Let’s Put the ‘Reality’ Back in Reality TV
How about a domestic version of Survivor, in which contestants are dropped off in Detroit and challenged to make a living?
Ever since the economic crisis hit, news coverage has reported how all facets of America are coming to grips with the sobering effects of the recession. Even Hollywood, where economizing means not upgrading your assistant’s Blackberry, has had to go back to the drawing board to adjust to this “new reality.”
While Tinseltown power brokers still feel it’s best to push escapism on the big screen, they’re expressing sensitivity — or the closest thing Botox will allow — everywhere else. For television, they’re going to emphasize blue-collar heroes and pull back on shows and movies that celebrate conspicuous wealth. Smart move. With folks like Bernard Madoff helping billionaires lose their fortunes faster than the auto industry can hemorrhage jobs, depictions of excess would be as appropriate as trying to sell a Slip-n-Slide in Ethiopia.
Surely, the “new reality” should have some effect on the so-called reality of unscripted programming; otherwise it would lose its credibility as “reality TV.” And, let’s face it — nothing mirrors the world as accurately as shows like The Bachelorette. What is more believable than 25 hot, gainfully employed bachelors vying for a committed relationship with a woman?
It seems the most innocuous reality programs are the ones that will need the most adjustment to keep pace with the times. Home and garden shows could be hit the hardest, for what seems more frivolous than choosing paint color for a window box when your house is being foreclosed on?
I once considered The Learning Channel’s My First Home an uplifting show about people living out the American dream. Looking back on an episode about a buyer with bad credit, I can’t help but wonder how things stand today. TLC should launch a follow-up show revisiting those first-time homeowners. It could be called That House I Used to Have or My First Home: It Would Have Been Less Painful if it Had Fallen on Me.
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Patricia Beauchamp is a writer living in Los Angeles.
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25 Comments
1. Roger Godby:Put the reality show in Chicago and call it Obamarama.
Dec 29, 2008 - 4:17 am 2. Valerie:I’d like to see a show that fact checks articles from major papers and reports broadcast by major tv news outlets. It could be a competition. See which paper and which channel get the lousiest score after being fact-checked over a period of a few months. A funny bit at the end of each show could be ”What the celebrity said”. Pretty soon, those hollywood types might actually stop yapping.
Ha.
Dec 29, 2008 - 4:28 am 3. Eric R.:You realize that our wonderful, unbiased “mainstream” media will denounce you as a KKK racist Rethuglican bigot for choosing Detroit as your example.
Never mind the fact that the city is in horrible, horrible shape.
Dec 29, 2008 - 5:26 am 4. Saltherring:Network television….the ultimate in intellectual challenge for the probing 12-year old mind. But come to think of it, the network offerings (The Apprentice, Survivor, etc) are probably more in line with the intelligence of the average American adult than many of us think……given the results of the November 4th “reality” show.
Dec 29, 2008 - 6:49 am 5. Maggie:Bravo Valerie #2 – that would make a great show!
Dec 29, 2008 - 7:00 am 6. ajacksonian:Hey! How about a ‘real life’ show giving MSM reporters the job of just reporting and not giving us their ‘insight’ and ‘commentary’?
Start each show with ten high profile reporters and then start eliminating those that ever put in ‘what this reporter has seen’ or ‘I think’ or ‘as I’ve been told’ or ‘anonymous sources said’… and the one with the most of those gets tossed out each week and lose their job.
Give them each the same sets of stories.
Reports who ‘report’! Damn that must be a hard job as none of them want to do that…
Dec 29, 2008 - 7:49 am 7. Davidari:I’m pulling for “Law & Order: Chicago — “Cleared of All Wrongdoing”.
Dec 29, 2008 - 9:08 am 8. Tex Taylor:How about a new reality series where politicians and corrupt Wall Street types get to really serve their community?
I’d pay to watch Barney Frank and Bernie Madoff get to dig like a group of Troglodytes…
Dec 29, 2008 - 9:43 am 9. Ann:Line up people who have never earned a paycheck, based on hourly wages. Put them in entry level clerical jobs and then video them–8 hours a day! Watch their faces when it dawns on them–3 hours in, that they HAVE TO STAY THERE ALL DAY!
Obviously, no one plans to stay in entry level jobs, but even college grads START at entry level jobs. It is so infuriating to know that the majority of decision makers and money throwers in our country have never worked a job where they had to show up, work all day, show up every day, work every day, have someone checking their work all the time…or they wouldn’t get paid. Most of these people don’t have a CLUE what it is to either work for a living or wonder if you are doing well enough to please the boss or HR.
Dec 29, 2008 - 10:13 am 10. Ann:…and, BTW, I’m not knocking this process as a way to get started on the American road. It has served us very well. The working wealthy (or working well-off) today, for the most part, started like that. Nothing succeeds in this country like hard work. But our politicians and financial wizards wouldn’t know anything about that. So they want to take what you and I EARN and give it to people who don’t EARN anything.
Dec 29, 2008 - 10:16 am 11. kevin c:Patricia-the million dollar question would be -WOULD ANYONE LIVE LONG ENOUGH IN DETROIT TO COLLECT THE “SURVIVOR” TITLE?
