Wednesday, August 06, 2003
(1:58 PM) | Adam Kotsko:
The phenomenology of reality TV
Having overcome all vestiges of snobbishness, I recently have joined my group of friends in following certain reality TV shows. Survivor was our first love, especially when we watched the plotting of the wily Rob. Inexplicably, I was happy when arguably the most worthless player, whose name I can't even remember but whose face I saw on the cover of a Penthouse at the convenience store, won it all. I didn't understand it at the time, and when people asked me to explain my joy, I couldn't tell them. Months later, however, after meditating constantly on the results of a reality TV show, I realized that my joy at seeing that girl win was based in a confirmation of theory. In Survivor, there is no positive thing that is being tested. We all know that in the early stages of the game, there will be someone who will teach everyone else the rudiments of surviving. Given that our Neanderthal ancestors were capable of surviving for decades on their little brainpower, I don't think there's really any question that able-bodied homo sapiens of average intelligence is going to be able to survive a few weeks, especially after being explicitly shown what's necessary.
Thus there are no criteria for who is going to survive. The best way to survive is precisely to have no skills and to be moderately likable. Whatever social skills the winner lacked were surely redeemed by her swimsuit model body, and then, by sheer determination, she succeeded in the arbitrary immunity challenges and managed to get through. She was nothing, and it was satisfying to see her win, even though it felt like Rob "should."
How, then, to explain my disgust with Last Comic Standing? In that show, there was presumably a positive skill that was being tested. The way of selecting elimination rounds was in the "reality" mode, but ideally, the final test was of one's skill in stand-up comedy, to be judged by an impartial audience that would presumably be representative of the comedy-consuming public. When the second most worthless comic won, then, I was not pleasantly surprised, especially when he showed early on that he intended to repeat the same damn jokes every time he was on stage. The show was a bizarre hybrid, combining American Idol with Survivor, and the combination proved to be deadly. Why not have the comics themselves select who is the best in the challenge? Or instead, why not have everyone do stand-up routines every night and let America vote? Which way is it going to be? Is this going to be a test of skill, on the model of American Idol, or is it going to be a demonstration of the shit rising to the top, like Survivor? Each model has its merits, although I personally cannot stand "good pop singers." The message here: Make up your mind, NBC!
The best model of reality TV, though, is that represented by the new Comedy Central show Reno 911. It is a loosely scripted show with bad acting, which silently claims to be "reality," but which contains some of the least realistic scenes possible. It is, I think, the "truth" of reality TV. Survivor had reams of material, together with the knowledge of who won each night, and so they could craft their footage into a compelling narrative -- I was conscious of being subtly manipulated throughout the show, and I enjoyed it. The contestants, too, know that they're on TV, and their individual narrations (private time with the camera) are beautifully inarticulate and revealing. The "reality" show consists of making a collage out of random fragments of raw material; having an admittedly scripted show that mocks the format of reality TV allows us to see the mechanism more clearly.
Reality TV on the model of Survivor or, better, The Real World might very well be the logical conclusion of TV, which is in the last analysis a kind of 24-hour newscast about nothing.
