Why
watch reality TV
By Will
Sommer
Magis staff writer
She was the kind
of girl your mother warned you about, but more for her inability
to properly highlight roots than loose morals, and he used
more mousse than an Alaskan survivalist. They bickered in
the beginning, but they had collapsed together by the end
of the night. Was it love? Don’t make post-post-cynicism
laugh. It was reality TV, and it seduces whatever else you’re
watching and steals its kidneys.
Now, there are those of you who say reality TV’s lame,
that it’s not real, or that it objectifies women. Give
your grandmother back her Reader’s Digest and pay attention
to the two reasons why you should like reality TV. Good things
come in twos, after all (the uncles on Full House, the 16th
through 17th centuries, etc.).
First of all, reality TV gives you real human emotion. Nothing
rips out a tender Man for Others heart like Trading Spouses.
Creepy rural woman Lisa went to California, where her babbling
about country life makes Houston’s smog more enjoyable
than it already is. Samantha, the California woman she switched
with, also encountered problems, but grew on her host family
like fungus--or the national debt. By the end of the show
she had spread tolerance like butter on the warm muffin called
love.
But the show’s real punch arrives when Lisa comes home,
seething about California and its indifference to Golden Corral.
She does her reality villain snarl upon arrival, and her family
grows cold, longing for Samantha and knowing Lisa will never
understand.
Doesn’t that just double you up? I mean, it’s
too bad Frasier has to juggle a station manager interview
and a date with a rival Seattle psychologist on the same night,
but come on. Trading Spouses steals your soul and scripted
television doesn’t.
Reality television is also easy to relate to. Forget CSI’s
“believable characters”--it’s got the libido
of a blind eunuch. The 5th Wheel, on the other hand, is all
about partying. You get five people together, throw in some
mediocre commentary, and “hook-ups unhook, and things
get nasty.” That’s hard not to enjoy.
You can say all that you want about reality television, but,
in the end, it doesn’t matter, because it delivers on
television’s greatest promise by bringing you closer
to the rest of the world.
|