Dec 29, 2008 - 10:25 am 12. adam d.:> … CEOs of now-bankrupt companies like Lehman
> Brothers to swap houses with the workers who
> have lost their jobs and life savings
I’d rather see the CEOs of banks and auto companies switch jobs with just about anyone. and I volunteer.
Dec 29, 2008 - 11:00 am 13. Saltherring:Ann @ 9:
I like your suggestion. I’d nominate Caroline, y’know, Kennedy to, y’know, work as an entry-level, y’know, receptionist for a septic tank pumping, y’know, company. 40 hrs per week at , y’know, minimum wage……and have to live on that amount, y’know?
Dec 29, 2008 - 11:43 am 14. Melrose Maven:A very well-written piece by Patricia Beauchamp. Ben Silverman, who is the honcho at NBC, should read it. The state of American TV is absurd. The programming is sad. I have to disagree with her, though, on “The Bachelor” and “The Bachelorette” programs. I believe these two shows do depict certain realities and dynamics of dating life. The actual dating situations are windows into the true personalities of the participants. Still, Beauchamp’s piece is relevant and quite humorous. Move over, Dave Barry.
Dec 29, 2008 - 12:43 pm 15. sean sarto:Oh..your SOOO imitating reality TV!
Dec 29, 2008 - 3:41 pm 16. Gozer the Carpathian:*Chuckles*
Some good suggestions in here. I like em all.
How about “Celebrity Dirty Jobs.” I love Dirty Jobs, putting the poor host through all the hard work normal people do every day that keeps this country running. Now lets put those who “run the country” into those dirty jobs.
Wouldn’t it be great to see McCain, Clinton, Obama, or any of those other folks up there going through chicken poop or a sewage pumping station?
It’d get HUGE ratings.
Dec 29, 2008 - 9:48 pm 17. Thacker Agency:Anyone want a reality TV show that puts Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton in Africa to see whether or not America is a good place for a black family to raise children? To hear them speak, black people are worse of here than anywhere else in the world (and it’s because of whites). I’d like to see them in an environment created by Africans for Africans with no whitey in sight.
I’ve got the perfect place for them. Zimbabwe. After all, they got rid of all those pesky white farmers who were feeding the people of the country.
Dec 29, 2008 - 10:42 pm 18. vcb-tn:7. davidari—“Law & Order: Chicago — “Cleared of All Wrongdoing”.,..”eggcellent” suggestion.
Dec 30, 2008 - 12:57 am 19. vcb-tn:17. thack. dang, that’s a good one too..; pitch it!
Dec 30, 2008 - 12:59 am 20. Carol:How about a show where service or goods-provider or seller has to change places with customer? I have long wished that everyone working in my office would have to work in the customer’s office for a few months (I already did for many years). And it would work wonders if our customers had some notion of how we do what we do. It would go a long way to making business more civil.
Even just making an obnoxious customer work at the returns desk at Walmart for a week would help.
Dec 30, 2008 - 8:08 am 21. Anton:Kevin @11 It would be double-plus-good fun to take some of those Washington bozos like Barney Frank and drop them off in downtown Detroit with no ID and a fiver in their pocket, you could follow their exploits via UAV. It would be a real blast.
I live and work just across the notorious “8-Mile” from Detroit, it’s a lot like the Gaza Strip but bigger, meaner and better armed (it just lacks a suicidal religious ideology)
Dec 30, 2008 - 11:39 am 22. Smorgasbord:Your idea of dropping politicians off in Detroit would have to be a two part series. The first part would be how many of them can keep from being killed. Then you could have the second part to see how well they survive.
A more realistic reality show with politicians would be to see which one can get the most in bribe money. The best ending would be when the politicians find out they have to give ALL of their bribe money to charity.
Dec 30, 2008 - 12:26 pm 23. Ronnie Schreiber:Gee, I have to pick up some leather for my embroidery business down on Fort St. tomorrow, about a mile west of downtown Detroit. With all the talk about how daunting the city is, how will I ever survive without a trusty Kel-Tec?
It’s interesting that every January about 6500 journalists descend on Detroit for the North American International Auto Show. One would expect that if the city is as dangerous and crime ridden as many think, that every year there’d be reports about journalists being mugged and assaulted. That’s not the case.
Dec 30, 2008 - 9:14 pm 24. Confused in Virginia:Very well written piece, and some great ideas. Here’s mine. How about taking politicians and dropping them at the Obama house. They would then have to drive to a gas station to fill up the tank, and the winner would be the one who gets shot at the most – this would be in line with Mrs. Obama’s statement that she doesn’t worry about her husband being President as much as she worries when he goes to get gas, since a black man in Chicago has more of a chance of getting shot going to the gas station than the President of the United States does being the President. That is not a direct quote BTW.
Dec 31, 2008 - 1:59 am 25. TalkinKamel:Howzabout just turning off the TV altogether, and getting out of the house to encounter—actual reality? Howzabout we dump “reality” (they’ll never really be real) shows altogether, and try injecting some reality into the real world? I mean, I know “reality” shows appeal to the schadenfreude/sadism of their audiences. . . but enough’s enough already.
Jan 2, 2009 - 9:02 pm