Reality Television for the Mentally Inefficient
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In a world where information has never been so widely available, and where education has never been cheaper, and where people have never been so cynical, it is astonishing that there still remains enough lazy brained people to feed the pathetically flawed reality television phenomenon. Despite the viewers’ willingness to self-deteriorate while watching this garbage, they don’t actually lack the ability to be intelligent. Indeed in terms of IQ points, there is not that wide a gap between your average doctor, teacher or academic and those sitting on their couches absorbing ‘the world’ according to media maniacs. The real difference between these groups of people is how they have been nurtured.
'Big Brother'
In the UK in 1999 Channel 4 launched a ‘reality’ show that would change television from informative and sometimes artistic into something that has a rotting effect on the brain. Big Brother was akin to replacing your daily broadsheet with a shiny tabloid newspaper. At the beginning everyone took an interest in this innovative and original television genre. However it didn’t take long for well nurtured people to recognize the absurdity of listening to the opinions of people who hate life so much that they are willing to abandon all self-respect, because the price for entering a show like this is of course the loss of one's dignity. Over the years, these housemates have become more like lab rats as assortments of different cultural backgrounds have been thrown in together in the hope of exploiting sociological digressions and thus creating hostility between contestants. While the show's producers publicly discourage racial tensions, they have always ensured that we know such feelings are rife within the house. Big Brother's 'clear' dislike for racism has not prevented them from using such incidents in edited highlights to boost ratings.
Auditions have been held for a decade in which the ‘individuals’, non-conformists, extroverts, women who think they are men, men who think they are women, sex addicts, sex bombs and sex depraved people have largely prevailed. Then for the entire summer the ‘lucky’ few are locked in a house, happy in the knowledge that voyeurs are observing their every move. Not to miss out on this experiment, the tabloids have their own columns dedicated to who slept in whose bed and who did the washing up. Brilliant!
Peter Kay's Britain's Got the Pop Factor... and Possibly a New Celebrity Jesus Christ Soapstar Superstar Strictly on Ice
While Peter Kay’s witty title rightly mocks the reality television culture, it also emphasizes the surge of ‘talent’ based shows that have appeared in the schedule of once respectable television networks. These shows cry out for talentless singers, dancers and general performers who amuse and at a stretch ‘entertain’ the audience. These shows either offer the performer a sense of false hope or invite them into a distorted world of artificial eminence. If ‘successful’ or marketable, these individuals are employed by agents to sell their product on a one-off occasion to consumers of this culture, while the elevated person remains ‘newsworthy’ and before their lack of genuine talent is finally recognized by the passive and somewhat naive audience.
How ‘Reality TV’ attracts an audience
The reason people watch reality television is to make them feel better about themselves. They do this by watching other ordinary people making complete fools of themselves, thus making the viewer feel more at ease with their own, conservative existence. This is dangerous as it is addictive, damages the viewer’s own ambition and distorts their view of the world (As seen in Ray Bradbury's brilliant dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451 where the character Clarisse has been transformed into an almost zombie state by the effects of television and other external influences on her life).
Are we a smarter race now than before television?
If you define intelligence simply as amounts of information known by a person or group of people, then yes we are more intelligent than generations gone by. This consequence is however hampered by the quality of information that we are currently in possession of. Before television and the internet, education was undoubtedly a purer entity. The people learned the best from the best. They learned the pinnacle of science, mathematics and literature. Today we rely on less trustworthy teachers for information. We rely on people who have ulterior motives. We get perspectives of the truth not just the truth itself. Of course this hub is also just a perspective of the truth, and I am sure that my perspective has been influenced by many unnatural truths.
Truthfully, no real planning has gone into this hub. It is a mere ‘stream of consciousness’ that has allowed me to give my thoughts on aspects of how we are evolving.
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There was a television report a few months ago on Australian television connecting the recent world financial crisis with not only 'reality' television but also the lack of proper in depth reporting by reporters due to newspaper and television station cut backs and general lack of care by the public.
In other words the crisis happened because, even though the information was out there to stop it before it even got started, no one was connecting the dots and making the general public aware of the dangers to their finances and way of living.
Candy coated news reports and television shows cheaply made that said nothing about what was going on in the real world (so called 'reality television)did not help people come to terms with what was going on let alone how to deal with what was going on.
I happen to like Fahrenheit 451 (the temperature at which the printed matter burns) by Ray Bradbury and you have gleaned some interesting insights from this novel.
I would also throw into the basket 1984 by George Orwell. The warning that Orwell has given to us through Big Brother has been high-jacked by so-called 'reality' television but it is still strong and still stands. We are being watched constantly. In most malls in most towns and cities in the Western world there are cameras set up and people watching. Many supermarkets, gas stations and government offices also have such cameras. This is the future discussed by Orwell in 1948 (the novel 1984 first published in 1949) here today. So called reality television may spit upon Orwell's truth but the truth cannot be that easily changed. People, however, can be lied to, tricked and the truth covered up.
I agree with i scribble that reading requires more from us than television. Truth to tell I travel a lot by train in my work and it is at these times I prefer a good book to music or anything else.
