The first so-called reality TV show that I can remember is "Survivor" which first aired in the late 1990s, I believe, and boy have we come a long way since then. Make that, the genre has degenerated a very long way since then. While "Survivor" was fascinating because it was focused on ordinary people placed into extraordinary situations, the genre quickly moved onto supposedly extraordinary people living their quite ordinary (and often pathetic) little lives.
I don't mean ordinary in terms of their income or surroundings, but the universal theme that runs throughout such shows is how extraordinarily ordinary such lives are in reality - money can only buy you so much happiness and rich/famous people have many of the same problems as the rest of the world. Perhaps that's why such shows have thrived - seeing that this celebrity or media star also gains weight, or also has marital problems, or had a drug problem, etc. etc. - somehow serves as a dose of TV therapy and helps people realise they aren't doing so bad after all.
TV is rarely continuously original and once a certain format sees success, well, they hammer it to death. You start out with what was an enlightening look into rock star life featuring the iconic Ozzy Osbourne and his family, move it on to Gene Simmons of Kiss, and in a heartbeat, before you know it, you are watching a show about a bunch of women you have never heard of in a bland TV sitcom known as "The Ex-Wives of Rock". No, we are not famous, but we used to be married to very famous men, and so y'all want to know everything about us, right? Wrong. I imagine that the most exciting aspect would be an episode where one of said rock stars actually showed up on screen, and you can bet they will make you wait all season to see that!
I remain astounded that people still have any fascination for the Kardashian clan, a bunch of girls famous for being on their own reality show, when they individually had achieved basically nothing in life other than having had a minor celebrity father with a more famous stepfather later on. Famous for being famous, and living for the attention. But the formula worked, and as keen as TV execs were to clone that formula, there was an equally keen if not ravenous line of minor or B-list celebrities queueing up for some of that attention.
Opportunism is the name of the game, and a lot of people jumped on the bandwagon. To this day, I still cannot believe that even Clint Eastwood gave in and definitively allowed his brand to be soiled by exposing his family in such a fashion, but it seems that the wife might have forced him into it. There's even nepotism creeping into it now, for example with the massive recent success of Robin Thicke and his blurred lines (and subsequent marital breakdown), his dad decided to take advantage of that and we have "Unusually Thicke" - a show for which the trailer alone had me screaming in pain at the TV - enough already!
As formulaic and bland as the genre has become, things have hit a seedy new low with another couple who clearly (must) love attention, and are as desperate for it as their apparent need for the cold, hard cash that comes hand-in-hand with it. This show centres around cornsilk blonde Tori Spelling, daughter of TV magnate Aaron Spelling, and Dean McDermott, her troubled hubby who has been a bad boy of late.
Any squeaky clean images people had about either of these two were dispelled early on, as the drama of marital discord, cheating, sex, drugs and addictions are wheeled out in front of the cameras for all to see. It is effectively one big therapy session and a totally cringe-inducing one at that, with all sorts of personal details that husbands and wives rarely share with each other, never mind spoken to the whole world - or a presumably diminishing group of former fans.
There has been a considerable backlash to the show, and what else did they expect? How could they have become so desperate for cash that they would stoop to this, and if it's the media attention they have both been missing that led to this, then they truly both need to be in therapy and in fame game detox. For any couple to deal with what they are dealing with in front of cameras is so ridiculous that only money and fame could be at the root of it, and clearly it's an undying hunger for more of both.
One can only hope that this does not signal a new departure in the genre, and all sorts of famous couples will be allowing us into their bedrooms and therapy sessions so we wash all their dirty laundry with them. But you know, we retain the ultimate power to change the channel, and after seeing less than two full episodes of "True Tori" that's exactly what I did. It was too painful and embarrassing to watch.
