I Hate Reality TV

I hate reality shows. The only reason they make these C-grade attempts to manipulate non-union actor replacements into re-enacting "Lord of the Flies" is because it costs the producers a lot less money than making scripted drama with professionals.

If I wanted to watch reality, I'd sit on a bench and watch people walk by. Or I'd find a desert island with a lot of rocky shoals and wait for the first shipwreckees to wash up. At least you'd be watching something uncontrived, if not terribly realistic.

The reason we watch art, or drama, is to see it imitate life in the most meaningful way possible, not the most realistic. When you consider that the best television drama of the last ten years is that one about a high school girl with witch and demon friends who hunt vampires, it becomes apparent that reality itself is not at a premium.

Real drama is about that crucial fork in the road, when a lesson is painfully learned, or tragically ignored. I'm sorry, but what do you really learn about living watching some poor sap eat a cockroach for money, or get fired by Donald Trump? Whether real or not, there's far less than meets the eye with these shows. Frodo's struggle to resist the temptation of the symbolic evil around his neck resonates far more with the real people I know then people on an island playing at dysfunctional Swiss Family Robinson.

"All the world's a stage" Shakespeare famously said. No offense to the bard, but if he had seen reality shows, I am sure he would agree that some people ought to have a cane come out and yank them off that stage.

I can't wait for Reality TV's fifteen minutes to be up.