Whenever I read about reality television, it’s the same old tripe.
“Oh, to what depths will we sink next? Midget star search? C-list celebrity kung fu? Real World: Iraq?”
No, no and no. Of course not. The next big reality hit has a simple concept. It’s set for a May release date on CBS.
It’s “Peter and Friends Watch Reality Television.”
Reality TV is the heroin pumping through my veins. It’s caffeine, chocolate and alcohol rolled into one. It’s my vice of vices. Lots of people hate it. Some people sit on the fence.
Luckily, all my buddies eat it up like birthday cake. So whenever we sit down to watch it together, I swear they should have the cameras trained on my living room.
To the television during “Real World: San Diego,” we scream “Free Brad!”
To “Average Joe 2: Hawaii,” we growl, in our best Boston accents, “Nobody’s gonna come into my house and push me or my buddies around.” Or “Have you ever been on a yacht? No, but I been on a booze cruise.”
To “American Idol,” we shriek “She bangs! She bangs!”
To “Joe Schmo,” we ask “What is going oooon?”
Anybody who thinks reality TV can’t produce one-liners is just plain wrong. And anybody who dismisses reality
television as unintelligent garbage needs to be locked in a room with Simon Cowell for a week.
Really, nothing can unite television watchers like reality shows. The emotional highs and lows are higher and lower because the people you’re watching are real. You can read me the riot act of how shows are cut to skew reality or how producers manipulate viewers.
Whatever. I can tell you right now, true reality junkies don’t give a whit. We love it all. We love it because we can yell at the television. Because we can tell people, real people, they’re idiots. Because Jessica Simpson is stupid. Because Donald Trump is brutally honest. Because Richard Hatch is more manipulative than a teenage girl.
Perhaps it takes a reality movie to explain reality television. Last spring, my buddy Jeff and I needed to see “The Real Cancun” because it was the first reality movie ever. Critics slammed the movie harder than an Andy Roddick serve. Some even put it on their “worst of the year” lists this winter.
Again, we didn’t care. Did I mention we’re junkies? We went to the movie theater on a Thursday soon after it came out. There were three other people in the theater, so we talked and laughed the whole time.
“I can’t believe he actually ran away from that hot girl! That’s hilarious!”
And we, of course, recommended it to friends. But it was out of the theaters the next day, skipped the $1.50 movie theater altogether and was soon lost in the sea of movies.
But not to me. I bought the DVD on the day it was released. I showed it all my friends and it soon became a cult hit. My roommate bought the DVD, becoming the second person in Eugene to own it.
More people heard about it and more people loved it.
What’s the moral of this story? Reality television is a shared experience. The more people watch it, the farther it spreads. Think about it. If you like reality TV, your friends probably do, too. And visa versa. “American Idol” is one of the few shows out there to actually gain thousands upon thousands of viewers every season.
Sure, “Friends” can be a shared experience. So can “The Simpsons.” Fictional shows aren’t dead. Just look at the young success of “The O.C.” for evidence of that.
But reality shows are a shared experience of real people and real emotions. If Ross slapped Phoebe on “Friends,” would you talk about it at school with your friends? Maybe. When Stephen slapped Irene on “Real World: Seattle,” we talked about it for months.
So, in the end, reality television serves to bring us together. What’s brainless about that?