Un-Reality TV

First, an apology to those readers expecting to read this week’s blog earlier than today. A cold kept me uninspired and unenthusiastic for much of this week. Now, on with the blog.

Plato's Cave

If you look up a word in a dictionary, you will usually find a definition and then a few examples of use of the word. If we look up the word oxymoron, we will find a definition such as this (from the Merriam-Webster online dictionary): ‘a combination of contradictory or incongruous words.’

Surely an example of oxymoron must be that of: Reality TV.

Not only is the term blatantly contradictory, but it also has harmful side-effects. Let us begin with its contradictory nature.

What is real and what is not real has been the subject of debate and conjecture within western thought since at least the times of Plato and his allegory of the cave in the 4^th century BCE. (Come to think of it, Plato’s allegory could be a very early precursor to Reality TV) However, most of us would agree that reality is what is tangible and exists in a sensory manner. Often reality is easier defined by what it is not. Reality is not imaginary, not something made up, not contrived, not fictitious. (I acknowledge that this short definition is debatable, but for the purposes of this blog I think it makes sense.)

Reality TV is not real. Reality TV programs are made up, they use contrived situations; then go and broadcast the program on TV which stimulates a very base level of imagination in our neocortex and thalamus areas of our brains.

Yet, between 60% and 70% (up to 80% in some places) of adults in western countries watch Reality TV!!

It is not simply that every night adults sit transfixed as if under the influence of Aldous Huxley’s drug – soma – in his 1932 dystopian novel, Brave New World. That state is bad enough, but Reality TV has some nasty effects. Without going into detail in each case, here are some of these harmful consequences.

• Many Reality TV shows seek to humiliate and exploit participants.
• Reality TV has a tendency to make someone “famous for being famous” – with otherwise no qualities of fame.
• Stand-offs and obscenities are often glamorised and elevated on Reality TV.
• Reality TV promotes materialism and a toxic individualism.
• Situations on Reality TV are contrived, although usually promoted as being spontaneous and unscripted.

What many viewers may not recognise is that Reality TV has been a vehicle for helping to normalise public surveillance. Reality TV intrudes, sometimes intimately, on the lives of participants in ways that would not normally be tolerated. With over 30 years’ worth of Reality TV having now been beamed into the homes of millions of viewers, this intrusion has become normalised, so that surveillance in the real world is similarly tolerated, accepted, and even welcomed.

If anyone knows the distinction between reality and non-reality, then an actor would be one of those people. Acting requires the ability to set aside one’s real life and step into the shoes of an unreal, fictional character.

The English actor, Gary Oldman, has done this many times in his distinguished career. He has played characters as diverse as Count Dracula, Lee Harvey Oswald, Sid Vicious, Sirius Black (in the Harry Potter series) and the spy George Smiley. In 2017 he won an Academy Award for Best Actor in the film Darkest Hour for his portrayal of Winston Churchill.

He knows the difference between TV and film acting, and the oxymoronic Reality TV. His caustic words bear musing on. ‘Reality TV to me is the museum of social decay.’

P.S.

Here is a question to ponder. If it had not been for the Reality TV program The Apprentice, in which Donald Trump appeared as the host, would he now be the President of the US? That show placed Trump directly in front of millions of American TV viewers and presented him as a successful and leading businessman (even though reality shows him not to be). Would the fateful words of that show – ‘You’re fired’ – not now be coming to haunt many of those same TV viewers?