Reality TV

​I have a few questions about Reality TV. First of all, what part of Reality TV is the reality. Isn’t reality what is shuffling and shuttling on around us? Isn’t reality the mound of unwashed clothes sulking in the corner? Isn’t reality the soft predictable snoring of the one you love? Isn’t reality the wrenching wail of a toddler who has tripped on a carpet corner?
 
The Reality TV world must, of course, be on many levels manipulated and contrived since it has been tidily trimmed into advertising friendly chunks and then scheduled for specific viewer-targeted time slots. My reality is never so orderly or predictable.
 
Furthermore, the pre-digested reality that we are served in a microwave safe format seems more like an episode of candid camera in which all of the participants have attended a cut-rate on-line acting class. Not only do their reactions appear rehearsed and absurd, but they often seem to be surreptitiously marketing something that I am pretty sure I don’t want.
 
My next question about Reality TV is, who are these aspiring idols that choose to abandon their own reality for one that has been created and tailored by someone else, particularly when this alternative reality is often the means of their own humiliation or undoing.
 
Finally, I wonder what compels people to watch Reality TV. Is it the secret satisfaction of watching someone else fail or embarrass themselves—like laughing at the clown who slips on the banana peel.  A supercilious voyeurism. Or is it the deep invidious belief that we too could be stars – and bigger better stars at that! If all the world’s a stage, then haven’t we had extensive theatrical training already?
 
For my part, I feel no great desire or even interest in watching Reality TV. As a predictable corollary, I also have no desire to participate in Reality TV. I prefer to muddle through my own mundane and unobserved reality.  At least that way I have  a much smaller audience when I flub my lines—or slip on the banana peel.
 
 
22 Aug 2017