The unfortunate thing I feel strongly about reality contest shows is that there are people who are not quite ready for a national let alone an international audience who are mentally crippled from appearing in such shows. Instead of the leg up they need and deserve they are instead berated. In the USA one woman even committed suicide after being on such a show.
My biggest complaint against 'reality' shows are the cheapness and the fact that this cheapness gets in the way of the sustaining and the making of better shows for television.
Good one premierkj.
thank you i scribble. to answer your question i mainly watch sports and independently produced films, and i also enjoy certain shows on the documentary channels. While i would agree that even watching what i watch is fundamentally an 'escape' it is also an informative experience and keeps the brain ticking over.
if you don't have the time to read the book, there is also quite a good film with the same title. however while i enjoyed it i am not necessarily recommending it above any other books or films of the same 'science fiction' genre.
I don't think people are too tired to read, i think they are too lazy to try to establish a routine of reading for even a half an hour or an hour a day. Once this routine is in place i believe it would alter other (bad) habits and really give people a more enlightened perspective. I went through a period just after finishing college where i stopped learning altogether and that made me lazy. Now i am branching into all sorts of interests just by turning everything off for an hour in the evening and reading.
Thank you rod. i also think there is a lot of misinformation out there. the main thing we have to do while watching any television reports is be willing to argue against what's being said. i always tend to look out for the channel's perspective, their sponsors and such as a modern tv channel will not go against their sponsors and will promote their 'ideals' as far as the 'truth' will allow. i try to extract just the plain cold facts from the news and ignore the angle that the reporters are coming from. I know in America you have O'Reilly and the like and i think that show is far too popular. People use it to get their news for the day but really, as Bill even says it is not a news show. it is far too opinionated to be a respected news show.
As for your points on reality tv, the victim really is not the contestents or the viewers alone but the entire human race, even people who don't watch a second of it will eventually be exposed to it indirectly. i have watched bits of it simply to analyze it. the most interesting thing i found was that i was analyzing the people as though they were not really human. it was an experiment where i felt i was examining an inferior race, which is morally wrong but intellectually not far off the mark. of course many of the contestants are mentally frail and should not be used by television networks. that doesn't stop them queuing around the block to get on tv.
There is not only misinformation out there but also lack of detail. If you can't give me the full story in a two minute bite then I will take two minutes worth of the story and the hell with the rest. This is the general attitude of television stations and networks when it comes to the news.
The news has to entertain and it must be served up in small portions because audiences nowadays have been conditioned to receive it in small portions. If there is a human interest angle, sugar coating it, all the better.
Newspapers are also serving less and disguising it as more via lots of human interest material. It comes down to less journalists doing actual research on a story and, when they do the research and have lots to say, having to reduce it for consumption.
Station bias as you say can be a problem. Having very few facts to play with or not the time to cover everything that should be covered so that the public is fully informed and can make informative decisions is something else. Both are not in the best interests of the public.
I have in fact been virtually forced into watching 'reality' when doing so was not my intention. How many times have 'reality' shows gone overtime and so you have viewers watching and waiting for their shows to air? One time with Big Brother the show went overtime by an hour with no warning to viewers that this was going to happen. I was angry and disgusted by this. I felt as a viewer as if I had been kidnapped. Listening to inane talk from people I didn't want to know who were discussing social issues they didn't have a clue about was very frustrating. It was then I decided that I really did hate 'reality' shows. The news is not allowed to go overtime and nor is great science fiction but reality shows? Yes for some reason they are allowed to break the rules. And this is really unfair.
I would rather watch shows that help up and coming entertainers get a break than shows designed to break them. I guess I am that kind of human being. I don't like seeing people in distress when there is no reason for them to be so. Yes, as you say reality television does make victims out of even the people who want nothing to do with it.
Hello Premierkj, nice hub!
A few comments: This doesn't negate in any way the intent of your hub, but reality shows are not all the hidden cameras and voyeurism that they appear to be. There is actually a director on set evoking responses, and orchestrating insanity. Like an actual movie, the director will often insist on multiple takes and try out different things. The first time I worked on a reality show I was shocked by how un-reality it is. Director, "You stand over there. When he walks in, you run over and jump on him and tell him how happy you are to see him. - You on the other hand are not happy to see her. Action." The scene plays out and they improv beyond the dialogue. "Everyone, back to one. Let's try that again, buit this time..."
Again, this doesn't make them any better, or change the effect that it has on the audience, other than perhaps even making it worse as it is fake reality TV.
Also... I am not always so quick to call movies an "escape." Literature can also be an escape. You can watch a movie, deconstruct it and learn something from it, through engaging it, or you can watch a movie to distract yourself from your life for a few hours. Of course that depends on what you are choosing to watch... but that is no different than choosing what you read.
I've met a few people that call themselves avid readers, who brag about the number of books that they tear through. Then you look at their collection and they are entirely entrenched in the world of romance and mystery novels.
You can read James Joyce or you can read Daniel Steele (sp?) In the same way you can watch "Seven Samauri" or you can watch "Charlie's Angels."
