Reality TV

[MajGenl.Meade]

During my recent sojourn in Ohio I was fascinated and appalled by what passes for reality on cable/satellite TV. There appear to be at least two shows about people who hunt crocodiles; another about good ole boys catching varmints; one really late one with the most awful looking woman (?) I have ever seen with botox lips, a limp wig and a voice that could clear Puget Sound; and a programme called "Dog the bounty hunter" in which the chief character (Dog) is pretty obviously the same person as the woman I just mentioned. And on and on it goes. Apparently a chief concern of TV nowadays is to document the saddest, most disgusting, low-life, dregs of the gene pool (outside of Arsenal) in great detail.

But here's the thing. Every single show is the same as the one before it, the one before that and the one that's coming next week. If you have hillbillies ketchin' haghly dangerous critters, there will be a lot of frenzed running around, thrusting of hands and implements into dark crevices (just leave it Sean), and a calm voice over saying "Jim's really risking his larf trying to grab this here snapper/rabbit/snake/etc" followed by Jim jumping backward and uttering an oath "Dang! That mouse almost had me thar". If it's shooting crocodiles - bang! "Say that's not a bad size thar". It it's ..... oh I give up

I thought these must all be actors but on the plane from the USA to Frankfort and then on to Johannesburg, I got to meet three characters laden with video equipment on their way to Bulawayo (Zimbabwe) to go "a-huntin". One was semi-respectable in appearance - casual but young and tidy - he seemed to be some kind of guide (producer?). The other two - nice chaps - were in one piece huntin' outfits. They had filthy gun-store caps atop long, very long, straggly grey hair which kind of mixed in with their beards. Looked like they may have had a full set of teeth between them but none in line with any other.

Maybe these people are real. The ones on TV don't seem nearly as nice as my travelling companions though. I wonder why

Meade

[Big RR]

Come on Meade, we're in a recession; it makes the viewers feel better to say "well, I'm pretty badly off, but not as bad as the jerks I see on TV". That's howAmerican entertainment works. This time it's "white trash" hillbillys; other times it was the vapid rich, blacks, native americans, thieving foreigners, etc.

[rubato]

I really loved "cops" not just for the great Inner Circle theme music (everybody loves "bad boys bad boys") but because it showed the true banality of real police work and real life. It was such a great counter to the artificial drama of even the best "cop shows". It was a good reminder that 'real life' is just not much like what dramatic shows were presenting.*

The market learned that what viewers responded to was the freakish and extreme so that has been emphasized since then.

The first "Survivor" was interesting in a way that none of the following series could be because nearly all of the contestants were 'naive' (except Richard Hatch who got it in one).

yrs,
rubato

* Yes, 'reality shows' are subject to their own distortions.

[Lord Jim]

I remain a big fan of The Deadliest Catch....

I think that's a great show......(That snot nosed head case Elliot Neese couldn't catch crabs in a five dollar whore house...)

But that's pretty much the only "reality" show I've ever liked...

(Well, okay, I liked Growing Up Gotti... which chronicled the travails of a single mom Mafia Princess trying to raise two rambunctious sons...)

But I've mentioned before, (I think in "random thoughts") the way previously "better" cable stations like Animal Planet, Discovery and Nat Geo seem to be turning into Hee Haw Nation....

The absolute worst is "The Wildman"....

Imagine Ernest T. Bass with his own TV show....

[Lord Jim]

There are two reasons we're seeing so much of this hillbilly hand fishin' swamp people gator boy crappola...

First, it's very cheap to produce, compared to a thoughtful nature or science series, or an in-depth three hour documentary about Mid Evil Europe or Sherman's March to the Sea...

Second, this sort of utter mindlessness is considered much more appealing to that 16-34 (largely male) "desirable" marketing demographic, (who despite the fact that we older fogies own homes and have more disposable income) are so sought after by our current generation of Mad Men types...

[dales]

I like radio.

[Scooter]

this sort of utter mindlessness is considered much more appealing to that 16-34 (largely male) "desirable" marketing demographic

Does that include Here Comes Honey Boo Boo?

[Lord Jim]

If I'm not mistaken, someone posted about that abomination earlier....

[loCAtek]

Some I like; some I don't like;

Does anyone remember that:

'Survivor' was based on 'Eco-challenge'?

'Gator-whatever' was based on 'Croc-files'?

'Deadliest Catch' was based on 'Deadliest/Dirty Jobs'?

'Dog the Bounty Hunter' was based on 'America's Most Wanted ...on Oʻahu, that couldn't swim to the Mainland ...Other than that we weren't traveling that far from our cosmetic surgeon and risk getting arrested ourselves.'




...oh, wait.

[oldr_n_wsr]

I remain a big fan of The Deadliest Catch....

I think that's a great show......(That snot nosed head case Elliot Neese couldn't catch crabs in a five dollar whore house...)

But that's pretty much the only "reality" show I've ever liked...

I like "Deadliest catch" also.Way back in the late 70's I bought a 1968 VW camper and me and a buddy of mine were going to drive cross country. I had no plans of returning to LI and planned to go to Alaska and find a job and forge a living up there. Could have been fishing boat, crab boat, pipeline, really didn't matter. But we both fell in love with our respective spouses and that trip never happened. I'm still married after 28 years and he's been divorced for 15 years. And both of us are in AA. He's sober 7 years and is my "remote" sponsor as he lives in Fla, but we keep in touch.

I have taken a liking to Duck Dynasty.