Reality TV is ruling the world. No, I’m not talking about the new President of the United States. Well, okay, maybe I am, but we’ll get to that later. Americans are completely addicted to Reality TV. We’re sold this flawed idea that, due to an overwhelming amount of daily stress, we need to tune out by escaping into lives and situations completely removed from our own. But here’s the thing – it is not removed, and the age-old conundrum of whether art mimics life, or life mimics art, is definitely at play when it comes to Reality TV.
Having returned from three months abroad with limited television viewing, I was extremely eager to watch as much American television as I could devour. I went through station after station and was completely amazed by what I saw. It was as if I were an alien from another planet who had landed on Earth to study humans. Every station was either showing some form of reality show or was promoting an upcoming episode that was sure to bring all the chaos and angst needed to fuel an ever-growing addiction. It was alarming, to say the least. Angry faces yelling; hands shoving, pulling or punching; vitriol spewing from short and tall, white and black, young and old, rich and poor, man, woman and, even, child. When had we become such an angry and hateful society?
My rhetorical question sounds naive when one studies History knowing that we have always been angry and hateful to one another, especially towards those who we deem “other”. Yet, there was a time when television and entertainment did more than peddle chaos. I wouldn’t label that moment of nostalgia better, for it was filled with patriarchy, misogyny and bigotry, and I would never want to go back to those days. One would have hoped the goal was to move forward. The biggest thing missing from today’s entertainment is balance. For all the hatred and self-centering these shows and films put forward, there are very few opposing points of views. The main goal seems to be the bottom line, and that bottom line does not care if millions and millions of people are strung out.
Today’s television, film and media are filled with the notion that only the strong survive and that it’s best to look out for self because no one else will ever have your back. One of the places we see this the most is with women on television. I must admit I’ve never seen an episode of The Bachelor and have only caught one or two episodes of any Housewives (though I did have a brief addiction to Basketball Wives), but these shows go a long way in explaining how women were able to look past a man who has admitted to sexually harassing, if not assaulting, women and voted him the leader of the so-called free world, where more than half the population are women. Are we being programmed to look past our own interests? To turn on one another? To be parceled into groups?
The idea that women must compete with one another in order to gain… what exactly? A man? Attention? Fame? What about fair pay? What about the right to make decisions that will benefit our lives, our bodies, our society? Go ahead, turn on the TV right now. Click on Netflix or HBOGo. Pop in one of your video games. Look at the women on your screens. I mean, really fucking look at those women. What do they look like? How do they sound? How do they act? What do they want? What must they do in order to gain anything? Who created these women? Created their worlds? Shaped their images, their voices, their lives? Are these women on screen anything like your mother? Your sister? Your niece? Your daughter? Your granddaughter? Do you want them to be?
Now, I know many will say it’s just television, a form of escapism, and that I’m reading way too much into it. But am I? The President of the United States is Donald Trump. I’ll say it again: The President of the United States IS Donald Trump, a former Reality TV Star. A man who stated that he could do anything to women and get away with it. Do ANYTHING to WOMEN and get away with it. Did the men in your lives tell him, “Hell, fucking no, that ain’t so“? Did you? I’m glad to see the millions of women who turned out to march, but are you willing to march home and turn off the drugs fueling your own self destruction?
I know this blog post is not some thoroughly edited essay or article. I don’t have a platform or even an agent. Hell, I suspect only a handful read anything I write. As with most of my writing, I’m simply trying to make sense of every day life. I ramble and rant. My words are not eloquent and the grammar police would not only lock me up, but bury me under the jail. My goal with all my writing is to spark conversation. To ask tough questions. To explore and expound. So now I ask: what would happen if every American, I mean, every single one of us, decided, for just one day, to turn off the TV, sign off from the internet, unplug the video games and concentrate on one another. A day of getting to know our neighbors. Inviting a stranger into our homes. A day of Breaking Bread instead of Breaking Bad. Just one day. No Reality TV. No 24-Hour News Reports. No TV Shows of any kind (even the ones trying to combat the Reality Drug). Just one-on-one time with a REAL person. What do you think would happen? Could we make it a monthly habit, possibly weekly? Let’s put the Real back in our lives. Let’s make our own reality.