Reality TV... Need I Say More?

I am sooooooo sick of reality TV... When reality TV hit the air waves back in the early 90’s it was great. You could watch someone else’s life and think how great it is that you’re not them. I was the biggest fan (well not the biggest but I watched them faithfully) shows like “Survivor” and “Big Brother.” Now its 16 years later and these shows are still going. Who watches these shows anymore? Not I!! Reality bites, I can barely stand to watch life before my own eyes, let alone someone else’s messed up life. I want to live in fantasy not reality.
Now they have shows like “The Bachelor”: a show where women compete with each other to marry some loser who can’t find a woman in real life (these woman have no self respect). “So you think you can dance”: coupled and individuals compete for, who knows? They just dance on stage. “Intervention”: addicts can be humiliated on international TV trying to kick an addiction habit (nothing like a good humiliation to help people get their lives together). “The Surreal Life”: Has been actors living together in one house doing wacky things to get attention (wasn’t there a sitcom similar to this?). Many new ones keep popping up every few months. More and more actors, singers, and ordinary people who seek their 5 minutes of fame are popping up with their own reality TV programs. Is our society that desperate that we need to watch other people humiliation in order to be entertained? Seems so, at least at one point in my life I thought so.
Did you know that a recent survivor show pulled in 2.5 million views from Canada alone? 2.5 million viewers! Wow! I didn’t even know Canada had 2.5 million people, I assumed we must have a lesser population since I have been asked by a few (2-4) Americans if I knew “Bob” in Ontario. I just assumed I must, since I have been asked so often, can’t admit I don’t know “Bob” in Ontario what if he was famous? Then I would be the only Canadian who did not know “Bob”. How good would that look? Our country may be big but our population is small compared to the USA, so I begin to see our population as smaller than apparently it is. There were more viewers watching “Survivor” then we have viewers watching what our country says is our greatest sport “Hockey Night in Canada”, even during play offs.
Reality?... What is reality? Who knows but I do know it’s not the reality shows that the TV broadcasts. In my reality, life is a bit more boring then what I have been watching on TV lately. I can’t remember the last time I was stranded on an island and had to eat rats, or forced to live in a house with other crazy people....... oh wait, I am living in a house with other crazy people, I call them my family... sorry my bad.. Well I do know it’s been awhile since Simon sat in my house and told me I couldn’t sing or dance and it’s been, like... ummm... never, since I was teamed up with a Geek and was classified as a beauty. The meaning of “Reality” in these shows are contrived, fixed and edited.
We never get to see the person who spends the day in bed reading, or the people who sits and drinks coffee in the morning for 30 minutes before running off to work.
Can you imagine the commentary on drinking a cup of coffee??
As john sits down at the kitchen table with his hot mug of coffee he almost spills a drop as the coffee sloshes back and forth in the cup...Cue audience to moans in anticipation...John pulls out the chair and slowly sits his tired body into the seat, placing the cup in front of him, staring off into the distance wishing he could have gotten another hour of sleep. In the distance someone’s car alarms goes off because they forgot to hit the right key button when they got in. John sits staring off into space. Eyes fighting to stay open while he slowly lifts the coffee mug to his lips and takes a sip... Cue crowd to gasp... John successfully sips his coffee without spilling a drop, this time. To think, that was just the first minute of John’s exciting morning we still have another 29 to go. Reality is not really what we want to see, because reality is boring. 20 minutes of the camera showing the bathroom door, waiting for the occupant to come out from whatever they are doing in there, would make us turn the channel instead of gasp and awww at what might be happening behind those doors.
Hey! I want a reality TV show. I would be good at it. While I slept people could make sure the monsters under my bed didn’t escape... The kids don’t like staying under my bed all night and someone has to let me know if they try leaving... right??...
I want more fantasy, I want to pretend that I live the exciting life of the actor who stops crime, or tracks down aliens from other planets. I also want to have a family that is perfect, you know the one where the kids never complain and always seem to understand what their parents are trying to teach them and in return they only get 5 minutes a day to learn all this and put it into action. I also don’t want to ever have to clean the bathrooms again. On TV those bathrooms always stay clean no matter who uses them. I want my kitchen to look as if we never make a meal, but yet dinner always appears on the dining room table, never brunt or under cooked but looking like it was made in an overpriced restaurant by a professional chef. I also want to never have to wear the same outfit in any episode, especially the “I don’t care what I look like cause I am not feeling well” jogging pants. Yes! I want my own reality show.
So since I can’t have one I will stop watching the reality shows on TV and go back to watching my fantasy shows where at least I can pretend it’s my life and it’s an exciting one. At least in my fantasy shows I am an overly educated, crime/alien/forensic investigator, sarcastic yet witty minded spoken woman, who can kick ass against anything or anyone thrown in her way. Maybe this year I will win a primetime Emmy. Stranger things have happened.






"...I won't let it happen. I won't... I won't let this world exist without me!"