TV can't even get close to. I know life is about variety but put alongside each other, Frozen Planet and The Only Way Is Essex resemble the difference between lobster thermidore and lobster flavour 10p space invaders.I think I may have to stretch this across two blogs as I have loads more to say on this matter but I leave you with this one thought. As TV dumbs down, so does our nation and I think that 'reality' is more terrifying than any amount of putting ants in your jap's eye or sucking on a kangaroo's scrotum.
