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I hate reality television
I'm sitting at my desk, so annoyed that I really can't think of another sentence to write than the title.
NBC has recently unveiled "I'm a Celebrity .... Get me Out of Here."
I didn't watch it, nor to I care to.
The commercials alone make me physically ill. You take a bunch of D-listers or has beens and toss them into a situation where they are pushed to their limits physically and mentally.
Crap TV at its best.
I'm so tired of people like Heidi and Spencer from "The Hills," John and Kate and their circus family they sold out for money and frumpy women from Scotland that have beautiful voices.
Can anyone explain to me the appeal of any of this?
I can kind of understanding "So You Think You Can Dance," and and "American Idol" (neither show I watch, but am aware of).
There is some actual entertainment value in seeing people that are excellent dancers or talented singers.
I just miss television when networks didn't realize they could get out of paying writers by creating garbage reality show premises.
NBC has recently unveiled "I'm a Celebrity .... Get me Out of Here."
I didn't watch it, nor to I care to.
The commercials alone make me physically ill. You take a bunch of D-listers or has beens and toss them into a situation where they are pushed to their limits physically and mentally.
Crap TV at its best.
I'm so tired of people like Heidi and Spencer from "The Hills," John and Kate and their circus family they sold out for money and frumpy women from Scotland that have beautiful voices.
Can anyone explain to me the appeal of any of this?
I can kind of understanding "So You Think You Can Dance," and and "American Idol" (neither show I watch, but am aware of).
There is some actual entertainment value in seeing people that are excellent dancers or talented singers.
I just miss television when networks didn't realize they could get out of paying writers by creating garbage reality show premises.
Labels: television
posted by Shaun Byron at
5:37 PM
1 Comments:
The Human Condition Is Now Big Business, my friend.
Reality TV is slowly desensitizing people to human suffering. Anyone tunning onto nightime television can see that it is filled with a parade of public humiliations. Our constant watching of the business of reality TV may be generating big bucks for the advertisers, but can this be a sad commentary as to the type of culture Americans have become? Reality television plays out scenarios utilizing sensationalism to attract viewers to generate advertising profits.
MSNBC Senior Writer, Jane Weaver stated, “The unexpected success of “Joe Millionaire” — the show about a guy who pretends to be rich so he can get a woman to marry him — and the return of the talent search show “American Idol” have transformed the reality style from a cheap date into the hottest genre in the television business.” [1]
Although many U.S. citizens look forward to another season filled with ‘the guilty pleasure of watching someone else fall down’, the sad reality is that this only serves for Nielsen ratings to determine commercial rates for the next few months. The only reality of Reality TV is that it is cheaper to produce than a typical drama, documentary or sitcom. Pamela Douglas, Professor of TV Writing – University of Southern California stated, “It is not unusual to have a weekly drama in the two to three million dollar range.”[2]
‘FACT: It cost $2 million to produce the pilot episode of the series Lost. It cost $600,000 to produce the pilot episode of ‘The Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency.’ [3]
But people tunned in to see this woman belittle, regurgitate foul language and even slap her models! Can someone please explain how this is entertaining?
Profanity. Sexual references. Rudeness. Shocking behavior. This is the daily menu dished up regularly on reality television shows, which cater almost exclusively to teens and young people. Are we going to allow reality TV to stamp its cultural footprint on the minds of the younger generation? Twenty years ago, when I sang, "I want my MTV," it meant that I wanted to watch music videos.
But what does all this generate in us as a nation? What does that say to the world about our culture? When people examine our time one hundred years from now, what will they learn about us?
Think about this for a moment, in a time when resources are plentiful and technology makes it possible for us to travel into space and cook food in seconds, what will the future scholars learn when they study us?
But this discourse is not a roapmap to nowhere. I ask you: in a society where so much emphasis is placed on material acquisitions; where the young are plagued by the “GRQ” syndrome, what are we learning from the elaborate successes of these Reality TV shows? Let’s face facts folks, this generation is more ‘facebook” than USPS; more ‘YouTube’ than CNN news; more chatrooms than classrooms; more bank balance than GPA average; it should not be surprising, our youth are toeing the same line, because we’re all drunk on the wine of technology, music and football.
You know what I say to you? Change the channel!
Respectfully submitted,
Margarita Aponte
Largo, FL
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