I decided to dump cable television about 2 years ago in favor of other pursuits and through a desire to save myself approximately $120.00 a month. That decision is quite possibly the best decision that I've made in the last few years and I have never looked back. I had become absolutely disillusioned and disgusted with the direction that the few channels that I watched were taking. Networks like The Discovery Channel, The History Channel and even The National Geographic Channel had subtly been shifting their programming away from programs devoted to nature, science and history to more mainstream shows. Mainstream being the scourge that is known as reality television. My disdain for this form of entertainment has been well documented for nearly ten years now. This originally was not the case though and during it's early day, I consumed it regularly.
Reality television really got it's start back in the early on a little station known as MTV. Remember MTV? You know, that channel that used to solely devoted to music and music videos. Back in the mid to late 80's and the early 90's I worshipped MTV. I still remember the world premier of Metallica's video "Enter Sandman" (which interestingly, I feel was the beginning of their fall from grace, but that's a story for another time). The things is, MTV used to be about music...MUSIC! I'm digressing though.
Anyway, MTV decided that it was time to expand it's programming and on May 21st, 1992 a little experiment in TV known as The Real World was broadcast for the first time. It was billed as "The true story, of seven people, picked to live in a loft in Soho, New York and have their lives taped, to find out what happens when people stop being polite and start being real. The Real World" (It's truly sad that I can remember this intro to the show to this day). This one television show would herald the eventual downfall of everything that was great about MTV and ultimately be responsible for the state of broadcast television today.
The first few seasons of The Real World actually weren't bad. In fact, the third season of the show, "The Real World: San Francisco" would have a lasting effect on how I view some social issues of modern society. The San Francisco cast featured a young Cuban-American gay man who was HIV positive named Pedro Zamora. Like many Americans, Pedro was the first exposure to gay men or anything of alternative lifestyles (is that even politically correct?) that I had. Pedro was determined to reach as many people and educate them about HIV and how it's contracted and spread. He took the concept of The Real World and used it to broadcast his tragic and inspirational story to millions of young people. This man was an extremely beautiful and courageous man, a true inspiration to the triumph of a human being faced with insurmountable odds. For many people, myself included, this man opened up our senses to one of the worst diseases to arise in the latter part of the 20th century. Through his story on The Real World, I came to accept people who are LBGT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) because Pedro humanized them. I think he did more for the LBGT community through his time on The Real World and anyone had done in the entire history of the movement. Unfortunately this was the early 90's and HAART therapies (Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy) had not come into being yet, so being HIV positive was still a death sentence. I watched almost every episode of that season of The Real World and saw Pedro's daily struggles with his disease and his own mortality. It was very a very gripping and emotional story, to say the least. Sadly, Pedro died on November 11th, 1994, the day after the broadcast of the last episode of The Real World: San Francisco. I openly wept when I learned of his death and wish to this day that I could have met him to tell him how much of an inspiration he was and how much of an influence he would be on my ideals involving tolerance and acceptance of people who are different from. Through Pedro's story I matured as a human being and for I am very grateful Fortunately, Pedro's legacy lives on through various charitable and educational organizations founded in his name that are dedicated to fighting HIV and the spread of the disease. I will never forget Pedro Zamora and ironically, it's because of a reality television show.
The Real World: San Francisco was the pinnacle of the Real World series and a true testament of the power of broadcast media. To this day, I don't think I have ever seen anything on television that moved me as much as Pedro's story on The Real World. From here it was all downhill, MTV continued to produce seasons of The Real World with each season feeling more and more produced, edited and acted by the producers and cast members. MTV debuted Road Rules soon after and the fate of the network would march onward toward the dismal incarnation that it is today, a station with little to no music programming on it at all.
Reality television seemed to be mostly localized to MTV and a few other fringe networks for most of the 90's in the United States. However, on May 30th, 2000 reality television went mainstream in this country in a big way. The program known as Survivor (a program originally from the U.K.) debuted on CBS. I'm pretty sure everyone reading this has either seen or heard of the infamous (and still running) reality game show. I have to admit that I watched the majority of the second season that took place in the Australian Outback. Though I found it to be very engrossing, I couldn't help but have misgivings about the glamorization of scheming, lying, betrayals, backstabbing and the willingness to do just about anything just to win. Why would we glamorize virtues those kind of virtues? Doing anything just to win money? It's only a million dollars, which really isn't a large sum of money in this day and age after taxes. I most certainly would never sacrifice my personal ideals and dignity in the pursuit of money. Thoroughly disgusted, I stopped watching.
