Sunday, October 18, 2009

Reality Show Syndrome

It was the gleam in his eyes that told me this was something to see.

As I was working on production this past Thursday, Mojo from our sister station Q-106 stopped in the doorway and said, “CNN…Channel 35…right now. You won’t believe it!”

I turned on the TV in the 92-X studios and there it was…a huge Jiffy Pop tin flying in the skies over Colorado. The news heads were saying that a 6-year-old boy was inside this thing as it was cruising out of control. My first thought was this was surreal. Then as it sunk in that this was really happening, I thought that somebody blew it and didn’t wait until next month to have this happen during TV sweeps. But then I thought what if there really IS a little boy in this thing? That would be terrible! Oh, the humanity!!!

Then the background on the boy and his family began to come to light; it turns out the family was on the ABC reality show “Wife Swap”. Then CNN shows a clip of the dad…who turns out was an iReporter for them. Then the thing comes down, and no boy inside. All of a sudden I began to smell a rat.

As it turns out, the boy was hiding in the attic…supposedly, by the boy’s account, under instructions from dad for “a TV show”. The kid was so conflicted that he threw up on live TV Friday morning several times on several interviews. Cops get warrants to search the family home for financial records, phone records, notes and computers. Then earlier today (Sunday), an announcement that it was truly a hoax and felony charges being brought. The family’s motivation? A shot at reality show stardom.

It’s no secret I’m not a fan of “reality” television. However, since the first episode of “Survivor” came on the boob tube over a dozen years ago, we have been mesmerized by it. “Real” people in “real life” situational drama. “Survivor” begat a huge entourage of like-minded shows that had people locked up in a house together, challenged into doing incredible stunts, losing weight, having nannys come into your house, vie for the affections of a member of the opposite sex to marry them, and attempt to succeed in doing corporate tasks so that they won’t hear the fateful words, “You’re fired!”

This type of programming is just what networks began salivating about. Shows where they don’t have to hire a writing staff, hire union actors, have low production costs, and make the networks huge profits. Market them to the masses and you’ve got hits. Problem is, the participants of these shows tend to be star “wanna bees” and somewhat left of center. Richard Hatch…Sanjya…and all the rest. And now these folk.

I firmly believe we have a psychological condition here I like to call “Reality Show Syndrome”. People wanting that 15 minutes or 15 gigabytes of fame and willing to do anything to get it. And, no thanks to the network’s marketing mentality, people wanting to be “voyeurs” into this glimpse of supposed “reality” programming. People who are glued to their sets to see what happens on their reality shows this week, and the next, and the next.

But finally it seems the meltdown has begun. John and Kate, and now Richard and Mayumi Heene (who, by the way, met in acting school in Hollywood before getting married). My hope is that we’ve finally “jumped the shark” when it comes to reality shows. And hopefully, John Q. Public can finally wake up to what is going on here, and not give credence to the networks desire for economically stingy production costing and huge profit making programming to rule the airwaves.

You want Reality TV? Tune into the Evening News. Now THAT is reality.