The truth is that they are both necessary, but it is important to know what it is you are watching and to understand that they are not the same. Sometimes I simply need to decompress. If all you need to do is decompress, then the laziness has gotten to you like a disease - the point of your article...
Thanks for your thoughts film critic. It is interesting to hear from someone who has worked on such a show, the technical interference does not surprise me, but I agree that it does not really impact on the viewers' experience.
It almost goes without saying that in todays 'marketing to the masses' world we find that the vultures will infiltrate any media format to sell their stuff to the helplessly passive. Newspapers, television, books and film have all ultimately become mainly low brow entertainment consoles. When you say that both are 'necessary' I have to disagree. Box Office movies like 'Step Brothers' and all those Romantic Comedies have not only stupefied the masses, but they have also destroyed the sanctity that 'originality' once held in the 'arts'. Originality was at one time very important for everyone, it was a starting point by which we judged a new book or film. Now the original content is largely stopped before production or is hidden away in the shadows of the latest blockbuster. The selling point today is humor, romance and action, not character. So what do they do; they make the same movie over and over again with a few jokes changed and a different pretty girl to replace the one before. It is nothing more than mild porn, in my opinion.
Yes, it would be fair to describe it as mild porn, but at the same time I wouldn't then dismiss it as unnecessary.
The reason so many of these types of movies and television shows are made is because people continually pay for them as their means of distraction.
The problem is not the media, the problem is the weakness in the individuals that get lost in the media. The media does exploit these weaknesses, but the weaknesses must first exist. I don't think it is fair that I should have to give up chocolate cake because the pig next to me can't stop eating.
In an acting class, I was having students read the short story, "The Dead." To be an actor you not only need to be able to read, you have to have a high level of reading comprehension (to be a good actor anyway.) I knew this was lacking. When they came back, no one could get beyond 5 pages.
I don't blame this on television or bad movies. I blame it on a shitty education. Anything with too much depth can not be processed by their weakened minds. The quality of television is to match what they can endure.
If the standard education was more challenging, and all across the line people thought at a higher level, the level entertainment - even in the sense of mild porn - would necessarily be more challenging.
An example: As a youth I was big into music. I jazz drummer moved in with me. We listened to music a lot, and he would replay stanza after stanza, esplaining to me what I was hearing. Suddenly it made sense and I understood how drums contributed to a band - beyond acting as a metronome. Later I started listening to some old CDs and realized I could no longer listen to them. It now sounded as if there was simply a metronome in the background, and everything sounded thin. Education raised my standards as to what I would accept even in terms of entertainment. In the same way, sometimes I have to put on a punk rock cd - mild porn - because I can't just listen to Stravinsky all day.
That being said, I think on occasion it is necessary to decompress, whether it is a punk rock album, a game of frisbee, or a bad movie. If someone only listens to punk rock and thinks Stravinsky is just noise - then? Should I not allow myslef to decompress?
Indulgence is the problem (not the chocolate cake.) One of the causes of indulgence is ignorance. The dumbass doesn't know - or care - that the chocolate cake is what is making them fat. What is the cause of ignorance? I don't know, but I know that education can combat it.
As far as the decline of civilization, I wouldn't give too much credit to generations of the past. The individuals who accomplished things are the ones who we read about in history books, not the masses of the ignorant. I will agree that the mass population (in the U.S. anyway) is at an all time low as far as the quality of education. But that is the bottom three quarters (who unfortunately have the right to vote, etc,) but the top quarter can compete with any generation.
In terms of movies, There will be Blood is as good as any movie ever made.
Film Critic, I don't only like what your saying, but I also enjoy the way you say it. Thank you. I will admit that you have twisted my arm a little and my opinion is somewhat altered. I agree that the problem is not with 'the cake' it is with the indulger, but the problem has become so widespread and has become such an intrusion on modern society that only the 'chef' can fix it. To continue the metaphor there ought to be a change in the recipe.
I enjoyed 'There will be Blood', and I'm proud Daniel Day-Lewis has Irish blood in him because he is a great actor. Films as good as that are becoming ever rarer though, and harder to find even when they are made. There are so many low budget independent films that are brilliant yet largely unseen. These great films are entertaining to me but I am very alert while viewing. My chocolate cake is soccer.
I must admit, when you look around and think of all the people you know who are addicted to reality television shows, they don't exactly have much going for them. Living vicariously through the lives of reality TV stars is a pathetic existence, I much prefer watching sports, and living vicariously through the lives of professional athletes... lol
i scribble Level 2 Commenter 23 months ago
I agree with you for the most part. I think many people watch reality TV as an escape from their jobs and the stress of their real lives in general. Same reasons they watch sports, sitcoms, crime dramas, whatever. There are so many hours for TV stations to fill these days, and reality shows are much cheaper to produce than scripted shows. There is a definite shortage of good sitcoms these days, in my opinion. And too many crime shows, and of course, too many reality shows. Reading books requires more mental energy, which may be in short supply after a long day at work. But reading more and watching less is an admirable goal to strive for. Maybe I'll check out Bradbury's book. Thanks for writing something worth thinking about. What do you watch on TV, if anything?