Reality TV is just another form of fantasy

  David Rigsby Rigsby is a second-year
political science student who would gladly agree to pretend to be
someone else on a reality-based television show. Click
Here for more articles by David Rigsby

January has finally come once again, and we all know what that
means. Cold weather? Perhaps. Homework? Maybe. Mid-season
replacement television programming? I think we’ve found the
winner. Last year the networks force-fed the public one quiz show
after another in order to profit from the success of ABC’s
runaway hit “Who Wants to be a Millionaire?” This year
is no different with the copycat approach now being applied to
CBS’s summer hit “Survivor.” Didn’t the
other networks learn that not all reality shows are bound for
success? “Big Brother” anyone?

I throw around the term “reality” loosely. The first
lesson in reality TV is that there is no such thing unless
it’s on the Discovery Channel or some equivalent cable
network. Even the first reality-based show, “Candid
Camera,” was staged. Sure, they were real people having real
reactions, but all of the strange and unusual events they
encountered were hashed out during an executive board meeting.

Many pundits blame MTV for the sudden influx of reality based
programming, but I would like to remind them that “The Real
World” is airing its 10th anniversary season this year. I
personally think it’s funny that there is nothing
“real” about the show. No one lives for free in a giant
house in some big city with six attractive strangers while they
pretend to work at a job that was handed to them. One might argue
that it’s the people and the emotions that bring reality to
the show. I disagree. No one can act naturally in an unnatural
environment. I won’t say that the show is scripted, but there
is plenty of acting that goes on in front of the cameras.

With the ongoing success of “The Real World,”
I’m surprised that it took so long for a major network to tap
into the reality show market. But finally, lo and behold, CBS
shocked the country with a totally original and new idea for a
show. However, it isn’t quite as original as CBS would like
you to believe. “Survivor” stems from the long lasting
American tradition of copyin ““ er… improving upon another
country’s idea for a television show. In this case, the idea
comes from Switzerland.

  Illustration by RACHEL REILICH/Daily Bruin It’s
difficult to accurately guess why the show caught on last summer.
Maybe we were all really bored. I, for one, started looking forward
to tribal council every Wednesday night. I’m in awe that CBS
was able to keep the winner of $1 million a secret from the time
the show finished taping to the time that it aired. I guess bribes
do work.

And who could forget those castaways? I’m frustrated that
Sue didn’t get a Golden Globe nomination for her,
“I’d leave you in da desert for vultures to eat
ya,” speech that she performed for Kelly. And was anyone out
there as upset as I was when Colleen got voted off? Oh well, even
though she didn’t win the million, she still has the Blistex
endorsements.

Maybe the reason our country liked the original castaways was
that they didn’t all seem to be made for show business (they
just tried to fit that mold later). Some of the originals were
plain turn-offs, both physically and emotionally. I will admit that
CBS probably chose many of the originals based on their looks, but
looks were not all that they based their decision on. With this new
round of winter reality-based shows, sex appeal is going to be
everything.

“Survivor II: The Australian Outback” was bound to
happen, but did CBS have to make it so painfully obvious that it is
selling sex? One of the promotional commercials show a half-dozen
female castaways playfully looking into the camera and asking
viewers to come meet them after the Superbowl. The new cast is made
up of cheerleaders, prom queens, models, body builders and
bartenders. It’s a downright shame that a show based on
paranoia, greed and betrayal could be tarnished by turning it into
something all about sex.

And speaking of sex, is anyone else disgusted about FOX’s
latest show “Temptation Island”? It’s the one
about four couples, all at crossroads in their relationships and
all stranded on an island with a truckload of beautiful people. The
beautiful people’s goal: to break up the four couples.

Did FOX learn nothing from the “Who Wants to Marry a
Multi-Millionaire?” fiasco? Didn’t they learn that they
can’t dangle love on a string and expect the nation to eat it
up? I have faith in the integrity of this country, and that people
will be able to make a logical choice and not watch the show. Wait
a minute … I should take that back. I forgot that this is the
same country that elected George W. a few months ago. The show will
probably be a hit.

ABC has also cloned itself a reality television show and, like
other shows on the network, it phrased the title in the form of a
rhetorical question. “Who is the Mole?” is its newest
project. The show is about 10 people stranded in some foreign place
and forced to work together while one person secretly undermines
the activities of the rest of the group members. I’m still
trying to figure out how that differs from what Richard did on
“Survivor.”

The moral of my story isn’t that you shouldn’t watch
reality television. I would never want to get in the way of an
individual’s right to make a viewing choice, no matter how
poor of a choice it might seem at the time. I just urge awareness,
and a certain level of skepticism against all of those
reality-based shows. It can be fun pretending that reality shows
are actually authentic, but in the end, after all has been said and
done at tribal council, it’s time to come back to
reality.