It seems like pointing out the obvious to comment on the senseless nature of reality TV, but somehow TV shows that follow the lives of children in pageants, teenage moms or blue-collar jobs are all people can talk about.
Quality of entertainment reflects values of society
The original reality shows were shocking: eating cockroaches for money or being left on a desert island with twenty others and fighting to survive, also for money. There was the rise of American Idol, which first seemed like a beacon of hope for aspiring singers, but slowly turned into a who-can-do-worse act to make it on the disaster audition reel.
Now the shock value comes from things like teenagers having children, or women getting punched in the face, and the enjoyment comes from watching these people’s lives unravel. All the plots are carefully cut into whatever storyline the editing team or producer chooses, and like the effects of advertising, everyone seems to know they’re being fooled, but they play along anyway.
Some may argue there’s no purity in television to begin with, but the introduction of reality TV has not only destroyed the attention span and emotional spectrum of the general public, but has reduced the American image to one of drama in every facet of life — drama in fishing boats, drama in pawnshops, drama in the Kardashian household.
The worst part about reality TV is that, like anything low in quality, it’s cheap to make. No need for writers when people will just talk about fishing endlessly. No need for a script when you can easily pull 22 minutes of something out of 12 hours of non-stop filming. So as our country recessed economically, so did the quality of television programming. Shows like 30 Rock that have an intelligently crafted script announced their final season and were hardly heard over the sobs of the Biggest Losers as they broke down on the gym floor once more. Channels like Discovery, originally dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge, or History, to teaching about the world’s past, have turned to making shows that basically just follow a normal person around for their everyday tasks. It’s no wonder that other countries think we’re shallow and concerned with things of little worth. Americans of every walk of life are depicted as incompetent or insane thanks to the confessional booth.
The integrity of America may not seem like it should be dependent on what we broadcast, but what we value as entertainment determines how our country is seen by others. And when you compare shows like “Happy Days” to “Bad Girls Club” and use them as a sort of window into America, we look more like a bad high school play right now than a polished performance.