Me Three

The Real World of Reality Television

By Sarah Stodola

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I’m afraid I have no choice but to report that reality television has become a phenomenon that simply can’t be ignored. I’ve been trying to pretend that the craze is just that, and will soon be over. I’ve also been trying to pretend that I have played no role whatsoever in the huge ratings these shows command. At this point, though, both attempts appear futile. I’m ready to acknowledge that reality TV is more than just a passing trend, and that I, as person who tries to watch as little television as possible, have become a devotee.

I’m not sure what the last straw was. Perhaps learning that 40 million people tuned in for the Joe Millionaire finale (including me) is a statistic that is simply too compelling to overlook. 40 million people equal roughly one out of every seven Americans. That means that one out of every seven Americans not only happened to be at home last Monday evening, but also happened to be watching television, and not only happened to be watching television, but also had that television tuned into Fox. When you look at it this way, it becomes a pretty staggering number.

The most amazing thing about this number, though, is that as someone who watched the show, I know that it wasn’t even a particularly entertaining hour of television. “Joe,” whose real name is Evan, was insufferably simple-minded. And the women chasing after him were painfully obvious about their motives. When it got down to the end, it was clear that none of the final five women had anything approaching genuine feelings for the guy. And he seemed to return the sentiment. When he finally picked Zora as his final choice, I was left feeling slightly cheated. Evan and Zora were clearly not in love (which made her decision to stay with him after learning that he was not a millionaire a bit confusing), and Sarah (the runner-up) didn’t show any sign of heartbreak, not even for show.

Joe Millionaire was painful to watch. And yet I watched it. And, as I have just elucidated, I was not alone.

In addition to Joe Millionaire, I have watched at least one episode of each of the following: Meet My Folks, The Bachelor, The Bachelorette, The Surreal Life, High School Reunion, Survivor, Fear Factor, American Idol, Blind Date, Shipmates, The Osbournes, and The Anna Nicole Show. And I really don’t watch that much TV. But for a reason I have yet to pinpoint, when I do turn on the set, I am just as drawn toward the reality shows as everyone else seems to be.

I was in high school when The Real World debuted. I didn’t include this show in my list in the previous paragraph because, as a show that preceded the reality television explosion by a decade, I didn’t feel that it really qualified. And also because I still maintain that during the first few seasons it was actually a good show, something I can’t really say about any of the current reality shows. Originally, The Real World brought together seven very interesting people, all from different backgrounds, and documented how they interacted when forced to live together for a few months. The early stars of the show were smart, talented, and unique. Only sometimes were they good-looking and promiscuous (now it seems that’s all they are). The old Real World was the polar opposite of Joe Millionaire. I never felt guilty for watching it.

But something happened to the principle behind reality television between season one of The Real World and the Millionaire finale. And I think we can point to Survivor as the turning point (or the jumping off point, depending on your perspective). With Survivor, reality television ceased to exist in the realm of the serious documentary and instead became nothing more than a form of outlandish voyeurism. It morphed from noble to sleazy. But many things do eventually, I suppose.

I used to think reality television was a fad that would wear off quickly. The summer of the first Survivor, when the show was stealing the ratings and a slew of new reality shows were scrambling to get in on the spoils, everyone expected a glut of show in the genre to eventually turn viewers off. If I remember correctly, Big Brother (which I’ve never seen) didn’t do very well, and this was interpreted as a sign that reality television was on its way out, nearly as soon as it arrived. This never happened, though, and now there isn’t a single night of the week without a reality show in prime time.

So what is it about reality shows that has us so transfixed? Our obsession doesn’t make much sense if one looks to the standards rules of television - beautiful people, laugh-out-loud jokes, overbearing melodrama, heroes, magic. Television has always been something we watch to escape our ordinary lives, or at least to be propelled into something extraordinary for a few hours. But maybe this is a theory that simply doesn’t hold as we learn more about ourselves. Maybe some of us are in fact happy with our own lives, and we simply want to be entertained. As bad as the economy has gotten, I think most Americans still have a lot of good things going on in their lives - we don’t need to escape anything, but that doesn’t mean we don’t enjoy a good show every now and then.

Or maybe there’s truth in the theory that we will watch whatever the television producers give us. I’m typically not a person who plans her week around certain shows. It’s more likely that my television viewing schedule is dictated by other events in my life. I watch television only when there is nothing else going on. So if I come home at nine o’clock on a Wednesday night and I’m tired from a draining day of grad school studies, and I don’t feel like reading any more just then, I’ll switch on the television. Since I don’t have cable, each network has a pretty good chance at gaining my viewership. In this way, I am watching whatever is put in front of me, to a certain extent. But this can’t be the entire explanation, because there are often three non-reality shows that I could be watching.

Returning to the Joe Millionaire example, it’s important to point out that I watched the show even though I didn’t like any of the people on it (Zora is a nice girl, of course, but she’s not someone I would ever be friends with). This might have been part of the lure for me - I could spend an hour watching people who I would never spend an hour with in real life. Or if I did have to spend an hour with them, I’d have to pretend that I liked them. Watching them on TV, I am under no such obligation.

And maybe that’s part of the attraction for audiences in general. We get to watch people who are not like us. And they’re not unlike us because they’re celebrities, but for a variety of other, much more “normal” reasons. I like to watch Fear Factor because the contestants on it do things that I know I would never be able to do, not even for $50,000. High School Reunion is fun to watch because, even though I have no desire to reunite in a house in Hawaii with people from high school I barely knew, it’s interesting to watch other people do just that, and to see what really becomes of high school peers ten years later. The Osbournes is so fun not because these people are celebrities, but because they are such an entirely wacky family. I wouldn’t want to be a member of that family, but it sure is a hoot to watch it in action. In turning on the television, audiences want to see something that it unwaveringly not what is common to their own lives.

It’s still possible, though, that we just like something new, and we’ll enjoy it for a few seasons, and then one day reality television will be one of those things brought up when trying to recall that crazy first decade of the new millennium, mentioned along with internet dating, cell phones, hipsters, Moby, stretch denim, Eminem, Dave Eggers, Salon.com, and so on.

It’s better than poodle skirts or the Monkees, if you ask me.

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Sarah Stodola is the Managing Editor of Me Three. She can be contacted at [email protected].