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A close friend visited last weekend and made an interesting observation. "You can turn the television on at any given moment in the day and find a reality show," he said.
The observation itself isn't necessarily interesting, because with cable, at any given moment, I can tune into sports or news or movies. I could even watch 24 hours of sitcoms if I choose on stations devoted entirely to sitcoms. The mere fact that an entire day could conceivably be spent watching reality television is unimportant. But it's important to consider why reality television is ubiquitous on the airwaves.
Theater critic Clive Barnes said, "Television is the first truly democratic culture — the first culture available to everybody and entirely governed by what people what. What is terrifying is what people do want."
If we assume Barnes' premises are true, we must ask, "Why is it that reality television is such a large part of TV programming?"
The television is exalted in our culture for its ability to remove us from reality. Had a bad day? Watch "I Love Lucy" reruns on Nick at Nite and you'll chuckle your blues away. Even sports offer a port for embarking on an audio-visual voyage away from impending deadlines, bill collectors or the mental echo of a boss' admonition.
So if reality television is an escape from reality, why is programming increasingly becoming reality-based? One could argue that it's popular because TV producers are charging along with the reality fad (not to mention that reality programming is relatively cheap to produce).
But there are other arguments. A colleague offered an insight that I hadn't thought of when I initially started to write. Ours is a "voyeuristic society" he said, and his observation is on the mark. Could there be a better way to explore your own fears than by watching someone else experience the horror?
However, it would be too simplistic to write off our fascination with reality television as a fetish where we get off watching others living through their troubles.
In addition to this desire to watch others suffer (example: watching a girl break up with her boyfriend over the telephone on MTV's "The Real World"), we still desire to experience things for ourselves. Yet, we're glued to our television sets.
If we television viewers are a part of a virtual democracy as Barnes suggests, the increase in quantity of reality TV programming indicates that we are suffering from reality withdrawal. While we could plan a trip to raft down the Colorado River, we instead choose to watch the cast of MTV's "Road Rules" do it for us.
It seems that television's passive nature has provided for us a proxy vacation from our real world of bills and tests and jobs, but without the irritations of cold water, mosquitoes and, most importantly, the active role required by personal experience.
Why is television becoming increasingly reality-based? Perhaps it's because we're tired of the unreality provided to us by our favorite family member, the glowing box. We've become used to the idea of looking to the television to provide for us an exciting world unlike our own. And in doing so, we've forgotten the importance of experiencing the world we're given. As it seems now, we look toward the television to provide for us what it has already deprived: reality.
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