Reality Television

I have some serious mixed feelings about "Reality TV." The quotation marks are because of the ever increasing notion that much of what is portrayed as real is actually pretty scripted. I guess the best way to describe my reaction to this idea is it was unexpected but unsurprising.

Most people tend to agree that RT is similar to junk food: It isn't good for you at all but still very satisfying and it takes a lot to get sick of it. I find myself indulging in RT probably a little more than I should. On a weekend I have been known to watch a marathon of a show that I have never even watched a single episode of; one of them about renovating houses comes to mind but I can't even remember the name.

I won't say that there are RT shows about every subject now because clearly there are still some more nuggets waiting to be mined. I guess this fall CBS is debuting a show called "Kid Nation" which is, to my understanding, a show featuring a bunch of kids living on their own in a town without adults to see if they can form a civilized society. This sounds so wrong in so many ways but I am still going to check it out. I think you have to. There has to be some kind of lesson that can be gleaned from watching people create a society whose dreams are unspoiled by the reality of adulthood.

I do feel though that some of these shows have merit. Even though shows like "The Biggest Loser" tend to make a spectacle of overweight people sometimes, I have to believe that it is motivating others to get healthier. I like to watch that show not to see how a large person does on an obstacle course but to see what kind of a transformation they make and how much better they feel about their self. "Extreme Home Makeover" is also a tear-jerker. These people are always so incredibly grateful and deserving of their new homes that it choked me up a little. Unfortunately I had to stop watching that because a friend told me that 80% of them lost their houses after the show because they couldn't afford the hike in property taxes from the added value.