Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Thoughts on Reality TV


Although currently in my life I do not have much time to watch televsion, it stills seems to find a way to annoy me. Whether its hearing people talk about it, seeing it advertised or as it was yesterday seeing Kim Kardashian in the NY Times Newspaper. She made the front page of one of the sections with the sub title "famous for being famous". I have never enjoyed shows like the "real world" or "survivor" largely due to the fact that they claim to be reality TV and are in fact cut, edited, and most of the time scripted for ratings. The only time I was ever into something so false was back when I would drink a case and watch Monday night Raw, it only looks real when you are in fact smashed. It boggles my mind that people would watch this stuff for many reasons and I am going to tell you them.
The first reason would have to be the whole "mindless entertainment" arguement. I watch it for "mindless entertainment". It leads me to believe that you must have a really disturbed mind if for your entertainment you wish to watch people be cruel to one another and suffer (knowing that it is not reality). Dont we have enough suffering in this world without having to create more? Why not a reality show that just shows the people in Darfur suffering and dying. They are just as skinny as some of these people in reality tv. These shows have arguing about cheating on your partner or something stupid with your best friend or roomate, the Darfur show will have arguing over who might eat today and families being murdered in genocide, real and unscripted suffering just for your "mindless entertainment". My mindless entertainment is fun, funny, relaxing and entertaining. Watching people suffer is not fun or funny or entertaining to me. Watching people hurt other people physically can be funny mostly if accidental and in some cases like jackass they are just finding ways to hurt themselves which can be humorous, they dont take themselves seriously. In most of these shows people are psychologically abusing people, demeaning and degrading other human beings. I find that inhumane, evil, and sickening. These are not well intentioned actions. Instead why not go to a soup kitchen for that hour, see the suffering and help ease some of it, mindless entertainment. Or teach poor kids in bad neighborhoods to read so they might have a chance, volunteer time with the elderly, spend time in a hospital with cancer patients, there are so many ways you can watch suffering and help ease it too.
On to the next reason reality tv is filthy. Maybe MTV and others think we are dumb enough to be watching these shows so we must not be smart enough to recognize that the economy is terrible!!!!terrible!!!there is 5% of the counrty that lives like these people do, maybe less then that. Who has time for the arguements, caddyness, shopping with no work. Who has that kind of money, not a very many of us. What it does though is impose on kids that this is the way you have to be to be popular, accepted, interesting, and of course famous. If you dont have the 400$ shoes or the bags or the iphones or the mercedes you dont have what it takes to be famous. Its garbage. I dont care what rich people do with their lives but I dont want or need to watch them waste it when I work hard for it, I would do much more with that kind of money then they would anyday. It is a kick in the balls to America's self-esteem, its no wonder that our counrty has the highest rate of depression and mental illness in the entire world. If you saw everyday all these rich people acting like idiots on TV and the whole world cared to read about them, watch them and talk about them and you are the average "joe six-pack" you would start to question why you work so hard....the values are all out of whack....it is a reminder that "hey, buddy, you arent rich". Although I am not an advocate of organized religion I do believe in many aspects of the spiritual realm. This showing of material things over and over breeds things like, greed, covetting, desire, idololatry, suffering, obsession, lust, and sloth. These are not good things for any religion I dont care which one. My grandma grew up in the Great Depression and never felt poor or that the economy was bad, and when I asked her how that was posssible she said it was because there wasnt the displays of wealth everywhere, wealth had no meaning because everyone was poor and working together in Newark, NJ so they never felt like there was something missing or that they werent good enough like people do today. Today the rich flaunt thier excess in the face of the world and that is why other countries arent liking us and why there are so many issues of crime in our counrty.
I am sure some of the people on these shows are decent people and are doing a great deal of acting to make money. I am a believer that everyone is a good person, however, I wouldnt want any of the characters on the tv in my life. They would never be my friend because they display all of the qulaities that I wouldnt want a person in my life to possess. Maybe some people out there that watch these shows want these people in thier lives, they dress like them, act like them, talk like them, and treat them like they are celebrities. Without the veiwer these are not celebrities. They don't display any talents, skills, ambition, compassion, and anyone can look that good on TV or in a magazine, here's a link if you dont buy that: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-Y9XWXwGC8
I wish they would do a reality TV show on people helping and see how popular it is. The peace corps, habitat for humanity, celebrities helping other people and if they fight or do something caddy they are gone and have to donate a million dollars to a charity. If they live in excess during this period they are gone as well. Teach people values again. Teach compassion, problem solving, coping, understanding, openmindedness, non-judgemental, being happy with what you are blessed enough to have. There is so much suffering in the world and in America, why watch fake suffering and ignore real suffering?

2 comments:

Keith Roberts said...

I agree. I totally agree. However i do find myself watching some of the "mindless tv shows". Soemtimes it just what i watch. something like the real world,(even though its not real) its still fun to watch but i find myslef just getting mad at the people on the show. but othe rthan that i totally agree with everything you said.

Jessa said...

There are only 2 "reality" tv shows that I watch. One because I've watched it for years and it is exactly what you said, "mindless entertainment". The second, because Keith and I watch it together. Now I agree with you, there are some absolutely rediculous shows out there that I make sure I don't watch. For example, all of the dating shows, the new Paris frickin' Hilton show, sex talk with your parents or whatever it is! I find these shows very frustrating. MTV is no longer MTV. I remember a time when you could turn MTV on and actually WATCH music videos, now it's only on if you wake up in the wee hours of the morning. The rest of the time is filled with a countless amount of reruns along with these insane shows. I agree with you, people should find better things to do with their time, and these "celebrities" are absolutely rubbing their bank accounts in our face. When you have enough time and money to try a couple handfulls of people out to be your new best friend?!?! Are you serious?! It's just frustrating because there are so many people out there that give their LIVES to help others and get no attention whatsoever. The people who do give a dying person a hand to hold or an ear to listen to. The people who give up their free time to help someone enjoy what's left of their life. The people who fight for all of us, and even the ones who rub their money in our faces. You are right, we do have a lot of other things to worry about rather than these idiotic lifestyles.