For the past month I’ve been living the dream. Well, I’ve been living a dream. I’ve been sleeping on couches. If anyone is friendly or gullible enough, I jump all over their hospitality like, let’s be honest, a hobo. I haven’t always been selfish and manipulative, so this has taken some getting used to. I’ve tried to treat my situation like an anthropological survey. I’ve become the passive observer. I ask people to go about their normal lives, just with me following them around. This grand experiment has taught me two things:
1. Everyone hates indecisive, unemployed guys stalking them. Not just women.
2. I watch far less TV than the average person.
And so I have been plunged headfirst into television. Unlike sleeping in, this has not been an easy transition to make. Nobody else watches Doctor Who. Glee makes me feel too old. Family Guy makes me feel too smart. And reality TV has given me the most trouble. As far as I can tell, there are three types of reality shows:
1. It’s sort of like a game show, except it’s about beautiful people acting strangely. And when the win, they can date someone.
2. It’s kind of a talent show, but everyone is way too into it.
3. Cameras follow around people I’ve never heard of who are famous for no apparent reason.
The first type of show makes me feel cynical. I can’t relax and enjoy the verisimilitude like I’m intended to. These shows star a house full of nearly identical male models who all fall in love with a woman they met two days ago. This woman proceeds to date each man and eliminate them from the competition one at a time. At the end, after she picks one person, we are supposed to believe true love is found. I have a hard time embracing this narrative as having any basis in reality. This may be because I can’t imagine any of these statuesque people existing in the real world. Or it may be because I’ve never survived a “rose ceremony” in my own love life.
The second type of show makes me feel lazy. People spend their entire lives training, then fly across the country to sing or dance or cook or god knows what else. Anyone who walks into that audition has a story about how crocheting reminds them of their grandmother or dancing saved them from drug abuse, and everyone has at least one scene of them crying and saying, “I’ve never wanted anything more than (whatever).” I can’t think of anything I care about half as much as these people. Am I the weird one? No. No, it’s those freaks with the ambitions.
The last type of show might be the most troubling of all. They are saturated with the familiar elements of stardom, but why is that? I don’t buy the excuse of celebrity being grandfathered in through family fortune or wild party habits. America is full of boozing old widows and Midwestern frat boys, but they don’t have cameras following them around. I can’t understand being famous for being famous. It’s like a snake eating its own tail, but suggestively edited with a shocking cliffhanger before each commercial break.
And what about the people who watch these shows? What could they possibly gain from letting their eyes glaze over while pretty people tell them how to feel? What is a TV addiction doing to their own aspirations? And what type of loser would possibly enjoy passively following around average people and observing their lives?
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2 comments:
Have you seen "Are You Smarted Than A 5th Grader?" If you aren't much of a crying, watch that show. You'll weep.
Still hate you for this....
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