Even Oprah has entered into the "watch the train wreck, live" arena with her signing up of the terrifically troubled Lindsay Lohan for her own reality show. In this case, though, I think it is about money worries in both cases - one, the fallen starlet who seems to fascinate everyone even when looking like a one-way journey down a very dark tunnel, and the other, a network CEO with serious ratings and revenue issues. But there is an air of inevitability clinging to almost each and every episode, and the show seems to be encouraging it or further developing it, and I feel all concerned are playing with fire.
Quite what it is that makes people fascinate over the degeneration of a young talent turning into an all too grown-up train wreck dealing with addictions and darkness is hard to discern - perhaps it is a version of "there but for the grace of God, go I" or it just helps them feel like their own rather unglamourous and less privileged lives are not so bad, after all. Look how quickly and feverishly the world seemed to turn against the Biebs, heretofore adored by all, and now with full blown petitions being sent to the White House to get him deported. It has not been pleasant to watch him grow up on a giant international stage, and more and more he is barely recognisable as the adorable and adored kid he once was - but hey, that's life. And it's his life, not ours.
Even Oprah has entered into the "watch the train wreck, live" arena with her signing up of the terrifically troubled Lindsay Lohan for her own reality show. In this case, though, I think it is about money worries in both cases - one, the fallen starlet who seems to fascinate everyone even when looking like a one-way journey down a very dark tunnel, and the other, a network CEO with serious ratings and revenue issues. But there is an air of inevitability clinging to almost each and every episode, and the show seems to be encouraging it or further developing it, and I feel all concerned are playing with fire.
Quite what it is that makes people fascinate over the degeneration of a young talent turning into an all too grown-up train wreck dealing with addictions and darkness is hard to discern - perhaps it is a version of "there but for the grace of God, go I" or it just helps them feel like their own rather unglamourous and less privileged lives are not so bad, after all. Look how quickly and feverishly the world seemed to turn against the Biebs, heretofore adored by all, and now with full blown petitions being sent to the White House to get him deported. It has not been pleasant to watch him grow up on a giant international stage, and more and more he is barely recognisable as the adorable and adored kid he once was - but hey, that's life. And it's his life, not ours.
Tori has never been as famous as these two examples, and she has actually managed to take a modicum of talent and reduce it to even less, featuring as the "star" of "True Tori". Naturally, there are cynics who claim it's all a scam for money. With these two, no one can blame them for thinking it - he is an actor after all, and so is she, well, sort of. Or she used to be, in her Beverly Hills 90210 days. My, how things have changed. But they could easily have invented all this, and act it out in front of the cameras in return for a truckload of money. If so, I guess they will have the last laugh, but I somehow doubt it.
Perhaps the most enlightening thing for the unenlightened general public is how fake the entire Hollywood fame game actually is - if you look at the typically manufactured photo above, you see a beautiful couple presumably living a wonderful, harmonious life together. Which fits in with the bulk of all of the other publicity and TV appearances by both of them. This pristine, heavenly frame gets shattered instantaneously in this show, and just goes to show that in Hollywood, image is everything. The canvas that gets painted about such types starts to look incredibly different once you scratch even lightly at the surface, revealing a sad, sorry state of affairs seething just below the surface.
There's nothing wrong with ordinary life, and for anyone craving the seemingly extraordinary life of such types, take a good look at the photo above, and then try to get through even one full episode of this sad reality TV show without looking away from it. For TV execs everywhere, please show some restraint and do not clone this mistake because it is not the future of TV, as the ratings for this show must have underlined by now!
But as the song goes - "The public wants what the public gets" (Paul Weller) and TV execs will keep shoving reality at us until the genre dies and gets buried beneath whatever the next big craze is on our TV screens. Until then, I guess they are gonna keep on keeping it "real". Which occasionally makes this boy wanna go underground, too! ;) - Kevin Mc
But as the song goes - "The public wants what the public gets" (Paul Weller) and TV execs will keep shoving reality at us until the genre dies and gets buried beneath whatever the next big craze is on our TV screens. Until then, I guess they are gonna keep on keeping it "real". Which occasionally makes this boy wanna go underground, too! ;) - Kevin Mc
No comments:
Post a Comment