Unfortunately, I was in the minority in my views of the program and Survivor was an enormous hit in the United States. Soon, new programs began appearing that shared similar concepts as Survivor (The Amazing Race being a good example). Next thing you know, we have the hugely popular phenomenon of American Idol, which is basically a popularity contest between people who can kind of sing coupled with three celebrity judges (one of whom could be construed as nothing but a huge jackass). While I was married, I was forced to consume Survivor once again, The Amazing Race and Dancing With The Stars. It was during this period that my disdain of anything reality television related started to gain momentum. My wife, however, did not share my views on the subject and it was always a bit of a point of contention between us and may have had something to do with our parting of ways.
I was granted a respite from the onslaught of more and more ridiculously themed reality television fare during my two year experience on Kauai. Kauai was very refreshing for me since I didn't have television and the Hawaiian islands are about as far removed from mainstream US culture as you can get and still remain in the union. One other thing that I did not miss was the continuous onslaught of advertising that is associated with modern day broadcast television. Sorry Dad and Mary (long story).
Fast forward in time to 2009 when I resumed my relationship with cable television and mainstream American popular culture. It is then that I discover that reality television has not only gained in popularity, it had become a very significant part of just about every major television network's programming schedule. It was clear to me at this point that the United States was clearly addicted to the phenomenon and it most certainly was not going to go away. To make things worse, the content had not improved as far as promoting loving and respecting one another and tolerating opposing opinions and view points. We now had shows about people who were famous just for being famous, what the hell is that all about? The Discovery Channel, one of my perennial favorite channels, had begun broadcasting shows like Monster Garage and American Chopper (which ranks up there with the worst of the worst, in my opinion) back in the early 2000's and things had only gotten worse during my absence. Mythbusters had gained in popularity during that time and I enjoyed the early seasons of that immensely just because it showed how cool it is to use science in real world settings. Another program I enjoyed on the channel was The Storm Chasers, a program that documented a group of scientists chasing tornadoes across the midwest in an attempt to better understand the phenomenon and develop earlier detections methods. However, by the third season of The Storm Chasers, the legitimate research scientists had departed, leaving only a thrill seeking, wannabe meteorologist and an IMAX film producer to headline the show. Instead of focusing on tornadoes, the focus shifted to the competition and drama between the remaining protagonists. Even Mythbusters became formulaic and more about explosions than real science.
There had been other reality television programs that invaded The Discovery Channel during my absence, most notably, The Deadliest Catch. Having spent some time with the phenomenon against my will, I further became disenfranchised and vowed never to watch the Discovery Channel again. Now it seems, The Discovery Channel has all but abandoned programming about science, exploration and learning in favor reality television based loosely around the aforementioned themes. The story is the same with The History Channel and I won't even begin to discuss the crap that the Bravo and E' networks has given us.
Is America really that addicted to highly produced, possibly fabricated, and edited versions of people's lives and the associated drama that comes with them? What about the behaviors, lack of tolerance, morals, and philosophies that these shows frequently encourage, endorse or glamorize? Seriously, What. The. Fuck? What are we? Romans? What about the UFC and "professional" wrestling? It doesn't take much of a stretch of the imagination to see the similarities of these phenomenon to the gladitorial games conducted in those ancient times. I'm going to be honest and just say that I absolutely abhor it all.
Thus, I dumped cable and broadcast television completely and I most certainly don't see myself ever going back to it. Maybe I'm just too old, too liberal, or too idealistic for it all. I'm sticking to my ideals and if that makes me uncool, that's perfectly fine with me. With that, I hereby step down from my soapbox. It is my hope that anyone who reads this that regularly consumes reality television programming will think about things and maybe boycott the phenomenon, as I have....or maybe not. I am very eccentric, after all.
No comments:
Post a Comment