Reality TV shows its ugly face
In responding to the “Reality TV” fashion that currently
dominates television, people seem to generally fall into two
groups: those who love the shows genuinely and those who mock and
despise the shows and laugh at their massive popularity. Either
way, there does not seem to be a significant portion of the
population that is, in any way, frightened by them.
Before I explain why I fall into this last category, let me say
that I am not one to condemn the genre simply because of its
popularity; there is no necessary connection between a show’s (or
book’s, or movie’s) popularity and its quality. Furthmore, my not
watching a great deal of television means that I only catch
snippets of these shows on other people’s televisions, and thus
I’ve seen too little to condemn them all equally. What I do know,
in fact, comes mainly from commercials.
It was, for example, in commercials that I learned the basic
ideas of the two shows that gave birth to my fears: on MTV, “I Want
A Famous Face”, and on Fox, “The Swan.”
In the first, MTV locates (recruits?) contestants of all sorts
that share one apparently overwhelming desire: to look exactly like
their favorite celebrity. Two brothers, for example, wanted to both
look like Brad Pitt and a woman wanted to have Kate Winslet’s face.
MTV then provides the means and resources for this to occur: the
idolaters undergo plastic surgery, liposuction, etc. and dye or cut
their hair, hoping, in the end, to be identical to their favorite
celebrities.
“The Swan” is a little more insidious and competitive. Fox
recruits over a dozen female “ducklings” (that they had the tact to
leave the “ugly” out is surprising) who, for whatever reason, are
unhappy with themselves. These candidates are then put through a
three-month cycle of psychological “therapy,” physical exercise
and, of course, plastic surgery. The women do not look in the
mirror for these three months. After their “transformation,” they
all compete in a beauty pageant for the chance to be crowned “The
Ultimate Swan.”
What troubles me so greatly about these shows is, first of all,
the values and messages they promote, but also the fact that they
are so uncontroversial as to not even merit discussion in the ways
that important popular media trends often do. While I understand
that prime time television is perhaps not a known source of moral
commentary – and perhaps it should not be – there are nonetheless
things to be learned from what networks place on the air to elicit
our consumer responses.
The game show, of course, has always been a prime place to find
ordinary people willing to challenge and/or humiliate themselves to
win whatever prize is being offered. “The Gong Show,” to take a
classic example, consisted of singers and performers whose sole
purpose was not to be so bad as to be kicked ceremoniously off the
stage. On the other hand, “American Gladiator” or “Survivor” are
built on competition and ruthlessness. On both kinds of these shows
in the past, the competitors were first and foremost ordinary
people who did not go through any sort of intense preparation to
appear and were sent back home the next day.
Apparently, however, the “average person” is just not acceptable
for those who create such shows as “I Want A Famous Face” or “The
Swan.” The whole premise of these shows is that being who you
actually are is not acceptable, and that the first step to being
comfortable with yourself is becoming someone else. The message
promoted is that there is no ethical or practical limit to
self-recontruction, and furthermore that happiness with one’s self
is something to be developed through external means – in this case,
surgeons and pseudo-psychologists.
As for the lasting value of these supposed transformations, the
networks have nothing to offer (the characters disappear when the
seasons end). What do these people do when they return to their
former lives? Do they continue (in MTV’s case) to imitate the
celebrity they now resemble, or do they reenter their normal lives?
Is that even possible? What is to be gained from looking like a
celebrity beyond the initial and illusory self-esteem that must
fade as these people realize that 99 percent of their life is just
the same as before? Is the obsession of these people not merely a
peculiarity, or is it a mental sickness? If not, what does that say
about our culture?
Furthermore, what do younger viewers learn when they watch these
shows? Do children that struggle with their weight think that,
instead of exercising or eating healthy, they can merely have their
bodies mutilated (anyone who has seen plastic surgery will know why
I use this word) to fit into a cultural beauty standard? Will young
girls who watch “The Swan,” which features all female contestants,
receive the message that ugliness and beauty is a competitive
endeavor and the greatest thing to do for yourself is let
specialists literally re-create your body and mind? For that
matter, what sort of “specialists” do these programs employ, and
what degree did they earn that allows them to determine how others
should look, think and feel?
These are just a few of the questions that I think should be
asked about this trend in reality television; perhaps the most
important one, however, is why they haven’t been asked already.
Brent is a freshman studying philosophy. His column runs every
Tuesday.
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