If you had cameras following you around 24 hours a day, 7 days a
week, would they catch you only in your greatest moments? Would
they find out that you are the most wonderful person in the world?
Would you want your kids to see every minute of that tape?
Probably not. Yet as the recent writers’ strike furthered the
growth of reality television, complaints about this “trash” TV have
grown alongside it. TV based on real life? Trash!
It’s bizarre that reality shows are characterized so poorly
(“they’re destroying the innocence of our nation’s children!”),
when actually sit-coms, soap operas, and talk shows set an example
far worse, despite their teams of talented writers. Reality TV is
simply real — and that is scary.
Those who so harshly criticize reality TV obviously have not
seen the episode of Keeping Up with the Kardashians where
the three sisters see a homeless man eating out of a garbage
dumpster behind their fancy clothing shop. They take him to their
Los Angeles mansion where they give him a shower and clothes to
wear.
But this is not enough. As the homeless man smiles in sincere
appreciation, they notice that he has no teeth, so they take him to
the dentist to get a set of dentures and then to a hotel to rest
until homeless shelters opened the following day.
WHAT WOULD YOU DO if you found a homeless man digging in the
dumpster? I tried to imagine myself in that situation and I think I
would have ignored him — at best. Perhaps I would have even told
him to leave, although he had nowhere to go.
That episode has certainly changed the way I treat the beggars
on the street outside of my apartment in the heart of our nation’s
capital. Treating others with compassion is a lesson that is not
drilled into our heads nearly enough — and you certainly won’t
learn it from soap operas and talk shows.
Real life teaches a better lesson than a million public service
announcements. If people mess up on a reality show, they pay the
consequences for it — just like life. Maybe you thought it was
trash with Khloe Kardashian got a DWI, but that episode didn’t make
DWIs seem normal or “cool,” it made jail seem horribly
frightening.
I guess these critics of reality TV have also never seen an
episode of Run’s House, where the members of Reverend
Run’s family work together to make each other’s lives just a little
easier. Isn’t that what families are supposed to do?
Run DMC’s daughter, 24-year-old Vanessa Simmons, is a budding
star on The Guiding Light, she and her sister Angela have
started a successful clothing line together, and she has a vibrant
social life, yet still she finds time to help her 11-year-old
brother with his homework. Vanessa is, by all definitions, “cool,”
yet she doesn’t do drugs and she treats her siblings and her
parents well — can she really be real?
Russell Simmons, the reverend’s brother, tells JoJo, the teenage
son, “If you’re rich spiritually, you’ve made it.” Is that what
sit-coms, soap operas, and talk shows tell people? No, they say if
you have a big house and a nice car, then you’ve made it.
If you can sit in a coffee shop all day or spend the majority of
your time focusing on the so-called drama in your life, if you
don’t have to worry about working hard and getting what you deserve
— well, then you’ve made it.
A quick trip to L.A. makes me understand why people think
television is the reason everyone wants to get rich without
working. There, people proudly exude a rich, over-the-top
lifestyle, all while playing the game that they have nothing to do
except spend money. However, reality TV shows their entire
lifestyle — it’s not all easy.
PERHAPS YOU HAVEN’T seen the aspiring models on America’s Most
Smartest Model learn the thorny lesson that it’s not enough to
be beautiful — you have to be smart too — even to model.
This is not a show that just quizzes models as the audience
laughs at their idiotic answers. Each episode shows how being
intelligent is critical in the modeling world, whether in
networking (which is essential no matter what you do), marketing
yourself, or in getting the perfect shot in a short amount of time
and under budget.
Certainly not every moment of reality television should form one
of the guiding principles of your life, and perhaps it’s not
all good — but it’s real. Real people helping the
homeless is better than watching fictional friends who seem to
never go to work. It’s better than watching Dr. Phil talk about
Britney Spears, and it’s certainly better than watching the latest
episode of As the World Turns.
Perhaps that’s what scares us most about reality television —
it is real. It is reality for someone, and maybe — just maybe —
it isn’t that different from our own lives.
